Considering building a "retro gaming PC"

[per]

It's always an issue with games and different generations of PCs.

The PC originally came with limited timing capabilities, and many CGA-based PC/XT era games will run too fast on anything else than a 4.77MHz 8088. Likewise, games made for the 486 and early Pentiums may run too fast on todays machines. Because of this, I am considering putting together a Mid-90's class computer for stuff like gaming.

I like to divide the PC into several generations:

• The original x86 class (CGA, internal speaker)
• The 286 class (EGA, VGA, AdLib, LAPC-I)
• The 386 - slow486 class (SVGA, SB, LAPC-I)
• The fast486 - Pentium III class (2D/3D accelerated graphics, SB, Gravis ultrasound)
• The Pentium III - late SingleCore class (Much like the previous class, just better/faster, 3D sound, graphics centralization on ATI/nVIDIA)
• The DualCore - recent class (Much like the previous class, just better/faster)

It is to my belief that any game made for a section of systems within one of these classes will work quite well on any computer within that same class just by ajusting the ingame settings.

I have systems from most of these classes, except for the "fast486 - Pentium III" class. I do however have some hardware laying around I am planning to use.

Motherboards:

• AT&T Catalyst PB5500C based on the OPTi 82C596/82C597/82C822, 66MHz Pentium with FDIV Bug, VLB, ISA and PCI slots. 2 banks of 72-pin RAM, 256KB L2 Chache.
• Compaq Deskpro 4000, 200MHz Pentium Pro with 256KB L2 Chache. Internal 10MbPS ethernet card and serial/parallel interface, mouse port, 2 IDE interfaces, floppy controller, 4 banks of 72-pin RAM, ISA and PCI slots, Intel chipset.

The OPTi based card has some serious DMA bugs, so I'll stick with the Compaq one.

Audio:

• Creative SoundBlaster AWE32 + Yamaha DB50XG
• Creative SoundBlaster Gold + SIMMConn
• OPTi 931 Soundcard + Yamaha DB50XG
• Media Vision Pro Sonic 16 (Jazz16)
• Compaq ES1868 AudioDrive Audio Feature Board

Both the ES1868 (original to the machine), OPTi and Jazz16 chipsets are mid-to-low end. The SB Gold problably has the best sound, but it lacks a real OPL3 and the MIDI header. The drivers may also use too much CPU. I am however still a little concerned with the audio output quality of the AWE32.

Video:

• Creative 3D Blaster Savage4 32MB PCI
• ATI 3D Rage II+ DVD 3D Charger (2MB)

The Savage4 is more recent, but lower cost than the 3D Rage II+. I haven't compared the output quality, but I am concerned about it. I am also considering if I should get one of the more "high-end" equalents.

Eventually SCSI:

• Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI Controller
• Compaq Smart 2DH Array SCSI Controller

I don't really know if I need SCSI or not, but the Smart 2DH Array may be just a little overkill (full lenght card originally designed for servers).

How far am I from something that will perform quite well within the class I have targeted? Am I far off, or will I have decent performance? I am targeting this computer mainly for later DOS games from the mid-90's.

 

[Unknown_K]

No idea why you lump late 486 to P3 in one category. Late 486 is the tale end of the DOS gaming ERA and the death of anything non soundblaster. Early Pentium 1 and P2 were the birth of 3D video cards and the prime 3DFX Glide ERA. Early P3 era was the last gasp of many 3D video card makers that had some great cards. Around the late P3 era was the birth of 3D audio (Aureal came out) and the 3D wars between ATI and Nvidia with the death of all the others.

 

[per]

No idea why you lump late 486 to P3 in one category. Late 486 is the tale end of the DOS gaming ERA and the death of anything non soundblaster. Early Pentium 1 and P2 were the birth of 3D video cards and the prime 3DFX Glide ERA. Early P3 era was the last gasp of many 3D video card makers that had some great cards. Around the late P3 era was the birth of 3D audio (Aureal came out) and the 3D wars between ATI and Nvidia with the death of all the others.

That's one problem. When the first Pentiums came around, the 486 became more of an echonomical mid-end solution, and I have interpreted that there was not too much a jump in performance between the Pentium and 486DX4.

I mean; I haven't looked too much into performance, but I believe that there shouldn't be too much a performance difference between a 100MHz 486DX4 and a 60MHz Pentium. However, I guess it should be a grater difference between the 100MHz 486DX4 and a 16MHz 486DX.

 

[kishy]

I have what I call a 'Win98 Gaming Rig' - a system that is intended to be similar to what people were running in the thick of Win98 popularity, and which handles games released during that time very well.

It's a K6-2 450 downclocked to 400ish (using the 2x=6x multiplier trick), J-TX98B motherboard, 256MB of SDRAM (overkill, but why not?), 40GB hard drive with the jumper set for the 38GB BIOS size limit. The mobo has an Award BIOS so I could probably modify it with modbin...hmm.

The important specs, though, are graphics: it has an nVidia GeForce 2 MX (32MB, PCI) main video card, with an STB BlackMagic 3D (12MB) 3DFX Voodoo2 accelerator card. Factor in the AWE64 and it's a pretty decent retro gaming box...but possibly not as retro as you want

 

[Dave Farquhar]

That's one problem. When the first Pentiums came around, the 486 became more of an echonomical mid-end solution, and I have interpreted that there was not too much a jump in performance between the Pentium and 486DX4.

There wasn't a lot of difference between the early Pentiums and the late 486s in performance. A 486 running in the 100-133 MHz range could usually keep up with a Pentium running at 60-90 MHz, all other things being more or less equal.

It's a tricky era to draw lines at, because you still had a significant number of DOS games once you got into the Win95 era, but it wasn't too long before you started to see games that took advantage of Win95's added capability. I can see lumping the late 486s and early Pentiums into one class of machine, "classic" Pentiums and clones of 100-200 MHz into another class, and then the MMX-capable chips from 166 MHz and up into yet another. Then the question is what you do with the PPro and P2, as that kind of introduces another 486-Pentium transition. Intel abandoned Socket 7 at 233 MHz, but AMD's Socket 7 chips remained competitive with the P2s.

I'm not sure any two people would divide the era up the same way. Some of it will depend on what you're interested in. A 486 will play DOS Civilization and Railroad Tycoon really well. Then I could skip the Pentium generation entirely and go to a P2 because that'll play Civ 2 and Railroad Tycoon 2 well. A P3 will play Civ 3 well, and you pretty much have to jump to a Core machine to play Sid Meier's Railroads and the later Civ games well. So I could divide the last 20 years neatly into 4 eras and be perfectly happy, but I've completely ignored the FPS genre.

 

[Agent Orange]

Per

I suppose it's time to post this.

I have just finshed my lastest 486 project. the main components are as follows:

a) MOBO = '486-PVT-IO' Rev B0 May 1995 (FIRST-INTERNATIONAL-COMPUTER-INC). It features an AWARD BIOS, two VLB slots, four 16-bit slots, and one 8-bit slot. Also, there are four 70-pin RAM slots available w/ four 32-bit sticks installed for a total of 128 MB. I purchased this MOBO late last summer for @ $40.00 USD NIB, manual, cables, etc.

b) CPU = AMD 586-133 slightly OC's to 150 Mhz w/fan

c) AUDIO = 16-bit SoundBlaster 'Vibra16' model CT4180

d) Video = Diamond 'Speedstar PRO VLB' w/1 MB @ 1024x760

e) NIC = SMC 8-bit

f) HD = Maxtor 53073H 30 GB ATA IDE

g) FLOPPIES = One Sony 3.5" and one Chinon 5.25"

h) CONTROLLER = 'No Name' VLB with fully configurable serial ports, parallel port, and game port, as well as accomodations for two floppy and two HD's. (MOBO has has built in risers for the preceeding but I wanted to use this card as I've had it laying around for a long time.

i) CASE & PS = Standard Taiwanese mini-tower case w/ Enlight power supply purchased NIB last year for $19.95 USD.

j) MONITOR = DELL 15" LCD

k) OS = WIN95/MS-DOS

This setup runs great. It handles all of my old games and does everything I need it to do. I'd almost bet a nickle to a hole in a donut that this box performs about as good as any Pentium I or II. Personally and at this time, I don't have any compelling interest in Pentiums. The old Tandy's and 486's are what I like. Each to his own, I suppose. So, the bottom line is that this project came in a less than $100.00 USD. I probably could have done it a little cheaper if I hadn't been so itchy on pulling the trigger on the MOBO.

 

[Unknown_K]

Actually there was a huge difference in performace between a 486 and a Pentium 1 with respect to FPS games built on the Quake engine, the Pentium was the chip to have.

 

[Maverick1978]

My personal retro gaming machine is a DX4/100 with 128mb of ram (simply because I can). I've maxed out what my good ol' IBM was capable of.

I use the on-board video because I've really no need of anything else (I didn't get into the 3d stuff, and besides, I've a P66, P233, or AMD K6-2 for that - just pop in the motherboard). I do have a few spare ISA VGA boards on-hand if need be.

I use a SB-16 and a Roland midi board for the MT-32.

My goal was to have my "dream" system circa 1993-1994. I didn't care about the Pentium stuff because I wasn't into those games, but with that said, I've got a machine to cover those as well, including the 3D card. For anything past the early Pentium days, I just use one of my old laptops (a 750mhz Duron or a 1.7ghz AMD), as they meet or exceed the needs of any game in the Pentium-II/III era and can be down-stepped as needed via software.

 

[Raven]

I have two machines that I use more often than any others in my vintage/retro collection. First is a Presario 425 (upgraded to an Am5x86 133Mhz upgrade chip, maxed out it's RAM, and crammed a ton of stuff onto it's HDD), used for most things, but topping off at things like DOOM and Stargunner (on non-VESA), it can't run Quake, MDK, or other late DOS titles. When I realized that the Presario 425, although I love it dearly, had little upgrade potential due to ISA slots only, no way to chain a Voodoo card into the mix without a TON of work anyway, and only a Socket 1 (no Pentium Overdrive possibility), I built my Voodoo box.

The Voodoo Box:
- 300Mhz Pentium (Tillamook 266 slightly OC'd)
- Diamond Voodoo II (8MB iirc, on Voodoo cards the RAM only means available resolutions anyway)
- ATI Rage 3D AGP (for my 2D and DirectX needs)
- CD-ROM, 5.25" 1.2M FDD, 3.5" 1.44M FDD, and LS-120 (thinking of adding a ZIP drive)
- Onboard USB on the motherboard, hooked up to a custom wired (don't have the original) USB back plate.
- Windows 98SE w/ all kinds of modern modifications and software packages (most sourced from MSFN 9x Member Projects)

This box runs anything 16-bit that I throw at it, and many 32-bit things. I use it for all Glide software, and CAN use it for anything older as well. I wish I could take this box, and cram it into a Presario 425 case (if anybody is leet enough to do that, let me know, I have three of them and would sacrifice one for this if it was well done..).

I also managed to recreate the box I had in 1999-2003 or so, which was when I started getting technical with computers, so it's a special time for me. That box was home-brewed, but I found an eMachines with almost identical specs, same GPU but onboard, same CPU (I in fact pulled the one from my childhood and PUT it in there).. it has an Athlon XP, Geforce 4 MX, and 768MB RAM. Before I had my own box, the family had what my dad called a "586". I always assumed it was a Pentium until I got more technical, now I'm pretty sure it was an Am5x86 of some sort. That box ran Win95 and it was there that I played StarCraft for the first time.. Thus my fascination with the high-end 486.

 

[PeterNY]

My retro gaming systems are the following:
IBM ValuePoint 433DX/Si, Roland SCD-15 + Sound Blaster 16 ASP = Doom 2 and SimCity 2000 run like a clock
IBM ValuePoint 425SX/Si, Roland RAP-10 + Sound Blaster 1.5 CMS = Pirates! Gold runs like a clock
IBM ValuePoint 325T = Roland LAPC-I + Sound Blaster Pro 2 = Quest for Glory, Space Quest, King's Quest run like a clock

 

[Agent Orange]

Actually there was a huge difference in performace between a 486 and a Pentium 1 with respect to FPS games built on the Quake engine, the Pentium was the chip to have.

I beg to differ on that. There may be a slight perfromance increase in some areas with the early Pentium I, but I believe that the big performance factor gains are in the choice of a good video card for that particular type of setup. FWIW, my lastest 486 box with the AMD 586-133 'smokes' the Intel P24T 83 (overdrive) when installed in the same system. I realize the P24 is not your Pentium I in all respects, but close enough. I still maintain that DOOM, QUAKE, and DUKE NUKEM 3-D will run just a fast on my 486 as your Pentium I given the video cards being fairly equal. (Caveat: Quake is a little finicky but still runs decent enough - not enough to make me run to the store for a Pentium II or III if it were 1999).

 

[per]

I had a look at the system today and I tried to get it up and running. Originally this system had three 6GB hard drives, but I had to remove two in order to fit a tape drive I wanted to test. The remaining drive was the only one jumpered as "Master".

Whenever I start the system, I get one long and one short beep. Then it complains about an error with the disk controller, and that the system settings are not set.

Compaq deskpros are quite special since they keep the setup utility in a small partion of the HDD. However, whenever I ask it to load this, it seems like it halts. If I try to load the setup from floppy, it goes back to trying loading it from the HDD first, which still seems to halt the machine. If I dissconnect the HDD, then it successfully loads from floppy, but then I can't set up the HDD due to it being dissconnected. And even when the HDD is disconected and I save the settings, it still complains that the system settings are not set.

 

[Unknown_K]

I beg to differ on that. There may be a slight perfromance increase in some areas with the early Pentium I, but I believe that the big performance factor gains are in the choice of a good video card for that particular type of setup. FWIW, my lastest 486 box with the AMD 586-133 'smokes' the Intel P24T 83 (overdrive) when installed in the same system. I realize the P24 is not your Pentium I in all respects, but close enough. I still maintain that DOOM, QUAKE, and DUKE NUKEM 3-D will run just a fast on my 486 as your Pentium I given the video cards being fairly equal. (Caveat: Quake is a little finicky but still runs decent enough - not enough to make me run to the store for a Pentium II or III if it were 1999).

I guess you were not around when Quake was new to know, but there is a huge difference because Quake hits the FPU heavily and the Pentium is much faster then any 486.

Banchmarks:

http://www.zedtoo.demon.co.uk/quake/q13.html

Will Quake run on a 486?
The short answer is "Yes, but rather slowly."
Reports suggest that a DX4/100 manages roughly 8 frames per second (fps) at 320x200 screen resolution, "not great but playable".

Quake runs MUCH better on Pentium systems. Here are some examples:

P120: 21fps (320x200, #9GXE video card)
P166: 31fps (320x200, Diamond Stealth 64 video card)
The minimum realistic spec for Quake is a P60: this should achieve roughly 11fps at 320x200 screen resolution: noticeably faster than a DX4/100!

A P60 is faster then a 486/100, and P60's kind of suck.

 

[Raven]

Worth noting that you could probably get GLQuake to run beautifully with a nice 486 and a Voodoo card.

I have a pretty good video card in my 425 setup (Cirrus 5420, iirc, 512K), and under the absolute lowest settings I recall getting ~6FPS under Quake on that box.

I can't begin to explain how much I wish there were a 16-bit ISA Voodoo card, or at least some other 3D accelerator that could do GLQuake.

Edit: I wonder if, since now the engine (and it's children) are open source, someone will ever optimize a build for software rendering on a high-end 486 - the heavy reliance on the Pentium's FPU is the only reason it doesn't run smoothly, if it were integer-heavy instead it would be fine.

 

[Jorg]

I think I'd put together again my AMD K6-333 for the same reason.
I still have the 3dfx Banshee to go with it, and the 3DNow Patch really makes those 3dfx games run nicely.

 

[Agent Orange]

I guess you were not around when Quake was new to know, but there is a huge difference because Quake hits the FPU heavily and the Pentium is much faster then any 486.

Banchmarks:

http://www.zedtoo.demon.co.uk/quake/q13.html

Will Quake run on a 486?
The short answer is "Yes, but rather slowly."
Reports suggest that a DX4/100 manages roughly 8 frames per second (fps) at 320x200 screen resolution, "not great but playable".

Quake runs MUCH better on Pentium systems. Here are some examples:

P120: 21fps (320x200, #9GXE video card)
P166: 31fps (320x200, Diamond Stealth 64 video card)
The minimum realistic spec for Quake is a P60: this should achieve roughly 11fps at 320x200 screen resolution: noticeably faster than a DX4/100!

A P60 is faster then a 486/100, and P60's kind of suck.

Unknown_K:

I was "around" when all of that was happening. I just didn't have the time or interest back then. Now that I'm retired (sort of), I've found more playtime. Yes, I've seen all of those benchmarks before. This particular box is running a 586-133 overclocked to 150 Mhz. Just enough to make some of that stuff (more) playable. It's not like I'm advocating that someone ought to run to e-Bay and lay out for 486 rig. I'm just saying that some of these games can run decently on a 486/586 with a little TLC. Also, I think you're 'nit picking' me a little as I had already stated that 'QUAKE' did in fact run, but it wasn't optimal on the 486. Besides, if I really wanted just speed, I can run all of that stuff on my hex machine with the 5850. Yes, I can get the sound to come up (sometimes) with a cheap after-market Blaster clone by disabling the onboard sound in the the BIOS setup.

 

[Agent Orange]

I had a look at the system today and I tried to get it up and running. Originally this system had three 6GB hard drives, but I had to remove two in order to fit a tape drive I wanted to test. The remaining drive was the only one jumpered as "Master".

Whenever I start the system, I get one long and one short beep. Then it complains about an error with the disk controller, and that the system settings are not set.

Compaq deskpros are quite special since they keep the setup utility in a small partion of the HDD. However, whenever I ask it to load this, it seems like it halts. If I try to load the setup from floppy, it goes back to trying loading it from the HDD first, which still seems to halt the machine. If I dissconnect the HDD, then it successfully loads from floppy, but then I can't set up the HDD due to it being dissconnected. And even when the HDD is disconected and I save the settings, it still complains that the system settings are not set.

Try swapping the video card, then the RAM and see what happens. Also, what model (year) Deskpro?

 

[per]

It's a 1996 model.

I did try to swap the RAM, which did not really help anything.

It's difficult to swap the video card since it's the only PCI video card I have. I don't really thinks that's an issue either since I successfully get video out of it. I'll have to admit that it's not the original video card, but I wouldn't imagine that the Compaq POST is that selective when it comes to installed hardware.

 

[Agent Orange]

It's a 1996 model.

I did try to swap the RAM, which did not really help anything.

It's difficult to swap the video card since it's the only PCI video card I have. I don't really thinks that's an issue either since I successfully get video out of it. I'll have to admit that it's not the original video card, but I wouldn't imagine that the Compaq POST is that selective when it comes to installed hardware.

I need to do some checking, but I remember something about the HD interface on the Compaq was a proprietary setup. That might be one of the problem areas. I'm thinking late 80's to early 90's. I seem to remember something about the HD's had to be modified for Compaq.

 

[Agent Orange]

I need to do some checking, but I remember something about the HD interface on the Compaq was a proprietary setup. That might be one of the problem areas. I'm thinking late 80's to early 90's. I seem to remember something about the HD's had to be modified for Compaq.

Late edit: If not a proprierary setup then possible a differently wired HD cable. I'm looking into it.