First post, by tjsnhgaming
Hello,
I've been toying with setting up a real-metal Win3.11 + Dos6.22 retro gaming comp for a while, but to be honest I've been out of the loop with this generation of system since ... well, since the 90s. I've played around quite a bit over the last year or two with WfW3.11 on dosbox (so I'm familiar with aftermarket video drivers, WIN-G, etc etc) but I've decided to finally start a real-metal build. I have extensive experience restoring Sun Sparc workstations from the 90s, but this will be my first x86 project from that era.
My question is - if I go with something like a faster P1-era chip like a Cyrix M2, AMD K6-2, or a Pentium MMX 200mhz (generally, the Socket 7 era), and say 64mb of ram, am I going to run into any weird motherboard compatiblity issues?
(I'm not super worried about the issue of especially old dos games being clock-locked and running too fast, I've dealt with that before - I'm more specifically worried about any caveats with windows3.11 on this era hardware)
My current plan/hope is to get a CPU and Motherboard from that era, 32-64mb of ram, with a couple of PCI slots and PS/2 mouse port (I really dont want to have to deal with a DB9 serial mouse), run a graphics card (which I'll source individually and verify 3.11 drivers for) on PCI, with probably a soundblaster16 or something common like that for audio, and a PS/2 mouse. I don't remember ever having to care about drivers for motherboard chipsets/etc back in that era, but its entirely possible I'm missing something. The goal is to have something modern/fast enough to run games like duke3d or (maaaaaybe) quake1, but not be "too new" that running Windows 3.11 will involve losing hardware compatibility.
Anyone have any experience with Win3.11 on this era of system? General thoughts or landmines to avoid?
Anyone have advice on caveats or considerations with splicing this era of mobo into a modern ATX case? (I'm guessing the I/O shield will be an issue?)