What retro things have you done today?

jellybeard999 said:
Rebuilt my Shuttle SN41G2 from around 2002/2003.

I built this as my first custom PC with a mobile Athlon XP 2500 and ATI 9800. I upgraded to an NF7-S in a Lian-Li case with custom watercooling and put a duron :eek: in the shuttle and my parents still used it (sparingly - they have a fairly recent laptop) until a few years ago.

I've resurrected it on the cheap with some parts I had lying around/scavenged; XP3200, 2Gb PC3200, 150Gb Velociraptor, nvidia 7600GS.

After many trials and tribulations installing XP (i'm not installing an ODD, and needed to slipstream SATA drivers) it's now running XP SP3 and has been tested on 3DMark01 and 03.

Now I just need to make a new front panel (to add some intake fans - it always ran warm, but the 7600 is passively cooled and i had some artifacts in testing) and paint the top cover - it was all fairly scratched/damaged anyway.

I ripped most of my games to ISO years ago (2004ish onwards) and have been digital only since around 2008, but the late 90s games may have been chucked :( I'll have to have a look in the loft, but fear the worst. I might have to repurchase via GOG or similar.
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Ive always wondered. Do GOG releases work on the older OSes or have the fixes and patches they have done to make them work in win10 make them not work under the original OS?
 
LewisRaz said:
Ive always wondered. Do GOG releases work on the older OSes or have the fixes and patches they have done to make them work in win10 make them not work under the original OS?
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Some games work on Windows 98. You need to install them on a modern PC and just copy over the installed files. I've got Sim City 3000 working like that and I know Unreal works like that too.

All work on XP I think, as the "offline installer" versions.
 
Today I decommissioned my Windows 98 PC I had been using for the FPS project. It's been completely reliable and I've not had any issues with it nor any games at all. No IRQ settings faffing needed, and it's been cool and quiet. Thank you for your service overclocked Pentium 3 728MHz, CF card and MX440!

I've now set up the XP PC to continue the FPS project. It's an Athlon 3200+, 1GB of DDR1 400MHz in dual channel and an Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS.
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I got it because it is single core, DDR1 but PCI-E Graphics opening up a whole range of mid 2000s graphics cards that cost less than £10.

My main decision was the graphics card. In the end I went with an 8600GT, partly because I had one when I got my first own PC, and partly because of price / performance / no external power / sli capable / passive mix. It should be fast enough...

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(if you could kindly ignore my work shirt I classily dumped on the floor...)

First test, Oblivion - runs slightly better than expected but I expected it to run like crap. I'm tempted to get MSI afterburner and see if the GPU or CPU is the weakest link. Ah well, in theory this PC only has to run Far Cry 1 / COD 2 as the most demanding games.
 
I picked up a mystery PC for £7.50. I haven't done this for quite a while!

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Picked it up from the nicest Gumtree Person I've met yet. Compared to some of the metal diseases I've picked up over the years, this one was very clean!

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interesting lever system for mounting the cooler
  • Winfast (Foxconn) K8S755A Socket 754 motherboard with an Athlon 3000 (an old 89 watt Newcastle version).
  • 1x 512MB of DDR400 RAM.
  • Nvidia FX 5500 (I never thought I'd see the day I'd view an FX card with anything other than disappointment but they're useful for W98 builds these days!)
  • A modem that went straight into the bin.
So not very exciting really. No hard drive, but an IDE DVD Drive. The case will be useful. This PC was put together in 2005 so it must have been the cheapest PC they did! I washed it all out and put it together with a bit of cable management and removing things I don't need so it is a bit tidier.

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No idea what I'm going to do with it now.
 
Great system for the price. Bung a small SSD in that and it'll be quite snappy in XP. Agree about the FX5500, used to build loads of machines with those and the 5200s in them and the really low end ATI ones at the time.
 
LewisRaz said:
Ive always wondered. Do GOG releases work on the older OSes or have the fixes and patches they have done to make them work in win10 make them not work under the original OS?
Click to expand...

I am running an XP rig and they work fine. I think GOG is looking to discontinue support for XP though. :(

When I had Windows 98, again some GOG installers work fine. I would Google 'Philscomputerlabs' a fantastic retro resource. YouTube and web guides will tell you what you want to know. GOG does provide some original ISO disks in their installation packages but they do not install as default - it takes some tweaking. I think there is a campaign to encourage GOG to provide as a default for every game.

As for the today, just purchased some original EA games. I thought the days of purchasing and installing from disks was long gone! :p

Superbike 2000
NHL 2001
Madden NFL 2001

Earlier today I was playing the Steam version of Half Life via my current Win 10 rig, only its not Half Life as I recall?

The graphics have been given an overhaul, so an install from my original disk is incoming. I hope to install early CS and DOD too if I can find the original download files.
 
Ninco! said:
I am running an XP rig and they work fine. I think GOG is looking to discontinue support for XP though. :(

When I had Windows 98, again some GOG installers work fine. I would Google 'Philscomputerlabs' a fantastic retro resource. YouTube and web guides will tell you what you want to know. GOG does provide some original ISO disks in their installation packages but they do not install as default - it takes some tweaking. I think there is a campaign to encourage GOG to provide as a default for every game.

As for the today, just purchased some original EA games. I thought the days of purchasing and installing from disks was long gone! :p

Superbike 2000
NHL 2001
Madden NFL 2001

Earlier today I was playing the Steam version of Half Life via my current Win 10 rig, only its not Half Life as I recall?

The graphics have been given an overhaul, so an install from my original disk is incoming. I hope to install early CS and DOD too if I can find the original download files.
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Cant beat the real disks. Still need to sort out my pickups from the last few months.



@almoststew1990 thats a bit of a steal there mate!

If you have no interest in it I would be temped to stick w98 on it and try and move it to someone else looking for retro PCs. Either that or strip it for parts.
 
LewisRaz said:
Cant beat the real disks. Still need to sort out my pickups from the last few months.
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A very nice collection! I am increasingly finding myself picking up original disk versions, since the majority of DVD style games are so cheap.

Do I spy Guildwars 2 - I am waiting for the first Guildwars game to arrive. I have never played either The Sims or Max Payne; added to the 'want' list as they are classics!

Lately I am on a Valve reminiscence. So I was on a mission to find my Half Life Generations Disks. Only when browsing eBay did I remember ever owning a copy! It has an early version of Counter Strike too, so tonight I am going to give it a whirl. Albeit, it might be short lived as I have no idea what CS version is included and if its compatible with bots for offline play? It would be a nice bonus as my WinXP machine is not online.

Anyway, for good measure in case my CS revival is short lived - I found SturmBot for Day of Defeat. :)
 
Ninco! said:
A very nice collection! I am increasingly finding myself picking up original disk versions, since the majority of DVD style games are so cheap.

Do I spy Guildwars 2 - I am waiting for the first Guildwars game to arrive. I have never played either The Sims or Max Payne; added to the 'want' list as they are classics!

Lately I am on a Valve reminiscence. So I was on a mission to find my Half Life Generations Disks. Only when browsing eBay did I remember ever owning a copy! It has an early version of Counter Strike too, so tonight I am going to give it a whirl. Albeit, it might be short lived as I have no idea what CS version is included and if its compatible with bots for offline play? It would be a nice bonus as my WinXP machine is not online.

Anyway, for good measure in case my CS revival is short lived - I found SturmBot for Day of Defeat. :)
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Yes mate that is my OG copy of GW2. The sims games have not really aged well at all IMO. But the build menu music is a considerable slap in the face of nostalgia.

As for max payne... SHAME ON YOU :) It was such a hit at the time and although the graphics are laughable now it is still a good story to play through and the bullet time mechanic was great.

Im a bit gutted you mentioned valve. I had a big box set of HL1 and all of the addons/side games... All in a skip somewhere now from when I was young and stupid (I am one of these)
 
Local charity shop pickups today. 3 monitors, all from the same shop and REALLY cheap. Didn't have any prices on as they'd just taken them in. But I swooped. They also had a couple of unknown brand 4:3 LCD's in 19" and 20" sizes. Left those, as well as a 37" Panasonic (I think) 1080P LCD TV, although I was tempted.

Didn't know they did monitors, will be checking in a bit more regularly now.

Dell 2007FP 1600x1200 4:3 monitor - £5
Dell 2007WFP 1680x1050 16:10 monitor - £8
Dell 2407WFP 1920x1200 16:10 monitor - £10

Happy with that.

2007FP will be arcade cabineted - got a HP T620 Plus thin client that'll power it. Might run it vertical for arcade and maybe a bit of virtual pinball.
2407WFP will become a monitor on my desktop.
2007WFP... don't know yet. Might get sold on.
But I do love the 16:10 screen ratio. So much better than 16:9 for PC use.
 
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Playing Half Life. Managed to find the WON patch (the patch for the original disk versions of Half-Life) v.1.1.1.0 which fixes the limited resolutions - I now have 1600 x 1200 goodness.

The latest Steam version of Half Life has a 'HL2' style makeover and for me is just not the same game as back in 1998. I like the original Barney and mad doctors! The same with later versions of Team Fortress, Counterstrike and Day of Defeat - the later versions just lost the gritty look/sound of the originals. I am on the hunt for some reasonable bots - It will never be the same as back in the day playing online - even if I can get close (akin to Unreal Tournament bots) I will be well chuffed!

When you get retro gaming up and running - it ain't half satisfying!
 
Does getting drunk before noon count? I know the kids today are all about clean living so seems pretty retro to me right, although my judgement may not be the best!
 
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