batmansquarepants wrote on 2021-05-22, 06:55:Hi, I've not heard of glide. […]
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mothergoose729 wrote on 2021-05-21, 18:42:Hi, and welcome to the forum! To give the best recommendation if might help if you mention the games you want to play. […]
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Hi, and welcome to the forum! To give the best recommendation if might help if you mention the games you want to play.
Are you aware of the glide api? How do you feel about glide emulation?
Do you have any ambitions to run DOS games?
Do you have any interest in later windows 98/XP era of games?
Hi, I've not heard of glide.
There are a lot of dos games I want to play too like Sierra titles and Lucas arts adventures, and FPS of the time. Also some of the more demanding games like half life and some into the early 2000s if possible?
I looked into first at building a Windows XP gaming machine but as far as I've read it's then harder to run older games in the DOS era.
Glide is a proprietary API used by 3dfx. There are a small minority of games that let you choose either between software renderer or glide, with glide offering some advantages like better performance (maybe) and texture filtering. Honestly, I think that software rendering on a powerful CPU (like P3 or later) is 90% as good and if you are trying to save money.
If the game runs in windows you can use a piece of software called "nglide", which translates glide API calls to directx API calls. This requires a direct X 9 card or newer - AKA the nvidia FX series or later, or the ATI Radeon 9000 series or later.
Unfortunately, in my opinion, the DOS + late windows 98 machine is the most difficult, and often the most expensive type of machine to pull off. There are ways you can do it and stay within a reasonable price range but there will be some compromises or extra work on your part to set everything up.
When it comes to DOS games, you have two options. The first is you run DOS games in pure DOS mode, which windows 98 and windows 95 support. Basically you will go to start -> restart in MS Dos mode and be in real, honest to goodness DOS. This pretty much requires an ISA sound card in order to do properly. When it comes to sound, the DOS landscape is a confusing mess, but you can simplify things for yourself a lot if you go that route.
The other option is to run all of your DOS games in a DOS window within windows 98. Not all DOS games are going to be happy this way, but a lot of the ones you are probably going to want to play will do alright. One advantage of this approach is that windows, with an appropriate driver for your sound card, will provide you sound blaster emulation. You can buy much cheaper PCI sound cards geared for windows and run the occasional DOS game that way. Note that in a dos window you won't get FM music, and not all games are going to cooperate.
Something else to note about DOS games, especially older DOS titles is that how fast your processor is can have an effect on how the games perform. For example, some games will have distorted music, maybe run too fast, refuse to start at all, or other issues. This is a whole other can of worms, and the best platforms that provide the most flexibility in how fast you run your machine are some of the most expensive and most time consuming to setup.
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games
With all of that said, there is a setup I can recommend that is compatible, high performance, and speed flexible enough depending on how you use it.
Socket 370 Board with Intel 440bx chipset
1ghz Coppermine CPU
256mb PC 133 memory
Nvidia MX 440 graphics card or Quadro FX 1000/2000
ESS 1868f sound card (for DOS)
Sound Blaster Live! sound card (for windows)
Just about any modern power supply with 20AM on the 5v rails (most of them)
Your choice of SSD (128gb or smaller) + IDE to SATA adapter
I recommend socket 370 as your platform, and in particular I recommend the intel 440bx chipset. It is well regarded for stability and for how well supported it is in software. If you can't find or afford a board by that description, any socket 370 board with an ISA slot is a good choice.
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … 70_motherboards
For a processor, that is easy, I recommend a Pentium 3 Coppermine 1ghz model. You can find them for about 5$ USD on ebay and they are more than fast enough.
For memory, windows 98 has trouble with more than 512mb of memory. Ideally you would buy 128mb or 256mb DIMMS of PC 133, but if you can't find anything other than PC 100, there is a good chance most of those PC 100 kits will also run at 133mhz.
Next is your video card, and there are a lot of options. You can spend a lot of money on a video card here, and I don't recommend that you do. If you go with a socket 370 system you need to make sure you choose a video card that is either universal AGP or AGP 3.3v. The video card I recommend is the Nvidia MX 440 which can typically be found for between 20$-30$ USD. Another good option is the FX 5200 or FX 5500 which are a bit faster but also typically more expensive. They support directx 9 which opens up the possibility of decent glide emulation. Finally, for a high performance option, I recently bought an FX Quadro 1000 graphics card for 50$ USD which is quite fast and quite worth it at this price point, but similar quadro card and FX card are generally more expensive and likely not worth it.
Next up is sound cards, and this is easily the hardest part. There is a whole world of possibilities there, but to keep it simple and cheap I recommend the ES1868f. It has nearly perfect sound blaster pro compatability (good) and offers ESS sound for the games that support it as well. It is cheap, easy to find, and generally good quality.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ess-audiodrive-es1868.html
While you can use the ESS card in windows I wouldn't recommend it. You want a second sound card for your windows games. An easy recommendation is the Sound Blaster Live!. They are cheap, sound pretty good, and are very compatible with windows 98. They also support EAX, of course, which is great for late windows 98 era games.
One last note, as if you weren't confused and overwhelmed enough, there is some software you will want to grab and learn how to use. This software will help you slow down your 1ghz copper mine CPU so you can run more speed sensitive DOS software. Using one or a combination of these tools, you should be able to get at least most DOS software working.
SetMul
SetMul - Multiplier control for VIA C3 / AMD K6+7+8 Mobile / Cyrix 5x86
Throttle
http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle/DOS/
Mo'Slo
http://www.hpaa.com/moslo/
You will have more questions, feel free to ask 😀. Make another thread when you are ready to tackle midi 😁