I still have 15 or 20 big box pc games from the 90s, mostly dos titles, sitting at my parents house. I've been focusing a lot on consoles these past 16 years, but prior to that, I was a huge pc gamer, mostly with dos games and tons of shareware games from those wellknown publishers like ID, Apogee, Epic Megagames, etc. Basically, dos games were my childhood games during the 16 bit era (didn't have any of those consoles). Starting to get a little interested in dabbling with dos again for the nostalgia. I've played around with dosbox, but have encountered some minor control responsiveness issues that might be due to my modern pc's drivers. Add to that, I miss the cranky sounds of my old dos pcs booting up in the 90s, and floppy disc drives, I might have to get a dos machine going again one of these days. Alternatively, I've considered picking up a laptop from back in the day, such as a toshiba libretto, to be able to have a more compact experience to play my old shareware/dos games that I can easily store and display alongside console stuff on my gameshelf too. In the meantime, I don't notice a lot of discussion about dos games anymore. It used to be, circa 2000-2005, you would hear about people having a dedicated dos gaming machine, but I don't hear about people doing that so much anymore. Does anyone here still have any sort of dedicated dos setup/dedicated 90s pc for 90s pc gaming? Any dos game love?
People do still do it. You can find videos on youtube of things like "Ultimate 486 Build" or "Ultimate Windows 95 Rig." Basically you need to see what hardware is best suited for certain eras and build based on that. Also, grab a good multisync CRT as this will suck on an LCD as the resolution will be all wrong and scalers won't work on old hardware like that and generally leave a lot to be desired on modern hardware as it is. I picked up a new in box eMachines 17 inch Multisync from 2004 for 15 bucks a few months back and it's great for this sort of thing. Does 640X480 all the way up to 1280X1024 (although I would top it out at 1024X768 for solid picture quality with a decent refresh rate.) For DOS games, something like that is perfect. Right now I am using DOSBox on a laptop, but I really wanna do a few ultimate period rigs in the future when I get more money and space.
I don't have a dedicated DOS machine (yet), but I do have a PowerMac 7200/90 for running old Mac games, like Marathon, Pathways into Darkness, Minotaur, etc. Here's my collection of stuff so far, although I haven't updated it with my newest arrivals yet. http://collectedit.com/collectors/dechief--------8163/pre-halo-bungie-games-10578
I have one but I don't use it during the summer time because I don't have AC and the room it is in getty muggy.
I have a 486 bigtower and a Pentium (sub)notebook, both with DOS on them. (There's also a PowerMac and a Win98/Voodoo3 box, but since you asked about DOS...) I don't really collect boxed games for them - not much of a nostalgia thing for me, since back then I was mainly into shareware titles as well as lots and lots of, ahem, "schoolyard backups", which usually weren't packaged. I still keep a couple of boxes though, mostly LucasArts things.
I have a ton of big box DOS games, not really a collection as such since they were bought back in day just to be played.
I also kept some nice boxes of DOS games. And I got myself a iMac 400 MHz to be finally able to play the Mac version of Wolfenstein 3D with its crystal clear voices. ^^ And there are still dos forums around.
Been working on making a DOS machine out of an old eMachines computer from the late nineties, need a couple of parts to make it fully function with my DOS games since it was a Windows machine first and foremost. It could use a nice Soundblaster card and a good 2D card so Commander Keen works right. Also on the collection thing, ever since watching Lazy Game Reviews in 2010 I have been collecting PC games in general and have amassed some good titles over the years from lucky online finds and Goodwill hauls. Got some good DOS games fully boxed, my crown jewels in that regard are Commander Keen in Goodbye Galaxy, Wing Commander Deluxe Edition, Silpheed, Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame, and Duke Nukem 3D: Kill-A-Ton Collection.
I have a similar story, but I don't have a DOS machine and will probably never get one, unless I get an opportunity to purchase a nice 486 NEC for cheap before I leave Japan. My love for Marathon and Bungie's other old titles sparked my love for DOS, Mac, and Windows 95 games, especially shooters and platformer (and Bungie's stuff, got plenty of that already and plenty more coming soon). I also just so happen to be a big LGR fan! Most of mine are sealed though, but there's a lot containing some opened Quake 2 stuff on Yahoo that ends this week/early next week. I'm also the highest bidder on a sealed Final Doom that I'm hopefully going to win.
Good luck on the Final Doom bid, if you get it for a good price it is more than worth it for that box alone. Glad to see another LGR fan, he is easily one of the best video game personalities on YouTube and covers so many good PC games with a lot of detail, and respect for the material, even if he is being snarky towards it. The man introduced me to a lot of really good DOS games I never played like Jazz Jackrabbit and Hocus Pocus, he was also indirectly responsible for me luckily acquiring the former on eBay back in 2012 for 6 dollars.
The Final Doom is for Mac by the way, forgot to mention that. I just looked it up on eBay and could only find the DOS/Win95 version sealed for $74.79. Right now mine's only at $4 LGR's voice could make anyone cream their pants, I love it when he does his Duke Nukem impression. I've been looking through a lot of his old hardware videos recently and like them the most, along with his oddware and thrifting videos. I actually tweeted him a picture of my Bungie shelf recently and he said he was impressed, so in my mind all the games were worth the money I spent on them.
I use DOSBox for DOS games, as fortunately the few DOS games I play work perfectly with it, but for anyone interested in DOS gaming (or Windows gaming) then http://www.vogons.org/index.php is a great site. It's nominally for running Very Old Games On New Systems, but they also help with running newer games on older systems, building or using older PCs (such as a 486, or Pentium 1, or the ideal PC for running pre-Windows XP games (some Windows 95 or 98 games can be very difficult to run on XP or later, so some people set up a dedicated PC just for Windows 9x games), etc. It's a great forum, very friendly and helpful, and some of the posters really know their stuff. Their discussions on 3Dfx era graphical cards, for example, are very interesting. It's also the official DOSBox forum, and also deals with VMSound, various Glide Wappers, and other stuff to get games working on modern machines.
Cool link! In terms of ancient but cool pc hardware, it could be interesting (and extremely expensive) to have a desktop machine circa mid 90s that contains the 3DO blaster card and the Diamond Edge 3D card with the Sega Saturn controller ports. I think the machine would need to be win95/dos as the 3DO blaster software is primarily a dos/win 3.1 app, but the diamond edge uses win95 era drivers... And perhaps include a gravis ultrasound card for the sound card. That sounds like the ultimate in mid 90s excessiveness... kinda want to accumulate all of this stuff now XD
