So yeah, I am thinking of building one of these for things like mechwarrior 4 / mercs

[TheHolyLancer]

So yeah, I am thinking of building one of these for things like mechwarrior 4 / mercs, freelancer, falcon 4, diablo 1 and 2, and that types of games.

It would likely duo boot xp and / or 98? Likely at least xp.

Would not hook it up to the internet since its a retro box and I don't want to deal with security much.

With modern MBs and their EFI infusion, what are some good boards that still have legacy stuff (or at least can install xp with BIOS only), maybe even a PS/2 port and a dongle in case if things go south and there isn't baked in usb drivers somehow...

I will likely pair whatever it is with a 5870 or some other card that hopefully will still run.

Would like this board to be cheap, and dont matter if it was amd or intel.

 

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157338

That's the only board sold new these days that I think will work with both 98 and XP. You'll need a supported 775 CPU, DDR(1), and an AGP video card. The AGP ATI X800/Pro/XT will work with both 98se and 2000 and XP. (I have a rig like that.) If you can still find the drivers somewhere, that is. (Maybe look on ngohq.com?)

Good luck in your quest!

 

[XavierMace]

Virtual box?

 

[squirrel dog]

buy a used pc.Look on craigs or whatever is near you.

 

[TheHolyLancer]

hmm do virtual box do gpu passthru now?

and I am not 100% even a passed thru 980ti will work... or if there are drivers for it at all


if I take out the windows 98 part, can XP be installed on the newer board like say the H81 chipset 1150s or amd am3+ with PIIs?


With windows 98 I should be able to just use virtual box with software GPU all the way, but its XP that demands some gpu but not a lot of GPU that worries me...

i wish I still have my 9800GS, that would have been perfect for this I think, the 5870 may be too new for it and have compatibility issues.

Also, how good is the xp 64 bit for playing older games? Does it do 16 bit stuff or should I just stick with 4 GB of ram and run 32 that should work more?

EDIT: thinking of this system, I got the 5870 already

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WqyBNG