Running Demanding DOS Games on Affordable Hardware

[@jonchapman6821]

This is the kind of content that made Philscomputerlab what it is today, fantastic stuff 👌🏻

[@philscomputerlab]

Wow, thanks!

[@O.Shawabkeh]

Your enthusiasm while staying away from the hype path is appreciated

[@philscomputerlab]

DOS Gaming *IS* Hype 🙂

[@tootai]

@@philscomputerlab HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[@briangoldberg4439]

i'm glad some people are keeping this stuff alive. i spend my energy restoring old tvs and stereo equipment, so i don't really have the bandwidth for a retro pc equipment hobby as well. i just use dosbox lol 😅

[@marccaselle8108]

I use dosbox al the time, it's very handy. It works better than SBEMU that's for sure

[@DarkLordValmar]

Literally the same motherboard and CPU I'm running in my retro 98/ME rig, with a Audigy 2ZS and a ATI X800 XT PE, it's perfect!

[@GameplayandTalk]

I have a similar system with an Athlon XP CPU and a similar Radeon you had recommended in a video years back. It's a great dual-purpose rig, allowing nice, high res titles in Windows '98, but it also has decent enough DOS compatibility as well. As you mentioned near the end of this video, I agree that you definitely want as much CPU power as you can for later DOS games that support higher resolutions. I still love playing the original Quake in software mode, for instance. At 1024x768, my system still manages a flawless 60fps. Paired with a CRT, it's a great experience!

[@ozzyp97]

I'm happy with my pile of assorted Slot 1 stuff (and a janky HP 486 pizza box), but more people having access to the hobby is always a good thing in my books. Keep it up Phil!

[@emmalastname9228]

Thank you for all the resources in the description! I don't need to build another retro machine but now I am strongly considering it lol Great job on the video!

[@dr.bo77]

I really thinking about for years, to play natively old DOS games. Your video pushed me to do that finaly, thank you for yor work. Long live DOS! 😍

[@philscomputerlab]

You can do it!

[@jurgenskrause]

This makes me super happy, somebody just dropped a pc with very similar specs on my doorsteps a few weeks ago, so I got Win98 set up and running beautifully!

[@philscomputerlab]

Awesome!

[@mesterak]

Thanks Phil for the bonus video! Availability of working 754 boards is a challenge in the US often times, but 939 boards can be had reasonably. Socket 939 CPUs are more readily available on places like eBay, too.

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks for the info!

[@bob9483]

754 was kind of marginal in canada too, usually seen in prebuilds

[@777anarchist]

Running a 939 board in single channel memory mode pretty much turns it into a 754. There are also several K8M800-based AM2 boards, with these you can go full double/triple boot with no drawbacks. I would also suggest using the IGP for DOS/Win9x as it is S3 Savage-based which means remarkable compatibility and outstanding picture quality.

[@Romerco77]

I tried Via 939 platform years ago, and if i remember right there were issues with drivers under win98 or some other incompatibilities, it ended up being a no-go for me.

[@DarkLordValmar]

Still my favorite channel on KZbin, keep it up Phil!

[@philscomputerlab]

Wow, thanks!

[@mjmonjure]

Hi Phil, just visited your website and it is fantastic! Clean and organized, just the way I like it.

[@philscomputerlab]

Awesome, thank you!

[@aionboogie1252]

I really appreciate your knowledge and reccommendations Phil, i like how you think "out of the Box" and come up with great solutions, and uses for aging hardware.

[@davkdavk]

Another great video, Phil. Love the dedication to the oldschool

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks 👍

[@jwoody8815]

Good to see another retro build video from you. Thank you much.

[@johng.1703]

that Shodan wallpaper is a blast from the past, has been a while since I last played system shock 2.

[@spladam3845]

This is a great resource for the community, thanks Phil.

[@el_yemo]

Nice video. So many options to build a retro pc. Thanks for the tips!

[@peterilling1627]

Your awesome with old retro machines Phil.I back in my days in Sydney used to repair the old mfm hard driver and so on. Cheers mate.

[@Ronaldopopkings]

Being able to use a new modern cpu cooler is a must. Had so many retro PC moments ruined by small fans with ruined ball bearings making completely awfull noise.

[@Xerxes-xn1gy]

Cool setup and video ! As for a MS-Dos/windows 98 setup I built a Pentium4 machine with an Asrock 775i65G (rev3), 512mb of ram, a 40gb Maxtor, a Diamond vortex2 and 6800 gt. So far it runs really well (only tested duke nukem 3d and little big adventure 2 at the moment).

[@chenzen4915]

i used most the same hardware for my windows98 build, that gigabyte board has served me well. my radeon is the radeon 9600

[@eightbit1975]

Great video Phil. Nice to see some new videos. AND, in all of these years I do not believe I have ever seen your face! Now I know you have just as much hair as I do! Keep up the great work!

[@KerranKaksi]

The retro hardware piece that I value most and still own is the Roland SCC-1 ISA card that I got back in the 90's. I could not live without it for retro PC gaming so I am stuck with old motherboards that still have ISA bus :)

[@k9cj5]

I tried building with a Radeon 9200 pci and it worked fine under windows 98 but once I tried dos I got weird artifacting. It may have been my scaler solution but switching to a GeForce FX 5200 fixed all the issues I was having. (Probably picked up the fx because you recommend it) I did not know about the dvi locked at 60hz I will need to look into that. Always picking up awesome info from your videos.

[@ursadrake]

Great video Phil - I'm looking forward to the next one! Just so you know (maybe you're aware already, but in any case) it looks like your website might be experiencing some issues at the moment. When I tried to visit it today I found I only got a blank white browser page. Hopefully it's just me/my browser and not a broader problem with the website. Hopefully it'll be back up and running soon. It's a fantastic resource - thanks for maintaining it!

[@CaptainKenway]

Love Athlon 64s. My DOS/Windows 98 system is built around an Abit UL8 (Socket 939), which has a ULi chipset. Works great and Nvidia even still host the drivers on their website. Complete overkill of course and Socket 754 stuff tends to be cheaper all-round, but I picked it up cheap on Ebay and had always wanted an Abit motherboard.

[@lostxj]

I ended up doing the exact same thing. By the time I wanted to build a retro PC the parts were too expensive so I picked mine up from the dump. It was someone's well taken care of old business PC. And personally I ran with the idea of having a windows 98/DOS super computer. Restricts the DOS end a bit, but there are plenty of games that run just fine even with the way too fast CPU. And I am amazed at how much better some of my old 3d favorites in windows run having all of that CPU power behind them, like the original Max Payne.

[@davkdavk]

Abit were great Shame they went bust.

[@coreydotson2524]

Great video!! Thanks Phil!!

[@smada36]

I was given an old Packard Bell for a colleague at work. It needed some capacitors, and the original hard drive quickly died, but to my delight is was an AGP board. It was an early-ish Pentium 4 socket 478 and came with XP, but good for Windows 98. I haven't got the original drivers now, but with some digging, and your website, I managed to get drivers for everything except the onboard sound card. This is specific to the Packard Bell version of the Gigabyte board but it's not an issue as I wanted to use a Sound Blaster Live anyway. There's an FX 5500 in there, again, drivers thanks to you, and 98 is just fine. I've not tried DOS as yet, but what could possibly go wrong..... right? Thanks for your resources!

[@CMDRSweeper]

You mentioned retro gaming on Windows XP, and I was like "Nah that is too new..." Then I looked at the years and I am a bit shocked to see that it is becoming relevant again in this context.

[@mayw6571]

Thanks a million for the Super Easy pack, it really did help get DOS running for me. If I didn't already have a Slot A system (my grandpa's old PC actually) then this would certainly be the direction I'd go.

[@Henk717]

Athlon 64's are still my favorite retro PC platform, I love my Socket 939 Athlon 64 X2 build and its the only retro PC I actively use and need. Couple of tips for compatibility, if you go with a VIA Motherboard those support the PCI cards very well, mine is paired with an ESS Solo-1 also featured on this channel and it has excellent dos compatibility. Pair that with a tool like CPUSPD to slow the CPU down when you need and you get a very wide range of DOS compatibility all the way back to the 80's. For Windows you can then put something like a Geforce 4200 in and have great Windows 98 compatibility as well, but in mine I went with the 6800GT + Voodoo 2 combination instead. That is still highly compatible in Windows 98 but I do need to lean on the Voodoo 2 a bit to get all the games to work. But it has the benefit that you unlock that 2005 Windows XP era where you can now play stuff like Half-Life 2 in all its glory and even Crysis 1 works on the machine.

[@rodhester2166]

Thanks for all the great videos.. I purchased that external optical drive you covered a short time ago and it works like a charm.. cheers.

[@philscomputerlab]

Thank you!

[@joachimd.5915]

Thank you for the video. I currently revived my old QDI-Legend V mainboard (intel 44LX) with an old ISA Soundblaster 16. I was very happy that I kept these parts, as the prices for pentium II and pentium III mainboards already includes "collectors tax". I was running some older games also on an AthlonXP 2500+ with a terratec ESS-Solo-1 as it was cheap to get in the past. Currently K7 Mainboards are also very easy to get and maybe an alternative to the newer AMD Athlon64.

[@philscomputerlab]

Very nice!

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Affordable hardware running demanding games? Only Phil knows what to do!

[@philscomputerlab]

First. Again. 😍

[@3of12]

Yeah knowing what is and isn't compatible with operating systems is genuinely guru level knowledge that is lost art among most people. Win 98 support is surprisingly robust for platforms that existed years after it lost relevancy. I have a lot of AM2 athlons lying around and a bunch of AM2 AM3 motherboards. In fact I'm thinking of turning one into a semperon server and the other into retro PC. 5:03

[@Chris-yc3mm]

Loved gateway back in the day

[@Super123456789Kuba]

I just love the fact that you can Supply these Athlons 64 with the new PSUs, instead of going only for those PSUs that have 30A on 5V Line (IIRC, could be less, could be more) that are needed for Athlon XPs and such. Such as saviour in that regard!

[@GGigabiteM]

Later Socket 462 motherboards started to include P4 power connectors for 12v CPU power. Because even back then, the engineers knew trying to pull 89W+ from the 5v rail was untenable. I had several Socket 462 boards with P4 power connectors, mostly from MSI. The KT4A-V was one, and the KT880 Delta was another. Both motherboards supported almost every Socket 462 CPU that existed at the time. I still have my KT880 Delta, it was a great board in age of the capacitor plague. I never had a single issue with it having failed capacitors.

[@olnnn]

One thing to be vary of with that this platform is that it was still largely from the era of "capacitor plague". So, important to check for bulging electrolytic capacitors before buying (unless one has the tools and skills to replace them.)

[@philscomputerlab]

I actually do have a desoldering gun and have done a recap before but it's quite tedious and fiddly.

[@asretropcsuk4103]

​@@philscomputerlabsounds like a video in itself there Phil!

[@MartinPaoloni]

It's like you're describing my retro PC! A socket 754 Sempron, VIA chipset, an IDE optical drive and a SB Live (Platinum 5.1). Besides an odd problem with the music in Wolfenstein 3D, and Megarace running too fast, it handles everything I could possibly want to play, perfectly.

[@octopusgaming4027]

Thanks for the video. Currently, I'm using an old Pentium II 233 PC, which is on his last leg. Maybe a Socket 754/939 is a nice replacement.

[@retroianer3835]

I would say period correct, if you have the place for more retro pcs. A retro enthusiast would always build more Retro PCs. For Windows XP, I plan to build a Socket 939 AGP NForce3 system with an AMD Opteron 180 Dual-Core CPU. PCI Express is too new for me. 😀

[@Jackpkmn]

I've been having fun playing around with a Via C7 based embedded system for windows 98/dos stuff it's been an interesting journey. Trying to find extremely small DDR2 dimms tho is a challenge.

[@zokum]

I had a lot of fun Dos gaming with a Duron 800, Athlon 2GHz or so and later Windows XP on an socket 939. Doom ran like a dream on my Duron 800!

[@AetCount]

Excellent guide!

[@deagt3388]

Back in 2010 I've build AMD machine with Phenom II X4 on ASRock MB with ATI Radeon HD 3870 AGP graphic card with 2x2GB DDR 2 Kingstone HyperX 1066 sticks of RAM. Crunching every game, even 'Far Cry' or 'Crysis' in Full HD (1080p). That was cool PC... ;-)

[@HZL_AD]

back 22 years ago , (2001) my dream machine:-. Pentium III_ 1.4ghz 128mb sdram ATI Radeon 9000 pro Aureal Vortex 2 sound Run SystemShock 2 to buttery smooth..

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

The GA-K8VM800M makes a triumphant return after two years!

[@philscomputerlab]

When Gigabyte had cool colours going 😅 Better than RGB.

[@dormcat]

Seeing that Gigabyte board reminds me sad memories: I got TWO of these bricked by a faulty RAM stick. 😭 Acquired a similar Asus K8V-MX later and still is my main Win98SE rig (with SB Live! and Radeon 9600 Pro). BTW Phil, what about Socket 370 builds? Many of them have at least one ISA slot, providing even better DOS sound card compatibility; Coppermine P3 should be fast enough for 640x480 VESA resolution and are much cheaper than Tualatin P3. The only problem might be availability; not sure if they can be acquired easily without breaking the bank nowadays, although I got mine (Gigabyte GA-6VXC7-4X-P + P3-600) for just US$30.

[@JorgeCarvalho_web_dev]

Hi, I use socket 754 SIS chipset and this is very fast and compatible system. W98 installed without issues and very happy with this build.

[@joshj88]

I recently picked up a Mac mini G4 so I could play a lot of these without worrying about Voodos or sound blasters to be honest. It runs Mac OS 9 native and though some stuff doesn’t run native I can use virtual pc and vMac for the really old stuff like Dark Castle on the power Mac.

[@joshj88]

Only thing is CDDA soundtracks. I picked up a FireWire optical with a audio out. I don’t know if it works just yet but it will be fun to try.

[@williamvieira9807]

Greetings, Phil. You mentioned that you have migrated from mechanical Hard Drives over to SSDs, but so comes the question: how those solid-state solutions react to the usage, I mean, since you are expected to use an SSD-aware OS... doesn't it wear out their write cycles? Or there is some sort of patched DOS or Windows 98 that solves that issue? Something else is: I know that you are more focused on DOS and Windows 98, but still: I used to play Mafia - The City of Lost Heaven back in the Windows XP days, my other PC had a GMA945 integrated graphics and it worked fine. But when I migrated to Windows 7 I could not play it because it gets totally garbled. Even worst now, the machine I use now has a GMA3150 and it is even more grabled. Already tried many differend "hacked drivers" to see if did any good but no luck. I don't wanna go back to WIndows XP :( Do you know something that could help it? Saddly this crappy motherboard doesn't have a PCI Express 16x slot so that I could replace that awful integrated graphics :|

[@bob9483]

I used to be all about period correct but with 3 kids and no time I can appreciate going overkill and power through any game. My latest build is running late socket A, is there a big gain going to 754 ?

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

Phil, just some clarification needed here... Under "true" MS-DOS without going to MS-DOS mode via Windows, then MS-DOS will only ever detect ISA sound cards with an appropriate driver, correct? Okay, it will also support some parallel audio devices too, but never PCI. In other words, you have to go into MS-DOS mode via Windows 98 to have that mode see the PCI sound card, once Windows has already detected it and indicated in Device Manager that is has a Soundblaster compatible mode on IRQ 5 or 7? That seems to be the core problem with true MS-DOS emulation, in that any PC or motherboard with an ISA slot or two on it usually demands a premium price on eBay. And where does this hardware you're showing here fit in with your recent video where you demonstrated the DOSBox Staging really gives excellent results for software emulation nowadays?

[@philscomputerlab]

MS-DOS mode is true MS-DOS. Once you shut down into MS-DOS mode, the machine stays in it, even after a reboot. Only when to type EXIT will it load Windows again. See Windows 98 SE is built ontop of DOS. However I urge anyone to install Windows 98 SE first because it is just so much easier to set everything up. DOSBox is awesome, but so is playing around with real hardware, maybe we end up playing more with the hardware than actual games, something for everyone and you can decide what you prefer 🙂

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

@@philscomputerlab Thanks, that's a useful explanation.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@terrydaktyllus1320 Thanks for asking, it helps me make better videos 🙂

[@Roadkill7878]

Thanks Phil. This was very well timed for me. I am just in the process of building a retro PC with a Pentium 4 and an ECS 661GX-M 7 REV 1 motherboard. Any ideas if this is a good start?

[@philscomputerlab]

Pentium 4 will be awesome for this!

[@Roadkill7878]

@@philscomputerlab is SiS chipset ok?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes they are good! But I don't know about DOS compatibility with the sound cards. Only one way to find out!

[@Roadkill7878]

@@philscomputerlab Hi Phil. I have met with success thanks to you. I used the above motherboard which has SIS chipset. I decided to use a Sound Blaster Audigy EAX SB0090. Using your MS DOS mode Supereasy and the Audigy drivers from your website. I then copied the command lines created by the SB16 emulation into the DOSSTART batch file and hey presto all working. Sound is great. Thanks for all your help. I never thought I would solve this. Great content from you as always

[@OmegaUltima]

I think we're gonna see a shortage of 754 and 755 sockets shortly soon on ebay, I figure LMAO. Good video Phil, I picked up a Gigabyte 8S661FXM-755 last year to verify some cards I was gonna throw over on ebay but found it's actually quite a solid performer in Windows98 and DOS tasks respectively too. Back then I'm pretty sure you'd want to gravitate towards Nvidia's Nforce chips, but these SiS ones aren't at all bad for the task at hand with 98SE. You could definitely make these components work flawlessly if you don't care about getting age-specific components. There's some fast single-core processors here for sure. All the same, it's probably best to be prepared and buy replacement caps because...yeah, these motherboards are all from /that/ period.

[@philscomputerlab]

Working on a Pentium 4 video with a SIS chipset board...

[@dawiekaboutereen]

Really great video Phil! As a fellow enthusiast I like that your videos take me back to that time where setting up sound cards was just as fun as getting to play the game. It was interesting of you to note that for DOS gaming you can leave Win98 as is, no Windows drivers required. Your easy DOS makes things really easy, not having to fiddle with things like Himem.sys for example. And I loved Crusader, I also own them on GOG. Are you into things like Batocera?

[@philscomputerlab]

I've never used Batocera, but I do use a few emulators. Mostly DOSBox and also RetroArch for older consoles like the PSOne. Just played Resident Evil 1 and 2 :D

[@ScottyBrockway]

I use a PIII-S SL6BY on an asus TUV4X board with a Ti4600 or Voodoo 5500 and a Soundblaster live. It uses a VIA Apollo Pro 133 chipset, and has pretty good late dos game compatibility, windows 98, and also Win2k/XP.

[@Danilo_Days]

there's a patch for commander keen 4 for radeon. i had the same problem with my 9600xt

[@Scotybalboa]

Thanks Phil, may I ask which drivers you used with the CT4830 as I've previously struggled with that model of Live! Card?

[@philscomputerlab]

I am using the Audigy 2 ZS driver method, there is a link in the description. They are wonderful and should work with your card.

[@Scotybalboa]

@@philscomputerlab Perfect thankyou! 👍

[@ShrineOfLife]

hey phil, thank you again, everybody loves your videos, me too! to cope with some difficulties in life right now, I did get a retro hardware haul, right now i am using an iBase mb800h mainboard with a pentium 4 2.4ghz, a geforce 4 (i like it, had no issues so far in dos gaming!?, so i do not understand why it is not recommended) and i use a really shabby isa sound card, avance logic als+, and i love the sound! its such a great dos experiance, with your dos mode super easy I did add norton commander to the autoexec and start in a graphic menu, really comfortable to use! I did never hear you mention Norton Commander, for me back in die day (i think i was about 10 years+ old) NC was the way to go! a shame i had no longer time for good old dos, windows 95 did conquer my computer very soon. so, i love p4 for dos, but only with the right mainboard, ISA slots are a must have for me. i have two other projects to complete, the ibase board is my second dos retro machine, my first and formost dos machine is an celeron a on an asus mel-m mainboard, socket 370. with a soundblaster awe 32. good times! its a really nice hobbie, and i feel like going back in my lifetime :D ty mate, keep up the good work!

[@philscomputerlab]

It is a really fun hobby and good to hear it's helping you a little with whatever you're dealing with. I do know NC but never used it back in the day. Have you heard of VC? Vulkrov commander I think. Very similar in many ways. P4 is awesome 😎

[@ShrineOfLife]

@@philscomputerlab hey ty for your reply! no, i´ve never heard of it, I will check it out for sure! maybe you have another lead for me, as kid I did you a progam called "dos menu" - you could program your own directory trees and what not, to start programs and games from a grafical menu. i can not find any good results, maybe you know it?? anyway, thank you again and best regards from bavaria in germany!

[@mashk]

I was a PC gamer since the early 90s. Back in those days PC gaming wasn't the seamless experience it is now, you had to mess around with config files to allocate more memory, know the IRQ, DMA settings of your soundcard and know the idiosyncrasies of DOS so you could create different boot settings dependent upon the game you wanted to play. I miss those days 😢

[@ewelmo3921]

I just happen to have many of these boards and CPU's in my parts bin, I'll have to try it.

[@Romerco77]

I bought that board when you showed it in the channel for the first time years ago, really nice platform indeed but, I would say, for Win98 and early XP only. For an overkill DOS i would say a P4 with one of those mainboards supporting sblink, which are really affordable, is much more recommended.

[@AladimBR]

Phil, how did you boot into DOS? Pressing F8 during OS boot? Your DOS package, did you simply copy it after Win98 install?

[@philscomputerlab]

Double click on the shortcut I placed on the desktop. Check the MSDOS mode super easy video for details!

[@AladimBR]

@@philscomputerlab Got it! I watched all the pure DOS videos but missed this one. Thanks!

[@retro-computing-gaming]

Heh, I had no idea that heatsink sizes have stayed the same all the way through Ryzen. And that's the one drawback to a Socket 775 build - Intel changed from 72mm to 75mm hole spacing starting with LGA 1156 sockets, so socket 775 heatsinks are limited to socket 775 heatsinks.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea Intel is a pain, especially Socket 370 and 478. LGA 775 you can still find modern coolers I believe, at least I was able to a few years back?

[@retro-computing-gaming]

@@philscomputerlab Yeah they're still out there, just that most (if not new old stock OEM which are becoming increasingly hard to find) are at least 2x as expensive as a cooler for a more modern socket. Then there's also the issue of 2 mounting types - one is a screw-type that screws into a plate under the holes, and the other just snaps in - and the snap-in coolers are generally too short to fit most boards designed for the screw-in type. And you'd think that the 3mm spacing difference would be small enough that you could force fit say an 1155 cooler - NOPE.

[@chiefthunderhorse4430]

Phil great stuff! I'm currently building a socket 754 system myself with a Asus K8V SE Deluxe and a Sempron 3000+, I'm currently using IDE drives but I'm tempted to go the SSD route after watching this and even just ordered the Startech adapters, my question is do the SSDs need any special preparation with Windows 98 use or is format and go? Just curious as I know hdd and sdd function slightly different and I'm wondering if windows 98 can correctly utilize them

[@philscomputerlab]

I've done a video on aligning partitions with SSDs. In short, if you use less than the total capacity, this is called under provisioning, it's a non issue. For example buy a 120GB SSD and create a 60GB partition.

[@chiefthunderhorse4430]

@@philscomputerlab thanks for the reply I will check it out now, I'm assuming it's the "How to avoid short lifespan when using SSD in retro PC" video, I'm going to study that now

[@philscomputerlab]

@@chiefthunderhorse4430 Yes that's the one!

[@retroftw]

SBEMU next then Phil! AC97/Intel HD Audio driver for DOS 😀

[@explorer9049]

It's still in beta, not a lot of AC'97 or HDA chipsets have been tested yet and there is confirmed count that alot of other computers aren't working with Sbemu.

[@retroftw]

@Explorer yes, it is beta! I have had various successes and failures on the PCs I have tested so far. But when it works, it can often work very well 😀 It's worth a shot. It doesn't cost anything to try 😉

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes I'm monitoring the situation. I didn't have much luck yet, but I'm hopeful especially with regards to Sound Blaster Live! drivers.

[@datriaxsondor590]

Cool video with some great recommendations, imo. I actually dumped Intel after the PIII and went with AMD for the Athlon Thunderbird, and Athlon64 eras, and I believe I even went up to the Phenom X4 as well, before returning to Intel with the i7 970. I actually ran the Gigabyte GA-K8V Ultra back in era, with an Athlon64 3800+, with I "think" it was a BFG GeForce 6800 GT at the time, a SoundBlaster Live, and I think it was 1GB RAM at that time as well, maybe 2GB. In any case, never used it for DOS games at that time, of course, but it was a great system for Windows XP, during my WoW years. 😄

[@TheDoorsHK21]

Thank you for this video Phil! What's your experience with SiS chipsets under DOS/Win98?

[@philscomputerlab]

Working on a video ☺️

[@TheDoorsHK21]

@@philscomputerlab Fantastic, I'm especially interested about their socket 478, 775 and 754 chipsets

[@0525ohhwell]

Hah, looked at the title and saw the thumbnail with this dude holding a 754 board and grinning. I run a 754 system for my Windows ME system but never thought about using it for DOS.

[@ewanwood]

Hey Phil, great video! I have a similar build of an AMD 64 3000+ on an SiS chipset., With 1024MB of ram, a Radeon 9550 (great tip about using the VGA port for high refresh btw). I'm using 2 soundcards, a Yamaha YMF, and a Soundblaster X-Fi. I'm dual booting Win98 SE and Win Vista. I've got the Yamaha card enabled in Win98, and the Soundblaster card enabled in Vista. I run DOS games in Win98 - I've found problems with DOS games running in pure DOS with the Yamaha card not supporting wavetable sound on the board.

[@philscomputerlab]

The highlight of the Yamaha is the authentic FM.

[@ewanwood]

@@philscomputerlab it is very good FM on that card! I have 2 of those cards thanks to a very early video of yours on the Audician 32 boards having that Yamaha chipset. The wavetable is AMAZING! One of the best sounding cards I have had with native GM synth! My only complaint with them was having FM only in pure DOS games , like most Apogee titles and Duke3d! Unless there is a driver you know about, I can not get Duke 3D to recognise that cards wavetable capabilities in DOS. Doom is fine however! I know this card has a true opl3 chipset on board, but when the wavetable on the card is so good, I want to use it! Personally when it comes to FM synth I can't shut up about how well ESS cards do it on a single chip

[@boardernut]

Great Phil Iḿ also in the process of using Athlon for old DOS games, particularly with motherboards that supports ISA slots for Sound cards. Like the GA-7IXE4

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

If you have got a motherboard with an ISA slot in it at a very good price or even as a freebie, then you have had some good luck - I can find nothing on eBay that isn't at a hugely elevated price.

[@philscomputerlab]

What is cheaper? A PCI only board + decent DOS PCI sound card or board with ISA + decent ISA sound card?

[@terrydaktyllus1320]

@@philscomputerlab Clearly the PCI-based system is cheaper but without an ISA card and slot (as I understand it), you can't get sound in true MS-DOS systems. So there is a "trade-off" here, surely?

[@boardernut]

@@terrydaktyllus1320 I think there are a few exceptions, one being the Turtle Beach Montego PCI + wave-blaster compatible module, and probably the Ensonic PCI based cards. But you are right for guys like me and other who love the sound of an old ISA turtle beach, PAS16 or GUS or even ISA Creative ones. Same reaosn why we don´t use emulators

[@boardernut]

@@philscomputerlab I think there are videos showing what a Vortex 2 + NEC XR385 (to be in the cheap side) can do in DOS, and the fact that in an Athlon 64 you can also run more modern games as well there no question about it. Win-Win

[@NiPPonD3nZ0]

We've seen this bundle of yours work many times... How well would an Intel i845 based system work with a similar setup?

[@philscomputerlab]

Let's find out!

[@techdistractions]

Haha thought the k8vm800m would appear 🎉 ❤

[@philscomputerlab]

Time to surprise with something else 😅

[@jooct31]

Hi Phil, Just ordered the MoBo: Gigabyte GA-8VM800M-775 with a Pentium 4 processor. It is a 775-socket, if I understand correctly. Will that make any difference for my Win98/DOS build? By the way your resources and videos are great!

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes it might not have AGP but PCIe.

[@50shadesofbeige88]

I think you're right. Especially for beginners. The Athlon 64 is a no-brainer.

[@alextirrellRI]

The amount of options is always a great thing. I've had an Acer PIII 733 machine that has served me well over the years, and aside from giving it a new case circa 2004 and and SSD a few years ago I haven't really found a need to upgrade it. I am also using a Sound Blaster Live, though I think it's one of those Dell OEM ones that's even more picky. Thinking about replacing it with a Yamaha XG era card -- or if I can find one of those cheaper ones that use Yamaha's chips!

[@MonochromeWench]

A socket 939 opteron makes for a great XP system Though dual core may cause trouble for some older games and there are very few xp era games that can use multiple cores. My current dos system of choice is a Windows 98 laptop. There are many choices from low pentiums to quick p3s. Dos sound support on late 90s and early 2000s laptops is likely to be very poor but fine in Windows if you can find drivers on the modern internet. mid 90s systems might even have a real opl3 and are great for early 90s and late 80s games

[@KaziQTR]

You can use CPU affinity. I use it for Assassins Creed old ones. They stutter like hell for more than 2 cores.

[@iraklispap1369]

i have a little problem reserve irq 5 for sb live. moving the card to all slots making all combinations still irq 5 is not available. under win 98 the irq of the card is locked and i cannot manually change it. can i manually unlock irq selection via windows 98?

[@philscomputerlab]

Check the BIOS under PCI Resources! On this Gigabyte board for example you can reserve interrupts and assigne them to specific slots. Also make sure PnP is enabled so that Windows is in charge of resources and not the BIOS. What IRQ is it using at the moment? Also disable any onboard devices you don't use like serial, parallel, audio, ethernet, floppy, SATA...

[@iraklispap1369]

@@philscomputerlab at the moment sb live is at interrupt 11 locked. windows notify me that i cannot modify the specific irq. also i will check the irq 5 on bios, in order to make the specific irq reserved. pnp is anabled and all unused devices are disable. i have the same gigabyte motherboard, but in atx form , not the mini atx you are using . thank you very much Phil!!

[@david7delta]

Love these retro builds Phil !! Just a quick question... is there a reason you don't use the R9250 with 128bit memory bandwidth? Would love to see a comparison with the R9200 and maybe a few other lower 9000 series cards like the R9550. Keep up the good work.

[@philscomputerlab]

I just use what I have on hand. For DOS I doubt it makes any difference but for Windows a higher memory bus most certainly affects performance!

[@david7delta]

@@philscomputerlab I think these lower 9000 series cards are great candidates for retro gaming. It would certainly be interesting to see which ones are worth chasing. Is it worth going for the slightly higher models, do they provide a nice performance bump, or is the 'cockroach' 64bit R9200 the best bang for buck ? I'll keep an eye out for them on ebay and hopefully make a few donations... :)

[@philscomputerlab]

@@david7delta yes they are awesome and why I use them so often for 98 projects. Great drivers under 98 as well, sharp Anisotropic Filtering and even some AA options to play around with.

[@david7delta]

@@philscomputerlab Success... two cards on the way. An ASUS ATI Radeon 9250 128MB and a GECUBE ATI Radeon 9550 128MB. Cant wait for them to arrive !!

[@david7delta]

@@philscomputerlab Yes, the Anisotropic Filtering and AA options hold the greatest interest for me. I currently use a TNT2 Ultra and its a great card, but I would love to have an AA option for my favorite 640x480 games. Thats why I'm so interested in these 9000 series cards. Would really be interesting to see an AA comparison of some classic games... I loved the original Diablo, and the original NFSSE. Both I think could benefit from AA... The amount of hours I spent racing the Testarossa in Alpine on NFSSE... oh my. :D

[@silverfoenix]

Due to traveling abroad I left my old machine (Compaq Deskpro Pentuim3 with its CRT) I only ever changed the harddisk.... was corrupted by Windows Millenium then I installed windows 2000 Never knew there would be a demand for these back in 2009 Well as you showed we can build an eco-friendly more efficient machine nowadays or just emulate with dosBox Staging like the previous one!

[@liquidt3ch]

this is so cool! if I had the space in my house, I'd probably build this machine. for now, I'll just settle for dosbox :(

[@ewanwood]

I've got a coble of Sound Blaster Live cards, and I've had a problem FM synth emulation on these cards ...it just sounds wrong! However with these cards what I like is the agility to load soundfonts up to 63 - 64Mb , makes a huge difference over the stick 4Mb soundfont. Loading a larger soundfont like weeds sounds awesome , and the card will use that soundfont when booted into pure DOS.😊

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

2:36 Wraith Prism to the rescue!

[@philscomputerlab]

Or a 360mm AIO 😝

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

​@@philscomputerlab If they clip into the AMD plastic clips.

[@philscomputerlab]

We will find a way 🙂

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

@@philscomputerlab Tech YES Bogan style with zip ties!

[@philscomputerlab]

She'll be alright mate 😝

[@Moonlight_Tide]

If you still answer questions on these older videos, what about socket a? I have a n200 chipset from ecs that uses modern power supplies

[@georosculet6505]

Hello Phil, Do you have any idea if the integrated Network controller on this motherboard is compatible with Dos network gaming?

[@philscomputerlab]

I checked the driver package and it includes DOS packet driver, so should be good to go!

[@georosculet6505]

@@philscomputerlab that's interesting. Thank you! I'm planning a Warcraft2 lan party with my colleagues and I'm trying to find the best way: S754 with integrated lan, or modern PC's with PCem or 86BOX 🙂. The easiest way I think is DOSBox, but it's too easy🙂

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

I’ve personally switched to using old MacBook Pros for retro gaming. Probably won’t work for DOS era but for XP it works fine. You can get for example a 2009 MBP with Windows XP that will run most games fine. If you get the model with 9600GT M instead of 9400 M combined with the C2D CPU you have enough performance for most games. Unibody Macs are getting very cheap these days. You can get many under 100 bucks and because of the great build quality many remain in great condition. Unlike newer macs you can also put an SSD and upgrade the RAM and it is very easily done. With a cheap adapter you can get VGA out to connect to a CRT and unlike a big tower PC they can be easily stored away when you don’t need it. 2008-10 MBP officially support XP while with 2011-12 models you can run W7 which works with most XP games. Might be a way to get XP working as well but you don’t really need a quad core and GTX 650M for games old enough to not work with W7.

[@ericlee5581]

My go-to DOS machine is still a mid 90's toshiba laptop (the chunky gray ones) with a P1 or P2 cpu. those often come equipped with an OPL3 sound chip and a decent 2d windows accelerator chip. :) the -CDT models often have decent screens.

[@philscomputerlab]

P1 and P2 are actually quite different for DOS gaming. P1 you can slow down and run older speed sensitive games nicely. P2 is better for demanding 3D games.

[@ericlee5581]

@@philscomputerlab True. I do use setmul to disable cache on my P2 computers to run speed sensitive games. My 4030CDT (PII-300) is setup as a DOS machine in that manner. the graphics chip on it even has Win 3.1 drivers. it can cover a surprising range of DOS games with just a quick utility. :)

[@exaltedb]

My dos system has a Athlon thunderbird, a Radeon 7200 (though I have other cards that can work) and a SB Live! value. This pc works both in dos and win98 just fine for my needs

[@Astfgl]

Heh, this is actually very similar to a retro PC build that I tried a few years ago. I combined my old Athlon 64 3200+ with a second-hand EPoX VIA-based motherboard, a SoundBlaster Live! 5.1, my old GeForce 6600 GT as well as a Voodoo 3 graphics card. I was having trouble getting Windows 98 to work well though; especially the USB mouse wouldn't work for some reason, which made installing drivers and software quite tricky. I should try with a PS/2 mouse but I don't have one at hand. DOS compatibility was also merely so-so; some games had graphical issues like Commander Keen in this video, and Ad-Lib didn't sound quite right to me. It felt to me like this hardware was just a bit too new to make for a successful retro PC. Watching this video makes me want to try again though, and perhaps I should give FreeDOS a shot instead of the dated original OS'es.

[@SianaGearz]

SB Live is now a target of SBEMU, along with onboard AC97 of that era mainboards. Would be great to have that covered.

[@philscomputerlab]

I checked it out and results were very poor. Native drivers much better.

[@yopachi]

I have a moral obligation to beat System Shock before the remake actually comes out (May 30th)

[@ps2channel25]

Another great video Phil. Maybe think about doing a video on laptops for DOS gaming. I've found ThinkPad R5x or T4x are great Windows 98 machines which support sound blaster emulation in a DOS window. Games like Doom work great. I must try some of the games you mentioned in this video.

[@andrewlindsay7930]

Is there any way to combine a Sound Blaster Live (PCI card) with an external midi like a Roland Sound Canvas in DOS? Do the Audigy ZS drivers support MPU-401 via the gamport in DOS?

[@philscomputerlab]

Good question. This detail escapes my memory, but you can watch the linked SB Live! video, I'm sure I mention if the MIDI port works in DOS. I have a feeling it doesn't...

[@brentgreeff1115]

Love these vids. I want a period-correct machine, but this would be a much better starting point. - I just got a expansion-card to put in a Sony PVM - that gives it a VGA input. I think there is going to be quite a bit of trial and error to find a compatible graphics card.

[@philscomputerlab]

😮 PVM with VGA??

[@MartinWolves]

My friend has a Pentium 4 tower that has not been used for years. I may have to ask her to borrow it. I spent 2 years upgrading it in the 2010's with more memory, faster processor and graphics card until she gave up using it as her daily computer and bought a more modern i7 laptop.

[@mealot7613]

Say phil, why haven't you had any vids on dual gpus? No local market around to get them cheap? Got 2 of these hd 5970 for a quad gpu setup in a xp build. There are a bunch of xp games that can actually make use of all 4. And all 4 together only eat as much as a oc rtx 4090 lol

[@ErrorMessageNotFound]

You recently did a video about dosbox, but have you ever looked into PCEM ?

[@philscomputerlab]

Hasn't it been discontinued?

[@SneakiestDuke68]

I started with this motherboard for my first win98 pc build with sempron 1.6 GHz. Now my win98 pc is on Asus CUV4X socket 370 with Pentium III 1 GHz. Actually Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M i have in Win2000 pc with Athlon64 2.2 GHz.

[@briggsg]

You should ve checked Unreal in software mode (SVGA ofcourse) :) Also, why Quake only in 320x200?

[@philscomputerlab]

Unreal is a Windows game, not DOS :D