The ULTIMATE retro build for DOS / Windows 3 / Windows 98 / Windows XP 

Great video covering a huge range of topics 😊

The thing you're missing is a Windows XP/98 sound card for either EAX or A3D. It will support a ton of EAX games from Windows 98 to XP. It makes a huge difference in how games sound in Windows, and was a huge part of the experience back in the day just like a 3DFX Voodoo card. Also, I believe there are at least a few fast cards for the AGP slot that will work better for you, but I don't recall what they are. Worth looking into.

You’ve managed to have a configuration that’s very difficult to come by, use it for 3 to 4 computing generations within the Microsoft Spectrum, and even got it to work pretty much flawlessly. Hats off to you, good sir. You might’ve gotten a Voodoo (1) card and a Voodoo 4500/5x00 (PCI) to work in this build, next to the ATI Radeon X850 XT-PE. You’d be able to play DOS games with voodoo acceleration, have the best Voodoo compatibility under Windows 98 and XP, and have enough power to run the heavier DirectX games too. As for sound: holy moly! If you’re still struggling with the idea to put more ISA sound cards in there - as the Gravis would make it complete - you might be able to source an ISA splitter and stick the whole in a case with 11 expansion slots. That way, you could even add an Aureal Vortex 2 to the mix for A3D. :D Thanks for the awesome video. I had a blast seeing this! :D

You should share an HDD image so we can enjoy all you hard work.

I think my favorite was "Quest for Glory Hole". Ahh, the memories...

I have seen many "ultimate" retro PC builds on RU-vid but I think this is the first time I have seen a true ULTIMATE retro PC build. There are just too many hard to find or unobtanium parts in this build. It also requires extraordinary knowhow to make all these parts and OSs to work together. Excellent video and sound and games!

This build is amazing. I can see the attraction. But, for me, I think it is better to have a separate build for XP and Win98/DOS that caters to the strengths of each. Their needs are just too different to make a no-compromise build. Though separate builds do take more space. I did get quite a few useful tips from your video though. So thanks for that. But, for an all-in-one solution, yours is the best I have seen. By far.

This is just in a whole different level. Congratulations.

I built up a Shuttle XPC with Pentium M 750 using a IDE to SD adapter, but skipped anything in Software from 2004 onwards; DOS & 98 run like a charme, XP has a few stutters at times, but overall I like my small package; nice guide, a few tips will come in handy to iron out minor hickups

The Gene Machine 18:39 > SB AWE32 - FM Synthesis 19:21 > SB AWE32 - Internal Wavetable Synthesis 20:06 > Yamaha MU2000 20:53 > Roland MT - 32 Quest for Glory IV 21:33 > Roland MT - 32 23:37 > Yamaha MU2000 TFX 24:35 > Roland MT - 32

If you use dos 7.1 CDU you can have one large fat32 partition getting arround the whole 2gb issue

What an epic build.

wow, this really was a roller coaster of good memories, thanks for this amazing video !!!

That’s an awesome pc would love one like it for retro gaming. Well done!

Love just how much it's so underwhelming ... until that wavetable kicks ibn, and then it's like somone used a magic sponge on the inside on your ears! Thanks for doing this video Karl!

i love both of those // and more in the background ... very good NITR0 approved.

Now THIS is a real retro powerhouse.

This is kinda hybrid-retro, i mean this computer is build with 10 years different aged parts just wow

The problem you are facing with the ATi HD and the Geforce 6/7 series cards is the fact they use PCI-e bridge chips to work in AGP slots. I've only ever got them to work correctly in winXP and above. Your choice of AGP card was a solid one. Always look for non bridge chip ones.

There are PCI express graphics cards that will work in windows 98 - Geforce 6600GT is one.

Phantasmagoria... Dude that was disgustingly disturbing...

Great project and lots of good information. Many thanks! Did I miss how speed sensitive games were handled? Cheers!

Very nice, makes me want to tinker with some of my builds. IMO, splitting it up into 2 or 3 systems keeps the hardware choices sane, as everything except the fancy sound cards/synths are much cheaper, and you don't need to juggle 3 operating systems on one drive. My 'all in one' build is a K6-III+ 550 / voodoo 3 / aureal vortex 2 / ALS100 / SC-55 and windows XP build is a 2600K / 780ti / X-fi titanium

Awesome video!

An amazing build, very inspirative :) Although I don't exactly fancy such all-rounders because you always need to sacrifice something and it will never be 100% correct in all cases, you gave a lot of good infos there. And I like the "because I can" approach 😀 My approach is to have a few period-correct builds with everything that went into them, apart from disks and screen. And a Gotek floppy emulator :-) And fans - I really hate too much noise so I replaced all those cheap terrible screaming fans with Noctuas, BeQuiet's, or NoiseBlockers first thing :) But I'm also considering sort of an ultimate build for everything from DOS to WinXP. But in my case, I chose to go for Socket370 generation as you can get it more compatible, and the components are much more available (and cheaper). For it, I got Via C3 Ezra and Nehemiah processors, especially for their unparalleled scalability down to the equivalent of a slow 386, which is really important for running the speed sensitive games from the era. I would like to see in more detail how you handle those in this build. As for the graphics, I've never been much of a fan of 3D accelerator cards - in their heyday, they were finnicky to set up right and get working properly, much too expensive, and once they got affordable, you could as well buy a decent AGP card with similar 3D capabilities. Reagarding sound - I don't have the room nor the money for all those original Roland devices, even if it would be amazing, so for now I'm pretty much satisfied with my small assortment of ISA and PCI soundcards, and my Orpheus II, to which I connect a Serdaco DreamBlaster X2GS-SE wavetable module with licensed Roland SC-55 sound banks :) It sounds as close to the original SC-55 as you can imagine ;) And as far as multiboot goes, in my eyes, the Windows' attempt at boot management was as incapable as it gets, and pretty much useless, so I've always used LILO. It is amazingly configurable and caters to any needs you may have in such environments. I'm even keeping DOS, Win95 and Win98 on separate partitions, having configured LILO to switch them so that none of the systems can see any of the others :) It just requires another partition with Linux (which may be small and in the extended partition area, not primary, so it doesn't get in the way of anything), but nowadays, it is a breeze to get a period-correct install ISO of e.g. Slackware. And a bit of studying is needed to get the lilo.conf right (and maybe occasional starting of Linux from DOS/Win using loadlin, when you screw the config up, or when windows screws your boot record). Done this a few times when setting up my retro builds recently :) Anyway, thank you for a great deal of good info, you gave me some inspirations for my own builds as well :)

Cool video. Might play around with my P4 system to see what will work. Out of my head I don't remember what board it has. Especially want to try out SATA SSDs for Win98SE even if I might stay with my CF to IDE adapter. Should also create a DVD with all the different operating systems.

Great video with some ideas I'll probably borrow for my own build. Dark Earth is also a real blast from the past; I'd almost forgotten that game. However, I'd argue that you can't have an 'ultimate' Windows 98-era retro build without Aureal A3D support. The positional audio in games like Thief 2 and Heretic II with A3D and 4.1 surround speakers, is to this day, some of the best positional audio I've ever heard...could almost play with my eyes closed.

The ultimate experience I don't know but the most expensive regarding todays prices for sure 😃

What a awesome video.. and the games crack me up.. lol.

Very nice build. I believe a radeon X series that you have and a geforce 6 series are the best you can get for such setups. Bare in mind though these do have some missing features, so a lot of people go with geforce 4 or FX instead. As others said, one thing missing in my opinion is a pci soundcard. That will seriously bump up sound quality and make a HUGE difference for your windows 9x/xp or future 7 sets. An Aureal Vortex 2 for A3D or a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS for EAX are absolute musts in such builds IMO. Also, why don't you use a voodoo 3 instead of 2 voodoo 2s? you'll get same performance and 1 free pci slot that you can use for a soundcard for example. For 98 memory issue, I highly recommend R.Loew's patch. Lastly, have you installed 3dfx drivers for windows 3.11 or any svga extender in dos? / I assume you already did with 98/xp

That music clip from the game is the base tune from the Sherlock show, surely.

the ultimate dos gaming machine, for as long as you want to keep it period correct, can cost you an arm, a leg, a kidney and your first born. lucky enough to have built mine from bits i collected, but check the price of an Abit BP-6, Matrox Millenium 2, voodoo 2 12mb sli, AWE64 and you quickly reach the cost of a modern pc :/ last piece i'd like to get is a 24" high refresh rate (preferably trinitron) CRT, but i would have to kiss my corneas good bye for this one so heh ...

The BCDEdit tool and the Windows Vista+ bootloader is a nice add to this kind of setup. I've done some crazy multi boots (everything from 98 to 10) with an Athlon64 system. Also, watch the heat on the voodoo2.

I discovered that DFI motherboard a few months ago and have been working on my own ultimate multi-OS build with one. I'm surprised they aren't more popular in the retro community for this purpose. Regarding the 4th PCI slot shared with the ISA slot, it actually runs on the secondary PCI bus so it's not as functional as the other PCI slots. I tried installing an Audigy sound card in that slot and Windows wouldn't recognize it. It did work with a Diamond Monster Sound, but couldn't use all the features like MPU-401 or the game port. So you might be better off using a pair of ISA cards and foregoing that 4th PCI slot.

eh! fun times! ... yeah that boot manager thing setup. I do Plop Boot Manager or SmrtBootManager in the MBR and then Partition setup done in windows 10-11-ish (for partition alignment) and use set active flag to bounce between OS's and Setups! like manually setup a new partition and set active and windows will probably see that particular partition as C: regardless of any other partitions with or without OS's on them which will be labeled other drive letters. nice and easy! then try, Windows ME and FreeDOS with kernel swapping fun with Grub4DOS installed in the partition! edit:

Exciting...upt ill the point i looked up the board on ebay to see a $470 price tag lol. Props on the buld though!

Great project. "Ultimate" is pushing it but great experiment non the less.

My all-arounder: Abit KT7A (ISA-slot) + Athlon XP-M (multiplier can be set from DOS) + GF5900XT & Voodoo2 + SB Audigy2 (WinXP) + Vortex2 (98SE) + Orpheus II (DOS). SDR memory bandwith is the problem, no matter how high you clock the CPU, it's just don't help. Far Cry 1 is playable but gets slow here and there even at 148FSB.

That's an interesting accent you have there, I can't put my finger on it but it sounds a mix of South African, some kind of England accent and some other European country all mixed together.

There is way shorter ways on doing this. Do not need dos 6.22 at all. Can set a shortcut in windows 98 SE to boot to dos mode with its own config.sys and Autoexec.bat config and put what DOS drivers you want for all sound cards, Mouse drivers and CDROM drivers for DOS. And windows 98SE can run 98% of windows 3.1 games since its backward compatible. I have my Compaq computer Pentium II set up this way and dual booting with windows 2K

Pentium D is weird it produces a lot of heat but also has an extremely low crash temp. You got to really keep it cool.

Only way I would improve on this would be with a Voodoo 5 for the ultimate in Glide support and for older 3D games the FSAA

Oh gosh , sounds are different of every sound driver. 😊😊😊

have same board. it can work with c2d (with pin mod, some volt mod), up to x6800 so you can get an ultimate performance, get you bios updated to c2d version (from vogons), and you're good.

When did my old trash become fancy “retro” ? More importantly does that mean I’m so old that I’m myself fashionably retro ?

In DOS you can use SoftMPU to get around the UART / IntelligentMode issue. And in Windows 9x, you're better off with a SB Live or Audigy which supports EAX , heck even an Aureal Vortex with A3D would be preferable under 9x. As for Windows 3.x , you need a much older graphics card to get any support for hi-res graphics. There's a patch for some std. VESA driver, but that only gives you 256 colours, and 3.x actually supports up to 24-bit (or at least 16-bit). A Riva 128 or TNT with the Riva 128 drivers will work. But those cards are not the best for 9X.

Use a PCI riser cable! Im sure they exist!!! you can slot it between the 2 cards easily!

I wonder if windows me would work better with the unofficial video drivers.

Interloper motherboards are told to have incredible Core i support while having ISA slot. Are they really worth anything? 10:59 I would try Acronis OS Selector 5.0. Also I like its look and feel. It's like programmers took competition with Norton Utilities and won. So I just like to have it installed on retro systems, virtual and physical ones. Also, I think, PC-DOS would also be compatible. In my childhood I used PC-DOS. Quite compatible, and I still install it on retro.

I had a Windows 98 Retrobox that had 1GB RAM (A PIII Talautin) No issues running 98SE, no hacks/patches needed.

What thermal paste are you using? Checked the description but couldn't see it listed

Sweet retro set up. How much did this roughly cost?

How do you slow down the CPU in order to corect for speed issues (or even start) some old DOS titles? or properly initialize sound in games like DOTT, Highway Hunter, etc ??

Incredible! Now please, sell it to me.

Never understood Peoples love for the Voodoo2, sure it rendered some games better that a directx card but by 99 nothing ran a game as good as an Nvidia card and when the original Geforce launch I bought one and was not disappointed. Games ran faster, at 32bitr color depth instead of 16bit which is what glide was stuck at. Voodoo had very few tricks in my opinion and they fell apart quickly!

Utter tech pron when you inserted all the hardware 😅

i assume you also fix the problems with games when the CPU speed is over 2.0GHz on windows 98? and also the problems with DirectX as installing 9.0 causes some older DirectX games like The Need for Speed SE to not work.

What? No Half-Life or Myst? :P Great job!

Can you make a parts list for this system?

Ultimate build with a LCD monitor...? 😮

i would suggest windows me instead of 98, me has more hardware support and is really stable if fully updated also no need for dos since you already have dos!

With all this hardware U should call e-waste ben ^^ he would be happy to scrap all those ;-D

How is he screen recording?

This is interesting, but I can not recommend this build for beginners. This are at least two very different configurations in one. The era before DirectX (Dos, 3dfx, ISA Soundcard) and with DirectX (Win98, Tnt2, Soundblaster Live). The PentiumD and the 850XT are nice, but not Retro. Windows 98 by the was contains Dos7 ans therefore good backwards compatibility for Dos games. Fantastic piece of research and work, but not my taste.

Windows 95 and 98 need Dos 7

The x850xt isnt that much of a downgrade compared to the 3850 and 4670.

Your accent more of a crossover hybrid than these builds

That's the ultimate system in theory, in practice it is seriously flawed in the most important aspects. That video card will have incompatibilities with dos and Windows 98 3D titles, anything beyond a Geforce FX is a bad choice, and in the sound department Windows 98 is half midi and half EAX, WinXP is all EAX, a simple SB Live + SB AWE + softmpu configuration would have been a much better choice. Basically it's impossible to have a nice system for Dos, w98, and wXP

Pentium D is not dual core, it’s dual CPU.

I have Windows XP ONLY machine :)

You need to play with a CRT, much better!

That accent mate... Understand the half of the video. :) great content tho

Why would you even? Because you've got too much free time (and too much money) on your hands

WHY!? You can emulate retro games with ease on todays technology.

What kind of accent is that? I can barely understand him...

You're hifi and speaker system is nuts :D Awesome video. I managed to get a hold of a orpheus ii sound card. It blew my mind when i heard the sound qualiry :)

dang FULLY STACKED!