Building a 4 in 1 Retro Gaming PC

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[@DhinCardoso]

2024 and I am bulding my 4 in 1 PC thnaks to Phil ♥ ty again!

[@roguenova6766]

I like re-watching this video once in a while, because it is one of the very best about classic PCs on the entire KZbin! :)

[@thomasr.1677]

Yes indeed! I like all of Phil's videos. He's doing an awesome job down there! Keep it up!

[@bbertram2]

Thank you Phil! I believe I have just found a motherboard capable of doing what you did in this video. This looks like a wonderful project to do at home. I made P3-800 98se build and once that is complete I may work on this. Thank you for making this awesome video.

[@brandon9271]

if you're going to go to this much trouble you really HAVE to do it proper with a CRT ;-)

[@philscomputerlab]

Haha yes I know >

[@pokey4200]

PhilsComputerLab about how much would I spend to make this?

[@NSHG]

Not to be a show breaker but you might want to replace that A1 PSU. I have seen its innards and it's definitely NOT suitable for well...nearly anything. Try a FSP or a higher end Allied PSU (the latter, although made by Deer/Solytech, are a solid choice for 5v heavy systems. Just replace the capacitors and it's ready to rumble!) as those have better components.

[@r3tr0s1c]

Hello phil. I'm on the way to build a ss7 system the way u suggested in this Video. While doing some research, some guys told me, that switching Caches on/off for accelarating or decalerating is not that effective... It was mentioned that "non-linear" speed-ups or downs could appear in some old Software. Can u confirm that?

[@NASIRUB1]

I remember playing some of these old games as a child, I might go to GOG to buy some of these classics. This video also reminded me of how much tinkering you had to do back then to get PC software or games to run, I always hated that as a kid :)

[@VoiceActingGod]

This video was very informative and entertaining. I could not stop laughing at the power supply bit. But this is interesting I might actually do this. I do have the amd K6 computer in the attic. Time to un-dust it and turn it into something awesome!

[@nathan386dx40]

I was planning on doing a build like this sometime in the next year or two, but I discovered the Celeron 766 which also has a 66MHz FSB, but is quite a bit faster at full speed. Would there be any disadvantage with using that Coppermine-128 CPU with a Socket 370 motherboard, vs this K6/SS7 build?

[@yorgle11]

That no-name power supply (a "free" throw in named after the case it came with) scares me. Lightly loading it doesn't mean it won't blow up and kill your hardware. More subtly, a junk PSU can also allow excessive ripple into the supply rails that puts more stress on everything.

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

fun tip: you could have all your drivers on a cd/dvd ready for this.

[@UTUBESUCK666]

He use a USB drive, even better...

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Ramon Zarat yes but old windows needs extra drivers for usb. a cd ROM / dvd rom speed the process

[@ch3rok33jo3]

True, and it would save a step or two. Just drag the drivers off of the CDROM to the desktop. Done.

[@OpenGL4ever]

He could also attach his computer to his local network.

[@AxiomofDiscord]

I wish Intel or AMD or whoever would just release an FPGA that emulated an APU maybe with NVIDIA's help to get some voodoo love and just let you set the specs of the chips in the FPGA so you could on the fly boot different systems in a small little box and maybe boot systems off SD cards or whatever with external storage by USB to Floppies, optical disc and input devices. Never going to happen but it is a nice dream.

[@Ridata01]

Phils you mentioned on the video that it needs to be K6-2 PLUS or K6-3 PLUS. Non plus versions do not work to adjust the multiplier in DOS? the k6-3 plus are really hard to find in america, even K6-2 plus are hard to find

[@DG410]

Very informative. Have an AMD K6 build myself and it works very well, although the OS I'm using is Windows 95 and my main goal for that machine is not only DOS games from the 386 era and up, but also Windows games that were developed before 98 was released. The only issue I've had with this build so far is that a couple of DOS games don't play very well. Here's a list of them: CD-Man [L1 and L2 disabled with 2x multiplier]: Twitchy intro screen, but otherwise stable gameplay. Dark Ages [L1 and L2 disabled with 2x multiplier]: Divide by zero error on Episode 1 unless I use the SLOWDOWN.COM utility. Episodes 2 and 3 also produce this error no matter what. Have yet to patch it with the RTE200 fix. Was wondering if there is any utility or something that could slow the CPU even further so that I can reduce the twitchiness and perhaps get rid of the Divide by zero error.

[@philscomputerlab]

+DOSGeek 95 I think I've seen your post on Vogons? Some games just don't work properly. You can try a Pentium 100, some games will work on that because of the lower clock speed. But then the Pentium 100 is very slow for the more demanding games.

[@Arc.hitectureMusic]

Im trying to do something very similar but with a Voodoo 5 5500. Your videos are extremely helpful for us Retro PC people.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Architecture Thank you!

[@SianaGearz]

That's probably the coolest PC build i've ever seen. I've really liked the ALI chipset that you're using here when those boards came out. The boards usually ran all kinds of hardware and there was plenty of low mem left after shifting everything possible into high mem, so you could keep lots of DOS soundcard drivers loaded. But i've made the experience that they were prone to die quite exactly 5 years in of daily use -.- Not sure what's up with that. Perhaps with lower FSB could help them last. Of course if i were to build something like this, and i probably will, i would make everything differently, like enclosure/PSU choice, cooling, soundcard choices, etc...

[@МебельЧерноземья-щ7м]

Such a big difference in 486 vs Pentium perfomance

[@rars0n]

Why bother using a 2TB SATA hard drive and convert it to IDE when you could just use Compact Flash, which already uses the IDE standard?

[@FelipeBudinich]

That's what he has done in newer builds, CF is the optimal solution in my opinion.

[@SeanGatchell]

Oh man, this is a dream project for me! Thanks so much for the video, I always squeal with delight when I see a new one.

[@KainiaKaria]

I have decided to post it here as well. SpeedSys is an excellent DOS-based tool for any 386 or higher that performs a system benchmark (CPU, memory, extended features such as MMX, etc.). FEATURES. ~~~~~~~~~~ Test allows you to detect following parameters: - Type of the processor. - Clock rate of processor. - Clock rate of processor via Time Stamp Counter. - Some information of processor stepping. - Size and speed index of memory. - Type, manufacturer, part number,some features of DIMM/RIMM memory modules. - Display adapter, size of video memory, video memory speeds index. - Sizes and speed of data caches. - Mainboard model. - BIOS vendor and BIOS date. - RTC-BIOS Year2000 bug. - Processor benchmarks. - Build a graph and define seek and access time of hard disk. - Build a graph and define an average transfer speed of hard disk. - Relative speed of hard disk. - Testing of extended memory on errors and malfunction. - Build a graph and define functioning of system a caching and memories. - Test a quality of surface CD disk. - Build a graph and define an average read speed of CD disk. - Build a graph and define average time access of CD drive. - Relative speed CD drive. - PCI/AGP device information. - ISA PnP device detection. - Save image of screen with testing parameters in PCX file 640*480*16. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a) Processor 386+. b) VGA-compatible videocard. c) 4 MB free XMS memory. d) DOS 5.00+. Home page : web.archive.org/web/20020816182800/dxover.stealth.ru/sst.htm Latest version : 4.7 (Jan-25-01)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Radical Edward also Kainia Karia (Michael Gardner) I know SpeedSys quite well. Maybe I should start using it in my videos...

[@ParadoxdesignsOrg]

i had this exact same mobo/CPU back in the rockin' 90's

[@purana80]

Wow brings back so many memories.. so much of the tweaks on Windows 98 and what not I have long forgotten.

[@kf4hnf]

Hi Phil I see that you used Win 98SE, Back in the old days when I used it in a new install I found that some games didn't work. The work around was to install Win 98 then upgrade to 98SE. the reason some programs didn't work was because MS changed the file extensions from COM to EXE. So if you did the upgrade it left the old files so the older software would work.

[@zapzap7458]

My schoolmate had similar build at 2000 year :) He told me about those tricks with K6-3+ CPU (transform it into 386 and 486). BTW I had a celeron 600 on i815 chipset. It was double speed compare to my old celeron 333 on 440LX chipset. I was proud of my new PC and did not understand reason to go with 386. I didn't know xD

[@stefanocolpo]

Amazing pc and video! I have a very similar machine: Asus P5A AMD K6-2 300 MHz 128Mb ram Geforce 2 MX 3dfx Voodoo2 12Mb Sound Blaster AWE32 I love Voodoo3 3000, but I think the combination of a Nvidia video card and a Voodoo 2 is better for compatibility than Voodoo3, that is unable to run some DOS Glide2 based games.

[@agdgdgwngo]

Hahah "If you made it to the end I applaud you" No man I applaud your videos

[@atarirob]

Goes to show how much of a power hog Deus Ex was, I remember my mate being so frustrated that he had to run it at 800x600 and not the default res. Great game though, probably my favourite ever made.

[@xaer0knight]

Hell ya :D Just blew my mind, scaling a processor down and up on the fly! whoa... making it jump from 133Mhz to 400Mhz ;) I love your videos, I love your research, but The PCs are not period enough for me, IDE HDD, IDE CDROMs, PS/2 Inputs, & Real Floppies. Just like uxwbill says "Real Computers come with a Floppy Disk Drive." X-D

[@philscomputerlab]

Jason Hicks Thanks for you feedback! Yes I understand, I love building machines with a mix of old and new technology. Especially having all the benefits of modern technology, be it a nice case, modern, reliable PSU, fast storage, an optical USB mouse and so on. It's not for everyone, but a lot of the tips apply to a proper retro PC as wel :)

[@xaer0knight]

philscomputerlab a lot of the programs you show off in your videos has helped with my Pentium 3 Laptop :D i didn't know most of them existed! Your video benchmark tools are awesome. I can't believe I have 2 P3 600Mhz laptops that are pretty much built at the same time (late 99), the HP Pavilion N3390 can do AGP x1 and Direct3D Acceleration but the Gateway Solo 2550 doesn't do D3D. Both are Graphic chips are from Silicon Motions, even the same amount of RAM, both are AGP x2! the only difference is the HP has a SM720 chip and the Gateway has a SM710 Chip.. freaking annoying LOL. It is even more interesting that the HP says it can do AGP Video x2 but I have no way of telling it to do so.

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice! Must say I don't have any experience with using notebooks as Retro Gaming PCs, but why not?

[@xaer0knight]

as much in depth as you get.. Laptops from the late 90's would be a great thing to tackle. PCMCIA overviews, ZV ports, getting Gameport controller to work, hard drive options shoot outs would be interesting! hey speaking of shootouts, did 3DFX ever do a gaming solution for laptops? Just imagine the heat coming off that and Pentium3/4 aren't know for being cool neither! LOL

[@stuartkinnear2478]

Excellent video! I recently purchased a K6-2 400 CPU to give my old P1-200 a bit more performance in Windows games - still waiting on the delivery of the cooler though as the only option I have now is a fanless heatsink I salvaged from a Mac G3 which happens to be the same size. It works as a temporary measure but I don't want to run the machine fanless for too long. My Socket 7 motherboard is an AT-style one though although it accepts ATX power supplies. I never had a proper PS/2 mouse header for the machine so I ended up making one myself. I never realised that SQ5 needed slowing though - I should check if it does the same on my machine. I use a real SB16 though so I don't know if that makes a difference. I remember owning one of those Yamaha cards way back in the day but it didn't really impress me - I seem to remember it not being able to play multiple sounds back at the same time under Windows and configuring DOS games to work was a pain. The main reason I have that P1-200 in any case is to allow me to listen to music from the SB16 and Yamaha MIDI daughterboard. I wonder if there is a list of DOS games that do not run properly when run on faster machines? Wing Commander seems like a prime candidate but were all Origin games that problematic?

[@RetroPCUser]

Anacreon ZA The games from Origin from the 386 processor era and some games, like Space Quest and Police Quest, and some other games require a 386 class processor. In order to run those games on a Pentium MMX or equivalent (Pentium 1, Pentium Pro, AMD K5, AMD K6) , you need to either disable L1 or L2 cache (or both for the 386 speed), or use a program called slowdown. Here's an example of a game batch file I made for Earl Weaver's Baseball 2: cd games\ewb2 slowdown /MHz486:40 ewb2 slowdown /U cd \ Wing Commander II example cd games\wc2\wc2 slowdown /MHz486:20 wc2 slowdown /U cd \

[@stuartkinnear2478]

***** Cool thanks - I'll check slowdown out and experiment with the cache settings in the BIOS. I never really liked Wing Commander as a game though - I always preferred it as more of a Soundblaster tech demo. :-)

[@bbertram2]

First time watcher of this video! Just in the initial minute i can see this is going to be great! Go Phil Go!

[@philscomputerlab]

Welcome aboard!

[@InfiniteClouds]

This is such a great build -- were there any 386 or 486 games you tested that did not run well? Or does this -- functionally -- replace the need for a 386/486?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yup it's a real replacement to the 386. I tested LOTS of games, I only know of one trouble maker, which is Ultima 7. This game turns on the Cache by itself, so the 4 in 1 machine will run it too fast. But that's the only game I know causing issues.

[@InfiniteClouds]

Nice! Is it possible to do a builds like this with universal/flexible hardware and do different OS installs on either different drives or partitions? Like one drive or partition with Windows 95 and another with 98? Also, is there any difference or compatibility differences in using DOS from 98 as opposed to MS-DOS 6.22/7.1 that you have install guides for?

[@h0laPlaneta]

This video was really helpful, thank you Phil!

[@Martin-sk5df]

My old hardware has probably degraded after 20 years in storage. But your vids make me want to check it out. Nice work.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Martin Klinge Yea you should take a look. Hopefully no batteries have started leaking...

[@Martin-sk5df]

+PhilsComputerLab HEC 7106BB Case: www.newegg.com/global/nl/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811121010 just the case for older builds, compatible with AT and ATX, and has a standard backplate even.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea that looks very nice!

[@Michael-hp2pe]

Got so excited, stopped the video at 9:57 in order to go out and buy the case and PSU combo for my ultra quad-SLI system. Thanks for the advice! It's gonna look wonderful in my historic, mostly wooden constructed, gas supplied house! :D

[@philscomputerlab]

+Michael Pardi That's awesome! Please do share at some stage if possible :)

[@Michael-hp2pe]

Alrighty. Here is a gif of me turning it on for the first time: s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/61/30/52/61305256d10e29823ba2ae7845ae3291.gif Excellent results so far.

[@philscomputerlab]

Sure beats my bang :D

[@NickD25]

Lol, I'm having flashbacks of DOS 3.5" boot disk. If I have some space I'll definitely build it. Got into PC gaming around '89 so that brings back some great memories. Thanks!

[@philscomputerlab]

+NickD25 That's what it's all about :D

[@angrynewbster2737]

i love retro pcs, used to have a sony vaio that my dad had at the time. played world of warcraft n a bunch of kiddie adventure games as a kid.

[@thecaptain2281]

+PhilsComputerLab This was great! Did you ever get to mounting the fan to that card more permanently?

[@philscomputerlab]

TheCaptain Yes with screws.

[@ibm5155]

How does Megarace and Star Wars: Pod racers runs on that machine?

[@philscomputerlab]

ibm5155 Megarace is from1993, that should work without issues in Pentium mode. The other game seems to have been released in 1999, which might be challenging for this machine, even at full speed.

[@ibm5155]

Well, just as informative, here're the games that you have that I already tested over my Pentium mmx setup (soon, a k6-iii+ 400MHz) -Battle Chess (Windows version):OK -Test Drive 3: Runned almost right but still a little bit faster -Gods: I don't think this one even runned -Pinball Dream: Another one that I can't remember if it worked fine -Wolf 3D:worked fine with L1/L2 on -Comanche:L1 disabled, and moslo at 70, runs a bit faster than yours -Doom: Runs fine -Raptor:OK -Duke Nuke 3D:OK -Descent:OK -Tomb Raider I: software and glide are ok -Quake 1:OK -Need For Speed II:Works ok in glide -Quake 2:OK, some complex áreas runs at 30 - 28fps that that's the minimun with a voodoo 3 -Need For Speed 3:Runs half good, it lags on the dark with rain, but all the settings -Tomb Raider The Last Revelation: Worked fine I'm just afraid that with the K6 III the voodoo 3 will run more hot since the Pentium mmx was limiting his power;

[@philscomputerlab]

ibm5155 The Pentium MMX behaves quite different with Cache disabled. It is much faster. You get a 386DX-40 and 486DX2-50 compared to the AMD. The AMD is much faster with caches, but has poor floating point performance which can be seen in Quake II for example. The AMD runs much cooler, especially the 1.6V version. The V3 is still being held back by all this processors. It runs at full speed on something like a Pentium III 700 MHz.

[@ibm5155]

ah you got the 1.6 version, well, my motherboard can only go to 1.8, I hope a K6-iii+ acr 400MHz, 2.0v core will be enough. And also I hope the cooling system from my Pentium mmx will be enough for that other guy too (maybe I'll need some termal paste idk :S )

[@christopherbaar4498]

I decided, rather than continuing my 486 project for the moment to try building a system like this. I've just acquired an MSI MS5169 motherboard. I needed 3 ISA slots for all the sound cards getting shoved into this thing. It came with a K6-2 450. I'm wondering will I still be able to do the multiplier and cache settings in software with this board? If not, I did have an interesting idea. Instead of opening the case every time I'd have to switch jumpers, why not rig up some SPST switches and wire them to the jumper headers.

[@philscomputerlab]

It won't let you change the multiplier, but you can still use the cache tricks. Yup you can wire some switches to the front case :)

[@christopherbaar4498]

Is the multiplier a board issue, or because it's not a K6-2+ or K6-III+? Also, I'm looking at graphics options. I have a pair of Voodoo2s right now. I can shove some other GPU in the AGP slot to go with them. I've also been looking at picking up a Voodoo 5500, since they seem to go for the same price as the 3000.

[@philscomputerlab]

Wrong CPU. You need the mobile CPUs, they have software multiplier.

[@christopherbaar4498]

Thanks. They don't seem hard to find. Any opinion on the graphics card?

[@philscomputerlab]

Watch my recent SS7 graphics cards videos!

[@bellshooter]

That PSU is really jank. Not so much 500W as 260w....12V rail is really most of it.

[@shiveringisles3509]

lol that power supply effects. i want to use a modern PSU but most only have 1 molex and floppy connector, and i want to avoid SATA to molex.

[@theswordguy5269]

Great ideas. I'm thinking of doing a similar thing with a vintage IBM Aptiva. This is a great motivator. Thank you !

[@greenyoshi24]

I wonder what could be built with a Radeon 9600 xt. I have one of those lying around. xD I got it at goodwill for 5 bucks trying to find a GPU for my computer. at the time I wasn't as knowledgeable as I am now.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Proshi Very powerful for Windows 98 gaming. I do believe there are Windows 98 drivers, though not 100% sure. But yea, it's a beast for playing these old games :)

[@greenyoshi24]

Alright then I finally have a use if I find more parts then! xD and I might go with Windows 2000 though as that's more compatible with some of the Games I do sometimes play like some of the Touhou games along with it. My 3 oldest games I own rather it's on steam or rather I own a physical copy are Half-life Quake, and Tomb Raider. Most of those are shooters but that's because I have yet to find a copy of Need for speed in a thrift store.

[@Alex4SiliconValley]

What is a good AGP graphics card that works with Win-98 ?

[@thecaptain2281]

The fastest Geforce that had Win9X drivers was the Geforce 6800XT AGP model. The fastest Radeon was the 9800XT. The best Voodoo card was the Voodoo 4500. 3DFX made a Voodoo 5500, but it was only AGP-2X and in many cases was out performed by the 4500. Both are getting really rare. You'd be better off going with a Radeon or Geforce.

[@Code1D10T]

Very fun video to watch. I'm surprised that Wing Commander 3 was able to run that smoothly with the processor clocked that high.

[@philscomputerlab]

Code1D10T I wasn't sure if I should play it at 133 or 400 MHz. The game has a framerate limit of 24 fps, so 133 would have likely been enough. I'm not aware of the game being speed sensitive, or having issues on machines that are too fast. If so, no big deal, lower than multiplier and you're set.

[@RetroPCUser]

philscomputerlab I read on the Wing Commander 2 manual recently that WC3 would run at the processor's actual speed. Wing Commander 2 requires either slowing down the system or a 386 33MHz-40MHz to make the game run without going too fast.

[@philscomputerlab]

I believe Wing Commander 2 does have keyboard shortcuts to control frame duration and things like that. But some animations might still play too fast. Wing Commander has a high resolution mode for starters, and I didn't have issues on faster machines. But I never tried on something extremely fast like a 1 GHz machine or something like that.

[@ferystanek]

Very nice and elegant way to build retro pc! I like placing new things into old hardware thanks to modern compatibility equipments, especially USB "floppy" and SATA bridge. Going to build similar one. Only see little problem with LCD 5:4 resolutin and 4:3 DOS games (or 320x200) Is the image stretched or original, as my 16:10 LCD give me only 720x400@70Hz for resolutions lower than 640x480 ?

[@philscomputerlab]

František Staněk Great to find someone like-minded :) Yes, monitors and aspect ratio are a challenge. While you can stil lbuy brand new 17" and 19" monitors, they are all 5:4 aspect ratio. So the image is slightly vertically stretched. It's subtle, but if you know about, noticeable. There are a few options. I have a Philips 18.5" 16:9 monitor with 1366 x 768 resolution. I reviewed it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o5KmemSGmsSdpNE It has a 4:3 button, which works great. It's especially great for 1024 x 768 resolution games, as it's 1:1 pixel perfect and very sharp. Downsize is that the monitor is quite small, my eyes aren't the best, so I prefer something bigger. Another option is finding a business grade 16:10 monitor. I've got a Samsung and that one also does 4:3 aspect ratio correction. For Windows games, that monitor is awesome as well as it does 1600 x 1200 natively, however many games struggle to run fast at this high resolution and HUD elements become small. So either way, it's full of compromises and I like to approach it on a game to game basis. Space Quest 1 for example, looks mint on the 24" Samsung 16:10 screen. Unreal I prefer playing on the 18.5" at 1024 x 768, and many older games don't go higher than this resolution. For quick testing I have 19: and 17" 5:4 screens and they do the job just fine. But you made a good point, in my next project I might showcase that Samsung 24" 16:10 screen :)

[@ferystanek]

philscomputerlab Thank you for the comment. I have decided to get rid off all old periferies I own as they only waste my space and found your build very interesting.. It's no challenge for me just build up computer from all original spare parts - everyone can easily do it with no thinking ;-) This problem (with aspect retio) I can not solve as I am quite perfectionist :-) I just quick passed your review of 1366x768 LCD. The 4:3 button also works for CGA/EGA modes, such like 320x240/320x200 modes? My similar AOC 18.5" just stretch it to all screen, only VGA 640x480 (e.g. Blood) are adjustable to 4:3 ratio. Yes, it's the challenge, nowhere on the forums I found perfect LCD solution.. I am looking forward for review of that "business" 16:10 for the DOS game purposes, especially resolution of CGA/EGA graphics modes! On my old 22" 16:10 I can not change to 4:3 unfortunatelly.

[@philscomputerlab]

I'm afraid I do not have an CGA/EGA graphics cards. But DOS games use the 320 x 200 resolution, is this what you're after? Games like Monkey Island or Prince of Persia? 320 x 240, I remember some pinball game using this, but PC Player Benchmark can also test this resolution. I have an AOC monitor as well, it does the same thing. 4:3 only works with 640 x 480 or greater. Brands that work well are Samsung and Benq. There are Benq gaming monitors that can do 1:1 pixel mapped at lower resolutions. Quite amazing. Lots of options, but they cost quite a bit and at the moment my monitors do the job fine. But yes, I will do a video on it. Not sure when, quite busy at the moment and waiting for some gear to arrive before I can shoot another one.

[@ferystanek]

philscomputerlabYes, I meant the resolutions, 320x200 and similar uses a plenty old DOS games from '90s including Wolfenstein3D, DOOM, etc. I was using only VGA graphics adapters. Good mention, will try it in my work on 24" BenQ BL2410PT.

[@philscomputerlab]

Ok, got you. 320 x 200 work 100% on the Samsung 24" and on the 18.5" Philips.

[@RichGilly]

This is really clever. Thanks for the video! So essentially this PC can play anything from 1985 (or so) - 1999 really well? That's sweet.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea that's the cool thing about this PC :)

[@chriskalkman3815]

I'm very proud of that PC.

[@DonPedro6901]

I like your channel and your job. It is very tidy, all prepared. Every time nice job! How long do you deal with computers?

[@philscomputerlab]

Thank you! I've started dealing with computers since the days of 386.

[@DonPedro6901]

Fine, I am litte bit older with it, however some things almost forgot due to no dealing with it ;-) My first PC was PC/AT-286 but started much earlier on ZX Spectrum then PC/XT on my first University labs. Today I have a couple of computers with various systems. Much to say.

[@drzeissler]

The Voodoo3 is a fantastic choice :) but the K6-III+ is shit. I like my PII :) I play Wingcommander1 in Win9x at proper speed.

[@renzh19]

Hi Phil! I'm not sure if you had seen my dm. I have an important question. Hope you will answer 😊

[@renzh19]

By the way, your videos are keeping me sane tonight 🤗

[@ChrisNova777]

retro gaming pc retro gaming pc retro gaming pc... if u say it enough times u will forget its actually an old discarded peice of shit computer !

[@jonathont5570]

boy has this motherboard become expensive now..lol

[@BlueBird-wb6kb]

Why don't you build these and sell them on Ebay /o/ , I'm too lazy for all this

[@KainiaKaria]

This is the Ultimate Windows 98 PC.

[@DxDeksor]

No it isn't, a fast pentium 2 or a pentium 3 or an athlon is better for this (even though a K6-2 or 3 is already great, it's absolutely not the best). Pentium 4s and athlons XP are great too, but they start to run into the limits of that OS if you' re not making them properly (like putting more than 1GB of ram or a gpu that is too modern, etc)

[@KainiaKaria]

Deksor Such as an NVIDIA GeForce FX5200. Always go with an GeForce 4 MX440 or an GeForce 4 Ti series GPU or similar.

[@RetroComputers]

what happened to the links in the description?

[@BurkenProductions]

You should use the sb awe32 much better sound!!

[@GC3DC]

no half life :( great vid though

[@secretbeed1399]

i have a sempron 3000+ and 2 gb ram running on xp what would be a good graphics card that doesent cost alot but performs well for games like gmod. i currently have a radeon 7500

[@prizedcoffeecup]

Well...I am sorry to say, but I cannot see a Sempron computer starting a game like Gmod successfully, even if many of the later updates weren't so finicky with Windows XP. Seriously, my Sempron 2400+ at the same 3ghz that your Sempron reaches a good chunk of usage running KZbin, let alone Firefox ESR on top of Win2k unofficial SP5 and update rollup.

[@prizedcoffeecup]

If you want to go ahead and give it a shot regardless, however, then they shouldn't be too expensive...a GTX 460 can be had for $60 CAD minus the shipping, and is phenomonally above your 7500's head despite REQUIRING a 6 pin PCI-E connector and 500 watt PSU minimum. (Don't worry about lack of molex or anything as such though, quite a few still have them and even floppy drive power sometimes.)

[@secretbeed1399]

ya i guess ill just stick to cs 1.6

[@nimaabachianghasemi1378]

Hi . i have K6-2/500AFX - AMD can use that software with this cpu for disabling cache and changing mltiplier ? its not plus model .

[@mattscomp]

You do need the plus version to change the multiplier with software unfortunately. Cache can be done of course because that's only a BIOS setting..

[@Rippedsoul1976]

Wouldn't it be easier using something like DOSBox on a newer machine? I do understand why doing this build would be a fun project - it just doesn't seem necessary.

[@philscomputerlab]

+Rippedsoul1976 DOSBox? Never heard of it... Just kidding :D I do all sorts of projects, none of them are really "necessary" I think.

[@utubeuser1024]

Hi Phil! Awesome video - I love how you explain everything so clearly and it reminds me of all the fun you can have with retro hardware! I have a very similar motherboard to yours - a Gigabyte GA-5SMM (SiS 530 based) that handles any FSB from 66-133MHz (including the /4 PCI divider) as well as voltages from 1.3-3.5V. I lucked out getting a K6-III+ 500/ANZ (binned at 1.8V at 500MHz) - It ran flawlessly at 4.5 x 133 MHz with 2 volts and was INSANELY quick. I even managed to cool it passively with just a heatsink at 133 x 3 400MHz and 1.3 volts! I was also lucky enough to have both a GeForce 2 MX/400 PCI and a GeForce 6200 in PCI that worked perfectly with that board - awesome for retro gaming - and even ran XP at a stretch too! Keep up the great videos and thanks again!

[@alexelliot2022]

I hope that one day they die shrink the 8086 286 386 486 and early 586s and turn them into a low powered retro gaming machine... maybe they could get it down too 2 watts like the tablet baytrails.

[@philscomputerlab]

Alex Elliot Asrock should release a retro line of motherboards :) I could see lots of people buy one.

[@chriskalkman3815]

I was just thinking about the Deus Ex framerate and the 400 or so Mhz processor and I was thinking if my Dell dimension would run it. Wait! I have a 733 Mhz Pentium III and a Nvidia GeForce4 MX400 with 64 MB of VRAM! It should run fine! XD

[@wettuga2762]

At 21:40 you mentioned adding a link to a separate video about configuring MSDOS mode but you forgot to add it to the description, I'll guess it's one of these two: Install and configure MS-DOS for playing games kzbin.info/www/bejne/eV6XaJiVmNiMp9k MS DOS Mode Super Easy Guide Tutorial Windows 95 98 kzbin.info/www/bejne/nGaVk42wjNhgq5Y

[@glittlehoss]

Phil i can't find any CPUs you recommend like the 400 k6-2+ or the k6-3+. Any other suggestions? I do see k6-2+ 500s for sale.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Very cool. Think I'll stay on the road of least resistance and stick with my 1300x retro gaming build. Win7 64 host os Win98,xp VMs Dosbox for Dos and windows 3x

[@SpooferJahk]

Haven't watched the full thing yet, but the intro was amazing. Nice to know that there could be a chance that Phil is becoming an evil genius with that kind of introduction. :P

[@philscomputerlab]

SpooferJahk Hehe thank you :) I must say the artistic / creative side is not my strong side. More a technical person, but I'm trying hard to make it interesting.

[@SpooferJahk]

philscomputerlab The content itself is interesting but hey, explore that side by all means. Maybe you might discover a part of your video repertoire that you never knew existed.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes, I like learning new things. That's part of the journey :)

[@KhalidYousif87]

Phil, you mentioned at 11:21 that you will put the reviews of the super socket 7 motherboards in the description section, but they are not there :(

[@philscomputerlab]

It's an ancient video and at some point I lost all the descriptions. Check my website it has most of the boards on their with embedded videos of them 😊

[@BlueAcid9]

+PhilsComputerLab I thought you were putting 4 motherboards in the tower. Why did you turn a 2TB HDD into 120GB HDD?

[@thales6987]

USB storage driver for Windows 98: LINK IS DEAD, it would be real great to find the link again ! :)

[@cbutters]

I started watching this and was amazed at how many of these games I had played and forgotten about.

[@philscomputerlab]

+cbutters That's what it's about :D

[@MauricioCresti]

Hi, Thanks for your videos! I build a machine (almost) like that and I really pleased with the results. Well, nowadays I'm thinking in try 13h and X modes games in a 15khz monitor (scanlines) instead of a line-doubled VGA monitor. There is a few options like CRTemu driver, Some TSR and hardware to dowgrade resolution (extron emotia, etc). Did you already mess with it?

[@Entrepid83]

Any reason you didn't go with a high-end PCI graphics card?

[@johnbabb6954]

interesting build, but why not just use a new PC with dosbox, epsxe, 4do, snes9x etc.

[@derpman2029]

+John Babb wow dude, your so smart, no one here thought of any of that. because hes making a pc that runs at multiple speeds for dos gaming. dos games run bad if you run on a newer pc, or you have to configure things for each game, also its a hobby. many 1995-2005 games wont run on new pc, especially early 3d games. the main reason is probably because its fun, you already know that but you have to come along and show us how much smarter you are, bravo. i get this shit all the time collecting retro videogames as well. yeah sure i can use an emulator, but i like having the original shit, im not cheap

[@StigDesign]

you born in 1986 since you started with games from back then? if so am born in 1986 too :D oh the good old nfs games :D

[@mad_cat431]

that computer has same specs what my laptop from year 1999 Have, Except my laptop has 160 mb ram, not 128 mb

[@Zontar82]

how's this video card you used for those pesky VESA win 95\98 games?

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

People are saying that you need few retro pc's to play dos and early winows games, that's simply not true and I wouldn't go into emulation

[@Adamsnadler214]

What is the part list

[@philscomputerlab]

You got to watch the video and make a list.

[@Adamsnadler214]

Can it do CS1.6

[@allanegleston13]

early on we were told to get rid of that old stuff and upgrade upgrade always upgrade . faster is better . emulation is ok to a point . some emulators dont print if u have some legacy apps that you need to print . thanks . this 4 in will save space for those who dont have a lot of room.

[@2tailedfox711]

Where is all of the stuff that's supposedly in the description?

[@philscomputerlab]

Descriptions got wiped out on all my videos a while ago, so they are gone :(

[@SireSquish]

For a little flair - you could always mod the EPA logo too :) (epacoder.exe)

[@mikespikeey4625]

xenon 2 didnt pc format give that away on there mag?????? ill have to dig the mag out

[@nenikafortes]

It's a good option to use a Voodoo 3 2000 instead of a Voodooo 3 3000?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea that will work just fine. It's a bit slower, but also less heat :)

[@nenikafortes]

Is it much slower?

[@ChrisKewl]

I would LOVE to build one of these so I could stream some of these classics.

[@igorbog88]

Are the usb drivers the same ones from the msfn.org forums ? If so, I have used it as well and they do work. Very handy to transfer stuff especially if there are no usb drivers for your more modern motherboard for windows 98se. Anyone reading, make sure to have a proper faultless windows installation and already have the rest of the drivers installed from the motherboard cd beforehand. They didn't work from the first try for me, but after doing a format and reinstalling windows it works perfectly.

[@philscomputerlab]

igorbog88 I'm not sure where I got them from, but yes, they work very well. Had USB sticks up to 32 GB in action. On these machines the speed is USB 1 or 1.1 only, so you got to be a bit patient. Copying across Ethernet network is faster. For very large copies, I pull out the HDD and put it in a USB 3 dock on my desktop :)

[@ibm5155]

philscomputerlab on my case it's slower than the usb 2.0 pci board with a Pentium mmx, but at the cost of high performance drop :( (10fps lost with 1 flash drive, 17fps lost with a flash drive on it) Too bad I'm not able to disable l2 cache by software :( , But I kinda like that performance game heh, I even discoreved I could get 1 - 2 extra fps in quake 2 just replacing the usb keyboard by a dimm one :D

[@philscomputerlab]

Interesting, didn't know that. I totally forgot about USB 2.0 PCI cards, I've had one in use a while ago. NEC chipset.

[@ibm5155]

Mine's a NEC chip too, and I think it took 3 months to discover that the faulty fps in quake 2 was actually the flash driver >.> (I think I did 3 clean installs over that time). It was magic when I discovered the problem, it went from 27fps to 37,5fps :D, and now 38,5 because I'm using a DIMM (ps2) keyboard heh. But, USB 2.0 Works just fine over my machine, if you only use it to transfer data it's ok, just let it off when playing Windows games and you'll be ready to go (hmm, maybe I can use it to slowdown even more my system over dos lol) I wish I could get a K6-III+ but, they're only at ebay '-', and I'll need an EPROM for supporting it.

[@philscomputerlab]

For copying file, do check out network cards. They are quite a bit faster and very convenient. I have a networked Raid 1 array and all my drivers, games, demos, stuff is on there. Makes it fast to get into a new project :)

[@metacustomcomputers3426]

Oh my... The memories... :) Kind regards, Meta Custom Computers

[@nockieboy]

One thing I don't understand about all these old PC builds - the box it all goes in is pretty much identical to modern boxes. So what's wrong with Dosbox? Heck, you can even get a Windows 95 emulator in Javascript online. What's the point? Amiga/Atari/8-bit computers I understand keeping around, but old PCs? Not so much.

[@philscomputerlab]

+nockieboy I can tell you that emulating an Amiga or other home computers is much more accurate and authentic than trying to emulate DOS and Windows 98. I could list a ton of reasons but I don't want to preach, DOSBox is bloody good and I use it a lot myself :D In the end it's about having a good time and enjoying old games!

[@nockieboy]

Ah okay, I'll shut up then. ;)

[@Neffeps]

12:00 Well, my Be Quiet Dark Rock Pro 3 is so bad compared to this XDD

[@GraveUypo]

ohhh, it's a k6. i saw UT and immediatelly thought: No way, something's wrong. it ran much better in my 400mhz machine (which was a pentium 2).

[@philscomputerlab]

+GraveUypo Yea for 3D gaming the Intel is much better. But it's not as flexible for playing older games.

[@SianaGearz]

+PhilsComputerLab I think K6 can actually outcompute Pentium II, or at the very least match it; however the Socket 7 architecture was getting pretty ancient by then, i think the CPU was getting choked by the bus architecture.

[@laumpolumpio]

This is exactly what I tried to do a few years ago but with different parts, I have an Aopen Super Socket 7 mother (can't remeber the model) with a 4xx mhz K6-III, or it was a K6-II?....mmm I don't remember now, anyways, I don't have a Voodoo 3, but I do have a few PCi Voodoo 2's I can use, for primary gfx adapter I have a geforce 4ti 4600 and many ISA sound cards, never did anything with that crap, would it work? or it will be ltoo fast for the older games?

[@philscomputerlab]

chinitosoccer1 Yes that would work. Even if you don't have a 2+ or III+, you can still change the caches. For the graphics card, there are many options. Mine is just one option, not the "best" one. For example if you want 32 bit colour rendering and DVI output, go with a GeForce. So it all depends :)

[@TylerTisaowa]

i have that voodoo 3000 ( and or 3500) but the pci ver, used to have that exact board/config(layout/chipset/slots/rambanks) (not gb tho, asus i think) and further back, a k6-2 450 ^_^

[@philscomputerlab]

+Tyler “Tryco” Tisaowa Very nice!

[@NickD25]

I've listened to your review of the DreamBlaster S1 module and the thing that bugged me was "it's not at the level of a Sound Canvas". Now, the question arises. Should I stay with my current gen PC using Munt to emulate a MT-32 or should I get a Roland card from Ebay to get into a retro pc? Also, as stupid as it will sound... How do you plug a Roland SC into a PC as they only have midi input/output. Do I need a midi card?

[@philscomputerlab]

+NickD25 Yes you need a MIDI card, no way around that.

[@B1G_Dave]

What a great build. Have you run into any compatibility problems with really early DOS games? And what about really late WIN98 games (does it run Half-Life)? Such a useful machine, as getting some 90s games to run on a 64bit machine can be a real pain.

[@philscomputerlab]

+BIG Dave If you go back far enough, like games in CGA that run well on a XT machine, they will likely run too fast. Late 90s games /early 2000 games can run well, but also run poorly. The Tomb Raider games for example this machine runs well, but Deus Ex not really. I actually have a copy of Half-Life but haven't tried it on this machine. My gut tells me that it would struggle though.

[@desktorp]

9:45 you got me bro A+ 100%

[@philscomputerlab]

+david esktorp Haha, nice :D

[@massa9027]

would the Cyrix 5x86 processor with motherboard (socket 3 i guess) be a common find to be priced well (not insanely high)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Massa902 Hmm not sure, but often these more exotic processors do go for a premium.

[@andir.5950]

Hi Phil. I've bought a super socket 7 board the last days and i have tried to underclock a K6-2 500 processor like in your video. I've also wrote something on vogons website. The absolute minimum clock i've got was 171MHz. The lowest multiplier on PBC (1.5x and 2x) will be seen from the cpu as 3.5x and 6x. Well, what do you think, it is a big gap to your 386/486 emulation @133MHz, compared to the 171MHz i've got with my K6-2? I have to test this maschine asap with your benchmark package!! What do you think? It is possible that for example, a Pentium 1 150MHz (P54CS) will also take the wrong multipliers? According to my example with slightly increased FSB, it would have: 1.5 x 68.5MHz = 103MHz 2.0 x 68.5MHz = 137MHz 2.5 x 68.5MHz = 171MHz It is possible that i'll burn this Pentium due to wrong multipliers, cause this CPU has original FSB60 and i have to set multiplier+FSB manually? I mean with the multipliers 3.5x and 6.0x (results in 240MHz and 411MHz) the Pentium, made with 0,35 µm technique, would never starts und just burn...

[@philscomputerlab]

+Andi R. The cache is the biggest difference! Once you disable L1 and L2 cache in the BIOS, the clock speeds don't matter much. It's just that some games have issues with higher clock speed, so the lower the more compatible.

[@andir.5950]

+PhilsComputerLab I think you're right. The most influence should have the internal and external caches. Due the situation i have to complete the PC & install W95, i just calculate with your results and the benchmarks on cpu-world and made some interpolations. Sure it's not exactly but i think the trend shound be OK. Your values with 3DBENCH & PCPBENCH: 486-mode: 21.1 & 5.9 386-mode: 10.9 & 2.6 With my interpolation, i'll get this results for K6-2@171: 486-mode: 25.3 & 7.1 386-mode: 13.1 & 3.1 But at least a test will show the truth and the final results...

[@philscomputerlab]

I once tried a few Socket 7 and Super Socket 7 machines at all sort of clocks, and once you turn off all the caches, there was little difference. However, with L1 off, but L2 on, there are differences, especially with raising the FSB.

[@szabolcsmate5254]

Erm... The 386 did not even have a floating point unit, and it was at most 40MHz. So your 386 comparison is far far off. The lack of FPU was a huge deal. Perhaps if you said 386+387, but still, 40MHz vs 133MHz? Ehhh. Also, I bet your '486 mode' performance is much closer to a DX2-66 or DX4-100 Excellent build though, I am very jealous indeed! :)

[@philscomputerlab]

+Szabolcs Mate You're right about the maths processor, but no game used that. Now just to be clear, my channel focuses on games, so things can be different if you want to run legacy CAD software for example. The 386 speed is roughly on the level of 386DX. It's because I disable the processor cache, it slows down the machine, that's the whole reason this project works. It's quite handy having this flexibility. The 486 mode is more on the level of a plain 486. Good for games such as Theme Park that run too slow on a 386 and too fast on a Pentium.

[@szabolcsmate5254]

Valid points. I still think benchmarks and real world use tests would still show wast improvements from this rig, compared to the systems you compare it to. But I get and appreciate that you have 4 performance levels to go for to cover a really wide range of games. Nice one! I wish I still had my Cyrix 486DX2-80 that I water cooled in summer by putting a glass of water on the heatsink! Haha. It worked! Anyway, got freedos on an usb stick now. Let's boot my i5-2500K into retro mode! :D (I hope my LCD can do 4:3 in DOS. probably not :( )

[@philscomputerlab]

I once booted DOS on an i7 and ran the Quake benchmark. I think The Flash would have been proud :D

[@softwarearchives1451]

21:17 A E S T H E T I C

[@mannysilvamartinez8840]

mike cheats I

[@K.J.S.est1994]

And another world came out in 1992.