Too many Retro PCs? Let's build a 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC! 386, 486, Pentium...

[philscomputerlab]

Wasn't quite sure which section to put this under, as this machine simulates several systems. The Pentium class is the most appropriate, so I put it here.


Video: Building a 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC


The finished PC:

The goal of this project is to have a single computer that can play 386, 486, Pentium and faster era games. Using a special processor with unique features, this can mostly be done through software while the machine is running. The video begins with a showcase of games from 1986 up to 2000. Then I am showing you how to build it and finally how to use it and some benchmarks at the end.

The PC has a sound card with Yamaha OPL3 chipset, a General MIDI wavetable module and 44.1 KHz 16 bit CD audio quality in DOS and Windows.

So go make a tea, or coffee, enjoy the build and let me know what you think

I've had zero issues with this machine, it is extremely compatible with a very wide range of games and lots of fun. Capturing all the gaming footage was awesome, but also lots of work, installing everything and so on.

 

[simplex]

This has really got me thinking. Very interesting video and something I might have to try myself... could save a bit of trauma with the home decor

 

[carangil]

That is an excellent build.

I have a very similar system, and have had it since about 1999 or so.

I have a MSI System Socket 7 board, with a K6-2+ running at 600 Mhz, Voodoo 3 2000, and an ISA Sound Blaster 16. It is the sweet spot for compatibility. I used to have an Jazz 16 sound card in there, and that worked fairly well too. I can't change the CPU speed from the BIOS, its all jumpers on this board, so I leave it at full speed for Win9x's sake, and anything that really needs an ancient config, I run in DOSBOX. I've found that for really old DOS stuff (EGA games like Crystal Caves, original Duke Nukem, etc), you can run DOSBOX in Windows 9x in recompile mode, and even on the k6, it comes out to about 286 speed. Which for me is pretty cool, since this computer case I have the k6 in says '286' on it, since it was originally a 286. I have basically shoved my childhood PC into DosBOX, run that in my teenage gaming PC, shoved into the childhood computer case. I'll be very sad when this machine dies.

I agree, Voodoo 3 is a perfect card for both DOS VESA modes, and lots of Win9x games. I found Quake 3 was about the limit... games at or above that get a bit choppy. Maybe your fast version of the Voodoo 3 would make Quake 3 smooth. But at Quake 3 era is where you can start to get games to play on modern machines, or even WINE on Linux, so I don't care about having perfect hardware for Quake 3+.

 

[philscomputerlab]

This has really got me thinking. Very interesting video and something I might have to try myself... could save a bit of trauma with the home decor

That's the idea Looks like a normal computer, but when you turn it on: Retro goodness awaits you.

That is an excellent build.

I have a very similar system, and have had it since about 1999 or so.

I have a MSI System Socket 7 board, with a K6-2+ running at 600 Mhz, Voodoo 3 2000, and an ISA Sound Blaster 16. It is the sweet spot for compatibility. I used to have an Jazz 16 sound card in there, and that worked fairly well too. I can't change the CPU speed from the BIOS, its all jumpers on this board, so I leave it at full speed for Win9x's sake, and anything that really needs an ancient config, I run in DOSBOX. I've found that for really old DOS stuff (EGA games like Crystal Caves, original Duke Nukem, etc), you can run DOSBOX in Windows 9x in recompile mode, and even on the k6, it comes out to about 286 speed. Which for me is pretty cool, since this computer case I have the k6 in says '286' on it, since it was originally a 286. I have basically shoved my childhood PC into DosBOX, run that in my teenage gaming PC, shoved into the childhood computer case. I'll be very sad when this machine dies.

I agree, Voodoo 3 is a perfect card for both DOS VESA modes, and lots of Win9x games. I found Quake 3 was about the limit... games at or above that get a bit choppy. Maybe your fast version of the Voodoo 3 would make Quake 3 smooth. But at Quake 3 era is where you can start to get games to play on modern machines, or even WINE on Linux, so I don't care about having perfect hardware for Quake 3+.

Wow, never tried DOSBox on a Retro computer. That's quite a good idea

Yes, Unreal, Quake II and certainly Deus Ex are pushing this machine. But the recordings were done with the FSB at 66 x 6 = 200 MHz. At the 100 MHz FSB you get a nice speed boost. Overclocked to 550 MHz the machine is around 30% faster, which is quite nice.

 

[carangil]

Quake 2 is super smooth on mine, but I am using a 100Mhz bus, and I have all the wait states on ram turned down to the minimum. It took a few ram stick swaps to get good ram that can actually run on fast timings without crashing. I can boot Ubuntu 10 on this machine, and while it is SLOW for web browsing (flash and modern video is out of the question), everything else seems to work fairly well. I haven't tried running any games in WINE on this, since Windows 98 runs just fine.

EDIT:

Now that I think of it, I think if I put in a more modern video card (on the PCI bus... not agp, I need to keep the voodoo in there!), I wonder if I can use hardware accelerated video decompression. Maybe youtube can play on here again. It's really just web video that makes this machine unsuitable for the modern web.