per
Veteran Member
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:
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:
Audio:
Video:
Eventually SCSI:
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.
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)
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.
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
Video:
- Creative 3D Blaster Savage4 32MB PCI
- ATI 3D Rage II+ DVD 3D Charger (2MB)
Eventually SCSI:
- Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI Controller
- Compaq Smart 2DH Array SCSI Controller
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.
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