I have wanted to build a 486 pc similar to what i owned 16 years ago for a long time. I can say i now have just that. I recently built the following:
amd 5x86 155, 128megs of edo ram, shuttle hot-433 motherboard, stb lightspeed 128 video card, sound blaster awe32 with 8meg of ram, 8gb disk on module hard drive, win95 osr2. it has taken me six months to slowly put together the parts i needed to make this machine do what i want. it has been a very long time since i have built and old at machine. I ask that any other enthusiast chime in on their setups and tips and tweaks. Please help me make this the best it can be. so far i have about 15 dos games installed and all working in win95. anyone needing any info on how to setup a classic gaming machine, dont be afraid to ask, i will help any way i can. unfortunately this machine is not fast enough to play pce games.................its only drawback :)
That's awesome, man. I have a DOS machine set up at all times, as well. Used to be a 486 DX4/100 but I upgraded it to a P90. I forgot the amount of RAM, but either 32 or 64 megs. I believe it has a 2 gb hard drive. I don't know what the video card is, as it's just an old seemingly generic ISA card, but I'd like to replace it. The cherry on top though is my Gravis Ultrasound card. I had to mow a lot of lawns when I was a teenager to buy my first GUS, but it was worth it.
Chris
Brings back memories of my first "real" gaming pc, which I bought back in '93. A Packard Bell 486SX/33 upgraded to a DX/66, 4MB of RAM upgraded to 64MB, 2X CD-ROM, and a 320MB hard drive which was later replaced with a 6.4GB. Played a shit ton of Ultima and Doom on that machine. Finally went to the ol' recycle bin in the sky in '03. Been DOSBOXing ever since... just isn't the same. :cry:
You'd prob be in awe at all the old hardware I have, and the builds I use. Give me some time, a day or two, and I will do a better post here that may give you some ideas.
486 is a little too old school for me, but I did build a PC a few years back specifically to run Wing Commander Privateer since I couldn't get it to run on my normal PC. It had a Cyrix 686 MX and an Awe 64 in it, shit was pimp :D
I just got to thinking, "a few years back" was...like... 2000 or so. Getting old. :(
I dont know if you care to spend the money, but the Awe64 does have a tad better sound quality then the AWE32. Up here in my room I have that Gateway 2000 tower that uses a Awe32 and a Pentium 100mhz cpu and a Dos install. I think the graphics card is a S3 or Matrox Pci card, don't remember which. If all you planned to run is Dos games a straight Dos install might suit you better then Windows 95, but I don't know what all you plan to run. My other Dos system is a dual boot Dos/Windows 98 build. Specs are:
AMD K6-III @ 400 mhz
Epox SS7 motherboard EP-MPV3G2
AWE64 soundcard
3DFX Banshee AGP
256 megs ram
two Quantum Fireball hard drives (one for Dos, one for Win98)
DVD drive
350 watt psu
Chen Ming ATX-103B case modified (perfect cut) to have a air intake area at the top for a 80mm fan
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Most of my Dos gaming is really handled by this system, since its basically fast enough to handle all the later more demanding Dos titles like Quake or Chasm: The Rift just fine. Really though I have a lot of decent boxes in my parts storage area, like a complete Packard Bell Pentium 150 tower. Also have a few empty AT cases, probably about 25 different ISA sound cards, normal cases, motherboards, etc. The only stuff I don't have is old 486 and prior, as I wont use anything slower then a Pentium 1, and most 486 and prior I come across the motherboards are ruined from leaky batteries.
EDIT: here is the info on my large Pentium 100 Gateway tower.
Pentium 100mhz
S3Trio64 Pci
Creative Awe 32
Seagate 1.2 gb harddrive
plain jane cd-rom drive
64 megs ram
150 watt psu (I think???)
(shot of lower area of the inside, since I needed to pop it open and do some work on it, swapping out case fans, etc)
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Dang. A 486 with 128MB of RAM? Back in the day that was basically unheard of. Even Win 95 only needed, what, 16MB?
The first time I remember someone getting a computer with 64MB of RAM it was a Pentium Pro, years after 486s were dumpster fodder.
Quote from: SignOfZeta on 05/17/2012, 09:19 PMDang. A 486 with 128MB of RAM? Back in the day that was basically unheard of. Even Win 95 only needed, what, 16MB?
The first time I remember someone getting a computer with 64MB of RAM it was a Pentium Pro, years after 486s were dumpster fodder.
Yeah you can get by in Windows 95 with 16 megs of ram, but only with the early stuff. Game wise if you set up your config and autoexec files well for your Dos mode 16 megs will carry you pretty well too for the most part until you start running the more demanding Dos games.
Believe it or not the board supports 256 megs of ram. The 128 i got in there now is overkill as it is. Professer, that's a beauty of a collection you got there. I used to collect old machines like that, but no longer have the space. I still cry to this day getting rid of my DFI super socket 7 rig with a mobile k63+ overclocked to 600mhz.
As far as the sound card goes, i'm aware that the awe64 has better sound. The awe32 crackles and pops at times. The awe32 however does all of its audio processing in hardware as the awe64 does not. The awe32 frees up alot of cpu power and it makes a huge difference. The 8gig disk on module also makes for crazy fast load times.
Using windows 95 as a dos gaming platform is working out very well. however i'm not very good with configuring said games for max compatibility. i'm having problems with not having enough dos memory for digital effects in games or sound at all. Prefessor if you have some great tips on setting up win95 for best possible dos gaming, i'm all ears.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/18/2012, 01:06 AMBelieve it or not the board supports 256 megs of ram. The 128 i got in there now is overkill as it is. Professer, that's a beauty of a collection you got there. I used to collect old machines like that, but no longer have the space. I still cry to this day getting rid of my DFI super socket 7 rig with a mobile k63+ overclocked to 600mhz.
As far as the sound card goes, i'm aware that the awe64 has better sound. The awe32 crackles and pops at times. The awe32 however does all of its audio processing in hardware as the awe64 does not. The awe32 frees up alot of cpu power and it makes a huge difference. The 8gig disk on module also makes for crazy fast load times.
Using windows 95 as a dos gaming platform is working out very well. however i'm not very good with configuring said games for max compatibility. i'm having problems with not having enough dos memory for digital effects in games or sound at all. Prefessor if you have some great tips on setting up win95 for best possible dos gaming, i'm all ears.
Send me your email address via pm, and I will send you a decent starter set of config and autoexec files, along with cd-drive and mouse dos drivers. You might have to reinstall the sound card, or you can edit in the needed soundblaster text onto the autoexec file. At any rate the set I have should help you free up memory for Dos mode when you exit out of Win95. I've been able to squeeze out/free up about 610k out of the 640 on average. Just depends on the sound card being used.
you got it, incoming. my next step is to find a tseng labs et6100 video card.
I was going to do this but then my employing company started throwing out old computer hardware by the truckloads and I managed to save a Pentium II PC, and spare parts from another identical unit and took them home.
I also put a Pentium 100 on my desk, it is next to me now, but I don't need it.
Only thing I could wish for is to find a way to pack vintage PC hardware in a tiny, tiny enclosure so that they are not so intrusive and bulky.
(http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a221/opibucket/x68kmon.jpg)
lol I have that same monitor:
Lol yeah I got mine for like 2 bucks. It looked new, used very little so I jumped on it. I had been wanting to pack away my larger Sony Vga for awhile now so I could use a flat top case for my Super Socket 7 build. The Sony would have been way way too heavy to place on the computer.
I have that monitor also, lol.
Still got a bunch of Pentium 3s and old Celerons at my work if anyone is interested. :P We are trying to figure out how we are going to get rid of them considering there is about 50 custom built pcs all together.
I am confused here a little when it comes to DOS games. When I use to play some DOS games on my Pentium 2 400mhz (later upgraded to Pentium 3 1ghz), 128MB (later 256MB), ATI Rage Pro 8MB (later ATI Radeon 64MB), Turtle Beach Montego 64 (does full Soundblaster 16 emulation), 10GB HDD, all running on Win 98 SE... I would have compatibility problems or games like X-Com UFO Defense run too fast.
So having too fast of a computer or using Win98 instead of Win95 cause the problems. What gives?!?!
What is the most modern set-up for playing games perfectly ranging from Wolf 3D up to most 1996-97 games?
A lot of older games are timed by clock speed only. Meaning it runs as fast as your CPU does, especially common with most 386 and older era games. So yes a Pentium 3 is going to cause problems. There are software programs that will slowdown a faster system to help such games. A few odd-ball computers like FM Towns had a built in bios function to slow it down for compatibility, but this is quite rare in the "normal pc" world.
I figured that would be the case with games like X-com running too fast. The collection version of X-com had a program called MoSlo.exe and you had to adjust the percentage in the command line. Still, the game would run choppy and just didn't feel right.
Funny how I went from a 386sx 16mhz to a Pentium II 400mhz from 1991 then 1998. I missed out big time with 486DX and Pentium 1, which was the golden age of 2D PC gaming. I especially remember some greats from '96 and up: Doom 1 and 2, Heretic, X-Wing + Tie Fighter, Dark Forces, Lucas Arts Games (Sam and Max, Full Throttle, The Dig, etc...), some newer Sierra Adventure games, Dark Seed, and most importantly Wing Commander 3.
Thank god I had a PlayStation 1 and was able to play Wing Commander 3+4, Dark Forces, Rebel Assault 2, X-Com UFO Defense, command and conquer games and a decent version of Doom 1+2 combined. Still, I missed out on a lot of good PC games overall.
DOSBox just doesn't work all too well for quite a few games. They can't seem to get the Cycle CPU timing right and there really isn't a smooth Direct X support for the VESA DOS type graphics (Is that right... VESA is the DOS video processing method?). FPS games run shotty as hell and the FMV in Wing Commander 3 skips if you don't constantly adjust the Cycle speed between it and the gameplay.
to me the golden age of PC games was the late 80's to early 90's. My Pentium II (or is it III?) setup runs all my favourites from that era without problem.
Lemmings, Dune, Dune 2, Another World, WolfenStein/DooM, etc.
The most troublesome DOS game that I absolutely love is Wing Commander Privateer 2: The Darkening.... it needs a higher end DOS machine to run, so its tricky to get to work in DOSbox. But once its going, its excellent! I mean cmon, it has Clive Owen AND Walken in it!
Most of the old PC games I really got into still play relatively well on relatively current computers (though I haven't played hardly any of them since I upgraded to Windows 7). The Sierra Quest games, Civilization, Nethack, Dungeon Master, Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale.
One game I really miss was the original Mechwarrior. I loved being able to haggle over jobs and thought the simulation was done really well (I was like 15 at the time). That's one game I've had a hard time getting to run on newer hardware. I also really miss BBS door games like TW2002 and Legend of the Red Dragon. I know you can telnet to BBS's now and still play them, but the communities aren't the same.
The oldest computer I currently own is a P4 with Windows XP on it, so it's hardly old-school. You guys are making me think about putting together an oldie again. The first computer I built was a 386sx 33mhz. I think it was about the time DOS 6 came out. I remember thinking it was crazy having an operating system take up a whopping 6MB and considered switching to DrDOS. :)
Wing commander is excellent!!. currently i'm playing warcraft 2, halloween harry, blood (one of the best shooters ever), tryian 2000, simcity 2000, and with professors help hopefully i will get dungeon hack going well.
My kids love marios game gallery......you got any bob-ombs????????
Quote from: SNKNostalgia on 05/18/2012, 06:44 PMSo having too fast of a computer or using Win98 instead of Win95 cause the problems. What gives?!?!
What is the most modern set-up for playing games perfectly ranging from Wolf 3D up to most 1996-97 games?
If, and I say this in the strictest sense, if the goal is to play stuff released on up until 97 and not past that, then the ideal setup on the high end would be a Pentium II or K6-2 or 3 based platform, and on the low end a Pentium 166 MMX based cpu minimum. 64 megs minimum. 2gb hard drive minimum. Windows 98 dos mode is fine for exiting out into dos for games, but only if you configure your files well. Also, you have to ditch pci audio cards. Even the best of them as far as SB Pro capability goes will have issues on some games. You really need to go with a Awe32 or Awe64 if you want the best sound and support, or a SB Pro capable ISA card as a minimum (Creative, ESS, etc). A Gravis UltraSound is also a high end ISA card you can consider, but they are not as easy to get going as a Creative card. There is also the Ensoniq Soundscape line, the Pro AudioSpectrum 16, Aztech Sound Galaxy Pro 16 II, and some other ISA cards that while being below the Awe line are still pretty solid and a step up from a plain Sound Blaster.
If you can afford it, find a solid 2d pci card and invest in a Voodoo or Voodoo 2, or even Power VR. That would give you a workable solution for the early 3D hardware stuff that would have some umph. Be warned though, pairing a Voodoo 2 with a Pentium 1 cpu wont get you much further then if you went with a Voodoo 1, so if the Pentium 1 is the cpu of choice, and you can get a Voodoo 1 cheaper, just go for that instead of a Voodoo 2.
I think I have a working Voodoo 3 around somewhere, PCI version, and I have an AWE32 in the basement. I don't know if the AWE32 works. Anyone wanna pick up some really old hardware? : )
what he said and alittle extra. a voodoo is a better choice if you have a slower cpu. the powervr cards are good for old games, but need a faster cpu. The power vr does not really come into its own until you get to pentium 2 levels. Completely agree with the sound card choices as well. Anything other than a true sound blaster is a bitch to setup. The awe64 has the best sound, the awe32 is better for slower machines. either way you cant go wrong.
Quote from: guest on 05/18/2012, 10:56 PMAnyone wanna pick up some really old hardware? : )
Id be interested depending on the cost. I'm always collecting parts.
anyone got a working inkjet printer for the parallel port :mrgreen:
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/19/2012, 12:19 AManyone got a working inkjet printer for the parallel port :mrgreen:
No but we got a ton of these old dot matrix printer like the okidata and a few others. I'm pretty sure we can run old school games pretty darn good on a slow enough Pentium 3 (450mhz) as I was able to run games like Heretic and the original Decent on said hardware. Trying to get rid of this stuff is going to be a pain though...
I'd be happy getting my hands on a working dot matrix.
Seems that my Pentium 2 400mhz turned Pentium 3 1ghz should work then. The Turtle Beach card does have full Soundblaster 16/Adlib emulation support that works well, which is good enough. It is just sitting in my parents basement doing nothing for the past 8 years once they got a Pentium 4 with WinXP in 2004.
My dad of course wiped the HDD and reinstalled Win 98SE. So, finding those damn newer drivers for my ATI Radeon 64MB 7200 is going to be a pain (I also still have my ATI Rage Pro 8MB and Xpert 2000 32MB. All of them running AGP 2x on my Mobo). The soundcard drivers luckily are the most up to date with the Drivers disc it came with. Also, going to have to update to the highest version of Win 98SE as well from a torrent site I bet. I just have never fooled with it since then.
So I assume this setup will work then. Worse case is that I can put the Pentium 2 back in there if it runs a lot of games too fast. To think of it, I never did try Herectic or Wing Commander 3 and 4 on it. Now that there is abandonware and cheap copies out there... it should be easy to test out.
Oh, turns out I have an Athlon Tbird 2800+ sitting in my basement. Frankly, it's a complete system with ATI Radeon 8500. It lacks an HD but that's about it. I replaced it 3 years ago. I feel bad with it sitting there, but none of the shlubs on Craigslist want it.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/19/2012, 06:17 AMI'd be happy getting my hands on a working dot matrix.
When I go in on Monday I'll get you a list. We also have a continuous feed dot matrix printer too if you really want to annoy people when they come over due to how noisy it is.
Quote from: SNKNostalgia on 05/19/2012, 07:28 AMSeems that my Pentium 2 400mhz turned Pentium 3 1ghz should work then. The Turtle Beach card does have full Soundblaster 16/Adlib emulation support that works well, which is good enough. It is just sitting in my parents basement doing nothing for the past 8 years once they got a Pentium 4 with WinXP in 2004.
My dad of course wiped the HDD and reinstalled Win 98SE. So, finding those damn newer drivers for my ATI Radeon 64MB 7200 is going to be a pain (I also still have my ATI Rage Pro 8MB and Xpert 2000 32MB. All of them running AGP 2x on my Mobo). The soundcard drivers luckily are the most up to date with the Drivers disc it came with. Also, going to have to update to the highest version of Win 98SE as well from a torrent site I bet. I just have never fooled with it since then.
So I assume this setup will work then. Worse case is that I can put the Pentium 2 back in there if it runs a lot of games too fast. To think of it, I never did try Herectic or Wing Commander 3 and 4 on it. Now that there is abandonware and cheap copies out there... it should be easy to test out.
The Turtle Beach Montego if I remember right was using the Aureal Vortex A3D chipset. Yeah, it was a good pci card, but its Dos support did have issues for some older Dos titles prior to 1994-1995. AMD has all the old ATI drivers up still, so you can still get Drivers for the older Radeon and Rage cards for Windows 98 fine.
I would appreciate that Big. I dont know about the continous feed though. thats just begging to get me divorced. You know, i never knew thier were dot matrix color as well. looked it up last night, seems some of them printed fairly decently.
The Apple ImageWriter II had color ribbon capacity and could, with a proper adapter cable, be connected to a Windows PC serial port and driven by an Itoh dot matrix driver. Those things are tanks, too. They run for decades. Noisy like mad, but they are hard to kill.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/19/2012, 07:50 PMI would appreciate that Big. I dont know about the continous feed though. thats just begging to get me divorced. You know, i never knew thier were dot matrix color as well. looked it up last night, seems some of them printed fairly decently.
We might just have a color one left over come to think of it. I know we still have the color ribbons for it and I believe its a xerox. We might even have a usb okidata that hasn't even been used! I'll have to ask my boss, but I don't think we are going to sell these for any more than 20-50 dollars.
please let me know, if you have a color one, i would like it. the price sounds very reasonable
wow apart from commodore 64 and Atari 800XL and Amiga A500
god 486.. I think my first pc was a 486.. Cyrix cpu
if I ever was to have a fond memory of a pc component I would probably pick the gravis ultrasound card (hell to sort out in compatibility) but the sound was probably better than the Amiga A500's
Quote from: PCEngineHell on 05/19/2012, 02:04 PMThe Turtle Beach Montego if I remember right was using the Aureal Vortex A3D chipset. Yeah, it was a good pci card, but its Dos support did have issues for some older Dos titles prior to 1994-1995. AMD has all the old ATI drivers up still, so you can still get Drivers for the older Radeon and Rage cards for Windows 98 fine.
Damn, no go on the AMD website. The drivers are listed but not there when you click the download links. Guess I will look around. At least I know exactly which Catalyst, WDM and the ATI Multimedia player drivers I need.
Speaking of fondness of a legacy pc component....
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Gravis_pc_gamepad.jpg)
Not sure why I love this pad so much (because it truly is CRAP) but its was I grew up playing PC games with. Star Control 2 was played many a times with one of these!
As far as sound cards, my Gateway 2k P5-90 still has the SB16/AWE32 my dad put in way bitd (replaced an ensoniq soundscape IIRC) and my G2k P5-133 has a AWE64 card I put in maybe 10 years ago.
Quote from: BlueBMW on 05/20/2012, 12:02 PMSpeaking of fondness of a legacy pc component....
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Gravis_pc_gamepad.jpg)
Not sure why I love this pad so much (because it truly is CRAP) but its was I grew up playing PC games with. Star Control 2 was played many a times with one of these!
Hah, I just picked one of these up at a thrift store for $1... even has the screw-in joystick! I couldn't resist, even though I'll probably never use it. These things really do suck but they were the best (only?) PC gamepad I could find back in the day.
Quote from: SNKNostalgia on 05/20/2012, 11:19 AMQuote from: PCEngineHell on 05/19/2012, 02:04 PMThe Turtle Beach Montego if I remember right was using the Aureal Vortex A3D chipset. Yeah, it was a good pci card, but its Dos support did have issues for some older Dos titles prior to 1994-1995. AMD has all the old ATI drivers up still, so you can still get Drivers for the older Radeon and Rage cards for Windows 98 fine.
Damn, no go on the AMD website. The drivers are listed but not there when you click the download links. Guess I will look around. At least I know exactly which Catalyst, WDM and the ATI Multimedia player drivers I need.
Yeah I see their site is having issues, redirecting you on the download links. Well, hit me up if you want, I have a decent archive of drivers amassed, so I might have what you need.
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Quote from: cabbage on 05/20/2012, 03:17 PMQuote from: BlueBMW on 05/20/2012, 12:02 PMSpeaking of fondness of a legacy pc component....
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Gravis_pc_gamepad.jpg)
Not sure why I love this pad so much (because it truly is CRAP) but its was I grew up playing PC games with. Star Control 2 was played many a times with one of these!
Hah, I just picked one of these up at a thrift store for $1... even has the screw-in joystick! I couldn't resist, even though I'll probably never use it. These things really do suck but they were the best (only?) PC gamepad I could find back in the day.
I have a large variety of controllers for PC. I did have that normal Gravis Gamepad, but I sacrificed it to make a arcade stick for the Dos version of Primal Rage, since that port is basically arcade perfect. I have stuff like the Gravis Gamepad Pro with Grip support, the PowerRamp programmable arcade stick, Gravis Destroyer gamepad, some programmable Interact gamepad, classic flight wheel, etc, along with lots of USB type game pads, flight sticks, etc. One thing I can definitely recommend without a doubt is getting a classic white Gravis Gamepad Pro for its Dos grip function. That or obtain a PowerRamp stick or pad from Act Labs.
Not sure how far anyone here takes the classic gaming thing as far as Pc gaming goes, but I do have other rigs, one for Windows ME, and one for Windows XP also. I finished my XP rig a short while back. It took a long time to get it to be exactly the way I wanted it. Now I can enjoy alot of stuff I have that needs XP specifically, like Bet On Soldier.
Specs are as follows:
Athlon 64 3800+ 939
MSI MS-7184 micro atx motherboard
2gb DDR ram in dual channel
DVD drive
Cd drive
two 80GB sata harddrives
one 120GB ide harddrive
Sapphire X1950XT
SoundBlaster Audegy Se
Thermaltake TR2 RX 450 watt
five 80mm case fans (one in bottom harddrive cage)
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Does anyone have a good idea as to a space saving solution for a DOS system?
I cringe whenever I look at the ugly beige behemoth in my game room taking up so much space just so I can play a few games from over 20 years ago.
What is the most minimalist, elegant setup possible for running games up to about early to mid 90's, which is where my interest in PC gaming tapers off.
Well, I don't know if the oldest games would work well with an Athlon or P3, but I think there are some shuttle case/mobo combos still floating around that will accommodate those chips. A VIA C3 system might actually be best for compatibility and size.
On another note, does anyone here have any experience deliberately under-clocking older chips to reduce heat and power draw? I'm wondering if I clock my old Athlon way the crap down if I could throw it in a case with a fanless CPU cooler and a low wattage power supply to use as a kitchen PC or something.
blue i'm shocked you think the gravis gamepad is crap :-k its not that bad 8) no really, it works alright. i just picked one up brand new at goodwill. I"m pretty lucky, i managed to find alot of stuff in new condition. the only thing not new in my 486 is the board and cpu, everything else is sparkling :) hopefully i can get my hands on that printer. my daughters are into the retro stuff like me. I'm gonna install some classic kids games and painting programs for them to mess around with. my youngest loves simcity.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/20/2012, 06:37 PMblue i'm shocked you think the gravis gamepad is crap :-k its not that bad 8) no really, it works alright. i just picked one up brand new at goodwill. I"m pretty lucky, i managed to find alot of stuff in new condition. the only thing not new in my 486 is the board and cpu, everything else is sparkling :) hopefully i can get my hands on that printer. my daughters are into the retro stuff like me. I'm gonna install some classic kids games and painting programs for them to mess around with. my youngest loves simcity.
As a kid I loved the pad. Nowadays, the D-pad just feels odd to me. I guess I'm spoiled by the PCE pads etc :P It will always have a nostalgic enjoyment for me though.
As far as good kids games... KidPix is a fun old school painting program :D
I do kinda like the thumbstick concept, though. There are some games where I've felt that works very well. I think a thumbstick would work pretty well with a fighting game, possibly.
I agree with that. the gravis worked well for the time. Blues right though, the d-pad is not the best. Kidpix....hmmmm.......gotta go find it, thanks for the info.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/20/2012, 09:18 PMI agree with that. the gravis worked well for the time. Blues right though, the d-pad is not the best. Kidpix....hmmmm.......gotta go find it, thanks for the info.
or if you want the more brainy type games... the first two Dr Brain games are kind of hard, but great fun. Castle of Dr Brain and Island of Dr Brain.
HercTNT: I just gotta pop in and recommend The Incredible Machine for your girls. I played the hell out of that as a kid at school! It's a lot of fun and encourages you to think outside the box.
Quote from: cabbage on 05/20/2012, 11:50 PMHercTNT: I just gotta pop in and recommend The Incredible Machine for your girls. I played the hell out of that as a kid at school! It's a lot of fun and encourages you to think outside the box.
YES! That game is awesome!
Now granted... I started on Civilzation at about age 7 so.... how old are your daughters? :P
6 and 10. They are not into puzzle type games all that much. drawing games and platformers are what they mostly play although my youngest tries her hand at simcity. i know they made one of the catz or dogz type games for dos. they love that to, and i have not found em yet. still working on it. Professor, what are your thoughts on qemm 97 to free up memory dos programs. i really dont want to use a boot disk to get some of the games running. the idea is to make the games usable by kids. I tried teaching my oldest some dos commands earlier and that did not go so well.
The fact that you tried to teach your kids anything DOS related makes me so happy. I dont think kids these days appreciate pre GUI computing. Now I sound like an old fart (at the ripe old age of 28!)
my girls like retro gaming and retro computing. They play dos games, classic gameboys and such all the time. But you have to admit, teaching them dos is alittle extreme. Their is no real reason for them or any other kid to learn it other than nostalgia. its not gonna stop me from trying though. My youngest gets sick often, i backlit a gameboy color so she can play tamagotchi at night when she cant sleep.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/21/2012, 02:32 AMBut you have to admit, teaching them dos is alittle extreme. Their is no real reason for them or any other kid to learn it other than nostalgia. its not gonna stop me from trying though.
I'm glad you're still trying. I still find reasons to use DOS these days, though folks not as nerdy as me probably would never need it.
Just in the past month I discovered ffmpeg, an awesome open source, command line video conversion utility that I built a series of batch files for, based on the type of video I was converting from and converting to. I do a lot of video production and use Premiere CS5 for editing. Unfortunately, Premiere is pretty picky as to the formats it's natively accepts. Thanks to ffmpeg and my batch files, I haven't come across a video source file I haven't been able to convert to a format that Premiere happily works with.
So to make a short story long, there are still plenty of uses for DOS these days, in niche markets. :)
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/21/2012, 01:41 AMProfessor, what are your thoughts on qemm 97 to free up memory dos programs. i really dont want to use a boot disk to get some of the games running. the idea is to make the games usable by kids. I tried teaching my oldest some dos commands earlier and that did not go so well.
I've read good things about it before, but I have not needed to use it myself. Memmaker is all I have ever needed for Dos 6.22, and as for Dos mode outside of Win 95/98, well I just use my autoexec and config.sys files I keep handy. Honestly you have nothing to lose but time, so you might as well give it a shot.
will do, for whatever reason i cant seem to get my memory usage down. windows is not loading the device drivers in high memory despite using the load high command. after loading the cdrom driver and mscdex from your auto and config i was down below 540k. its not your configs, its windows. I put localloadHigh=1 in my 386enh section of my win.ini. i thought that was supposed to fix most of those problems for legacy applications? i'm doing something wrong somewhere.
on a good note i finally got joe&mac for dos running. it looks alot more like the arcade version of the game then the snes one. very cool.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/21/2012, 03:50 AMwill do, for whatever reason i cant seem to get my memory usage down. windows is not loading the device drivers in high memory despite using the load high command. after loading the cdrom driver and mscdex from your auto and config i was down below 540k. its not your configs, its windows. I put localloadHigh=1 in my 386enh section of my win.ini. i thought that was supposed to fix most of those problems for legacy applications? i'm doing something wrong somewhere.
on a good note i finally got joe&mac for dos running. it looks alot more like the arcade version of the game then the snes one. very cool.
Try QEMM 97 then and see what happens. I've honestly never had it down that low before except on default files where I have not adjusted anything. Yours is being stubborn it sounds like. Worse comes to worse, reinstall Windows and try again. It could be something in the install got botched. Also, are you using the original Creative AWE32 install cd to install the card?
yes i found an original cd. it added some stuff that i'm not sure needs to be thier. i'm also going to take on the tseng labs and replace it with the rage pro. i found dos vesa drivers for the rage and it will no doubt fix the graphics issues i have with some games. If i were not trying to make most of the kids games playable from windows i doubt i would be having any problems. I dont know how to write batch files though, or i would just make custom configs.
What about setting up a dos menu that automatically loads various games?
I can get you the exact syntax but it involves using [menu] but you can customize autoexec and config for each game if need be.
I appreciate the offer, but it looks like it wont be needed. qemm 97 is close to being god like. every program that did not run before now does. Every program that had to be run in dos mode, now runs in windows. Qemm also speeds up windows warm boot time, loads rom into high memory, and improves disk cache. I just spent an hour and a half testing it and could not find any problems. I also replaced the tseng labs et6000 with the rage pro. more games work due to no more conflicts with the tseng, but the rage has its own issues. I'm gonna get an s3 card and fix that problem once and for all. The super vga speed on the tseng is unreal, but in standard vga the rage and s3's are just as fast. My 486 is not quick enough to run games in Svga anyways.
Keep those ideas for good games coming. i'm enjoying setting this thing up.
Herc, created a for sale for all of our printers at work, did check to see if we had an old color dot matrix printer but its like completely dead so all we got are the ribbons for it. Anyway:
https://www.pcengine-fx.com/forums/index.php?topic=11860.0
Quote from: PCEngineHell on 05/19/2012, 02:04 PMYeah I see their site is having issues, redirecting you on the download links. Well, hit me up if you want, I have a decent archive of drivers amassed, so I might have what you need.
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I found the Catalyst drivers on Cnet of all places, lol.
Do you have ATI Multimedia 8.9? I assume that is the last version I should get, unless the 9.0 versions are fine. Still, I read something about problems with 9.15, etc... Not entirely sure about all of it though. Also, I forgot what it is for, but there is also WDM 6.14.10.6240 listed.
http://drivers.softpedia.com/progDownload/ATI-Multimedia-Center-89-Download-2611.html
See if thats what you need.
Cool, got all the drivers I need. Now I have a nice project to re-install the whole computer with the most up to date drivers and see how this thing runs all the old DOS games.
BTW, I had to look it up and I am gonna assume I don't need the WDM drivers since it isn't a video capture card anyways.
No you shouldn't unless you are using a AIW. Honestly I'd say you don't even need ATI Multimedia Center, unless you plan to do more then just game on the thing.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/21/2012, 09:47 AMI appreciate the offer, but it looks like it wont be needed. qemm 97 is close to being god like. every program that did not run before now does. Every program that had to be run in dos mode, now runs in windows. Qemm also speeds up windows warm boot time, loads rom into high memory, and improves disk cache. I just spent an hour and a half testing it and could not find any problems. I also replaced the tseng labs et6000 with the rage pro. more games work due to no more conflicts with the tseng, but the rage has its own issues. I'm gonna get an s3 card and fix that problem once and for all. The super vga speed on the tseng is unreal, but in standard vga the rage and s3's are just as fast. My 486 is not quick enough to run games in Svga anyways.
Keep those ideas for good games coming. i'm enjoying setting this thing up.
I found an extra Trident S3 card (or maybe two of them) when digging through some old PC stuff. I'm out of town til Thursday, but when I get back I'll find out what models they are exactly and shoot you some pics. I know one was 2mb for sure.... not sure on the other. I think one was ISA and the other PCI.
Blue, that would be great. let me know what they are. I would appreciate it. here is a terrible pic of my 486 in its temporary home.
100_7828.JPG
Just an update, I found out my 486 will do 160mhz with almost no issues. when running in windows some drivers crash including the sound and ide drivers. if i run in dos all games work without issue. Can this be related to not enough voltage to the cpu, or is it simply that windows does not like running on a 40mhz pci bus. Anyone that has fooled around with overclocking a 486 please chime in. Also, what are the long term ramifications for overclocking older hardware. I"m familair with the new stuff, but the old stuff i have no idea.
You need the limitations of the version of windows you are using. All Windows run slow on most computers of thier release year.
Like I have my 98 running on a 2ghz proccessor, and it is lighting fast, but if I was to load something like Vista, or Seven, I am sure their would be slowdowns.
However the dos programs are very picky about hardware. They run in DOS mode, 100% of the time, but I have to enable sound, mouse drivers first. Simular to the way some PSX games request an analoug stick controller.
In windows I allways get memory errors, memory not enough, etc because windows is also using those resources up. On a 2ghz machine the DOS programs do not even see the speed, however some do see the speed, or maybe the speed is altered within the program, itself.
Windows back then was for office employees, and was resourcefull for saving white-out..... ( people who do not know a thing about computers, entering the workforce. ).
Your 486, could probably run most DOS programs, however I am sure a much later program would have problems.
The computer I had, used a list system, running windows 1-3.0 ( I forget which version. ). So when I wanted to use a dos program, I could just select from the list, at the same time I could boot into windows, and run whatever windows related program I wanted to run.
Voltage I believe, relates to hardware taking over jobs, of other hardware. Like something that, would not function like a power switch.
Try running some games in DOS, to see if any of them exibit behaviours
as with windows.
Last old computer I overclocked was a dual cpu p1 100mhz. I overclocked them to 120... ran maybe 6 or 7 months with linux then one of the cpus died.
Yea, i know that newer cpu's are far more tolerant. it's a shame as the overclock provided with with very noticable improvements, but i just dont think its worth it. I'm gonna have to accept that there are a handful of games that i just can't run, or run in svga mode. Joe and mac for example, cant run smooth with soundblaster sound turned on. with the overclock it runs perfect. The disk on module hard drive i have seems to have no problem with the 40mhz bus neither does the rage pro video. still i'm unsure of the strain on the rest of the system. its not a new board afterall.
Regal, I am running the software that was designed for the system. Windows runs plenty fast and perfect if i dont overclock, when i do it has some issues. No offense, but unless your aware of the overclocking aspect (the nature of my previous question), your advice does not make sense.
Quote from: HercTNT on 05/23/2012, 06:05 PMYea, i know that newer cpu's are far more tolerant. it's a shame as the overclock provided with with very noticable improvements, but i just dont think its worth it. I'm gonna have to accept that there are a handful of games that i just can't run, or run in svga mode. Joe and mac for example, cant run smooth with soundblaster sound turned on. with the overclock it runs perfect. The disk on module hard drive i have seems to have no problem with the 40mhz bus neither does the rage pro video. still i'm unsure of the strain on the rest of the system. its not a new board afterall.
This is why I don't really want to mess with the 486 stuff. Just a tad too slow to run everything I'd want to run. You can get away with running games from 92 and prior fine, but seems like stuff started to get a bit too demanding at times from 93 on up.
yea, thier are plenty of dos games going up all the way to 98, but need some serious horse power to run for some of them. games like screamer, and build engine games like duke and blood are way to much for my machine in svga mode. in normal mode they run but look pretty crappy. worms 2 for example needs a pentium 90 and even an overclocked 486 comes just a hair short.
I think thats mainly why I don't have any issues selling Pentium 1 systems Ive built or restored. A lot of people wanting to play straight Dos games or early Win 95 stuff just want to skip over the 486 completely. Personally, I'd rather not sell anything that cant handle Doom or Duke 3D anyway, so that makes my life easier.
Herc, honestly you may want to go with a Socket 7 setup of some kind, either Pentium 1 or K6 cpu. I think it would solve all of your speed issues, and still keep it retro enough for you. If your case needs a AT style motherboard, there are plenty of AT Socket 7 boards out there.
Anyway, thought I'd chime in with info on this latest build I did. Been sitting on a ATI Rage Fury MAXX graphics card for a little while now. Really just had not had the time to do a build for it. Had always wanted to have one system dedicated to it, and another for the 3DFX Voodoo 5, the two best legacy Direct X dual GPU cards from that time period. Anyway, its up and going now. Pulled out my Gateway AMD Jabil Kadoka Slot A motherboard for the install. Probably one of the best Slot A boards I have ever owned. High quality parts onboard, and the board is pretty hard to get a hold of now, usually with a price tag over 80 bucks. 3D Mark 2k default score is just a tad over 4000 points on this build. This one will sit beside my Voodoo 5 Athlon XP 2400+ build.
Specs:
Gateway AMD Jabil Kadoka Slot A motherboard
Athlon 900 mhz cpu
Seagate 160gb harddrive
TDK CD Burner
512 megs PC 133 SDram
Rage Fury Maxx graphics card
SoundBlaster Pci 128 audio
Windows ME installed
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That rage fury maxx sucks, i think you should give it to me;) Dammit, two years ago to, i had a chance to buy a brand new rage fury maxx for $30 and i passed. I have always wanted to build a pc based around one as well. Yea, i know that socket 7 is the way to go, but i just dont have the money. I put my 486 together fairly cheap over many months. i still have an evil kyro agp card i wanted to build a system around and never got the chance. I like the 486, its runs well, it just cant run all the dos games i wanted. Mostly, the only games i cant run are the late 96 dos games and up. build games wont do svga, screamer wont do svga, stuff like redguard and any early 3d games are out of the question.
Herc, here's one of the two video cards I found. The other is still in the machine (its ISA) This looks like it should be the better card....
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Tridents are not much good for 3D, and they're not even really good at higher-resolution 2D, but I really like them for VGA.
Blue i really appreciate, but i no longer need it. a local friend of mine has an s3 card he is gonna give me. thank you for looking. I did not find out this news until a few hours ago.
No problem :)
Quote from: PCEngineHell on 05/24/2012, 04:11 AMHerc, honestly you may want to go with a Socket 7 setup of some kind, either Pentium 1 or K6 cpu. I think it would solve all of your speed issues, and still keep it retro enough for you. If your case needs a AT style motherboard, there are plenty of AT Socket 7 boards out there.
Anyway, thought I'd chime in with info on this latest build I did. Been sitting on a ATI Rage Fury MAXX graphics card for a little while now. Really just had not had the time to do a build for it. Had always wanted to have one system dedicated to it, and another for the 3DFX Voodoo 5, the two best legacy Direct X dual GPU cards from that time period. Anyway, its up and going now. Pulled out my Gateway AMD Jabil Kadoka Slot A motherboard for the install. Probably one of the best Slot A boards I have ever owned. High quality parts onboard, and the board is pretty hard to get a hold of now, usually with a price tag over 80 bucks. 3D Mark 2k default score is just a tad over 4000 points on this build. This one will sit beside my Voodoo 5 Athlon XP 2400+ build.
Specs:
Gateway AMD Jabil Kadoka Slot A motherboard
Athlon 900 mhz cpu
Seagate 160gb harddrive
TDK CD Burner
512 megs PC 133 SDram
Rage Fury Maxx graphics card
SoundBlaster Pci 128 audio
Windows ME installed
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That looks similar to an Athlon (600MHz) tower I have. Would love to get my hands on a decent Voodoo card to play Ultima 9 on it. Damn game crashes every 5 minutes on Direct X. :(
I really like the clear blue plastic on the tdk cd rom.
Herc, I mean to ask, did you ever get to mess around any with the Evil Kyro card prior? I'd wanted one before, or a Kyro II, but have never got to own one. I've seen reviews prior where the Kyro II card when paired with a decent cpu didn't have too much of a issue handling Serious Sam or Max Payne, but in the end those cards got the shaft on most of the Direct X 8 generation of games.
Yes, i have owned two before. A powercolor evil Kyro and a hercules 4500 kyro2. My first Kyro could play quake 3 at 800x600 with 4x anti aliasing turned on. That was a pretty impressive feat for a card of its generation. Keep in mind the kyro chipset has two major drawbacks: Antiscopic filtering is not possible, and overclocking the card by even 1mhz is practically impossible. Matching up a Kyro or even better a kyro2 to a socket a platform makes for some great gaming. the kyros image quality sans the Antiscopic filtering is excellent. I have had a 32meg kyro collecting dust for the last year. When i decided to build my 486 i cancelled my kyro project. let me know if you want to play around with it, i will send it your way.
Quote from: BlueBMW on 05/24/2012, 10:03 PMHerc, here's one of the two video cards I found. The other is still in the machine (its ISA) This looks like it should be the better card....
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Not seen one of these for a while. The computer store that I worked at in the 90's sold these by the bucket load :@)
LOL way does spring to mind.
you guys would be gutted if you know how many pc's i have helped to scrap over the years working in IT about a year ago we scraped a brand new bbc micro color monitor in the box never been used was a shame to see that go.
but if you enjoy it good luck in finding parts