Classic PC gaming, should I get a classic PC, use my new one or wait for something like the Hyperkin x86??

[xfrumx]

Considering getting back into classic PC gaming. If I do, I'd like to find a classic monitor, maybe a Commodore for my 64, Vic-20 and TI-99 systems and the old PC. Put a whole classic setup in the corner of my game room.

I want legit copies, cause of course, most of us at D.P. are collectors.

Or should I use my standard PC and DOSBOX?

Or should I wait for the possibly never to be released Hyperkin x86. Supposedly it's going to look like a Vic-20 and upscale like the Hyperkin Retron 5 (which I'm super happy with). I just hope it takes floppy disks/CD Rom.

Mainly I'm looking to play classic games like Monkey Island, Wolfenstein, Mantis, Wing Commander, Day of the Tentacle, Myst, and other games from my childhood.

I'd love to play the original discs is one of my deals though.

[kai123]

I can't seem to find much info on the Hyperkin X86 but I imagine that is only a dosbox machine and you could do it right now with a rasberry pi. You could do it with any computer you own as a matter of fact. I have a classic PC machine I use when am feeling up to it. I wouldn't buy anything Hyperkin is pushing personally because they seem to like using other people's work and not crediting them for it. Dosbox is all you need and you can upscale and apply filters like any emulator. It is actually what a lot of the classic games on GOG use. I personally don't need another emulator for DOS.

PS you can use all of your old discs with dosbox as well.

[Tanooki]

If you're not being shorted by some 16bit windows installer keeping you out of an earlier Win95/98 (pre-SE) title I'd stick with DOSbox+what you have now. There's no reason to waste the time, money and space on another box as DOSBox is insanely powerful and has been shown to even boot up Windows 3.xx and I believe 98se too when properly configured. I've never attempted doing the OS and in OS thing with DOSBox but I've seen pictures.

I went back to PC gaming as the Nintendo stuff turned to crap, also went back into Gameboy stuff and re-entered after a decade(and even then was casual) the Sega Genesis.

I picked up this insane high end gaming laptop and didn't even max out the CPU or ram (1/2 potential) to make it last further. I don't have much for new games, but exploiting GOG.com is a must as they most the time have a proper configuration setup with pre-made installers, pre-setup DOSbox(sometimes fubar), or some other black magic to get things right. Usually when I've bumped into a hosed up dosbox issue, someone on their boards has posted a resolution so it's a non-issue if you can read and follow very basic directions tweaking a .conf(iguration) file.

Most your games but Tentacle are on GOG.com now in that $5-10 range. Lucas/Disney has a contract with them, have added much of their Indiana Jones and Star Wars stuff, but also some other fluff from the SCUMM engine games as well and there's more to come in time. Watch for the Christmas sale, usually when those hit just like their quarterly season sales you see much go up for 60-90% off (higher cut if you eat most/all of the package up.) Wing Commander 1-5(5 being prophecy) I got for like $10 for everything with one of those insane sales. They just had a week ago the fall sale going and I got wolf+spear for I think $5. Doom(ultimate) was $3, DOOM2+Final was $5 and Quake1 was $5 too which was my worst deal at 1/2 off. Black Stone (uses Wolf3D engine) usually $6/ea for both games I picked up for $1.50 a piece. Watch GOG, setup a wishlist, they'll email you anytime something hits a sale.

[Edmond Dantes]

The best solution all around is probably to build a classic gaming rig. Many people conflate "classic" with "DOS" but there's plenty of early windows 3.1/95/98 games that there's no adequate way to run on modern systems, or which are more difficult to run modern. You'd be building convenience.

I built a comp I named Mazinkaiser. Its motherboard is an Epox 8KTA (700mhz AMD Duron, but it can handle Durons up to 1000mhz), 512mb of RAM, and a Soundblaster 16 in the ISA slot (being ISA is important because PCI soundcards will have trouble working in a native DOS environment) and a Voodoo 3. I've switched out the hard drive multiple times. The worst issue you'll have is Win98SE can't defrag or scandisk hard disks over 30gb but I've found ways around that (for example using an adapter to plug it into my laptop's USB slot and defrg it with Windows 7, or dual-boot WinXP on it).

So far its been awesome and has saved me lots of headaches. I tried to run Command and Conquer Gold Edition on my laptop.... wouldn't work even after following all the instructions on various websites and using all sorts of fan-made patches, but on Mazinkaiser its as simple as install then play. (Th freeware download edition may be altered to work on newer comps but its a big download and I have legit physical discs so why would I download it).

And if you need to, you can still run Dosbox on it and get benefits, including more playable game speeds on old RPGs like Ultima.

The only real issue I've had is recording footage but even then, I've found two ways.

[xfrumx]

The best solution all around is probably to build a classic gaming rig. Many people conflate "classic" with "DOS" but there's plenty of early windows 3.1/95/98 games that there's no adequate way to run on modern systems, or which are more difficult to run modern. You'd be building convenience.

I built a comp I named Mazinkaiser. Its motherboard is an Epox 8KTA (700mhz AMD Duron, but it can handle Durons up to 1000mhz), 512mb of RAM, and a Soundblaster 16 in the ISA slot (being ISA is important because PCI soundcards will have trouble working in a native DOS environment) and a Voodoo 3. I've switched out the hard drive multiple times. The worst issue you'll have is Win98SE can't defrag or scandisk hard disks over 30gb but I've found ways around that (for example using an adapter to plug it into my laptop's USB slot and defrg it with Windows 7, or dual-boot WinXP on it).

So far its been awesome and has saved me lots of headaches. I tried to run Command and Conquer Gold Edition on my laptop.... wouldn't work even after following all the instructions on various websites and using all sorts of fan-made patches, but on Mazinkaiser its as simple as install then play. (Th freeware download edition may be altered to work on newer comps but its a big download and I have legit physical discs so why would I download it).

And if you need to, you can still run Dosbox on it and get benefits, including more playable game speeds on old RPGs like Ultima.

The only real issue I've had is recording footage but even then, I've found two ways.

Exactly what I was looking for. Should I try to build something, or find something and add to it? Would you be willing to assist me?

[Edmond Dantes]

Exactly what I was looking for. Should I try to build something, or find something and add to it? Would you be willing to assist me?

I'd probably be a horrible assistant since I tend lately to be offline for days at a time, but if I can help, I will.

I'm not sure, in this context what the difference is between "try to build something, or find something and add to it." If you find a pre-built computer that's already good for classic gaming, great! Building's main advantage IMO is you know exactly what's in your rig. The comp I had before Mazinkaiser gave me issues because I didn't know exactly what motherboard or bios I had and thus could never actually look up the documentation for it, which is something you might conceivably need to do... for example if you're buying RAM for it and need to know what kind of RAM it takes (you can't just stick any old ram stick in there--it has to be within a certain speed range).

Just ask me if there's anything else you're concerned about. If I don't know, then I know people who do. Actually the people over at Vogons might help too-- http://www.vogons.org/ . Though be prepared for a lot of people to say "just use Dosbox."

Although if all/the majority of older PC games you wanna play are DOS games to begin with, then maybe Dosbox is the better option. Like I said I went with building mostly due to classic Windows games that don't work/haven't been patched to work with modern Windows versions. Although according to the review series Ancient DOS Games, there are a few MS-DOS games that don't play nice with Dosbox--Dungeon Keeper being one of them.

EDIT: Also, like the guy above me said, you don't want to go too crazy with getting a classic monitor. Getting a ridiculously old one risks it coming pre-damaged and possibly not supporting the higher display resolutions of your video card (quite irritating to have a game that requires 800x600 then be saddled with a monitor that can't go higher than 640x480!) Also, I personally don't swear by CRTs--my Mazinkaiser has an LCD, though I switched to a CRT for awhile, and noticed SOME differences but not enough to make me prefer one over the other (save for one... the LCD I have sometimes needs to be re-adjusted because the graphics of a game will go off screen or be weirdly positioned. This tends to happen in Native DOS mode a lot and with older titles, and it could easily be due to the monitor and not anything inherent to LCDs).

[RP2A03]

If you do want a CRT then keep an eye out for a late model Trinitron or Diamondtron. They not only do higher resolutions beautifully (my Diamond Pro 2070SB looks good at 1600 x 1200) but they will be razor sharp at 640 x 480. I wouldn't recommend getting a period monitor unless you know what you are doing and are willing to service it.

[CRTGAMER]

Considering getting back into classic PC gaming. If I do, I'd like to find a classic monitor, maybe a Commodore for my 64, Vic-20 and TI-99 systems and the old PC. Put a whole classic setup in the corner of my game room.

I want legit copies, cause of course, most of us at D.P. are collectors.

Or should I use my standard PC and DOSBOX?

Or should I wait for the possibly never to be released Hyperkin x86. Supposedly it's going to look like a Vic-20 and upscale like the Hyperkin Retron 5 (which I'm super happy with). I just hope it takes floppy disks/CD Rom.

Mainly I'm looking to play classic games like Monkey Island, Wolfenstein, Mantis, Wing Commander, Day of the Tentacle, Myst, and other games from my childhood.

I'd love to play the original discs is one of my deals though.

The 8 bit Commodores and TI-99 use a composite/SVideo monitor; even an older PC will require an EGA/VGA monitor. If you want to get a matched vintage monitor for the older PC, just get a VGA CRT on the cheap at the Thrift store.

However, your current PC and the DOS Box will be the more sensible approach. Just not having to deal with setting up various memory configuration boot up sequences of HIMEM, EEM and clean boot configurations matched to different games alone makes DOS Box much more appealing. I know I had an older PC with AUTOEXC.BAT setup with the DOS Choice command to select a bootup sequence depending which game I was going to play. You will need a floppy drive (maybe external USB) if you buy really want io install from original copies of older games such as Wolfenstein.

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewt...978331#p978331

DOSBox is definitely the way to go. I have it running in a Windows 7 64 bit PC. It does not need all the Memory and Sound Bootup Configurations for the different games. DOSBox does like Sound Blaster IRQ 5 better then 7 though and also emulates the Gravis Sound card. I use an older DOS utility called Power Menu to run all the Games and Utilities.

I have my older 486 DX2 PC DOS hard drive installs backed up to multiple CD Roms. A nice thing about DOS games is everything is installed in its own directory; no hidden system files buried in Windows. This makes for an easy transfer into a DOSBox created virtual drive.

All the DOS games with just a tap of the Cursor and Return key. Oooh there is all the Monster Bash levels!



Now here is a very old Utility, I present you XTPro! A very powerful copy, rename, delete, file set utility program. Take a guess of each Directory Name of the various Game and Utility folders. Lets see how many seasoned PC users recognize the disk copy utility.

The M.BAT loads the Power Menu (Autoexec loads when DOS Box first is run) from the C:\ prompt and the L.BAT loads a very handy List utility added to the DOS 6.22 folder. A bit of trivia, DOS has 8 letter word limit; the Commodore 64 and Vic20 has 16 letters allowed. The Windows folder is Windows 3.11 Workgroups!



Emulators DOS versions. Speaking of Arcade Cabs, guess the Windows background in the Screenshot.



The fantastic DOS exclusive Retrocade works perfect in DOSBox!

I noticed the Future Crew stuff, used to keep copies of all their work and just kick back and experience it entirely -- especially Unreal and Second Reality. I hate you really can't run them anymore as they're a fun flash back, just not the same captured on some lame youtube video.

The demos all run fine in DOS Box! The Screenshots I have been capturing on the previous page and below are windowed, they can all be played in full screen. There are many killer DOS games to rediscover!

A DOS hard drive (hope everyone kept theirs) is easy to transfer to CDR discs or direct to new PC. Simply place the IDE drive in an external USB enclosure. Transfer directly to DOS BOX virtual drive directory created in the new PC. A natural choice would be C:\DOS easy to spot for transferring files between the two operating systems.

Future Crew Unreal Demo, Jazz JackRabbit Full CD Install and Tempest 2000 pictured below.