So this weekend, I was throwing out stuff and found an old PC I had bought on eBay some years ago with the idea of turning it into a retro PC for Win95/98 and early WinXp games.

The hardware:
- Pentium III 600 E
- 384MB memory
- 120GB HDD
- Soundblaster 16 PCI (going to find a second hand Audigy to replace it)
- Geforce 2 MX 400
- DVD drive
- Microsoft X6 keyboard (yes, it works 100%)
- Razor Deathadder 3500dpi mouse
- Dell 24" LED IPS screen (running at 1920x1200)
- Windows XP

Using older drivers (the last Nvidia drivers for the graphics card gave TONS of problems, I've been able to run every game I tried perfectly. The PC runs very smoothly and quite a lot of games support 1920x1200 natively (even Tomb Raider II) and run smooth as butter.

It's a surprisingly fun experience - I'm planning on spray painting the case to give it a more cleaner look (the person buying it had clearly put it next to a window because one side of the beige case has turned yellow) but I just loved tinkering with the PC, adding a new hard drive, replacing the graphics card and finding all the original drivers.

So have any of you still tinker with old PC's? Any cool hardware you'd recommend adding to my retro PC?

I had the same idea. Even have the old pc to try it but somehow it's a too daunting experient at the moment because i feel I am not knowledgeable enough to make it work...

I bought an old IBM Aptiva for €20 a few years back - P166. You can get really cheap old hardware on ebay - a Voodoo 2 for a few euros. It helps that I kept a lot of my old boards - I got soundcards, graphics cards, network cards, etc. from several generations so it was very cheap for me.

For my new retro PC, I only had to buy a €3 50mm fan because the current one was too noisy. If you keep your old parts, it shouldn't cost you more than 20-30 euros to get a complete setup. You can use your current screen, keyboard and mouse if it has USB. If not, it's a little harder since analog keyboards and mice are not that easy to find new (and working with second hand mice and keyboards is yuck).

Depending on the age of the PC, it's either tricky or not tricky at all.

Pre-WInXP PCs are mostly tricky because of drivers and hardware incompatibilities. WinXp made things a LOT easier and most hardware post-2000 are not finnicky and backwards compatible.

I'll probably have to give it a try. There are some games which I'm pretty sure will never be released here, so it might be beneficial to get an old PC to play them again. I probably won't have the tie to get into that for a while with school and all in its final stretch.

There's quite a lot of "forgotten" games like G Police which are still a lot of fun to play. It just takes too much time trying to get them to run on a modern machine + they tend to crash a lot more.

Come to think of it, I might as well make a post with some pointers on what to look out for when building or buying your own retro PC.

I got a spare rig I could probably do that with but I'm too lazy.

if i had a decade old computer lying around id just try the thing into a fishtrap.

I had one.
P3 - 550
256 RAM
ATI radeon
Soundblaster 16
Win 98

I had it stored temporarily in a padded box, but our basement flooded and it died a horrible death. :(

HELP WITH BUILDING YOUR OWN RETRO PC

Here's a few tips on what you need to look out for:

a) eBay has loads of old PCs to snap up for next to nothing. Try to find a clean PC which has solid basic components. Don't worry about its soundcard, graphics card (unless it's embedded of course) and other stuff that can be swapped out - the CPU and motherboard are what counts. All the rest can be replaced with what you want.

b) Look for a PC with an Intel CPU if you go for pre 2002 CPUs. (After 2002, the AMD series were quite a lot better for several years). These are the most reliable and easiest to find support for. Try to pick a motherboard of a well known brand as well - you'll be luckier finding old drivers for brands like MSI, ASUS, Abit, etc.

c) when picking up parts to add to the computer, always go for popular ones. For soundcards, don't get some obscure brand - get a Soundblaster or other big name. The support is best for these - same with graphics cards: don't get a PowerVR, get a Voodoo 2, etc. The idea is to go what sold best at the time because most games are tested with popular hardware first.

d) when swapping out existing components in a PC you bought, do it one piece at a time and boot. If you run into problems, it's easier to trace to the component causing problems.

e) old PC's tend to make a lot of noise - you can pick up new fans for almost every CPU on eBay or even Amazon. Is the PSU too load? You can buy real cheap PSU's which will also last longer and be quieter. Playing games on a noisy PC is no fun after all ...

These should get you started.
That sucks - seemed like a perfect machine to dual boot Win98 & XP.

Oh it was! Considering I got it for free, I guess I didn't lose money on the deal, but yeah. :(

Also, as an addendum for US peoples like me, you can actually sometimes find good retro PC stuff in Goodwills, Salvation Armies, pawn shops, etc. Older hardware, complete PCs sometimes, and good old big box PC software.

G-Police is great game. I even bought PSX's Weapons of Justice and tried to run it on emulator but couldn't get accustomed to oversensitive controls.

...and for retro hardware - a CRT monitor is a must-have :-P

I think LazyGameReviews on youtube did a guide on how ot build one. You should check his channel out.

thanks to gog.com i don't have to have a retro pc