Is Period Correct better than Time Machine? 

Yes retro games vastly underestimated their requirements. Some demanding games needed more CPU power than even existed at the time haha.

I like period mostly correct options, but also like building time machines, so I have multiple of both options 😊 For me the hardware is more fun than the actual games, endless combinations

A period correct machine is great but for beginners or people who just want to play the game, building a time machine is a lot more convenient and more accessible.

In the middle of the year 2000 that was a nice middle of the road middle of the range PC.

Period correct is cool to have, but not practical for many people, especially as time goes on. (Availability of parts dwindles, parts break over time, extra machines take up space...etc.) I still have my period correct Windows XP PC, but if/when it breaks I don't think I'd replace it with another period correct one.

Usually I try to match all parts in my retro PCs so that they are from the same "era". I always use old IDE hard drives, but I normally disconect the Floppy, (most of them are broken anyways...) and although a Geforce FX5200 is cheap and good for Windows 98, some really old games stuggle to run on this "modern" hardware. I mainly use Pentium 3 from 500 to 933 mhz or old AMD Athlon XP.

Ach wie schön. Die PC-PlAYER war ein großartiges Magazin. Wurde von mir um die 2000-Wende auch immer gerne gekauft und gelesen👍

timemachine for me, i suffered enough when these games were new on the period correct hw, and its better on newer one playing old games, yes there are games that are a bit pain to get working in some cases but id still go with timemachine, as i have a laptop dedicatted to that purpose and works like a charm with old games

I have been tossing this up for a while now. I still have my original C64 and Amiga 500's that I use (with their monitors that still run after 40/30 odd years thankfully), but with PC's it is insane. All my old machines starting with my first 386 PC are long gone. I have my current, modern PC I built some months back, and my sons use my old Haswell PC for their gaming, but I really want an older machine to at least play late 90's/early to mid 2000's games on, while also having the possibility of some dos gaming (I have quite a few games still on floppies here). I think the time machine is the way to go, as I still have a lot of Athlon64 x2 stuff hanging around from the mid 2000's, along with a working Geforce 7600gt and a ati 5670 that has winxp drivers. The one last piece of the puzzle, that I know you covered Phil but is still doing my head in; Should I try for a CRT? Go for a 4:3/5:4 LCD monitor that are incredibly cheap, or grab a modern monitor. My heart says a CRT (I used a Trinitron 19 inch monitor right up to 2010), while my brain says don't waste the limited dollars on a risky proposition and get the cheap modern flat screen.

Personally, a period-correct build with a CRT monitor gives me the right feeling to immerse myself in the game. In the end, to avoid subjecting my old hardware to too dangerous stress, I often use emulators for convenience. I invented some middle ground with Pentium 4 or Athlon 64 with XP and thanks to the DOS Box and glide configurator, with the Sound Blaster Live and the CRT monitor I can cover from 1993 to 2005 with retrogaming with an ancient flavour😉. Thanks for the content, greetings from Italy

Both! But the time machine is a bit more fun. Over-spec'd Win98 or XP builds are super fun and ultimately the main point for me. I want to build something better than I had growing up! Like a P4 w/ 1GB ram on Win98se.

Half half is good in my opinion. I use Windows 7 era hardware to play Windows XP stuff. It’s easier to get max performance and graphics so your Pc doesn’t struggle. Sometimes the older gear isn’t very reliable because of its age and it’s harder to find good condition stuff.

I really wish someone out there would manufacture a modern CRT.

Simple answer for me : I love both. Very nice feeling to play with slot one boards with Dos and w98se. It accept a plethora of processors from p2 233 to Pentium 3 1Ghz, very versatile. Same for graphics cards from old school 2d ones up to overkill Geforce Fx i love also playing with a more modern like p4 , athlon 64, Core 2 or athlon Fx for W98se or Win Xp. Here in France, you can easily find localy old computers like this for 50 / 100€ Thank you for your video.

I think the biggest distinctions are experience vs convenience. If you want the "true" experience that goes outside the games, you want all the baggage that comes with the period. If you want convenience and performance, you'll want the "time machine." Personally, if I want convenience or performance, I'll just use my 5800X3D/RTX 3070 and ExoDOS/ExoWin/86Box.

I lucked out and found a Windows 98 machine in a basement of a house I was renovating. P2 400MHz in a P2B rev 1.12, Rage Pro Turbo AGP, and a DOS compatible soundblaster. It must have been abandoned to upgrades at the end of the 90's/ early 2000's. I am currently doing a 98SE/DOS build to pair with my modern custom loop gaming rig. My office is filling in nicely with a mix of old and new:)

IMHO Phil - go for both. Why not?

I do mostly period-correct systems, but I almost always replace the mechanical SCSI/IDE drive with a solid-state replacement. I also go with the highest spec components of the period with max RAM etc.

Hi Phil, regarding the motherboard that you usually use - the GA-K8VM800M : I've heard that VIA chipset motherboards have some bug that severely degrades performance under Windows 98. Does the GA-K8VM800M have that same issue, i.e. are its benchmarks way below in Win98 compared to WinXP? If the bug is present, any way to fix it? I'm considering buying one, but really need to know this before investing in it.

I like frankensteining it, overkill performance, pushing windows 98 or xp to their limits, then an ssd on top for a silky smooth experience

"Time machines" provide on average a much better overall gaming experience.

Period correct is more for hardware/tech enthusiasts and historians. For general retro gamers though, the time machine is the better experience.

You should have both More seriously ... older stuff gonna break over the long run mostly hdds. Imagine giving your 30 yo machine another +30. This is why these retro enhancements like SDcard to IDE adapters, gotek and alikes come handy. Sadly we do not have drop in replacements for old Sound Blasters or Voodoo3 cards. I just hope they will get opensourced one day so retro enthusiasts can have their equivalent replacements with newer parts.

I'm a fan of the time machine with a CRT monitor. Good performance, but it still activates the nostalgia trip I'm looking for.

I'm weird and never really liked beige, I usually prefer simplistic black or silver PC cases. I like to use an SSD and I have a DELL 2007FPb 1600x1200 for some awesome hi-res 4:3. You should see if you can get your hands on a ASRock P4i945GC, it's a P4 board with DDR2 + PCIe.

The "wearing out" of SSDs from overuse and without TRIM is a very outdated thinking. Unless you're using an SSD that's over 10 years old, it's not really an issue anymore. Manufacturing techniques for the NAND and improvements in the internal logic of the controller chips has made that mode of thinking obsolete. You would really have to absolutely thrash a drive and criminally abuse it nonstop for some years in order to wear out a modern SSD.

I like both. But mostly period correct hardware. Because, with a period correct machine I know it's from the past. The actual hardware. To have the real machine from the past makes me feel the past is so much more real instead of a distant memory.

Modern conveniences but traditional appearance: NO stupid glass panes or useless lights.

I've got both a period correct and time machine PC setup, with an AT to PS/2 adapter for the keyboard, USB to PS/2 for the Microsoft mouse and a VGA+PS/2 KVM switch so I don't need to swap any cables. -Celeron 500 (Celeron Slotket using the 500's stock cooler), Intel SE440BX-2 (has integrated YMF740C+SBLink), Awe64 Value, 12MB Diamond Monster 3DII, 16MB Savage4 GT (lacks the required VBE for Duke3D's Vesa modes), 3.2GB Seagate Medalist 5400+20GB Seagate UX (originally used a 6.4GB Quantum Fireball EX - not big enough however), 386MB RAM (SPD functional to prevent the memory count on each boot), 12x 1995 Matsushita CD-ROM, 50x 2001 Asus CD-ROM, Windows 98SE -Athlon XP 3000+ (400MHz FSB), NOS MSI KT6V-LSR, Audigy2 Value, 20th Anniversary Leadtek 128MB 6600GT, 20GB Maxtor D740X-6L, 250GB Samsung 2.5" SATA HDD (only SATAII drive I know of that works on the VT8237R), 2GB DDR400, Lightscribe capable DVD burner (late 2000's, think it's 20x), Windows XP Pro (due to having no idea what drivers work for the Audigy in 98SE - have multiple Live! Value however). The boot drives were chosen purely based on the sounds they make when in use (Medalist with seek, Maxtor with motor spin up, running and spin down). I have both going through my main 1440p screen as the image looks sharper compared to my OG 1024x768 screen and free 1366x768+1080p screens. It also helps that I can set the aspect ratio to 4.3 or 5:4. 32" 1440p IPS that has VGA, mini DP, 2x full DP and 2x HDMI - and it was the cheaper than my first modern LCD (1080p 24" LG that replaced my 1024x768 85Hz in early-mid 2014).

I found a voodoo 5 and soundblaster live in a dumpster. Initially I just wanted to sell it, but now I wnt to make a 98 game machine! I'm hoping the voodoo is working oroperly.

I'm not really into period correct, I used to play Painkiller like it was going out of business with a Leadtek 6800GT and it broke safter a month (memory issues). Whilst waiting for a refund (3 months - ended up buying a Gainward 6800 Ultra GS for $100 less than I paid for the 6800GT), I had to use my old MX400 which must have lacked hardware support for a few features used in the game. One of the bosses (the first one, "Swampy") was totally invisible with the MX400. My _"Time Machine"_ sits on a test bench - an AMD FX-60, DFI Lanparty NF4 SLI-DR Expert, 2GB Corsair TwinX 4000 Pro, MSI GTX295 and a Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS. Storage is a 500GB Samsung 860 EVO SSD and a Seagate 2GB SSHD and runs Windows 7 Ultimate. I splurged with cooling though... I have a modern soft line (EK's ZMT) custom loop - 360mm & 240mm radiators, EK D5 Pump/Res and an Alphacool Eisblock XPX CPU block.

For me, personally, I mix the PC and TM depending on what I have at hand. I really prefer to make and use a PC computer but I am not willing to sacrifice space, money and time (to find components) for building it, so whenever I need and can, I use the comfort of modern components. For example, I prefer ms-dos to have less than 200MHz CPU (clocked down or native clock), an ISA sound card and a 1-2M VGA that have no issues with old dos games. For Win 95 I go for a CPU with up to 300-500MHz, ISA sound and PCI video, for Win98 or Win2k I go with 750-1GHz CPU, PCI only peripherals and AGP video. For XP I prefer 2-3GHz CPU, single-core or multicore/multithreading and 3-4G of RAM (I like XP computers maxed out, I admit). Always I use modern IDE or SATA optical drives, I am not into 2x-8x speed drives; the newest are more reliable and faster, and for HDD´s as I have many older spinning drives, from 20,40G up to 250, 320G, I use them, even if I need to deal with BIOS limitations. And I always use HDDs with at least 80% remaining life just to be sure (Disk Genius is a great tool to check the HDDs). I am not concerned with the noise, for me the computer IS always noisy (not vacuum cleaner levels of noise ofcourse) and a quiet computer makes me anxious.

I usually go for a period correct "look" with a CRT monitor, PS/2 keyboard/mouse and beige cases for Windows 9x machines, BUT I also opted for 19" monitors, CPUs one generation newer than supposed to, bigger HDDs and the biggest amount of memory that the OS officially supports. Getting period correct high end GPUs card is sometimes very hard/expensive, so having a computer that can squeeze out more performance out of period correct mid-range GPUs is a good compromise. By the way, Windows 98 can run on HDDs bigger than 120GB if you replace the default IDE driver (ESDI_506.PDR) with a patched or updated version with 48-bit LBA support. Mine works perfectly fine on a 320GB HDD dual-booting with Windows 2000 on one single partition.

I like period correct time machines... maxed out, last available hardware officially supporting the OS; no major hacks, just the regular drivers.

By your definition I have several time machines and only one period correct tower, but I also play games up to the mid to late 2000s, so up to Crysis and GTA 4 on these systems on a 1920x1200 display, so in the fastest of the "retro" systems is a phenom ii x4 975 and a GTX 670 running Windows Vista for DX10 support. The period correct is an AT style Zida Tomato socket 370 board with a PIII 600 and a Voodoo 3 2000 AGP, HDD and Windows 98SE, I don't have a CRT though.

i used to use q9500core2quad 4gbram 240 ssd +120ssd (dualboot winxp/10) gpu was 9800gt512mb) -it was for being good for windows xp gaming mostly farcry1 gtavc/sanandreas but mothernboard (inteldq45cb) started having issues and i swapped all pc almost to moremodern butstill dualbooting capable i7 3770 12gb ram(yesknowitstoomuch) ssd same and gpu replaced gtx650ti1gb (asus)and i wanna say period correct is good but it also isgood when you can max out allgames

There’s a difference between any random period correct build and a period correct build from exactly the last moment that build still was correct. So Windows 95, 98, 98SE and ME extended support ended on July 11, 2006. Up until about that time, windows 9x compatible hardware was still built. Until around 2003, I actually still dual-booted my PC with Windows 98 and Windows XP. I guess what I’m saying is, one should pick a specific year (and maybe month) to be period correct about the system one is assembling. I’ve also recently came to the conclusion that building a PC from, for instance, 1998, and upgrading it with y2k appropriate upgrades is also very satisfying (not talking about hybrids). Perhaps an idea for a new video (series), @Phil?

i prefer period correct plus High End CRT from the early 2000s, no HDD but CFflash Card, Low Noise CPU FAN and PSU and an Optical Mouse but everything else has to be period Correct.

I did both in one build. SSD v 7200 hard drive not much difference in speed. A like my socket a duron 900 with isa slot for awe64 and agp. Geforce 3 ti. I put a 9800 pro and athlon xp at 1.7GHz in but i can easily swap them back. It covers all the bases. Redonkulus speed for DOS, 98 and win2k but copes with XP too. Ram can be 256 -1.5GB depending on os.

While period correct is more fun in theory I find myself mostly using newer hardware but coupled with a CRT.

I'm a "combination" kind of guy. I don't have time to bother with making old IDE harddrives work - so for that, I use SD2IDE or similar. Same goes for Floppies, where I tend to go with GoTek out of convenience. I rarely need floppies for anything besides the initial setup of DOS or whatever is required to partition and prepare the machine. Rest stays somewhat "period correct" , so motherboard, graphics card , PSU, case, monitor.

I feel like the correct answer to this rhetorical question is somewhere in the middle. Certain components should be period-correct, because if they aren't, there will be massive compatibility issues. The CPU, for one, without some kind of throttling software that isn't always reliable, needs to run at a period-correct clock speed because otherwise, the games will often be unplayably fast. I also think the GPU should be relatively period-correct, because a lot of pre-DirectX or early-DirectX-era games make use of specific features of 3Dfx, Matrox, S3 ViRGE, PowerVR, etc. and while there are wrappers and ways to somewhat emulate the look that these cards produce, those can also be unreliable, unstable, or simply inaccurate. Other components, on the other hand, do little-to-nothing to affect actual gameplay and exist solely to make the boring parts of the system snappier or more efficient. A modern cooling system will extend the life of the machine, an SSD will shorten loading times, as will a newer optical drive. Floppy disk emulators are also faster than an old-school disk drive, some kind of modern networking dongle will get better internet speeds. The one area that's the most controvertial might be sound, as there are so many different period-accurate sounds cards each sounding a bit different, tons of MIDI add-ons, etc. I personally would go with something that is HARDWARE accurate but not PERIOD accurate, something like an Orpheus sound card that contains the proper period-accurate chips for the right sounds but has the versatility to behave as multiple sound cards in one.

I like to Mix the best of both worlds. Always depends on Avail Parts. I have a P4 Mobo with Floppy/IDE/SATA/Firewire. I can do it all!

Well I have the 'period correct' hardware that I've had since 'the period.' But I don't see what's wrong with putting an SSD drive in there. I used to be a computer technician in those days so build and fixed many 386, 486, and early Pentium machines. I still say a CRT monitor does make a very real difference though.

I’m all period correct stuff (except I’ve started to use SSD drives or CF on some of my systems lately mostly because of the convenience) because hardware including repairs is very important part of my hobby, but then again I have quite many systems so I can tackle different eras. I also have zero interest in late XP era HW or games, so I have no use for some beefy Core2Duo/Quad etc. Many later XP era games can be run on a modern system without any problems, so there’s that too. So, 2003 top-end Socket A system is the latest and it runs pretty much everything from the era beautifully. But I can understand time machines if you want to keep the number of systems as low as possible and it is also much cheaper.

I run the best of both worlds... Modern PC with a CRT monitor. The iiyama Vision Master Pro 455. =P Keyboard used to be a dell "Bigfoot" before a cat dumped tea over it.

I remember cribbing about the flicker rate on my 775ft monitor and always wanted a high res and smooth display at higher hz, always wished the hdd noise dissapeared and squeezed the last performance drop from the system, with 1 gb ram in year 1999, it was p3 933 on i815 with a lousy mx440. I say its a lot better to build a time machine but still own period correct stuff

I date the machine by the CPU/motherboard combo. Then add the best RAM I can. Add to that a GPU about 2 years newer - I like to assume I would have upgraded it once. Then the games have to be period correct or older than the CPU/motherboard and should work with high settings with that GPU I selected.

I love all flavors of machines! At the end of the day, I think tinkering with hardware (and configuring software!) can be just as rewarding as playing our favorite games. Part of my computing experience is linked to troubleshooting and getting things to work back in the day. I expect some of it nowadays too as I go back in time and fiddle with old hardware. Still, I totally get it when people have limited time (and budget!) and want things to "just work". As long as we keep playing and sharing our experience the retrogaming community as a whole wins. As usual, thank you Phil and everybody writing comments for helping to keep this hobby alive! I really enjoyed reading the comments and stories! In the spirit of sharing, here is my personal setup related to this matter: Personally, my period-correct setup is a Pentium 2 with 16 megs of RAM, a SoundBlaster 16, and an old hard disk that I'm surprised is still working. I think it may soon need to be replaced with a small SSD or a CF card. This machine is hooked to a Compaq 14" CRT monitor with a "bubble" type of screen. I got lucky because the motherboard features AT and ATX options. So I got a recent PSU powering it and retired the original AT unit. Overall, I love playing on this machine because of all the little mechanical sounds it makes (monitor turning on, noise from the hard drive reading stuff, and a slight static sound from the speakers which becomes obvious at high volumes). My Pentium 4 seems to have bitten the dust due to a PSU that went bad. I'm still checking which parts are (not) working so that I know what to save and what to send to an electronics recycling center. It was my WinXP machine and I was looking forward to upgrading it with something better than the GeForce MX 4000 it currently has, alongside more RAM (only 1GB!). It is now disassembled, each part in its own anti-static bag. The new star of the show is a time machine type system. I feel it is way too recent and quite overpowered for the stuff I usually play, but since it was just laying around the house with no use, it is a low-cost substitute for the P4 system. This PC is a WinXP build with a Core i3 4160, 8 gigs of DDR3 RAM, GTX 650 and an SSD. The catch is that I play it using the peripherals that belong to the P4 system: a Samsung 15" CRT monitor, an old MS keyboard, and even the case that belonged to the P4. This PC runs basically all of my GOG library and a bunch of MS-DOS games (I love D-Fend Reloaded!) and SCUMM VM with no issues. I still have some CDs and floppies from back in the day and I enjoy using those. As it sits on the table, the only difference is that you won't hear the hard drive read/write noises. This made me think about something: as time passes, I am under the impression that backing up those disks and using them as image files in the time machine is much more realiable (obviously) than subjecting the old discs and drives to some more wear/tear after some 2 decades. There is also the convenience of buying games digitally instead of scouring through marketplace listings. I guess this is why my GOG library (and wishlist!) keeps growing.

I already have a xp compatible system i intend to turn into a time machine. Its a b85 mobo with a Haswell cpu and a gtx 760. I just need to actually go ahead and install xp on to it. Any suggestions? I'm new to this

I recently recapped a Socket A board and put a Amd 2500xp in it. I have other boards that need recapping but simply dont have enough cases or space for them. At least not at the moment.

If id build a ''retro'' PC id definately forget HDD's and Windows 98. I hate the sound of the HDD and i have done so many windows 98 reinstalls that i never want to do it again. 🤣

I had myriads of time waste maintaining and troubleshooting and efforts in vain with my 'at that time' machine. I will never repeat that with "1x time speed" machine.

Steam is giving away the original Half Life right now for free. Perfect if you prefer a "Period Correct" or "Time Machine".

Every time you say, "in the year 2000," I hear LaBamba from Late Night with Conan O'Brien

I still have my athlon 64 somewhere. I’d love to build a time machine and run windows xp. I had a great time in my xp days.

When handling mainboards don't hold them on one side. It will bend and after many times you will get problems with broken connections. It is better to support them with your hand underneath it.

You know..at the end of tye story it should play the games..play them good, guess this is somehow of an answer, because even if you like it so much, if it does not work, it has no meaning

i do bit of both but for main part that i never keep is the hard drive, they are slow and failing alot so i always run a ssd also lcd monitor most time as I dont always have room for a crt on the table but I do have crts few when i need it. Everything else is like kb, parts etc is always original.

While a period correct machine might me more appropriate and immersive, I'm running a modified build of Windows XP on a second SSD on the computer that I'm writing this on (i7-8700k, z370); only compatibility issue I ran into was that XP obviously doesn't have drivers for the 10xx series of GPUs, so I just went out and bought a 730 and plugged it into my second PCIe slot. XP-era games, and the whole OS for that matter, runs so ridiculously fast that if the software I needed still supported it and I dared to connect it to the internet lest my computer be added to some sort of botnet, I'd have no problem daily driving it.

The old 4:3 HP and Dell monitors (examples: HP 1740 and 1950 or Dell 1704) are a good alternative to a CRT if you can't find one or don't want one. They made millions of them for businesses.

Like to use old cpu, mainboard, cards but I see no problem in using ssd or lcd Monitor (low res 4:3 preferred)

if emulation give sufficient performance like some claim just do emulation with crt screen to have the best experience

I assumed time machine meant a machine that got put away after an upgrade, but has been brought out exactly the way it was originally. I guess that’s more like a barn find

Having recently gone through a build there is nostalga but also convience. I've gone for modern storage (exception CD ROM) for my build via Compact Flash and a GoTek Floppy. Everything else parts from the late 90's. I like the quiteness and relibility of modern storage compared to mechanical from 25 years ago still being in working order.

Wing Commander III was the first game to really make me upgrade. I ended up getting a VLB graphics card... I think with 1 MB. It also made SimCity 2k run out of the box which I bought at the same time. Those two games had me occupied for some time

if you can, your screen should be a multiple of the resolution most games should play at, you can sorta brute force and "fix" the issue if you use your modern high DPI display, though you may need adapter circuitry.

Want 508 compliance hardware in your retro gaming, time machine.

I want to enjoy the games in the best way possible. Not tickle some old stupid memory where I tried to convince myself that waiting for w98 to boot for two minutes is great. Loud noise or retina burning CRT's no thank you :D

Hybrid time machines are where its at. Asrock guided us if you think about it.

For pure nostalgia, period correct is better. For example, playing an Hercules or EGA game like Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island 1 in a (more) modern computer with LCD Monitor is a totally different experience and it doesn't do the trick for me... I need the original experience.

I always go for a period correct build since i am a geek and know a lot for a 16 yo kid

My Time Machine is designed for Windows XP, and uses some of the last supported devices. Gigabyte Q67 ITX motherboard, Intel i7-2600, 480GB SSD, and an nVidia GT 740.

the only reason to use retro hardware is you like it haswell/zen2 or dont bother for me

If it plays the games the way I like to play them then I'm a happy camper usually.

There was a clear drop in build quality of motherboards between the 90s and 2000s The market became very competitive and it into a bit of a race to the bottom for a time. Prices came down as well, but that's perhaps not as relevant to us today.

I think i'll meet you halfway on this. I won't give up on having some classical stuff, such as a CRT, but i'm willing to adopt modern conveniences whenever possible and practical. This is true for retro PC gaming, but also for my ZX Spectrum experience. I had a modest collection of ZX Spectrum machines, and I donated most of them to the local ZX Spectrum museum (only keeping the TC 2048 clone from my childhood), because every time i get back to those old machines for any period of time, the different keyboard layout kills my brain. I just cannot handle retro keyboards (like on the ZX Spectrum or C64). However, i have to admit i have a few old PCs, from 486 to Pentium and Pentium II range, and I'll happily play MSDOS games from the late 80s / early 90s on those (and prefer those to modern machines) edit: yeah so that means i often emulate my ZX Spectrum stuff on these 90s PC machines. Ah, and give me an optical mouse. I've tried using a serial mouse with a mouse ball again, and i can do without the frustration of the mouse getting stuck when dirt sneaks in :) So i guess it's half / half for me

There is a board that you can connect to that slot A CPU to modify its multiplier. Also you need to apply thermal paste between the slot casing and the heating at least. I remember the casings paste application was bad but the heatsink has absolutely 0 thermal paste leading to very hot temperatures very quickly. After the thermal paste fix it’ll run very cool. I had an 800 MHz version of that.

What i really like is to mount a "top of the line" period correct with a little newer gpu. For exemple a Tualatin 1.4 with a fx5900 gpu is great. It flies on win9x.

Novalogic everything packed collection steam como with taychon game

I go hybrid: period correct for the core components (CPU, motherboard, RAM, extension cards), and modern for the rest. Having a classic beige case is nice, but the ones in good condition are increasingly harder to find. I have seen many many old cases in the last two years. They usually have bent side panels or a bent motherboard tray (I don't know what people do with their PCs). Things that I definitely don't miss: 1) low quality noisy power supplies that always exploded at the end of their lifetime, 2) small noisy fans everywhere, 3) bulky blinking CRT monitors that gave me headaches, 4) slow noisy hard drives that gave me even more headaches, 5) floppy disks: every second one did not work. Today I have a modern power supply and emulate the drives with compact flash cards and Goteks. For the CD-ROM drive I mostly use images and Daemon Tools, as those were also slow and noisy.

Time machine is nice, but period correct is the real experience.

I usually build systems that look period correct, but then I tend to maximize performance. Getting the fastest possible processor for a motherboard, maxing out the ram, putting in a GPU that is a few years younger than the build, Pata SSD or SD card, those kind of mods really improve performance and playability and just let you get the most out of your build. They usually aren't really visible and benchmarking them and comparing to period reviews is really fun imo. My last build is something like that: PCIII Orchid Systems Portable Case (with WXGA display), AT Shuttle HOT569A, AMD K6-2+ 400, 128MB SDRAM, 128GB PATA SSD, Geforce FX5500, ISA Avance Sound ALS100, PCMCIA PCI Slot, Network card, Multiboot : Win98, DOS7.1 and WinXP. I want all the things :)

I built a time machine with a 20" trinitron CRT from 1996. Best of both worlds imho. It's a pretty good PC built from (semi)modern parts: An i7-3770k, 16GB ram, SSD and a 2080ti. It's powerful enough to get every older game running at mostly correct speed in dosbox (config file tweaking required in many cases), and retro windows games with modern ray-tracing options (like Quake2) or graphically intensive modern mods run fantastic at the monitors 1024x786 or lower (for some reason I find that some older games look better @640x480 instead of higher resolutions, maybe because of nostalgia). Because it's pretty powerful, I can run PCem up to a pentium 233 flawlessly, which is great for those older games that are very picky which dosbox has trouble with. The only thing I can't get working 100% to my liking is EAX support. It gets close with alchemy in some cases, but it doesn't reach the heights of my windows XP machine with a x-fi card.

I prefer period correct as much as possible, except the hard drive and the optical drives. This isn't done out of a disdain for period correct parts, but necessity. Getting working fully functioning 540MB AT compatible IDE drives and fully functioning 2x CD-ROM drives that will read all of the game discs I own, let alone burned disks to more easily transfer files to the machine is almost impossible here. Don't get me wrong, I have a 486DX-33 with the Creative Labs Discovery 16 kit, 2x speed CD-ROM drive and everything. But when I build a machine like the most recent 5x86-P75 with 12MB of RAM I didn't have any working 4x or 8x speed cd-rom drives which would work with the board and cpu both released in 1995. And I am out of Creative Labs sound cards from the time period, so I used a newer made MegaImage32 based off of the Opti 82C930 chipset with an integrated wavetable. Works great. Only issues with the LS486E Rev C1 board is it doesn't support EDO ram and Turbo function really doesn't slow the machine down much.

My personal philosophy sits somewhat in between. To me, owning a retro PC, means building a highly versatile machine that does, natively, something you cannot do on a modern system barring some sort of software emulation. With that in mind, the base specs can be defined loosely within a reasonable range of years: I design my projects around GPU and/or MB+CPU that somewhat match, with the purpose of getting maximum compatibility for either DOS/9x (speed flexibility, ISA and PCI sound cards, Glide, other proprietary APIs,...), XP (EAX 7.1, emphasis on speed), or Nvidia 3D Vision (simply a fast 2080TI based system, because compatibility broke past that card), all discontinued tech that I wanna have access to. Multiple OS is fair game when the hardware allows. But other than that, I believe that I can upgrade literally everything as far as it can go, provided it doesn't diminish compatibility: modern fans and latest supported coolers, IDE to SSD-adapters, modern power supply etc... I'd love to be able to get period-accurate cases, but the really good ones seem hard to come by, so I'm fine using a name-brand 2000s+ case for a 90's build, instead of just generic beige. High-end and older beats cheap and new though, hopefully it has some sort of retro-futuristic flair. On the traditionalist side of things, I do insist on CRTs, due to the resolution issues you mentioned, and the fact that they completely destroy modern displays on motion clarity (I am rocking an FW900 on my main PC at this very moment, which fortunately I got before they reached four-digits).

A lot of commenters ignore the fact that today we are accustomed to 60fps+ gaming. On the other hand, if commenters were true to period correctness, even with setting their expectations, a 30fps+ gameplay would have been a great experience, especially with non-competitive titles.

My ideal time machine is a late 775 to 1150 haswell range , with a ati ,early amd Terrascale , Terrascale 2 graphics card. Both are dirt cheap to buy or build now , modern conviences , they run a large range of operating systems natively , and each day people are finding ways to run even older operating systems on them . For instance a terracale 2 v5800 Firepro graphics card is currently available brand new still for $12-15 , it has excellent windows xp drivers it runs a ton of older games including windows 98 era games , 3d mark 2000 doesn't even need compat mode to run on xp with these combos. Certainly a price , compatibility and performance sweet spot

Awesome video again Phil. I run both types of systems. Can you use Deus Ex for benchmarking? I always found back in the day, even though it uses the unreal engine it was always more taxing on systems than unreal tournament. It wasn't until I got a 9600xt that I could run it maxed on full specs.

I've never built a full-on time machine, but I never hesitate to use modern PSU and storage. Bought a big box of sata to molex adapters so I can use modern power supplies with any hardware. I sometimes install an HDD for the sound, but generally prefer CF and sata adapters for convenience and reliability. I will die before I give up my CRT.😅 Great topic!

Hardware is not that important. It's about if you can run games natively or in emulation. CRT is also very important, since it offers zero input lag. When combined with MS-DOS that allows software to run directly on the hardware. This makes quite different experience compared to DOSBox and other emulators. Emulation is also really good and for example PCem will simulate full experience, but running games natively just feels different. Using modern hardware allows to run Glide or early Direct3D games in 4K, but in my opinion this breaks the experience. Nowadays I preffer to play early 3D games in 320x400 up to 800x600 while many games from 2000's in 720p max. Lower resolutions creates an illusion of extra details and slight CRT blur enhances this feeling. Retro PC also don't have modern browser and other on-line software that will distract you. It's easier to get into the game on such hardware.

seeing that slot a cartridge makes me mad jelly 😂

I prefer period correct rig because gaming and computing is much more than simply running games. The whole experience, sounds from system, loading times, etc are part of experience. Modern computer is like emulator, it runs but it is like matrix vs real world. With period correct: + Real feeling of gaming when life was better + better compatibility with games and OS + better graphics and no input lag with CRT - harder to get all parts needed - somewhat lower performance on demanding games Modern hardware: + better performance + cheap and easy to get + better for people who dont know how to set up and maintain older computers - sometimes compatibility issues and glitches with older games - does not feel as authentic as real deal

I have had a lot of fun watching your videos for years they're always helpful and actually spurred me on to flesh out my collection of retro computers! Have started dabling in old Apple PPC and intel based systems too! It's nice to branch out with the systems and I know this has nothing to do with gaming but they look lovely lol :D

you can still put a twist by using cheap thin clients, also put a reference of older videos that I remember you done. Guess it was a hp t510

Period correct is getting to expansive. Prices on Ebay here in the UK are getting very pricey. So time machine it is. As lomg as i can play Screamer 2. I don't really care

Great topic, and one that can be debated endlessly. :) Generally, I prefer period correct hardware for older stuff, e.g. DOS. I really like the 486/Pentium era hardware and love playing with that. Once I go into WIn98-era and later, I tend to do hybrid builds. I have lost patience for tinkering with hard drives and old keyboards/mice so they're nearly always modern. Same thing with monitors - I've had so many CRTs die over the years, it's sad. Nowadays I use a fairly old Eizo 1920x1200 LCD that still works great, and mostly run at 1600x1200 or 800x600 for older stuff. One thing that keeps me busy is whenever I find a game I really want to play through, I sit down and theorize the perfect build for that game, and attempt to build it. That's a lot of fun I think, and I get to play with many of my old parts regularly. Keeps my collection relevant, and forces me to use parts and ensure they're still working. The one big thing I've had lots of problems with, is power supplies. I've had to trash so many over the years, and finding good working ones is quite hard & expensive these days. Would love to hear about a modern solution for classic AT-style systems, if there are any? Cheers Phil, hope your morning coffee is good!

Personally I prefer period correct. All boils down to component availability and budget.

Generally yes period correct is better.

I prefer time machines. Old hardware had it's day and is sore to replace if it goes wrong. I have both but still prefer newer parts. Good video Phil.