I Built a MONSTER Retro PC for $92

My contribution to #DOScember. I was able to build a cheap and very capable #retrogaming PC for only $92. Enjoy!
The machine:
- Dell Optiplex 380
- Core 2 Duo @ 3.06Ghz
- 4GB RAM
- 500GB HDD
Upgrades:
- ATi Radeon X800 XL (PCIe version)
- DCS S81X S817 sound card (Yamaha YMF724 version)
- Dell PS/2 RS232 Serial COM Port card
Windows 98 patches:
- Rudy Loew’s PTCHSATA - lonecrusader.x10host.com/rloew...
- LoneCrusader’s INF files - lonecrusader.x10host.com/intel...

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks all for watching! Some details to help with your own retro rocket build: The machine: - Dell Optiplex 380 - Core 2 Duo @ 3.06Ghz - 4GB RAM - 500GB HDD Upgrades: - ATi Radeon X800 XL (PCIe version) - DCS S81X S817 sound card (Yamaha YMF724 version) - Dell PS/2 RS232 Serial COM Port card Windows 98 patches: - Rudy Loew’s PTCHSATA - lonecrusader.x10host.com/rloew/ptchsata.html - LoneCrusader’s INF files - lonecrusader.x10host.com/intel_inf.html

[@salsichastuff8515]

is there any alternative to the graphics card? i cant find any x800 xl for sale

[@jamesfmackenzie]

⁠​⁠@@salsichastuff8515 I did try a Radeon X600 but unfortunately it didn’t work 😢 The X800 worked fine though.

[@ambigousBarrel]

I don't think I've ever worked on a Dell that I didn't like no matter how old they may be. And their bios' put others to shame in some ways. It's not until you go digging in it that you notice the features that are usually absent in other systems. Also I love how easy it is to clear bios passwords on these machines. Considering when I buy older computers for retro gaming they are likely at least third hand by the time I get them trying to get the original password to unlock the bios otherwise is a real pain. Not with a Dell though! I like that about Dells.

[@slowlymakingsmoke]

That sound card was super clean in its playback. nice. We often forget that we don't need 90's parts to get a 90's experience.

[@atheatos]

ICH7 + ATI (x800 series) PCIE + Yamaha PCI a very valid combo that I have also tried. Well done presenting this. Nice video.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! It was great fun to make!

[@Lurch-Bot]

I built a retro rig to cover retro games from my digital library for $30 for the GPU. I have a similar C2Q Optiplex running Windows 7 for old games on disc. I bought a Q6600 for around $15, tape modded it and bought a OEM R7 250 for $25.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Great build! The Q6600 is legendary 😎

[@majorpayne0195]

Cool. I have an Asrock 775i65g with an E5800 that I'm not using right now. I'm thinking of using this as a DOS, Win98 and WinXP PC in one PC. I also have an ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP on my dedicated Win98 PC and planning to use it on my plan 3-in-1 PC. Nice video.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! Good luck with your E5800 build 😎

[@ritgun]

Thank you for the great video. I really enjoyed watching it.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! 😎

[@DaveDoc1984]

For BIOSes that do not allow you to restrict the RAM, There is a utility you can use to patch the Windows 98 Installation to "tolerate" the extra RAM.

[@JapanPop]

Very inspired! I’ve been an old Dell machine modder for years. I still have a Yamaha XG PCI card and an ATI 800 sitting round, so this might be a perfect project. I use an old P4 Vaio laptop for dos gaming as it has an ESS Audiodrive chipset, but I miss using the XG midi in Windows.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Go for it! It took some experimenting to find the right parts, but this is now my fave retro machine 😎 Which Vaio are you using? I miss the old Vaio and ThinkPads - feel like I need to get one at least! 😂

[@wintermute740]

I use old Dell Pentium 4's for DOS and Win9x games, and run absolutely great. I've also used a random thin client to for DOS, providing sound blaster emulation via SBEMU.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Nice! How are you finding SBEMU, compatibility wise?

[@wintermute740]

@@jamesfmackenzie I've only ever tried it on the thin client, and it seems to work well enough. I haven't noticed any glaring issues, but I don't use that thin client all that often.

[@RetroTinkerer]

Great combination of parts you are sharing with us, thanks a lot! Cool feature that of limiting in the BIOS the amount of memory that the system present to the OS, I'm not certain if I have seen such a thing before or I just forgot about it. That PS2 and serial bracket seems to me like a nice add on to older machines, with a little bit of modding that's it. The GPU and sound card also excellent options, never search on purpose that X800, now it's on my list of must haves 😅 I'm sure I have at least one of these Yamaha sound cards.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video 😎 Yes limiting the RAM is super useful. Windows 98 especially has lots of issues with more than 1.5GB I’ve had some issues with DOS games and USB mouse/keyboard in the past, so the PS/2 support is nice too - and the Yamaha card is the key unlock for DOS sound. I’m really enjoying this cheap PC :-)

[@charlesswansonii9319]

That Quake II gameplay looked hilarious. Like Quake Guy was hopped up on Powerthirst, he had gratuitous amounts of energy... and so did everyone else.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂 Quake Guy didn’t even see the enemy coming 😂

[@jam4madttm]

This was awesome thanks for sharing. I definitely have some thoughts on building something like this, but never really put much into it. now with this video, I don’t really have to. one thing I’d like to see is Ultima seven and eight those are my two favorite games from when I was younger, but I never got to complete them and would like to.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Good luck with your own build! 😎

[@Heru3005]

My personal retro rig is a Dell Optiplex GX150 SFF. Pertinent specs are 1Ghz Pentium III, 384MB SDRAM, ATi Radeon 9550, Aureal Vortex, IDE2SD adapter w/64GB card. I've got it running pretty much everything from DOS up to early XP stuff like a champ. Granted, I could have got a better machine for the price i paid (about 300 all told) but that GX150 was my first gaming rig back around 2000. When I saw one come up on ebay I had to grab it.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Nice build! Those Tualatin PIIIs are real champs!

[@Svein-Frode]

Great video! Sounds like a perfect "all-in-one" retro PC. I'm using Pentium 4 systems for that now, but they're mostly capacitor plagued, and a lot of trouble. You might just have convinced me to upgrade!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! This has definitely become my “most used” retro PC. Next step, fit a Voodoo card 😂 On a related note, I recently found an industrial P4 machine with fully working ISA DMA. What sound card are you using on your P4?

[@Svein-Frode]

@@jamesfmackenzie For my P4 systems I use Audigy and Audigy 2 sound cards. I only use them for Windows 98. I have older computers for MS-DOS.

[@Svein-Frode]

@@jamesfmackenzie As for Voodoo, I'm not a big fan, at least not of the Voodoo 3s I have. I prefer the GeForce FX-series of cards for Windows 98 gaming.

[@filthyape1111]

that seizure quake 2 moment had me crack up hard XD

[@jamesfmackenzie]

😂

[@fra4455]

Great video

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@fra4455]

@@jamesfmackenzie thanks too

[@philscomputerlab]

Great video 😄

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for visiting Phil! Glad you enjoyed it! 😎

[@philscomputerlab]

@@jamesfmackenzie Yea it's right up my alley with repurposing older OEM boxes, well done 👍✅

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the RT! Much appreciated 😎

[@Megatog615]

SBEMU might work just fine with the builtin audio if you want to save some more money. Compatibility is mostly random but if you have AC'97 audio then it's worth trying.

[@Megatog615]

Obviously, this doesn't work in Windows but if you are setting up a DOS machine give SBEMU a try.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Great idea! Will have to try this out!

[@wowitsshit9734]

well done, i cba to do anything anymore myself, i have enough retro e-waste now.

[@Edman_79]

I had many of these over the years, since GX520 even in SFF version. Sometimes a little problematic regarding bulging caps, yet all in all, good, sturdy work horses. On thing, they are just too darn loud. I'm a bit spoiled on that subject :) Great video anyway!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks!

[@kalliste23]

I've got a pile of Core 2 Duos. You can turn off one core in the BIOS and have a monster retro machine.

[@user-nb4wz9xb3n]

Данная машина больше Legacy система чем Retro. Для аутентичного опыта она слишком мощная и пропускная чтобы перенести опыт 2000-2005 года. Краеугольным камнем RETRO системы стоит считать момент перехода с массовых copermain 370 100 > northwood 478 133> prescott 775 200 ddr 400 ( все остальные промежуточные ядра и режимы их работы были не доступны на всех рынках как retail (tualatin) или не сбалансированы по частотам и возможностям питания платфомы (prescott 478) ) Legacy система это полный 775 платформа до 4 ядер с полной поддержкой ddr2 относительно именно RETRO связки. Между этими системами кратный прирост пропускной способности почти в 4 раза и в 12 раз вычислительной мощности процессора. В свое время маркетологи сильно заземлили Pentium 4 на частоте по факту оставив в массовых моделях не большую пропускную способность относительно массовых P3 - частота X3 производительность +20 процентов что в итоге сильно сказалось на радикальной отдаленности P4 от Core2 который сумарно при каждом обновлении добирал X2 от первых P4.

[@zipzum]

You need second sound card for Windows XP. To support EAX :)

[@b0r1sus]

Looks good. I use Pentium 3, 512MB with ISA-slot motherboard for native DOS-retrogaming. Sound quality is not well, but it is same as i had in childhood.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I have a P3 build too - I think it’s the best for pure DOS too 😎

[@bonaventura_AKA_ben]

At about 4 min you show the bios post install os thingy-do all optiplex pcs have this feature or is this the ‘newest’ optiplex model that does? I ask because a model 740 or 760 or whatever would be a performance upgrade but this clever ram limitation in bios is a cool feature when dealing with dos and win 95 hanging on having too much ram.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Good question! I actually have a 760 somewhere - will check!!

[@ambby1898]

I had this computer & used it JUST like that back in the day, now I do it with PCEM emulator :) lol

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Nice! Great minds think alike 😎😂

[@geoman1420]

On a Core2Duo@3GHz Dell 780 with 4GB Ram i run Linux Mint and i am able to play MAME and up to PS1 and N64 games (with Retroarch), classic adventure games with ScummVM and quite a few GOG games with wine...

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Still a very capable machine! What GPU do you have in there?

[@geoman1420]

@@jamesfmackenzie On board graphics....

[@Eyetrauma]

Nice video. As a Phil fan I'm always a fan of seeing people make retro rigs with more readily available parts. That said, please be mindful when insinuating that PCIe cards will work well with 9x. Some like yours do, but there's a good many (even older models) that won't be so amenable. Once Phil's video dropped there was a pretty significant run on the X800 in US eBay and while it seems to have cooled a bit the pricing isn't nearly as good as what you got (lowest with shipping RN is roughly about what you paid for your whole system). Personally I ended up doing the inf hack on a PCI-PCIe bridge Quadro and while it "works" getting it running is firmly in the realm of installing-via-incantation. *Edit:* Upon review, it looks like the problem you had (needing to remove the extra GPU node in Device Manager) was exactly the same problem Phil had. How interesting. Anyway, I just wanted to mention this in case a newcomer sees this video and thinks they can repeat the experiment with any old PCIe card. Be sure to do your research before you buy.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for these words! I agree - I was very selective with components here to make it work well. Picking up any PCIe GPU and any PCI sound card will not get the same result 😢

[@Velocia2009]

Very Nais 😊

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks!

[@Inject0r]

A job well done, if I say so myself! I’ve been building a low-profile C2D E8600 machine with an ATI Radeon X600 Pro on an Asus Intel G35 board. I’m trying to get everything to work using only PCIe devices, but there are a lot of hurdles that I need to overcome before it can work. I’ve gotten the CMI8738 sound chip to work. Even under DOS! I still need to try unisound. That’s my next step. Under Windows 98, I’ve also tried an RTL8111 network chip. It works? But not with the sound chip installed. Anyhow, awesome video!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind words! Getting the CMI8738 to work is a big achievement! Which chipset and controller hub is your build using? I’ve had a lot of issues because Intel seems to have broken ISA DMA after ICH5 :-(

[@Inject0r]

@@jamesfmackenzie I’m using the Asus P5E-VM SE with G35 and ICH9. I think I haven’t been able to install just a few drivers, which weren’t essential. I’ll have to check.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@Inject0r awesome! Now I need to get a CMI8738 too 😅

[@trashtronics1700]

Got a gx 620 Pentium d machine for about 10 now am intrigued to do one 😂

[@jamesfmackenzie]

A Pentium D should work really well - good luck!!

[@ErazerPT]

Nice to get that 3in1... Not sure about DOS/98, not saying it wont work, just that i didn't try, but for XP you can probably get a lot of cheap core i3/5 2nd or 3rd gen and they'll be great. Around here the hard part is the graphics card, very slim pickings, either too under powered or too expensive.

[@FizzoDizzo]

Great video as always. I recently bought a brand new DCS S817 YMF724 for 30 bux. Like you mentioned, you can still get deals on old retro parts. By the way, what's the Optiplex model that you have?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Thanks for the kind message and congrats on the find! For me the sound card is a hidden gem - and the key piece to unlock DOS gaming on this machine 😎 Thanks for the model reminder - it’s the Optiplex 380 - will add this in a pinned comment!

[@krunge]

Love this! Could you please put names and links to all the hardware upgrades in the description? I might want to copy this project. Thanks 😊

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Done!

[@krunge]

@@jamesfmackenzie thank you!

[@ciddax754]

As long as you stick to the dell stuff, they are OK. But a new power supply or different mainboard can be a real pain. They even changed the pin-out of standard connectors. Don't think that ATX looking power supply jack will work with anything not Dell. Or your mainboard with a standard power supply. There are some, where you have normal pin-outs, but check double before frying your hardware.

[@MagicManfred]

Cool PC, but I found it a little contradictive that you said "I built this for 90$ and so can you" and "normally these sound cards cost 40$ more than I paid" within two minutes. Still great video, I enjoyed watching it.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Glad you enjoyed the video! 😎 Yes, I did have to wait a little while for the right eBay bargains to appear 😂

[@Fredisaviewer]

So, I'm curious. First, I enjoyed this video very much. I retro game a lot; and I do it via emulators. I would like to get a hardware setup like this, but on occasion it looked like you had to run various commands or little batch files or something in order to get the computer configured to run with different programs. I'm not including where you needed to run the BIOS; but there were other times at either a command prompt or just as you were about to run a program you'd run something or other. Perhaps I'm observing wrong. Basically, is this setup you are running post working the BIOS to run smaller amounts of memory in need of further tweaking in order to have it run a DOS setup? And regardless of whether or not it's a DOS, Windows 98, or Windows XP setup, is there anything you need to run to make the computer run specific games/programs? What about getting specific hardware components to work in the various needed modes? Is there setup involved? Sorry if my questions seem like there are obvious answers; I'm just new to this sort of thing when it comes to running an actual retro machine as opposed to an emulator.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

For the most part DOS and Windows 98 will “just work” without additional setup. Occasionally some DOS games will run too fast and I will need to use something like cpuspd. This is featured in the video with Theme Park, however it’s relatively rare - most games will run fine. Lastly, some games will need some custom memory settings - e.g. expanded vs extended memory etc. The best solution is to have a custom config.sys with menu options. Phil’s “MSDOS Starter Pack” can help simplify this: www.philscomputerlab.com/ms-dos-starter-pack.html Hope this helps!!

[@Fredisaviewer]

That will help! Thanks! @@jamesfmackenzie

[@cyrodiilwarrior]

If I send the money +shipping, would you send me one too? 😂

[@noctemrex1337]

I'm working on building this rig. I'm kind of new to working with windows 98. Did you just make a bootable windows 98se iso cd and then use a flash drive for the patches and drivers? Thanks!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I used a USB-SATA adapter to prepare the disk on another (modern) PC and pre-added all the necessary drivers etc 😎

[@regis.pessolano]

That's will be nice to build a reverse sleeper

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Agree! I hadn’t thought of this as a “reverse sleeper” - but I love the concept! 😂

[@terrylyn]

What kind of monitor were you using? I wonder if a modern HD display could be scaled down by third to have still pixel perfect integer scaling.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I’m using a 1080p monitor, but it does have some OSD controls with integer scaling options and 4:3 aspect correction (of course, with black borders as DOS 320x200 and 640x480 don’t divide perfectly into 1080 lines)

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I also have the OSSC if I want to get *really* fancy 😎

[@mirific87]

if you got an am4 or intel z170 and higher motherboard with classic pci slots (or pci x1 to two pci slots riser) you just need CSM option in bios to do the same thing with modern computers... I'm running win98se on my i3 10100 system without major issues. DOS sound won't run, support for native dos sound ended with x79 motherboards I think. Whatever DOS games you can launch from Windows will usually work with Aureal Vortex/Yamaha/SOLO1 but natively not really.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Nice! It’s possible that with the YMF-724, DOS sound will work even on a modern motherboard like yours. It uses its own “DSDMA” TSR to simulate legacy ISA DMA. Have you found any modern boards with PCI slots?

[@mirific87]

@@jamesfmackenzie not recent ones. Only Asus Pro H610M-C D4-CSM with one slot. But PCIe x1 to 2 PCI slots are easily available. As I said, you just need CSM option in bios and there's a vcache protection error that can be sorted with info from msfn forums for the very latest motherboards. My Asus B460 board has 2 pci slots and there's an AM4 Biostar one x470GTA3 but they're rare. I believe there were some B350 ones with two PCI slots which are cheaper.

[@mirific87]

@@jamesfmackenzie Other tested systems that allow for win98 install are HP Z400 and HP Z220 CMT, they're a bit more expensive than this Dell one. I'd want users to try other LGA775 systems, they're usually easy to install Win98SE on with rare exceptions.

[@trashtronics1700]

Ff7 for the win

[@jamesfmackenzie]

One of my all time faves 🤩

[@retrosalvage]

Did you perhaps get the onboard NIC to work? Can't leave this monster out of a retro LAN party 😅

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It works great in WinXP, so I use that to transfer files across. But unfortunately not DOS or 98 (yet!!). In the worst case I could put in a PCI NIC. Then I’d only need some friends 😂

[@retrosalvage]

Out of interest, do you think it will work in Win98 if one PCI slot is used for sound, the other for a GPU (Geforce FX5500) and a PCIE to PCI bridge adapter with a NIC? I have two of the exact machines, would be fun to network them up.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

@@retrosalvage I tried out a Voodoo 3 PCI and it works well. Unfortunately I don’t have a PCIe NIC to test both together - but at least we know that PCI video works OK 😎

[@salsichastuff8515]

is there any alternative to the graphics card? i cant find any x800 xl for sale

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Are you looking for a very fast Windows 98 card? Or performance is not a major concern?

[@explorer9049]

If you live outside the U.S. then you should be able to easily find radeon x300, x600, x600 pro or x550. These cards will work just as fine. You can also use workstation firegl versions v3100 v5000, v5100 and v7100 cards. Just be mindful that anything after ATi R400 graphics chipset is not support under windows 98 & ME.

[@flashpc]

How did you get windows 98 installed, trying to run on a 330 and windows 98 is fighting me, SATA drives are not showing up Welp!!!

[@jamesfmackenzie]

I put the SATA drive into a caddy, formatted as FAT32 and copied the Windows 98 installation files across. Then I connected the disk to the retro PC, booted via a FreeDOS USB stick and started the Windows 98 install 😎 Hope this helps!!

[@uniktbrukernavn]

I don't think I need to use the "speed tweak" to get my Pentium 133MHz to run slow enough 🤣 Funny how computing between 1994 and 2000 meant your old computer became absolute garbage in the span of 2 years.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

It was a pioneering era and great fun! But also very expensive with the constant upgrades! 😂

[@branscombe_]

do both Quake and Quake II have single player mode?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

They do indeed! In fact I recently played through the Q2 campaign end-to-end. Q2 especially has some non-linear backtracking and makes your creative brain work a bit too. Some great memories!

[@initial_kd]

I completed quake using vlquake but i recently completed quake 2 remaster on xbox game pass pc. It's just better as it has support for proper widescreen and fov, texture filter off/on, bug fixes, a new marker you can turn on the fly so you don't get lost, improved water i think they imported the n64 water, whole n64 campaign remastered, all the mission packs including the brand new one. The new weapon models just look higher resolution but you can use the originals. Multiplayer works and uses a newer backend. The music is included too as i know the steam version didn't. Although mod support is non existent. Also support higher frame rates than 72fps with proper working physics.

[@Tang526]

Super mario land music?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep! Well remembered 😎

[@Ragesauce]

1:50 so which is the fastest?

[@jamesfmackenzie]

So far as I’m aware, it’s the ATi Radeon X850 XT PE 😎

[@mirific87]

@@jamesfmackenzie there are patched drivers for nvidia pcie 7th series cards... I believe Gainward 7800gs+ is the fastest card you can install on win98se? But ATI wise, yeah, x850 XT PE which costs an arm and two kidneys. The Gainward card was mostly sold in europe only and it was an AGP 7900GTX in disguise. Again, rare card.

[@trance_trousers]

You're obviously English, but do you also live in the U.S.? If not, then please don't quote all the prices in USD, use GBP. Also, please stop saying things are "super" this or "super" that. It's bad enough hearing it from Americans, even worse coming from a fellow Brit! Other than that this was a very nice video.

[@jamesfmackenzie]

Yep! Brit but I live in the US! Thanks for the feedback!

[@trance_trousers]

@@jamesfmackenzie ah, that explains it then! 😊

[@bloodyiceberg6827]

core 2 duo now is like pentium 4 in 2009 nobody cares about them

[@jamesfmackenzie]

100% agree!

[@FizzoDizzo]

First. 😅

[@jamesfmackenzie]

We have a winner! 😂 Hope you enjoyed the video! 🙂