Combined interests of Oldie Games plus the matching Oldie Hardware

[Kiwi]

How many IWD fans are also inveterate tinkerer types? I have a great deal more free time now than funds to play at new PC builds, so I am building some period-suited old PCs.

It would be great to share notes. Back during 1997 to 2001, plus or minus, I had almost no spare time for gaming, and although I bought games, I just didn't play much. IWD was one that caught my interest and was installed on both of the PCs I had at the time.

It ran on the older and slower one, but was noticeably slow at 233 MHz on the P1-MMX system. It wouldn't run for me on the P2/400, however. I never solved the problems, and both of those systems' MBs failed to make it into the reusable parts bins, for various reasons.

I now have the Abit BX-6 version of the P2 PC I owned back then, but no matter what I do with it, Windows98se runs far more slowly than it should (slower than Win2000, which I can dual-boot with). I am just about to replace the Win98 install with either DSL plus WINE, or "Bee" (two small footprint Linuxes).

Although the i440BX chipset was a failure for me once again, there is an Asus P2L97 that does quite well with Win98se (i440LX chipset).

I'm using the same era's video cards and audio processors as well, although drivers are often a problem.

This hardware is quite inexpensive on eBay, when I don't already have what I need from my own past upgrades. I'd love to hear from anyone else doing anything similar.

[Kiwi]

My endeavor is a solitary one?

How about this, then, which comes first, patch 1.06, or the HoW expansion?

I installed the game to a middle-aged K7 PC, although it's fairly new to me, and the game didn't seem to want to be installed in Win2000, so it will be played in Win98se.

[hedgewizard]

I haven't much to say in the sense of tinkering, but I have got several old functioning PCs with Windows 98 and 2000 left from work. I play Doom and the early Elder Scrolls on those occasionally.

[galraen]

Intel, if I recall correctly made a massive blunder with the P2 (I think it was the P2) and didn't give the chip any level 2 cache, hence the thing running a lot slower than one would expect, certainly a hell of a lot slower than the equivalent AMD chip.

I could be confusing Intel chips, but the blunder certainly gave AMD a massive boost. If my memory is accurate, which sadly is getting rarer, then maybe you should explore the possibility of using a motherboard which supports the AMD equivalent and using one of their CPUs.

[NiteWulf]

I used to play older games on my laptop (PIII 500, Win 98) but now I play using DosBox. You can change the running speed (=cpu cycles) in DosBox which allows you to play a LOT of games! All those old games are freeware now, and there are even some fan remakes (Quest for Glory 2 VGA!!!).

I'm still a big fan of old-school point&clicks.