Need Help Building 90s PC

[MotoRacer]

Got some more software coming in.

 

PC shipment has been delayed. He's putting in a new power supply that'll work in the US power grid. Ugh! I can't wait to play this thing.

 

I looked up my computer I had when I was younger. It was only 350mhz with 32mb or ram. This should feel like a super computer by comparison.

[82-T/A]

I don't know if I've commented already... but read some of the other responses, and here's my opinion.

 

The era of games that you are looking to play, is pretty much anything from ~1996 to early 2001, realistically. You can still play most of the games from the early to mid 90s as well, and they will be pretty much OK since most of those games (from say 92-95) were speed correcting already. That was during the time when games could be played on anything from a mid-range 12 Mhz 286 all the way up to a 486. So they really needed to account for speed.

 

The games in the time-frame of 96-01 were all written to be run in DOS, or later under Windows 98 SE. That's definitely the reason why you would not want to use Windows 2000, as this significantly limits your ability to run many of the older games. Windows 98 SE is still basically DOS 7.0 with Windows installed in it. With Windows 2000, it is essentially Windows XP. There are VERY few games that will only run under Windows 2000 that cannot be made to run properly under later versions of Windows.

[SSG]

lol. Everyone stop what they're doing now and install Windows ME! XD jk

[Osgeld]

I liked ME, as long as you didnt mix driver models it was a fairly snappy and stable OS, but if you did mix lets say an old modem driver with one for a GEFORCE265 on the same system... god help you

[boxpressed]

If you want to play retro Windows 95-98 era games only, you can go ahead and use a Windows XP system. It won't be "retro" and probably won't have an ISA slot, but you won't need one since you are not playing DOS games. Windows XP plays almost all Windows 95-98 games and usually with higher frame rates with the same equipment. XP gives you access to newer hardware as well.

 

The only thing that you will miss out on is Aureal Vortex 2 sound. I don't think there were ever any XP drivers for this chipset.

 

Even if you want to play DOS games, you can create a FAT32 partition for installing DOS games, then use a DOS bootdisk to boot into real DOS. You'd need to find a PCI soundcard with good DOS compatibility such as, well, the Aureal Vortex 2.

[0078265317]

Pentium 3 is too slow. Need at least a pentium 4.

[Hatta]

We're talking about a 90s PC. Pentium 3 is more than sufficient to play any 90s game. I played SiN and Swat 3 on my P2 just a couple years back.

[MotoRacer]

We're talking about a 90s PC. Pentium 3 is more than sufficient to play any 90s game. I played SiN and Swat 3 on my P2 just a couple years back.

 

The Pentium 3 I have is extremely fast. It's not some pos 300mhz processor.

 

The problem with the P4's is that compatability starts going out the window at that point. I think I'm going about this right for my purposes .

[boxpressed]

The 1.4GHz Tualatin P3 was faster than the early Willamette P4 at the same clock speed in many benchmarks.

 

A fast P3 is necessary to play a few resource-intensive 90s games such as Unreal Tournament (or even just Unreal) at high resolutions with >60 fps. The quality of experience just depends on the frame rate you're happy with. If we go just one year past the 90s, a game like Deus Ex (2000) can bring slower systems to their knees.

[MotoRacer]

I'm really excited. I just got Death Track Racing in today (complete in box), along with Virtual On.

The wait on this PC is killing me though. Here's to hoping it arrives soon.

[Keatah]

The fast P-IIIs are the best balance between "legacyness" and performance.

[MotoRacer]

The fast P-IIIs are the best balance between "legacyness" and performance.

 

Yeah, I think I'm doing this the right way . For a PC who's sole purpose will be playing PIII games, I think it's wise to have the best PIII processor inside instead of putting next gen chip sets inside, and dealing with legacy woes.

[82-T/A]

 

Yeah, I think I'm doing this the right way . For a PC who's sole purpose will be playing PIII games, I think it's wise to have the best PIII processor inside instead of putting next gen chip sets inside, and dealing with legacy woes.

 

I remember my old P3... most expensive computer I've ever owned. I special ordered it from KayPro when the company came back in name only. I ordered certain options which prevented me from being able to actually get a "Kay Pro" so they ended up sending me a Premio... I was kind of bummed. Awesome computer though...

 

I think it was a P3/733MHz. It had like 512mb of ram, and an AGP graphics card with 64mbs of ram... it was "awesome." I ran Windows 98 SE on it, and later upgraded to Windows 2k.