I was just looking at some threads where people talked about making a dos machine and i stumbled across some how-to-guides in the internet. maybe a few of you know a thing or two they want to share about making custom pcs (for dos gaming). i myself have had 2 dos machines, one of which i made myself (for the most part), and i am thinking about starting to work on a third, the ultimate dos machine. so if you have any tips or recommendations on hard- or software, please share! (Maybe some of you even have pics)

to get started, i will post some links:

The Ultimate Space Quest Computer, a project by a huge SQ fan (obviously)

sorry, but i can't find the second page again, so this is it.

Now, about the Specs:

-I was thinking about a Pentium 120 or 133, because of GTA for example.
-Hopefully 16MB RAM should be enough
-two HDs, both approx. 1GB
-An SB 16 or Compaq esa1986 or whatever that thing is called (i had it in my first machine, and it sounded pretty good) Maybe I'll add a Roland MIDI card later
I don't know about the graphics yet, so please share everything you know!

This is all I've got so far, please let me know what you think about it!

well for graphics i have good experience with a old Trident 9680 2mb pci card.

Cirrius Logic or Tseng would probally be good too, or maybe S3 Trio64.



My old dos machine is a celeron 366Mhz, and it works fine with the old dos games that im playing.
other specs are:
ABit BM6 motherboard
128MB SDRam
Trident 9680 2MB Ram.
Asus 52x CDROM drive
old 235Watt PSU
10/100 Mbit NIC
60Gig Seagate Harddrive
floppydrive / with my custom made bootdisk, for when i want to boot dos up.
Soundblaster AWE 64 Value ISA card.


the NIC is for when i boot up WinXP on it, so i can download old games straight to the machine.

good setup, but i was going for a little slower machine. you've probably experienced timer issues when playing space quest for example. and also, 60GB is an enormous amount for dos. do you use dos or dosbox for that machine?
btw, i had a S3Trio 64 in my first dos machine, but that one was too fast (266 or something like that) for some of the older games.

Im using dos, i have divided the big harddrive up int 3 partitions:

Partition 1: 6gig with windows XP OS NTFS file system
Partition 2: 2gig formatted with FAT32, (this is the only partition that show up when i boot up with my dosbootdisk)
Partition 3: NTFS file system, backup of files ect.

When i boot up with my dos bootdisk Partition 2 is the only one showing up and get drive label c: So i only have this in dos:

Floppydrive A:
Partition 2: C:
CDrom drive: D:

Partition 2: Is also having all the files for cdrom, sound, mouse ect.
the only files on the bootdisk is the standart boot files, and then autoexec.bat and config.sys , so it boots up fast in dos.

Im not that old(26 years old) so i havent played older games than from approx 1992, so i havent had issues with games run too fast on this machine.

hmm i could try run Space quest on it to test if the game can run on my pc.

edit: guess i cant, since the games is ESA protected, so i cant download the game

that sounds like a good win-dos hybrid machine. i think i still have the SQs lying around somewhere.

Check. Definitely going to work. Even 100 mhz will do, 133 is so much better. Note though that you'll have to use slowdown software (like moslo) to run some older games (Robocop 3, Mechwarrior 1, about anything that uses vector graphics).
Check. 32 would be even better, but some games (Space Hulk is one I know for sure) screw up when given above 24.
Check. I'd advise against full-size partitions though, for the sole reason that the cluster size would be pretty wasteful then.
Check. I have some doubt about compatibility, though. Sound Blaster Pro 1 might be a bit better.

Can you tell me something about that one? No idea why use one - is it better then MIDI device built into your Sound Blaster?

I know that. I already have that prog.

I think i have some 16 and 8 MB RAM modules lying in a drawer. could be worth a check.

About the soundcards: The compaq thing is fully sb compatible, even slightly better, but hard to get (i don't know wether mine's working)
The Roland MT-32 is probably the best - and most hard to get - midi card there was. you can use it along with your sb 16 for good sound an midi. try for example king's quest 5 or 6 in dosbox and choose the roland in the setup. you will see the difference.

Say, if I was to lay my hands on a Roland card... would I need an additional pair of speakers for that one? Or is there a possibility of connecting both it and the SB equivalent (ESA 1887, IIRC) I have to a single pair of speakers?