The original version of Quake 1 used software rendering only which takes a lot of cpu power and memory bandwidth at high resolutions like 1280x1024. I think the lowest resolution you could select was 320x200 which was designed for low-end Pentium 1s (so around 75 Mhz) and it could still be a little slow - at 1280x1024 it has to draw about 20 times as many pixels as that so even on a 1Ghz Pentium3 with a fast graphics card it might not be perfectly smooth.

You are correct on the software rendering, and hearing you say that even with a 1GHz CPU may not be enough makes me feel better as I was sure in remembering my old 1GHz wasn't quite up to it, even though I was feeling pretty sure back then it would run just fine at that resolution. I think what I'll do is buy the 500MHz PC, upgrade the sound and video and run those sorts of games at 640x480 until I purchase something more powerful to run those types of games at high resolutions. I read in here that the SB Live! cards were DOS compatible using SB16 emulation. This is good to hear as I have a SB Live! Value PCI card that I could use in it. Much easier and almost cheaper these days to buy a cheap PC that has no ISA slots in it compared to a PC that does, and being powerful enough to handle the later DOS games at high resolutions. Thanks for the reply.

Mike.

SB Live cards require drivers to run in DOS mode, and they don't have good music support (OPL/Adlib is either emulated or not supported, General MIDI / MPU-401 uses crappy Ensoniq instrument sounds instead of SoundFonts).

Also, 500MHz is pretty fast. Most computers that speed were running Windows 9x. You won't be able to play a lot of older games without slowdown utilities.

You may also be better off with a cheap PCI video card than with looking for on-board video if you're looking to run hi-res DOS games. The trouble is always going to be finding one old enough to get you some kind of VESA support though.

Off of ebay, I've gone ahead and purchased the P500. It's got 128MB of RAM, 10GB HDD, CD-ROM drive, Floppy Drive, Zip Drive, built in sound (Crystal Semiconductor CS4236), built in video (integrated ATI Rage Pro (AGP 2X) graphics, 4MB upgradable to 8MB), built in LAN and XP installed for some reason 🤣. Seperately I've purchased a Sound Blaster AWE64 ISA Gold soundcard, model CT4540. It's listed as new, but it's just the card itself, I'm thinking it's used, not new as the seller had 10 of them, I could be wrong I suppose. Hopefully it has the 4MB of RAM on the card. I also purchase a keytronics keyboard and mouse combo, not from ebay though, cost me about $13.95 with free shipping. As for the video, I'll have to see what I can come up with as far as vesa support goes, forgot about that... I guess I could always try univesa or something like that. We'll see.

Googling suggests that the ATI Rage Pro may have BIOS-level VESA support in pure DOS.

why not run gl-quake

Abson, if you want to run the non-accelerated Quake 1 at 1280x1024, then winquake.exe works just fine on a modern XP-based PC, for example.

HunterZ wrote:

Googling suggests that the ATI Rage Pro may have BIOS-level VESA support in pure DOS.

But there's a TSR available that seems to be required to bring VESA support to the Mach64 chipset.

Thought I should post something real quick. I'm more or less just using Quake as an example. I know I can play the game on a modern PC, infact I had downloaded the Direct3D patch from http://dxquake.sourceforge.net/ and works just fine, but I was trying to find out what sort of processing power would be needed to run a game like that in pure DOS mode at the highest resolution my CRT monitor supports. I'm getting the PC from UPS tomorrow, and I'll be installing either MS-DOS 6.22 or Free-DOS, as well as Windows 3.11 for Workgroups for old times sake, no Windows 95 or above. As for the Mach64 chipset, looks like it has basic DOS and VESA support. Not entirely sure what it means by "basic", but i will find out when I get computer.

Probably they mean it has standard VGA/EGA/CGA support when used in DOS.

Try winquake.exe with the -dibonly parameter. It'll help get around some accelleration qualms.

A 3GHz-ish or dual core 2ghz (Think Phenom or Core2duo) is necessary for complete smoothness in software (windows) Quake at 1280x1024, btw. The common GL ports are no subsitute since they lack key features (non-power-of-2 texturing, overbrights, proper gamma, fullbright colors)

Don't forget to add a voodoo1 or voodoo2 card if you play on playing screamer 2/rally. They both support glide, makes them look a lot better then software rendering, and the framerate increases to the smooth driving experience the games are meant to be.

Re: Screamer Rally, this patch -

http://dlh.net/cgi-bin/patdl.cgi?lang=eng&sys … ile=sr3dfx2.zip

will make Screamer Rally work on a Voodoo2 setup. I tested it on a Voodoo3 card, just out of curiosity, and it worked! 😀

(Link originally provided by Vogons user Davros)

Alrighty, so I got the PC here. The built in video has the full 8MB of RAM on it, which is really great and a big suprise since I was just thinking it had the 4MB. I installed both MS-DOS 6.22, and all the games I have tried work just fine so far, even using VESA, this includes The Ultimate DOOM, Quake 1 demo and Duke 3D demo, with or without the ATI drivers installed. Windows 3.11 works fine as well. Quake is a little sluggish at 640x480, but it is playable. I'm yet to install the sound drivers, not sure if they are Sound Blaster compatible, so I'll have to try that. I do have the ISA Sound Blaster AWE64 coming, so if the built in sound card is not Sound Blaster compatible, it's not a big deal. I was also suprised to see that my wireless mouse works as well by using one of the USB 2 PS/2 adapters. I don't believe the motherboard has an AGP slot, so I won't be able to use a Voodoo card unless they came in PCI as well? I use to have a Voodoo 3500TV AGP. Stupid me threw it away after I got my Geforce 3, thinking I wouldn't need it anymore since Windows XP was the big thing back then, and DOS gaming had more or less come to an end.

Edit: I do see the voodoo came in PCI, so I'll keep that in mind.