Reply 80 of 112, by Baoran
wrote:I had a 486SX 33 which I loved at the time but it makes for a poor 1995 DOS machine. I had the patience of a saint back then to […]
I had a 486SX 33 which I loved at the time but it makes for a poor 1995 DOS machine. I had the patience of a saint back then to play games such as Duke 3D at a really shitty framerate. Even my friend who had a 486DX 40 (who was lording this fact over me every damn day) pretended he didn't mind that certain games run absolutely terrible.
I remember playing the demo of Tomb Raider on my 486SX and in the smallest window, it actually played pretty smoothly! I was absolutely stunned that I could enjoy this game despite my ageing PC at the time and went out to buy the game only to discover the full game wouldn't even BOOT on a 486SX.
Then in early 1995 my step-brother got a Pentium 70 which was like a legend to me at the time. This was right before his mother and my dad split up so I never really got to use it (she was VERY protective of her son's stuff even though he got to use all my stuff) but the joke's on her: 24 years later, that son (who is a good friend still and a colleague) dug it up from the attic and gave it to me and it has now become my go-to DOS machine. It looks good, works perfectly, is very easy to open and work with and has a very high compatibility rating.
So yeah, I'd say early Pentiums are definitely the ultimate DOS machines since they have the largest amount of playable games. If I disable cache, I can even play games that are a bit too fast. For the few games that won't play at the right speed, I either just stick to DOSBOX or I get out my 386 or 486 but few games really worth playing fall into that category.
You only talk about playing the very late dos games. Most of the dos game era was much earlier late 80s and early 90s and both of those games you mentioned were released in 1996 which was pentium era and dos era was ending. 486 33Mhz is good for at least 95% of dos games.