Epic Pinball is mod music so it would be unbothered by midi. But why SBPro, not SB16? Or Awe32, unless it doesn't do FM at all.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
PC DOS/Win9x Gaming |OT| For IBM PC and Tandy compatibles.
- Thread starter Inugami
- Start date
OP
OP
AWE32 is overkill. I wouldn't be against SB16, I just grew up with the Pro, so it's my first thought when I think of soundcards from that era.
Ah, ok. SBPro is only 8 channels though, I imagine some later games might suffer. Good on you for your hobby though. I've been up and down about creating a retro rig, but can't really commit to specific specs. That and DOSBox has shown itself ridiculously competent for a pre-1.0 emu.
SBPro 2.0 has the expanded channel set. I have one (or a clone thereof) on the old laptop I have. It's good.
Took a small hiatus from old school PC stuff, but feeling in the mood again. Still not content with my nostalgia laptop, though it's doing well enough. That said, this newest piece of hardware isn't TECHNICALLY computer related... but I found this at a goodwill and I knew I had to get it.
This was clearly designed to sit on top of an old horizontal layout PC, BUT underneath the monitor. Besides being a surge protector, the entire thing is on a rotating base, meaning you could spin around your PC monitor around on it!
Despite the $5.99 goodwill sticker on it, I guess I came in on one of their purple tag sales, and snagged it for about $3. Not sure I'd trust this 30 year old beast to actually work purely as a surge protector, but it still works great as an electric switch box.
That said, my nostalgia laptop (seen below it) doesn't match the color, nor does my early 00's 5:4 LCD monitor I have on top of it... which is only furthering my intense desire to find and build an actual pentium 1 or 2 era desktop for all my 9X era desires.
Besides aesthetics, I really want to get a system setup with a SB Pro 2.0, because this laptop's Crystal Audio is just not doing it for me the more I hear it. It doesn't do too awful for Win9x games, but it's clear it's just emulating the OPL chip in dos titles and it really ruins a lot of old games (Tyrian 2000 especially, somehow Epic Pinball fairs a lot better, but still not perfect).
I still use a power switch like this, they're great. I love having control of all the desktop stuff's power without having to go behind or under the desk to a a power strip, they were also sturdy as hell because they were made to sit under enormous CRT monitors. It's a shame they aren't a product anymore and the only ones you can find are the old ones, because I still find them really useful. I had two from back in the day and a few years ago one finally died protecting my PC from a massive surge and blew, so now I use the other one.
I just finished Thunderhawk 2, DOS chopper shooter that was also released on PS1 and Saturn, and sequel to one of the Mega CD's best games.
It was a'ight. Great soundtrack.
It was a'ight. Great soundtrack.
OP
OP
Every time I think about collecting big boxes, I remember that I didn't even manage to keep my (relatively) compact collection of 90's Nintendo power. They aren't called Big Boxes for no reason. Still have my CE's of WoW and it's expansions which are about as much as I can really hold onto.
OP
OP
So... I went from wanting a grey box in the pentium 2 range, to actually picking up a very cheap pentium 4 box that I'm going to make an ungodly win98 box. At 2.8ghz and 1.5GB of ram, it's beyond overkill. I already know I'm going to need to edit the system.ini to deal with the abundance of ram. It's a dell dimension, which means it contains neither PCI-E or AGP so that will limit 3D gaming somewhat... but honestly, not too much for what I plan for it.
That said, I really wish I had a CD burner, cause the thing doesn't have an FDD (which I plan on adding later) and trying to figure out how to USB install windows 98 on it has been hell. Making progress! Currently in the installer and 30% done.
I do know I'll have to work on the board, it has a bulging capacitor. Thankfully, it only looks like one (though I'll double check in the power supply when I take it a part just to be sure). I got it for next to nothing, so if it blows/dies while I'm installing windows 98 I'm not too concerned.
That said, I really wish I had a CD burner, cause the thing doesn't have an FDD (which I plan on adding later) and trying to figure out how to USB install windows 98 on it has been hell. Making progress! Currently in the installer and 30% done.
I do know I'll have to work on the board, it has a bulging capacitor. Thankfully, it only looks like one (though I'll double check in the power supply when I take it a part just to be sure). I got it for next to nothing, so if it blows/dies while I'm installing windows 98 I'm not too concerned.
anyone interested in handing out games from this time period? Does this go through giftbot or rafflebot for something? I want to give an original copy of Myst away to anyone that might want to play the reason that cd roms and svga graphics cards were so hot back in the mid 90s.
OP
OP
I've had to step back a bit on buying new stuff since the pandemic... I have a half finished arcade cabinet as well which is a big shame.
That said, I know the parts for my perfect retro computer seem to be getting more and more scarce... afraid a lot of parts have fallen to recycling or worse, landfills. Not that there aren't still parts out there, but they are getting rarer and more pricey by the day... and the easiest solution for an all-in-one system of the era (laptops) are absolutely riddled with compromises (usually sound and graphics) even if you do plant them stationary somewhere with external displays and keyboards.
I'd love to build a monster PC circa 1999, but I'll have to continue to make do with my 1997 laptop for all non-3D games of the era.
That said, I know the parts for my perfect retro computer seem to be getting more and more scarce... afraid a lot of parts have fallen to recycling or worse, landfills. Not that there aren't still parts out there, but they are getting rarer and more pricey by the day... and the easiest solution for an all-in-one system of the era (laptops) are absolutely riddled with compromises (usually sound and graphics) even if you do plant them stationary somewhere with external displays and keyboards.
I'd love to build a monster PC circa 1999, but I'll have to continue to make do with my 1997 laptop for all non-3D games of the era.
This thread really needs some more love.
Anyone else feel that Dosbox can be a severely underrated piece of software? There are so many games being sold on steam and the like, which are bundled with slapdash-to-terrible Dosbox configurations, but you can really make it sing if you know what you are doing, beyond even what would be possible on actual old hardware.
I have generally resigned myself to mostly going the emulation (or tinkering to work natively) route for my old PC gaming needs. I just can't do it, I don't have the space, time and mental capacity for really going into building all the old computers I would actually need. I'm holding out hope for PCem to really make some strides in the future. As is, it can actually be pretty decent for '97 era windows stuff and early 3dfx games.
Sometimes I do play with the thought of building a really beefy (for the time) PIII machine or something like that, but realistically it ain't gonna happen.
Anyone else feel that Dosbox can be a severely underrated piece of software? There are so many games being sold on steam and the like, which are bundled with slapdash-to-terrible Dosbox configurations, but you can really make it sing if you know what you are doing, beyond even what would be possible on actual old hardware.
I have generally resigned myself to mostly going the emulation (or tinkering to work natively) route for my old PC gaming needs. I just can't do it, I don't have the space, time and mental capacity for really going into building all the old computers I would actually need. I'm holding out hope for PCem to really make some strides in the future. As is, it can actually be pretty decent for '97 era windows stuff and early 3dfx games.
Sometimes I do play with the thought of building a really beefy (for the time) PIII machine or something like that, but realistically it ain't gonna happen.
I actually had that exact Compaq Presario starting at my senior year in high school and through at least my freshmen year of college - it went to my dorm room. I think mine only had 8MB of RAM and I can't remember anything else about it because I wasn't really savy at the time and didn't really know much about computers. I'm sure it remained stock through its entire life because I certainly didn't have money to afford PC hardware at the time. I wish it had used a standard ATX board (as opposed to the daughter-board configuration it used) so that if I happen to find it at my parent's house I could reuse the case, since I honestly rather like it for it retro plain look.
I've been getting the itch to build a retro setup for Win95/98/DOS purposes, but am not sure what to actually build. You can't really cover that whole span of time with one build for different reasons, so I think I've settled (if I do it), to do a modest 98se/DOS machine, since I'm content running much older DOS stuff in DOSbox, and later stuff tends to still run fine, it's sort of that middle mid/late-90s to early 2000s games that I grew up with that would be great to play on real vintage hardware again.
I know I still have my old hardware from my first custom PC build at my dad's house. An Abit BH6 440BX motherboard along with two Slot-1 CPUs. One is a Celeron socket 370 in a slotket, and the other I have no idea, but he took a photo of it and I literally don't remember ever having the second CPU, lol. I also think I have a Monster Sound MX300 (I think that's a Aureal Vortex 2 variant) in a box there somewhere along with potentially a Nvidia TNT or TNT 2. I might pick those all up next time I'm there, bring them home and see if it still works (would need to buy a new PSU though and I'm not sure about RAM being there and some kind of smallish case). If the hardware does work I may try to find a Voodoo 3 or 4 or something since I never owned one when I was a younger and would love to play some old games in native glide if I could manage it.
Then again, my friend just gave me a non-working PC he wanted me to wipe the HDD of and discard. It's a Pentium-4 1.5GHz Gateway on a 845 chipset motherboard. It won't boot, though the PSU seems to work, so I suspect the mobo is bad. I bent a pin on the P4 taking it out since it yanked out of the socket without the socket being opened (since the thermal paste was solid as a rock after how ever many years), but was able to bend the pins back so it goes back into the socket fine, so I may also try getting a new 845, 865, or 875 chipset motherboard and seeing if that setup works too. It wouldn't have the same nostalgia factor as my own hardware from my first build though, obviously.
All of this is in service to my 21" Sony Trinitron monitor from back in 1998 that I still have with me, lol.
Last edited:
Well, so much for not going for old hardware. Found this little beast for like 30 bucks:
This is a laptop from early 2004 - Mobile Pentium 4 @ 3.06 Ghz, Geforce FX 5600, 512 MB Ram.
- It's in great shape - it was kept in great condition, keyboard is not gross, insides are immaculate, no buildup on the heatsinks and vents. Still gave it a thorough cleaning obviously, but I'm impressed.
- 4:3 screen - that's honestly a must for me. It's also pretty decent, nice brightness, contrast + colors.
- It's a WinXP machine, obviously, but everything in here does have Windows 9x drivers, so a Windows 98 install is definitely in the cards.
- In that era, Athlons were definitely preferable to Pentiums. But in terms of old Windows gaming I'm mostly interested in games pre circa 2002, so that doesn't really matter for me. Everything I've tested so far has run like a dream.
- It's pretty huge for a 15" laptop. A real chonker this one. This was definitely meant as a desktop replacement, not really made for lugging around. Also the battery is dead, but that's to be expected. That's fine with me though, I don't need portability for this. I'll probably hook this up with an external monitor, mouse + keyboard anyways.
- It's got USB, which makes data transfer pretty painless.
- I will definitely make some modifications, like replacing the hard drive with an SD to IDE adapter. The drive is definitely showing its age at this point. I'll probably store SD card images with clean WinXP + Win98 installs, and swap as needed.
- The one major snag is obviously the lack of glide support. No Voodoo, no Glide, as Bob Marley used to sing. That's definitely an issue with a few 90's games. But alas, can't have everything.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with this one. Probably gonna become my main retro gaming machine for a bit.
This is a laptop from early 2004 - Mobile Pentium 4 @ 3.06 Ghz, Geforce FX 5600, 512 MB Ram.
- It's in great shape - it was kept in great condition, keyboard is not gross, insides are immaculate, no buildup on the heatsinks and vents. Still gave it a thorough cleaning obviously, but I'm impressed.
- 4:3 screen - that's honestly a must for me. It's also pretty decent, nice brightness, contrast + colors.
- It's a WinXP machine, obviously, but everything in here does have Windows 9x drivers, so a Windows 98 install is definitely in the cards.
- In that era, Athlons were definitely preferable to Pentiums. But in terms of old Windows gaming I'm mostly interested in games pre circa 2002, so that doesn't really matter for me. Everything I've tested so far has run like a dream.
- It's pretty huge for a 15" laptop. A real chonker this one. This was definitely meant as a desktop replacement, not really made for lugging around. Also the battery is dead, but that's to be expected. That's fine with me though, I don't need portability for this. I'll probably hook this up with an external monitor, mouse + keyboard anyways.
- It's got USB, which makes data transfer pretty painless.
- I will definitely make some modifications, like replacing the hard drive with an SD to IDE adapter. The drive is definitely showing its age at this point. I'll probably store SD card images with clean WinXP + Win98 installs, and swap as needed.
- The one major snag is obviously the lack of glide support. No Voodoo, no Glide, as Bob Marley used to sing. That's definitely an issue with a few 90's games. But alas, can't have everything.
All in all, I'm pretty happy with this one. Probably gonna become my main retro gaming machine for a bit.
Last edited:
Aren't there some general purpose Glide -> D3D wrappers out there you can leverage?
Yeah, absolutely. But then again I can just do that on my actual gaming PC with less hassle. Those old wrappers can be kind of finicky. :)
Again, it's not a major thing, as I only have like 2-3 games where that becomes an actual issue, and you can never get a system that just works for everything. DOS games are also not great on this thing for instance, because the sound chip doesn't do Sound Blaster emulation at all. Better off just using Dosbox for that.
But for the 97-2003 era of Windows games, sans glide-only, this thing absolutely slaps.
Is it though? I lusted after and got one when they were relevant, and that's what MS-DOS sounds like to me (AWE32 General MIDI). Not OPL3.
The SB16's like playing with a PC Speaker after you have owned an AdLib.
Last edited:
OP
OP
That was in reference to my specific dream build. It wasn't a knock on the awe32 or anyone that wouldn't settle for less.
Ah, gotcha. To be fair, the AWE32 was a compatibility nightmare, even by DOS standards. Its more advanced features all required a really lousy TSR to be loaded. Worked alright in Windows, but DOS was super finicky.
You really have not experienced DOS gaming until every game requires disabling one or more of your devices ;) DOSBox does a really lousy job emulating that and you can pick any of the emulated hardware it has to offer and it usually just works.
lol, the one nice thing about the AWE32 is it used 30-pin SIMMs... I had plenty of those lying around by the time I got mine, with no machine that could make use of them because they were obsolete. So it felt great putting the old RAM onto the card.
Current status:
(see post #70)
Decided to stick with XP for now, as DOS stuff is basically gonna be a no-show for this sound chip anyways. Makes sense that Dosbox became a thing around then.
The big advantage here is that peripherals like my HOTAS actually work with this, which has been a ton of fun. Been going through my old CD binders and just tried a bunch of stuff. Everything runs beautifully, but that's really to be expected as most of this stuff is a good few years older than the machine itself. I don't have much to try beyond around 2002, kinda dropped entirely out of gaming for about half a decade back then.
But man, what a joy this little project has been. :)
(see post #70)
Decided to stick with XP for now, as DOS stuff is basically gonna be a no-show for this sound chip anyways. Makes sense that Dosbox became a thing around then.
The big advantage here is that peripherals like my HOTAS actually work with this, which has been a ton of fun. Been going through my old CD binders and just tried a bunch of stuff. Everything runs beautifully, but that's really to be expected as most of this stuff is a good few years older than the machine itself. I don't have much to try beyond around 2002, kinda dropped entirely out of gaming for about half a decade back then.
But man, what a joy this little project has been. :)
OP
OP
I technically have a P4/XP era machine, but I haven't messed with it lately because it's got cap leak, and I've just not had the time to get new caps and replace them.
This one was $20 and the insides look immaculate. This machine was either almost completely unused, or had a very very thorough cleaning (almost no dust even between the heatsink blades). Only thing missing was ram, but I'm just going to harvest it from the other dying machine. Sadly it's a later P4 (cir. Late 2005) and on a SIS chipset that lacks 98SE drivers entirely.
Still holding out hope of finding a decent deal on a later P3 system that I can turn into a good day-to-day retro PC that can dual boot 98SE and XP. There aren't as many XP only games that I'd want to play regularly... But technically I have all the eras covered (older P2 laptop for dos-win98 and this machine for XP). Go on vacation next week, so I'll probably spend a couple days getting it up and running and I'll post a bunch more pictures then.
(Edit) got it up and running and... Yeah... Always remember to clear your hard drives before selling or giving your old PCs away... This particular machine was used (very sparingly) by, I'm guessing, a divorce lawyer. A folder called "customers" contains documents relating to a very messy divorce.
Last edited:
Found a holy laptop. Fear these specs
486 dx2 50mhz
36mb of ram
640x480 tft
500mb hdd
3 1/2 in floppy drive
Nipple is dead though.
486 dx2 50mhz
36mb of ram
640x480 tft
500mb hdd
3 1/2 in floppy drive
Nipple is dead though.