Any of you have an old comptuer specifically to play classics?

Paco

Paco

CAGiversary!
I'm considering buying an old laptop which is around these specs to play all my older windows and dos games.

Pentium 1 or 2 processor around 150-300 mhz
64-128 mbs of ram
2-10 gb hard drive
Windows 95 or possibly 98SE

These are some of the games I plan to play on them.

Doom
Heretic
Hexen
Duke Nukem 3d
Quake
The Sierra Adventure games

The games just look weird on new laptops if they have widescreen ratios or the 16:10 ratio. Is there anything I should be looking for in specific? I plan to have this loaded on the Autoexec

around 600-610 kbs of memory
EMS enabled
mouse drivers loaded
cd drivers loaded
sound blaster 16 or sound blaster pro with midi settings
Svga and VESA drivers

Ahhh memories.....
 
Those should play fine in DOSBox (you may even be able to find Windows ports of them) and should run in their original aspect ratios though you'll see black bars on the sides. I'm assuming you just want to fill the screen up but don't want the games to look fat?
 
[quote name='AndrewCP']Those should play fine in DOSBox (you may even be able to find Windows ports of them) and should run in their original aspect ratios though you'll see black bars on the sides. I'm assuming you just want to fill the screen up but don't want the games to look fat?[/QUOTE]

Bingo. There's something about playing them on an old computer. Playing them on new computers via dosbox makes the pixels look all chunky, fat, disoriented or even color is off a little bit. Just something that I noticed.

And windows ports of the shooters are enhanced which can look good but kills the feel. Also The Windows ports of the doom games do NOT work. I also tried them on Virtual PC with an emulated Windows 95 and the resolution was too off and it still didn't work properly.

Plus 16:10 for classic games? YUCK. They were meant for like 256:200 res or some other really low things. So that ruins a lot of games being stretched to hell looking fat and so forth.
 
Dosbox is great, but it doesn't play Windows games. And There are a few Windows 95/98/SE games that don't play nice or at all in XP. So I have a Windows 98SE machine to play those few games. I'm lucky that I have the room for a "luxury" like that. The two machines I use are the following for retro Windows games. They both use the same monitor. 22" Mitusbishi Diamond CRT.

1st Machine:
P4 - 3.0 ghz HT
2 gig DDR2 ram
1 - 80 gig HDD
1 - 500 gig HDD
PNY GeForce 7950GT 512 meg DDR3 ram, PCIe slot
Windows XP Pro

2nd Machine:
P2 300 mhz
128 meg ram
1- 8 gig HDD
1 - 20 gig HDD
Diamond 3D (forgot the exact model) 16 meg, AGP slot
Voodoo 2 12 meg, PCI slot
Windows 98SE


Between those two machines, I can play any Windows 9X game. And quite a few dos games on the older rig. Dosbox is installed on my main gaming rig.
 
^ Like everyone else said use Dosbox if you want to play the originals as is.

A great many of those games have be re-made (de-made also) and you can find them on my free and legal PC game list.

I personally have an old 1989 Amiga that still works 100% with over 400+ games (I think I have them all). My daughter plays a few of the games and pretty much uses that machine for typing up homework while her main rig is for more recent PC games and online work.
 
I run Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit... There is not a DOS game that I cannot play.
Dosbox is a great tool as well. Have fun. No need for a bulky machine hanging around.

The worst case scenario, just make another drive partition and install an older version of windows to it.
 
[quote name='Ringmuscle']

The worst case scenario, just make another drive partition and install an older version of windows to it.[/QUOTE]

this seems like a much easier solution. why not partition 20-40 gigs and throw windows 9X on there.
 
[quote name='RAMSTORIA']this seems like a much easier solution. why not partition 20-40 gigs and throw windows 9X on there.[/QUOTE]

Cause newer hardware just doesn't always jive right with that old software. There are games that play like they have the fast forward button held down due to multicore processors and you need to tell the game each time you play it to only use one core. Simple compatibility issues with hardware as well.

I have an old 98se box I use for a lot of my old games and it works flawless. You can pick up an old system like that for dirt cheap nowadays anyways. It isn't something I use often, but sure am glad to have it when I do fire up some very old games.
 
Ehy dont mess with dosbox, thats just a kneejerk response. Its a pain in the ass setting all that crap up and its a clunky inefficient design thats not user friendly to everyone.

I just run emulators for all my stuff and download roms for whatever game I please. Stick the rom file in a specific folder, refresh my list of games in the emulator, click its name and off I go.

Plus with emulators you get controller support and such also instead of like dosbox just makes the game work like it originally. For even my oldest of emulated games I can take my street fighter 4 ps3 fightpad, plug the usb reciever into a usb slot in my pc, go into the options of the emulator, setup up what buttons I want to do what and off I go. Why just last week I was using it to play texas chainsaw massacre on atari 2600, rastan from the old arcade and a D&D game from the commodore 64.

The one and only time dosbox is any good is when your using it to play semi old pc games like say harvester that has multiple cd's and finding roms for it is proving quite difficult.

But with the recent upsurge in www.gog.com having to do that shit no longer will come at a very small price. Since they release there games already made to run in current operating systems perfectly, you get the entire game in a .exe you can backup and reuse as much as you want, there is no drm, they often include manuals/soundtracks/guides and more with the game. Like here you can get duke nukem http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/duke...n/pp/6c1e671f9af5b46d9c1a52067bdf0e53685674f7

Doom/heretic/duke nukem you can find windows installers for these everywhere that allow the game to run fine in newer operating systems. And 99% of them also allow you to increase screen resolution to much much higher rates, add in other special effects and make the games look alot nicer if you want. Like here is a installer for duke nukem http://hrp.duke4.net/download.php or zdoom does the same thing for doom where you can play on a new os with minimal setup and the ability to greatly enchance the graphics http://zdoom.org/News and they have them for heretic/hexen and quake and others.

Far as the sierra games you can very cheaply buy collections of their games and they come presetup to run in new operating systems. You install the disc, put the disc back in the box and never need it again as they are installed in your pc and they come configured for scumm to make them run just fine. I have all 4 sets and they work great. There is a leisure suit larry one with all 5 original games http://www.amazon.com/Leisure-Suit-..._13?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1272982357&sr=8-13 there is a space quest one with all 6 games http://www.amazon.com/Space-Quest-Collection-Pc/dp/B000AYH89M/ref=pd_bxgy_vg_img_b and sierra also put out a police quest and a kings quest set also.

If you ever have questions about games new or old on pc or otherwise shoot me a pm.
 
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no, i use dosbox and other emulators.

so customizable that you can get practically anything to work. i still play master of orien 2 with friends via dosbox across the internet with hamachi.

it doesn't bother me to play in the widowed mode, but if it did, i'd just hook up one of my crt monitors.

plus i've already got 7-8 rigs for other things, i don't need another one taking up space.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']plus i've already got 7-8 rigs for other things, i don't need another one taking up space.[/QUOTE]

Your avatar tagline says it all!
 
[quote name='xycury']Dosbox and Virtualbox, really what more do you need...[/QUOTE]

Depends on your setup for the home.

I have 2 HTPC connected to 2 projectors. One for the living room and another for the kids's room. The games on those machines are arcade-ish and co-op. I got a few emulators with some roms. 4 wireless game pads for ease of gaming.

I have 3 main rigs for gaming/work - 1 for each adult in the house.

2 media servers for photos and family videos.

1 game server strictly for family and friends to play games online.

Now my Amiga was dug up and there are many Amiga games that just don't translate right with emulation. Usually, it's in my workshop sitting there but recently my kid asked about it and so I set it up for her to see it for herself.

Dosbox is GREAT. Can't knock it for free but....it does require some setup (maybe a lot if you are new) that makes it lose a lot of points.

If you are in a dorm or small apartment and don't have the space...DOSBOX and emulators are the best way to go.

If you can get another rig up...do it. It's always good to have backup.
 
[quote name='Megazell']Depends on your setup for the home.

I have 2 HTPC connected to 2 projectors. One for the living room and another for the kids's room. The games on those machines are arcade-ish and co-op. I got a few emulators with some roms. 4 wireless game pads for ease of gaming.

I have 3 main rigs for gaming/work - 1 for each adult in the house.

2 media servers for photos and family videos.

1 game server strictly for family and friends to play games online.

Now my Amiga was dug up and there are many Amiga games that just don't translate right with emulation. Usually, it's in my workshop sitting there but recently my kid asked about it and so I set it up for her to see it for herself.

Dosbox is GREAT. Can't knock it for free but....it does require some setup (maybe a lot if you are new) that makes it lose a lot of points.

If you are in a dorm or small apartment and don't have the space...DOSBOX and emulators are the best way to go.

If you can get another rig up...do it. It's always good to have backup.[/QUOTE]


It sounds like your electricity bill is higher than average...

Anything that can be virtualized/emulated will always trump keeping old ancient hardware around.

Technology is going to outpace the OS and hardware, and it'll be impossible to support, either hardware is incompatible, or impossible to replace if it's broken.

If you got it, go ahead and use it, but virtualization is the future.
 
[quote name='xycury']It sounds like your electricity bill is higher than average...

Anything that can be virtualized/emulated will always trump keeping old ancient hardware around.

Technology is going to outpace the OS and hardware, and it'll be impossible to support, either hardware is incompatible, or impossible to replace if it's broken.

If you got it, go ahead and use it, but virtualization is the future.[/QUOTE]

I generate my own ;)

Agreed.
 
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