P2 350 too fast for dos games?

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mgc_bb
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P2 350 too fast for dos games?

Post by mgc_bb »

Hi guys,

Looking to rebuild some old bits and bobs to have a dos games system again.

Have two ways to go: P166 mmx! or p2 350
Want to able to run epic, rise of the dragon, nova9, samnmax, xwing, etc, etc but also have enough power to use my 2xvoodoo 2 cards.

Just cant remember at what speed the old games stopped working (ie. too bloody fast, lol)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Marc
johngUK
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Post by johngUK »

I believe DOS games usually stop working properly with Pentium 2s. When i say "stop working properly" i mean in my experiance i tend to notice no background music (Wolf3d, Blake Stone).

Your games will work OK with that Pentium 2 but you may or may not lose some features or other through it. If that dosen't bother you then go with the Pentium 2.
mgc_bb
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Post by mgc_bb »

Thanks johngUK!

Guess the only way to know for sure is to test it out.
Will post the results.
mgc_bb
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Post by mgc_bb »

UPDATE!

Found most of the parts today, all but my trusty awe64 gold.

system spec:

p2-350
512mb ram
hdd (not sure yet)
awe64 gold (when i find it)
roland lapc1
matrox agp g200 8mb
2x creative voodoo 2 12mb in sli mode
pci network card

Anyway, ran a few tests today, me roland still works! yippie! man that sounds SO good. Will run the roland output through the awe64 to save having two sets of speakers, use the dos mixer to set the levels then just play it load.

Performance, right, the p2-350 is too fast for some games (MEGA turbo) but you can slow it down some by underclocking it to a p2-233 and disabling the external cache.

Games like heart of china and nova9 do run fine but stella7 is way too fast. Yes i am a dynamix fan!

Only games like epic or inferno run at lightspeed, stupidly fast.

I think the p2 is good platform for dos games, strike commander, privateer, xwing and the like run awesome but you still have enough power to run quake and the early 3dfx games.
A lot of dos game had speed limiting built into the code, hence it runs about the same on most setups just a lot smoother in some cases.

Pentium or Pentium2?

So for the sake of a few games that are too fast the p2 is the winner!

Hope the info is of help to you guys!

will update when have run more tests....
johngUK
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Post by johngUK »

your running that on 512mb of RAM?. Nah, thats simply too much for most Dos Games i know. About 32 or 64 mb should be plenty for any Dos game.

Of course personally i would go for the Pentium so i can experiance the game better without it running WAY too fast. Why underclock your machine when you can use a DosBox?.
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