Past-proof PC?

[Raconteur]

As most PC builds discussed here tend to focus on Win 95 or DOS era, I thought it would be best to start (yet another) thread.

I’m curious about building a “past-proof” machine covering games from the late 1990s to 2015; a rig that would be most suitable (nearly flawless) for games released between 1999-2013.

My main questions are:

Can ONE machine cover these 15 years well (1999-2013)? Is it possible?
Would it be enough to go with a late-2016 “budget build” or is there anything unique that a typical 2016 “budget build” will not consider?
What OS would be the best choice here? Would it be optimal to have two operating systems installed? What would they be?
Would new technologies such as SSD compromise older games or actually help them run better (faster loading times, for example)?
Anything else to watch out for? Any and all advice welcome!


To clarify, I’m not looking for the cheapest build possible, or the best bang for the buck, but a build that will run most 1999-2013 games accurately (and to their best potential). Unlike most builds out there on the net, I don't care to future-proof this machine at all. I want to past-proof it.

Thanks for any feedback!

[Raconteur]

Below is a breakdown with some examples:

Primary objective:
-Playing games from 1999-2013 problem-free, on best settings.
From: Age of Empires 2 (1999), Deus Ex (2010), C&C Red Alert 2 (2000), Arcanum (2001)
To: StarCraft II (2010), Deus Ex: HR (2011), Mass Effect 3 (2012), BioShock Infinite (2013)Would be nice to:
-Play games from 2014-2015 with playable frame rates, on ok settings

The Witcher 3 (2015), Fallout 4 (2015)
-Play games from 1996-1998 with few bugs, glitches, problems

Duke Nukem 3D (1996), Age of Empires 1 (1997)

Not required to:
- Open any games released prior to 1996
- Handle any games released in 2016 or later (no future-proofing)

[Tanooki]

Not sure really without digging on hardware but if you want to approach 2013 you'll need something that runs XP with it's final service pack to ensure you can still throw almost any Win9X/DOS level stuff at it along with the modern 2013 releases you'd care to mess with. Once Vista/64bit anything rolled out stuff, even MS's stuff like Age of Empires 2 rolled over and died pretty badly which was annoying along with anything 16bit installer based (original Civ and Sim City for Windows for example.)

Hardware I'd probably try and figure out what the best thing in 2013 you'd want to play at a medium level and work back from there. The faster and beefier you get on hardware the harder time you'll have with the 90s and earlier-mid 00s stuff running right if at all. Like for instance I'd probably look no better at an old quad-core or dual core intel CPU stuff if that, again depending on what you want. Your problem here is you're looking at such a wide range of years you're asking for trouble since there isn't a DOSBox type catch-all for Windows stuff for so many years which GoG.COM heavily relies upon along with working with the old developers or their own coders to bring stuff back to life so it runs right (and maintains it.) You'll be stuck doing that foot work.

If you want to toss something like Witcher 3 in there, you can forget it. The horsepower needed for that game is crazy if you want it to be like back of the box quality or even semi-respectable.

My suggestion perhaps find a cut off point, make two machines but hopefully have the ports (monitor, audio, mouse, keys) interchangeable so you just have to swap between the cases. I haven't dug quite the way you have but I've been beating around the idea of a pre21st century computer since the old stuff isn't so happy on the newer, a win98se centric device so USB isn't out of play. But that's before what you want. You're asking kind of the impossible because on one box you're asking to have 64bit only apps and 32bit and 16bit all run, that's a stretch.

[Raconteur]

My suggestion perhaps find a cut off point, make two machines but hopefully have the ports (monitor, audio, mouse, keys) interchangeable so you just have to swap between the cases.

Thanks for the insightful response. This is exactly why I came here. Given my lack of experience, there are probably many things I haven't considered. I had a hunch, however, that asking for a "1999-2013 machine" might be asking for the impossible.

Given that I took your advice Tanooki, and split this project into two separate machines, how would you proceed? What would the two machines look like, and what years would they cover?

I would really like the machine #2 to go up to at least 2013 and play these games well (on best setting, not medium)

What do you think?

[calthaer]

In my view, your best bet might be to find the most system-intensive system from any given era and build a PC that handles that and everything prior. Crysis was well-known as a resource hog back in 2007; and the requirements were:
OS - Windows XP / Vista
Processor - Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Memory - 2.0 GB RAM
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar

Maybe building something that could handle that might take you from 1996-2007. Even this might have some trouble with some 1996 titles.

Then, from 2008-2013, you could build a modern-day box running Windows 7.

In all of this, your mileage may vary, It really depends on which specific titles you want to run. Find the most finicky game out there and build to that. Even so, I'm not sure you'll be able to entirely avoid DOSBox.

[Tanooki]

Like he spotted you above there, that would be prime material right there for a 20th century computer into the early 21st. Windows 98 and before era had a mixed bag of games that didn't properly speed throttle or were really bitchy and need particular software and hardware API calls that fail on (a few) Xp machines, but definitely will fail on Vista, 7, 8 and 10. Your best bet would be that box for hte older, and the few that still suck, find a speed throttling program for old DOS stuff if you go back that far (or just limit it to GOG.com stuff on either box.) Then for the Witcher3 level (PS4) heavy stuff you need a nice i5 or preferably i7 chipped computer with a very solid within the last 3-4years nvidia card such as the 980 or 970 with 6-8GB of RAM on it and another 16+GB of RAM inside as well.

[Gamevet]

I'd recommend getting a two HDDs for a dual boot system. I did a dual-boot system back in 2010 with a Q9650 and 2 GTX 460s in sli. You have to install Windows XP, before you can install the more modern operating system on the 2nd HDD. I put Windows 7 on my second drive to play more modern games.

Try picking up an i5-2500k on the cheap, with something like a GTX 970, 8 GB of RAM, a 500 Watt PSU and maybe an SSD for some of the more modern games. You can always run Dos-Box, or get older titles from Steam that will run through Dos-Box with everything setup for you. I have an i5-2500k rig in the living room with an EVGA GTX 670 FTW 2GB (pretty much a GTX 680); it runs games like the Witcher 3 just fine on medium to high settings.

[Daltone]

I love a VM myself, is that an option?

[Niku-Sama]

I think you could go either way but in all honesty I would go 2 computers over a dual boot.
your going to run into software and compatibility issues with the old stuff, some of the turn of the century stuff has a problem recognizing a "compatible render device" in a newer computer.

plus with the hassle it would almost be worth it to scavenge really SUPER CHEAP parts for your old school machine and then build a halfway decent modern machine
I think for your old school machine you could probably get away with something with DDR2 and a 1st gen pci express video card. that combo puts it pretty squarely in XP compatible era albeit near the end.

just remember to get a KVM so your not having to swap cables around all of the time

[Gamevet]

I think you could go either way but in all honesty I would go 2 computers over a dual boot.
your going to run into software and compatibility issues with the old stuff, some of the turn of the century stuff has a problem recognizing a "compatible render device" in a newer computer.

plus with the hassle it would almost be worth it to scavenge really SUPER CHEAP parts for your old school machine and then build a halfway decent modern machine
I think for your old school machine you could probably get away with something with DDR2 and a 1st gen pci express video card. that combo puts it pretty squarely in XP compatible era albeit near the end.

just remember to get a KVM so your not having to swap cables around all of the time

Windows 7 will run 99% of all software and peripherals from 1999 on. I was using a USB MS Sidewinder stick with Windows 7 just fine.

The only reason I was suggesting a dual-boot with XP was for that other 1% unknown, and to run an older version of Direct X.

[RP2A03]

I love a VM myself, is that an option?

It is if you can setup GPU pass-through. Just remember that a VM has overhead.

Also, Win9x will run like shit inside a VM.

[Niku-Sama]

Windows 7 will run 99% of all software and peripherals from 1999 on. I was using a USB MS Sidewinder stick with Windows 7 just fine.

The only reason I was suggesting a dual-boot with XP was for that other 1% unknown, and to run an older version of Direct X.

there will come a time soon that windows 7 wont be the one to have and 10 will be whats needed and 10's backwards compatibility blows.

[theclaw]

The occasional random game can be a source of great headache. Shadow of Destiny has a reputation for being completely broken on systems too new.

[Trebuken]

I would build a Windows 10 machine. Then start installing the games you want to play. Many games have patches or workarounds to get them to run on a modern machines, and some just work. Basically decide what games you want and google them to see what the community has created. I have multiple machines myself. I find playing some games with ridiculous frames per second is a little inauthentic.

[Gamevet]

there will come a time soon that windows 7 wont be the one to have and 10 will be whats needed and 10's backwards compatibility blows.

He cut it off at 2015.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of Windows 10; I've installed it on 2 PCs because it was free. I still have 1 PC that I've kept Windows 7 on, because I know it will still support older devices and software that 10 will neglect.

[Tanooki]

Sometimes I second guess why I did it, but then I realize I was coming off Windows 8.1 so it's not like I was making things worse.

[Jorpho]

The occasional random game can be a source of great headache. Shadow of Destiny has a reputation for being completely broken on systems too new.Apparently someone at old-games.ru finally licked that problem.
http://www.old-games.ru/game/download/get.php?fileid=15049&modal=1
http://www.old-games.ru/forum/threads/shadow-of-destiny-vyshla-iz-teni.71801/page-2#post-1321849

[Edmond Dantes]

It is if you can setup GPU pass-through. Just remember that a VM has overhead.

Also, Win9x will run like shit inside a VM.

Yeah, if you plan to use 9x you're better off with legit old hardware.

I've mentioned my Mazinkaiser before. Here's what it has:

Motherboard: Epox-8KTA
Processor: AMD K6-2, 700mhz (tho the mobo could actually handle up to 1ghz)
RAM: 512mb of PC-133mhz (this is something you'll have to be conscious of because there are indeed different kinds of ram and its not all universally compatible, so make sure what kind of memory your mobo takes)
Video card: Voodoo 3 2000 (the Voodoo 3 can handle all three major APIs--Glide, OpenGL, and Direct3D. It's the only one that can do all three).
Sound card: Soundblaster 16, ISA slot version (ISA slot sound cards work natively in DOS, while PCI ones will require extra tinkering. If you don't plan to ever use real DOS then this won't matter).

Game range: Can technically play anything up until late win98 era, so... 2003-ish? Which is a little below what the OP was asking, but from the sounds of it he'll need two computers for the entire range of games he wants anyway.

I myself have never been able to figure out what a good build for an XP computer would be, as apparently even in just XP's time on the market the requirements for games changed radically. That's just what I've heard though, and I've never tried to build one (not enough money).

[Gamevet]

Yeah, if you plan to use 9x you're better off with legit old hardware.

I've mentioned my Mazinkaiser before. Here's what it has:

Motherboard: Epox-8KTA
Processor: AMD K6-2, 700mhz (tho the mobo could actually handle up to 1ghz)
RAM: 512mb of PC-133mhz (this is something you'll have to be conscious of because there are indeed different kinds of ram and its not all universally compatible, so make sure what kind of memory your mobo takes)
Video card: Voodoo 3 2000 (the Voodoo 3 can handle all three major APIs--Glide, OpenGL, and Direct3D. It's the only one that can do all three).
Sound card: Soundblaster 16, ISA slot version (ISA slot sound cards work natively in DOS, while PCI ones will require extra tinkering. If you don't plan to ever use real DOS then this won't matter).

Game range: Can technically play anything up until late win98 era, so... 2003-ish? Which is a little below what the OP was asking, but from the sounds of it he'll need two computers for the entire range of games he wants anyway.

I myself have never been able to figure out what a good build for an XP computer would be, as apparently even in just XP's time on the market the requirements for games changed radically. That's just what I've heard though, and I've never tried to build one (not enough money).

I have an old HP Windows XP computer that I'd bought in 2002. I didn't know about AGP, at the time, so I ended up using PCI based graphics cards like the GeForce 2, Geforce 4 MX440 and finally the FX 5200 Ultra. It has a 2Ghz Celeron CPU and 756 MB of RAM. I believe the HDD is only 250 GB. I was running games like Halo, Doom 3, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: Empire at War and GTA: Vice City. The only game that it really struggled with was Knights of the Old Republic, and it was because of how badly that game ran, that I bought an Xbox in 2003.

[Guntz]

You don't have to use desktop PC hardware, there are a lot of really great laptops from the early 2000s, many of which can support Windows 9x with just a little driver elbow grease.

Generally speaking, you can't go wrong with most Dell models as they usually have Intel chipsets that are supported by Windows 9x. Try to look for a Latitude or Inspiron with a Pentium III, Pentium 4 or Pentium M. The Dell Latitude D600 in particular is excellent, usually has an ATi Radeon 7500 or 9000 video chipset and are very inexpensive. With some Dell laptops, you may luck out and find one with an Nvidia chipset.

2nd place would be IBM, but that's mainly because a lot of Thinkpads use Intel integrated graphics. That said, if the Thinkpad was made before the Lenovo sale in 2006, there's pretty good odds it will at least have an ATi chipset. I have a Thinkpad T42 which has a Radeon 7500 chipset, it works fantastically.

I do not recommend anything by HP or Compaq, mainly because most use AMD chipsets which are poorly supported by Win9x. That and at least in the middle 2000s, HP made a lot of poorly built laptops, mostly dying from overheating and melting solder all over the board. I haven't had much experience with Toshiba to really recommend them.

Don't be discouraged by a bit of driver hunting, often times you'll be able to find Win9x drivers right at the manufacturer's website, Dell still has pages for their early 2000s laptops, for example. Even if that's not the case, there have been efforts by fans to compile driver packs. I have previously put together driver packs for the Dell D600 and Thinkpad T42 over at VOGONS.org.

By the way, if you are at all interested in using contemporary PC hardware for older games, you need to sign up at VOGONS.org, it's a great resource.

[Edmond Dantes]

Using a Laptop for Win9x gaming? No. Screw that. I did that before, it turned out to be a costly mistake.

The problem with it is that one benefit of Win9x is the very fact that it has native DOS support, but that's all moot if the built-in sound and video (sound is more likely to be an issue here) isn't something that the game recognizes--whcih its very likely to be something not Sound Blaster compatible. This was precisely the problem I ran into, and it even affected things like the Windows port of Doom, so its not limited to just DOS games.

Frankly this is something that makes me think laptops would be bad for WinXP gaming as well--you have no control over what hardware is in a laptop. Besides which, do you really want to play your FPS games with a trackpad for the mouse? If you want to game and have everything be optimal, you need a desktop.

[Guntz]

It's not easy, but it's no harder than getting serious into obscure home consoles.

Regardless of laptop you buy, if it has Win9x driver support, it will for sure have General MIDI support, that accounts for a decent portion of newer DOS games. Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem 3D and many other games will all work even if your computer has no proper Soundblaster-16 support.

Like I said, if you stick to machines old enough to have a P3, P4 or PM, it will work very well for most Win9x gaming. There do exist laptops with Soundblaster support, but they're hard to find. Believe it or not, similarly to how it's satisfying to custom build an older PC, it's satisfying to track down a laptop model with everything you want. It's kind of like shopping for a vintage car, it's all part of the hunt.

I've heard many people complain that keeping an old desktop isn't practical due to space requirements. That's what a laptop is for.

[Gamevet]

Guys, he's not looking for a PC to run old DOS games. He's looking for a PC that will pretty much run games from Windows 98 to Windows in 2015.



As most PC builds discussed here tend to focus on Win 95 or DOS era, I thought it would be best to start (yet another) thread.

I’m curious about building a “past-proof” machine covering games from the late 1990s to 2015; a rig that would be most suitable (nearly flawless) for games released between 1999-2013.

My main questions are:
[LIST]
Can ONE machine cover these 15 years well (1999-2013)? Is it possible?


To clarify, I’m not looking for the cheapest build possible, or the best bang for the buck, but a build that will run most 1999-2013 games accurately (and to their best potential). Unlike most builds out there on the net, I don't care to future-proof this machine at all. I want to past-proof it.

Thanks for any feedback!

[Edmond Dantes]

I think part of the problem though is that its looking like he'll need two computers, and one will have the potential to cover the earlier era anyway so he might as well go for it.

I remember asking something similar on Vogons and that's pretty much what they told me.

Here's that topic: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=41593

It might help him, but essentially what I remember is that you'll need an XP machine for games from 199-2007-ish and then everything past that will need a second machine.

[Guntz]

Guys, he's not looking for a PC to run old DOS games. He's looking for a PC that will pretty much run games from Windows 98 to Windows in 2015.

That's not really possible. If you have a 2015 PC running Windows 10 and capable of running Steam which is a massive resource hog, you're going to have a very difficult time running anything from 10 years ago and older. Sure, some popular games can still work on Windows 10, but many more had trouble even with Vista and 7, those games usually don't work on 10 because it has even less legacy support.

The problem stems from whether the game in question once relied upon Windows 9x, which was only ever partially supported in Windows NT over the years. Windows 2000 was pathetic, XP was vastly improved but still not a complete replacement. Vista, 7 and onward kept reducing 9x support. The problem got worse when 16-bit EXE support was dropped thanks to the move to 64-bit. Even some (supposedly) 32-bit 9x games don't work properly anymore.

DOS is very easy thanks to DOS box. Win9x is a bitch and a half by comparison. Your choices consist of legacy support built into Windows 10 (which isn't very good), a Virtual Machine running XP or Windows 98SE/ME (requires an obscenely powerful PC, to the point of just being a waste of money and hardware) and lastly an older physical PC (I highly recommend this).

Yes, not everyone likes older technology ruining their modern lives, but if you want to play Win9x games, you'll have a tough time getting them to work on PCs from this decade.

In case anyone doesn't know, Win9x and NT are not the same thing, at all. Win9x is built on top of MS-DOS and consists of the Win32 API, the 16-bit subsystem and the MS-DOS Manager. It is essentially a heavily modified front end for DOS, think of it as the Genesis and 32X. Windows NT is a completely unrelated OS that has no subsystems or underlying DOS-like architecture, its Win32 API is also entirely different. One complaint I often hear from Win9x fans is WinNT has no emergency backdoor for fixing the OS, due to the lack of DOS.

I'm seriously tempted to list one of my Dell Latitude D600s fully loaded with drivers, games and all that good stuff, just to prove that retro PC gaming can be a thing too.

[Gamevet]

He doesn't need Windows 10 Guntz. Windows 8.1 would do.


I think part of the problem though is that its looking like he'll need two computers, and one will have the potential to cover the earlier era anyway so he might as well go for it.

I remember asking something similar on Vogons and that's pretty much what they told me.

Here's that topic: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=41593

It might help him, but essentially what I remember is that you'll need an XP machine for games from 199-2007-ish and then everything past that will need a second machine.


That'a why I suggested a dual-boot system. I did that with a Q9650 and a couple of GTX 460s in Sli back in 2010. I would run older stuff like the original StarCraft (DX8)with the Windows XP side, and games like Crysis 2 on the Windows 7 side with DX11.

[Guntz]

If he wants his computer to have any future-proofing, he'll want to use Windows 10. But yes, 8.1 will also work.

Your dual boot suggestion has a fatal flaw, in the form of UEFI and GPT. These are modern replacements for BIOS and MBR, respectively. If you see the term "Secure Boot" in your PC's "BIOS" settings, then you have a UEFI-equipped PC. It's being marketed under the pretense of being more secure, all that's really happening is soon you will have no choice but to use Windows 10 (or 8.1 for a limited time). You won't get older Windows or Linux due to Secure Boot. Even if you disable Secure Boot (which may not be possible in the future), you will still have to deal with the headache that is GPT. Windows 7 supports it, but GPT is difficult to work with. Windows XP has no support for GPT.

If you want to avoid UEFI and GPT, you will have to use older, "outdated" hardware. If you want the latest and greatest, you are again restricted to Windows 10's legacy support, a Virtual Machine program or a 2nd older physical PC, much like how we all keep original consoles.

[Gamevet]

He didn't ask for future proof. He cuts it off at last year.

I also ran that dual boot with an Asus p8-z68 Pro board with a 2500K in 2012. Honestly, he really doesn't need Windows XP. He can run 2 Windows 7/8.1 partitions, with one using the older versions of DX for compatibilty for those late 90s and early 2000 titles, and the other operating system with the more up to date DX drivers.

[Guntz]

Actually, his cut-off is 2013.

The way I see it, being a fan of vintage hardware and software, playing Windows 9x games on WinNT should be considered the same as backwards compatibility on home consoles. For example, the PS2 can play a lot of PS1 games, but not all. I think the Salamander Deluxe Pack doesn't work on the PS2, there's also a Colin McCrae Rally game that isn't PS2 compatible.

Why do I say this? Because Win9x and WinNT aren't the same thing. It's why WinNT doesn't have perfect legacy support. It's good, but not complete. In the context of playing late 90s Windows games, setting up a PC with Win98SE or ME should be perfectly acceptable and not be stigmatized. It's pretty much the same thing as setting up a PC for pure MS-DOS.

[Gamevet]

He bumped it up to 2015 in post #2.

http://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?175290-Past-proof-PC&p=2041945&viewfull=1#post2041945

I wouldn't run those old low-Rez 2D games on an LCD. They look really bad on a 1080p display.



Alright. I've read up on GPT. It's not a big deal, if you backup your boot drive. I don't even care about it myself, because I don't partition my drives anymore. My main rig has 3 SSDs and an HDD and my secondary rig has 1 SSD (boot) and 2 HDDs for storage. I didn't even partition the drives (windows will automatically allocate a partition for recovery) to do the dual-boot system back then. I used two 500 GB HDDs with one being the XP side and the other being the Windows 7 side.

http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

[Edmond Dantes]

That'a why I suggested a dual-boot system. I did that with a Q9650 and a couple of GTX 460s in Sli back in 2010. I would run older stuff like the original StarCraft (DX8)with the Windows XP side, and games like Crysis 2 on the Windows 7 side with DX11.

There's still a potential hiccup with that though: the hardware.

Let's say you have a very advanced video card that handles Crysis 2 like a champ.... but then, oops, the Windows XP partition doesn't recognize it. Or perhaps the actual games don't.

Then again the idea mentioned elsewhere of just having two Win7 boot partitions might work.

Still, if I were the OP I would instead build an XP machine for games from 1999-2006 then worry about later games.... well... later.

[Gamevet]

There's still a potential hiccup with that though: the hardware.

Let's say you have a very advanced video card that handles Crysis 2 like a champ.... but then, oops, the Windows XP partition doesn't recognize it. Or perhaps the actual games don't.

Then again the idea mentioned elsewhere of just having two Win7 boot partitions might work.

Still, if I were the OP I would instead build an XP machine for games from 1999-2006 then worry about later games.... well... later.

It's as easy as swapping out your video card. It's still much better than having 2 PCs vying for you desk space. I do know this though; I could remove my GTX 780 Classified from my main rig, and throw in my old GTS 250, and it would work fine with Nvidia's drivers.

I don't think that having a modern graphics card, or sound card, would be a problem though. Origin hands out free old games all the time that are running through DOS Box. They've ran fine so far, though I think some of that old stuff wound be better on a crt. The problems I've had with running older games usually had to do with Direct X not supporting some of the features of older DX titles, and that is where having a secondary operating system with older drivers works out better.

I do have an old PCI NVidia FX-5200 Ultra I could throw in my 2009 HP Pavilion PC (Windows 7), to see if it would actually work with NVidia's modern drivers. The Intel onboard graphics could pretty much run anything from before 2000 quite easily though.

[Edmond Dantes]

It's as easy as swapping out your video card.

Which requires disabling your card's drivers so they won't conflict, then opening your computer up, removing screws, putting the new card in, re-inserting the screws (including the screws for the computer case itself unless you leave it open), and installing the drivers for the new card, and then doing final tweaks to make sure they don't conflict with anything and are working perfectly.

Well actually, maybe nowadays the experience is more streamlined, but this is how I always remembered it working and its one reason I prefer building PCs with a specific intent rather than having them be modular.

[Gamevet]

Which requires disabling your card's drivers so they won't conflict, then opening your computer up, removing screws, putting the new card in, re-inserting the screws (including the screws for the computer case itself unless you leave it open), and installing the drivers for the new card, and then doing final tweaks to make sure they don't conflict with anything and are working perfectly.

Well actually, maybe nowadays the experience is more streamlined, but this is how I always remembered it working and its one reason I prefer building PCs with a specific intent rather than having them be modular.

You don't have to disable your video drivers, if you are using the older card on the XP side. The XP side will have the drivers for the old card, while the Windows 7/8.1/10 side will have the drivers for the modern card. Windows will use it default drivers the 1st time you install the card, so it's just a matter of installing the drivers for that 1st time. I believe that any game made after 1998 will run fine on the most modern PC, it's just that those older titles don't behave right with Direct X 11, and that is where a secondary operating system with an older version of DX is necessary.

[Guntz]

and throw in my old GTS 250

OLD? The GTS 250 isn't that old! I have one and it's still pretty damn advanced even for today's computing. Then again, I despise Steam, so that alone makes even modest video cards usable.

I got a Thinkpad X40 I will be putting Windows ME on. It will likely have nearly the same hardware as the T42 and similar Pentium M Thinkpads. The only downside is the X40 seems to only ship with Intel Extreme Graphics 2. Yeah, it's not a great video chipset by any stretch, but it should work for my late 90s / early 2000s purposes just fine. Besides, even a 1.2GHz Pentium M is still pretty fast for Win9x. The main draw here is a 12" Win9x laptop.

Although yes one could put WinXP on any decent Pentium M machine, I find it a waste of Win9x support which is hard to find in laptops. Usually, if you find a machine with a Pentium M (and therefore an Intel 845 or 855 mobo chipset), odds are good it'll have either an Intel, Nvidia or ATi video chipset with Win9x drivers. IBM often used SoundMAX for their Thinkpads, which has Win9x support. Dell usually has Sigmatel audio, again it works with Win9x. The only tricky part of any recent laptop and Win9x is getting Ethernet/Wi-Fi drivers. They are hard to find, but do exist.

[Gamevet]

OLD? The GTS 250 isn't that old! I have one and it's still pretty damn advanced even for today's computing. Then again, I despise Steam, so that alone makes even modest video cards usable.

It's pretty much a 9800 GTX+ and both are based around the 8800 GTS. It's 8 years old now, and the 8800 GTS is even older. The card struggled to run the original Crysis on high settings and I'm pretty sure that it would have a hard time running the likes of Crysis 3 on low settings @ 720p.




I got a Thinkpad X40 I will be putting Windows ME on. It will likely have nearly the same hardware as the T42 and similar Pentium M Thinkpads. The only downside is the X40 seems to only ship with Intel Extreme Graphics 2. Yeah, it's not a great video chipset by any stretch, but it should work for my late 90s / early 2000s purposes just fine. Besides, even a 1.2GHz Pentium M is still pretty fast for Win9x. The main draw here is a 12" Win9x laptop.

Although yes one could put WinXP on any decent Pentium M machine, I find it a waste of Win9x support which is hard to find in laptops. Usually, if you find a machine with a Pentium M (and therefore an Intel 845 or 855 mobo chipset), odds are good it'll have either an Intel, Nvidia or ATi video chipset with Win9x drivers. IBM often used SoundMAX for their Thinkpads, which has Win9x support. Dell usually has Sigmatel audio, again it works with Win9x. The only tricky part of any recent laptop and Win9x is getting Ethernet/Wi-Fi drivers. They are hard to find, but do exist.

I have an old Dell laptop with Windows XP Pro that I had used to play the original StarCraft while I was on the road. It has a Celeron M and @ 2 GB of RAM. There is one old game that didn't run well on my Core2Quad rig, or the modern rigs that I own, and that title is Atari Anniversary Edition. It may work if I use core affinity, but I think I ran into issues when trying to do so. A single core laptop would probably be better suited for that kind of game.

[Guntz]

I have an old Dell laptop with Windows XP Pro that I had used to play the original StarCraft while I was on the road. It has a Celeron M and @ 2 GB of RAM. There is one old game that didn't run well on my Core2Quad rig, or the modern rigs that I own, and that title is Atari Anniversary Edition. It may work if I use core affinity, but I think I ran into issues when trying to do so. A single core laptop would probably be better suited for that kind of game.

Celeron anything is a cost reduced version of a comparable Pentium chip. I've had a few Celeron-type machines, but they're really bottom of the barrel in terms of functionality. It's not so bad if you can use a lightwieght OS like Windows 2000 or some variety of 9x, but some Celeron machines don't have driver support for older OSes, so their usefulness is compromised.

[Gamevet]

Celeron anything is a cost reduced version of a comparable Pentium chip. I've had a few Celeron-type machines, but they're really bottom of the barrel in terms of functionality. It's not so bad if you can use a lightwieght OS like Windows 2000 or some variety of 9x, but some Celeron machines don't have driver support for older OSes, so their usefulness is compromised.


I have an old HP computer that has a 2 Ghz Celeron. It was the Northwood-128 based on the Northwood Pentium 4. The only difference between the 2 chips was that the 256k of L2 cache from the P4 was reduced to 128k on the Celeron. It had all of the other features of the P4 chip though.

[Guntz]

The L2 cache (along with L1) is pretty critical to any x86 CPU. Try disabling them sometime, the CPU will be utterly crippled.

[Gamevet]

The L2 cache (along with L1) is pretty critical to any x86 CPU. Try disabling them sometime, the CPU will be utterly crippled.

I'm well aware of that. My i5-2500k only has 6MB of L3 catch, compared to the i7-2600k's 8 MB. My Q9650 has 12MB of L2 catch compared to the Q6600's 8MB and will perform better than the Q6600 at the same clock speed, but the Q6600 was still no slouch.

That Celeron I have performs somewhere between a P3 and a P4. There were older Pentium 4s that had as little L2 catch as that Celeron. It was good enough to run the likes of Halo and Star Wars: Empire at War with an FX5200 Ultra. It wasn't a gimped as a lot of those Celerons were, especially the laptop versions, but the laptop Pentium M was gimped as well.

[Niku-Sama]

Did i see stone one suggest installing windows me for legacy support?

Why would some one do this?

[Guntz]

I'm well aware of that. My i5-2500k only has 6MB of L3 catch, compared to the i7-2600k's 8 MB. My Q9650 has 12MB of L2 catch compared to the Q6600's 8MB and will perform better than the Q6600 at the same clock speed, but the Q6600 was still no slouch.

That Celeron I have performs somewhere between a P3 and a P4. There were older Pentium 4s that had as little L2 catch as that Celeron. It was good enough to run the likes of Halo and Star Wars: Empire at War with an FX5200 Ultra. It wasn't a gimped as a lot of those Celerons were, especially the laptop versions, but the laptop Pentium M was gimped as well.

Some Celeron-brand CPUs are definitely usable, they just tend to be pointless when better CPUs for any given socket are easy enough to get.

The Pentium M is hardly gimped, it's based on the Pentium III and is therefore a good CPU. Obviously, it's not as good as a C2D or other newer CPUs, but if you want to use something older than Windows XP, you're at the mercy of that all important driver support. C2D systems (laptops in particular) rarely have full Win9x support.


Did i see stone one suggest installing windows me for legacy support?

Why would some one do this?

Because Windows ME (OEM version) is good?

For years I bought into the Windows ME urban legend too, but then I actually tried it. I downloaded an OEM install disc, installed it on a few different systems and found it to be an excellent OS. It boots faster than Windows 98 SE, it has more built-in drivers, it has USB mass storage support built in, it has a faster and more refined Win32 layer and still has the 16-bit subsystem and MS-DOS manager for legacy support. I highly recommend Windows ME for systems too new for good DOS support, but too old for Windows XP. As in, anything with a Pentium M, or even a good Pentium III / 4 system.

All that Windows ME really lacks is Real Mode DOS, which over the years I found to be not very useful due to a lack of drivers in pure DOS when you are depending on WDM drivers for your system. After using Windows ME for almost a year, I can conclude the common complaint "Windows ME has trouble starting, running programs and shutting down" is a complete lie. Windows ME is no more unstable than Windows 98 SE, in fact I'd say it's better. If Windows ME is unstable on your system, so will Windows 98 SE, which means you need a different system. Windows ME works beautifully on intel chipsets, it helps if you download the right chipset driver from Intel's site.

I grabbed Windows ME from here. Be sure to get the OEM Full version, I've tried the retail disc and for some bizarre reason, you can't boot it from the BIOS.

https://winworldpc.com/product/windows-me

[RP2A03]

While I do agree that WinME gets a lot of undeserved hate, it should be noted that at least some older Maxis games such as SimTower and SimCity 2000 have a memory leak when running in WinME, but not Win95 or Win98. If I am remembering correctly this also affected SimEarth, SimLife, and I think (maybe) SimCopter.

[Gamevet]

Some Celeron-brand CPUs are definitely usable, they just tend to be pointless when better CPUs for any given socket are easy enough to get.

The Pentium M is hardly gimped, it's based on the Pentium III and is therefore a good CPU. Obviously, it's not as good as a C2D or other newer CPUs, but if you want to use something older than Windows XP, you're at the mercy of that all important driver support. C2D systems (laptops in particular) rarely have full Win9x support.



Here's where things don't make sense though. You will be graphics bound with that laptop, before you are ever CPU bound. And for the record, I just dusted off my old Dell Latitude D610; it has the 1.73 Ghz Pentium M with 1 GB of system memory. It has Windows XP Pro and the games I played on it were the original StarCraft, Railroad Tycoon 3 and the original Fallout. I've also used it for MAME, ZSNES and K-Fusion. There's no way that thing is running anything 3D from early 2000s. I do have an IBM Thinkpad T60 that I refurbished and gave to my wife several years ago. I've never tried gaming on that Centrino Duo based laptop.

The only reason I have that old HP Pavilion with a 2 Ghz Celeron is because it was only @ $400 in 2002. Like the laptop, it was graphics bound before I ever got close to overwhelming the CPU. Unlike the laptop, I was able to upgrade the GPU over the years from a Geforce 2 (64MB) to a Geforce 4 MX440(64Mbb) to an Geforce FX5200 Ultra (256MB). It ran Halo, Half-Life, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Elder Scrolls 3: Marrowind, Doom 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City. The Intel integrated graphics (64MB) ran 3D games like crap.

[Guntz]

While I do agree that WinME gets a lot of undeserved hate, it should be noted that at least some older Maxis games such as SimTower and SimCity 2000 have a memory leak when running in WinME, but not Win95 or Win98. If I am remembering correctly this also affected SimEarth, SimLife, and I think (maybe) SimCopter.

Hmm, yeah I have noticed that occasionally with Windows ME, but it's only worse if you have more than 512MB RAM, not that any version of Win9x has ever needed that much RAM.


Here's where things don't make sense though. You will be graphics bound with that laptop, before you are ever CPU bound. And for the record, I just dusted off my old Dell Latitude D610; it has the 1.73 Ghz Pentium M with 1 GB of system memory. It has Windows XP Pro and the games I played on it were the original StarCraft, Railroad Tycoon 3 and the original Fallout. I've also used it for MAME, ZSNES and K-Fusion. There's no way that thing is running anything 3D from early 2000s. I do have an IBM Thinkpad T60 that I refurbished and gave to my wife several years ago. I've never tried gaming on that Centrino Duo based laptop.

The only reason I have that old HP Pavilion with a 2 Ghz Celeron is because it was only @ $400 in 2002. Like the laptop, it was graphics bound before I ever got close to overwhelming the CPU. Unlike the laptop, I was able to upgrade the GPU over the years from a Geforce 2 (64MB) to a Geforce 4 MX440(64Mbb) to an Geforce FX5200 Ultra (256MB). It ran Halo, Half-Life, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars: Jedi Knight, Sins of a Solar Empire, The Elder Scrolls 3: Marrowind, Doom 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City. The Intel integrated graphics (64MB) ran 3D games like crap.

I don't play graphically intensive games. The closest to that would be Serious Sam First/Second Encounter and Jedi Knight II. I'm happy if a computer can run Age of Empires 1. I am a very low-power kind of user. A new 2016 PC in my hands would be wasted.

I buy older laptops to exercise nerdy activities like proving Windows 9x can be installed on them, seeing what they are capable of and on occasion, dedicated use. I think a WinME netbook would be really sweet. Every now and then I also get laptops with exotic features, such as a Dell Latitude D600 with a 15" 1920 x 1200 monitor. This is a Pentium M system btw, with an Nvidia GeForce 4200 chipset. As expected, it's not really designed to do HD games, but the high resolution is great for things like internet and light photoshop work.

Why laptops? Because desktops take up a lot of space, which I don't have. It is also ends up being costly to obtain desktop parts online, which is my only option. Laptops are far cheaper comparatively speaking, are portable and don't take up much space. My favorite part is the "luck of the draw" aspect. Because laptops often had multiple hardware configurations, not to mention so many makes and models exist, it's exciting to hunt down a laptop with everything you are looking for.

[Trebuken]

If you have certain games in mind check and see if they have fan or official patches for Windows 7+. There are more than you could imagine. I would go with the two machine option. i5 or i7 with 970gtx if in the budget will play just about everything maxed at 1920x1080. I would go with Windows 10. I think almost everything from 2007 (vista) will work, and some older stuff randomly works. Core2Duo with XP for the second machine. Should run most other stuff. May even make a boot disk for DOS gaming, but DosBox will work on either machine. I have not tried a VM in awhile but it was too much hassle and graphic cards were not supported well enough.


If a game does not run, search the web - someone may have found/created a solution.

[Tanooki]

Actually I'd avoid Windows 10. It has some compatibility problems between the switch up from 7/8.1 to it. I had some stuff that 10 would just laugh at and blue bar over and throw the wall up over that 8.1 was happy and fine with. I get loathing on the 8/8.1 interface as off tablet/phone it's awful, but that's what "Classic Shell" is for so you can re-skin the whole OS to be like 7 or even XP if you desire.

[Niku-Sama]

I've never run into any old software problems on 10

[Tanooki]

I ran into a few, but it was stuff that already was a little bit touchy about win7/8 and they just wouldn't load up at all in 10. It's older stuff though, which seemed to apply here being a past proof PC. I'm talking 90s stuff like Sim City 2000 for windows for example.

[Guntz]

In case anyone cares to know, I tried WinME on the Thinkpad X40 and the Intel Graphics driver couldn't properly allocate system memory for video use, so I've gone with good old Windows XP instead, works very well as expected.

[Gamevet]

I've never run into any old software problems on 10

My capture device doesn't work with Windows 10. Luckily, I kept Windows 7 on my C2Q rig.



In case anyone cares to know, I tried WinME on the Thinkpad X40 and the Intel Graphics driver couldn't properly allocate system memory for video use, so I've gone with good old Windows XP instead, works very well as expected.

You can't go wrong with Windows XP for older hardware and software. It's the perfect operating system for a dual-boot setup.

[Guntz]

Yes, XP SP2 is fantastic, but not on every system. You shouldn't use Windows XP on anything less than a Pentium M (overclocked P3) or a Pentium D (dual core P4). It's just too heavy on original Pentium 3 and 4 CPUs.

XP Service Pack 3 is an entirely different beast, the extra 4 years of updates over SP2 makes it even slower on legacy systems. Don't use it on anything less than a Core 2 Duo.

The only other downside to XP is its Win9x support isn't perfect. Sometimes it's nice to install Windows ME and get full access to Win9x, Win3.1 and MS-DOS support legitimately. Though if you can only pick one OS for your Pentium M laptop or low end C2D desktop, XP is an excellent choice.

One other bit of wisdom. If you have an older PC running WinNT of some variety, ALWAYS max out the RAM. It's so cheap now. Insufficient RAM was a common factor is sluggishness back in the day. If using Win9x of some variety, don't go more than 768MB RAM unless you have that rare RAM patch for Win98SE.