Trans-era Gaming Rig.

CheesyBISTO · 27 Jul 2019 at 20:11

For three decades I have had access to a PC until about 2 years ago when my HD failed, whilst making do with an Xbox 360 and now One I miss my old games.

I am looking for a rig that can encompass as huge (for computers) length of time gaming capabilities as reasonably possible, I am talking from DOS to as late as possible.

What, if anything would people recommend? I am not fussed about the latest and greatest more of a case of 'unrivalled compatibility'.

I am obviously familiar with PCs but I do find that I get out of my depth quickly which is why this post exists... (my greatest achievement is probably getting Q3A working flawlessly on Windows 7 Home Edition... Although that was MANY moons ago)

I also don't want to spent a million Pounds.

Many thanks in advance.

Raumarik · 27 Jul 2019 at 21:13

Can't you use DOSBox or similar to play older games?

https://www.dosbox.com/

List of games for compatibility checking: https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/GAMES

almoststew1990 · 27 Jul 2019 at 23:08

A normal Windows 10 PC with a DVD drive and DOSBox is the best solution for this. W10 has generally been fine for compatibility with games from 2000 or later.

The alternative is building probably 3 PCs - a DOS one, a Windows XP one and a modern one. It might be worth a peek in the retro sub forum.

BlizzardX · 28 Jul 2019 at 00:00

One option is to build an all in one; i.e. use something like unraid and virtualise the PCs so you can run a dedicated W10/W7/WXP/Dos and only load the up when needed. Unraid can hold the shared storage required and simply virtualises the actual OS; as you can pass GPUs etc. through to the virtual machines you can get pretty much exact compatibility that you need.

Wucked · 28 Jul 2019 at 06:21

Most new PC's or laptops with a decent APU can play 90% games with solid 1080p frame rates. Cheap hardware has come on leaps and bounds in the last few years. Best to re-post this under general hardware tbh.

Rofflay · 28 Jul 2019 at 13:54

I thought you wanted a rainbow rgb computer with both female and male outputs and inputs. But seriously what about an arcade cabinet? Or retropie? Ideally you want to go to around the dreamcast to ps1 xbox1 era at most.

Buying the cabinets from arcade1up and modding them can work too or gutting them but people are doing it anyways. Maybe when i move it will happen.