Hey all!

I've been playing PC games since the Commodore 64 days, but I really missed the boat on flight sims until relatively recently (2005-ish?). I've mostly always been a Racin' / Shootin' type of guy. As such, I've just gotten into the wealth of 'Golden Era' sims from the mid to late 90's and I'm loving them (favorite by far: Jane's USAF). I have two computers, both running win7, but one 64 and the other 32bit. The 32bit 'puter runs way more games from that time period than the other, but it doesn't run them all. Most noticeably Jane's F-15 and Longbow 2, which I'm dying to try.

My question is; is building a legacy rig to possibly run Windows 2000 or earlier a good (or even feasible) idea? Is it even possible to find components to build such a rig anymore, or should I just pass on these classics? I can run a decent amount of older sims on my 32bit rig like I said, but i'd like to play them all, especially since I already (foolishly?) plunked down some decent cash on used copies of F-15 and LB2.

Maybe I should just be satisfied that Win7 at least runs the titles that it does. Has anyone done this (built a legacy machine) before? Or does anyone know of any other ways to get these games running?

- Zero


Games I have gotten to successfully work on Win7:

Jane's USAF (AWESOME!) - The menu screen was broken for me until I installed the Super Pro 9.4 mod.
Jane's F/A-18 - Looks great but I've been to busy playing USAF to give it a go.
Jane's Fighters Anthology - Works flawlessly, but I think USAF has ruined it for me, graphically and flight model-wise.
F/A-18E Super Hornet(Digital Integration) - Like 5 bucks at GoG.com. Runs great, but I'm not sure if it's any better than Jane's F/A-18.
Total Air War - Works flawlessly with the 2.15 installer from Combatsim.com.
Mig Alley - Haven't played yet but a I did a quick test run and it worked flawlessly.
Crimson Skies - Not a sim, i know, but TONS of fun. Graphics are broken on my 64bit rig, but I suspect that is due to the newer ATI Card in it (HD5850) rather than my OS.

You can build a stand-alone legacy rig, but I'd try VMWare Player first on your 7-64 system. It's a free program that allows you to simultaneously run multiple operating systems on one physical machine. You could install Windows XP and 98 on your one system, and bounce back and forth between them at the click of a button.

The only catch with VMWare (or any virtualization program) is that it needs enough memory to run all of the OS's on the system, plus one GB for the VMWare shell program. This is why I say you should install it on your 7-64 system, and I'd recommend at least 8GB of RAM to run everything smoothly.

Problem with VMWare in this context is that it virtualises the graphics card, so you will probably lose hardware accelerated 3D etc.
Never tried it so could be wrong...but I would try harder to get the games running directly under Windows 7 in compatability mode. There is a web page somewhere all about running Longbow for instance.
Cheers,
Keith

Dual boot would be the way to go I would think. It's a problem now to get certain hardware to run on Win 98 because much of it has no driver support at all so that is going to be the biggest hurdle. Might be easier to buy an old computer that already has 98 on it and hardware suitable for that time.

Hi MonsterZERO,

Here's a though. Try eBay, look for "used desktops". See if you can find one of about the same vintage as the simes you want to run play. A lot of the early Windows sims were really just DOS sims, the speed cam be a problem, you'll probably need ISA slots and a gameport, video cards, etc. A lot of the early stuff "knew" certain audio and video cards too and read ports directly, something you can do beyond Win98. and the pure speed of the newer processors causes problems too. It's not programmed to expect them. Anyway, I've seen what would have been "dream machines" (PIIs, PIIIs, mainly etc back in 2000 go for $20. It may take awhile for a suitable one to come by of course, but it's probably a lot simpler than trying to build one.

If you run Windows 98, you can dual boot it and then run Command.com at the end of of AutoExec.bat on one of them. It will boot to pure DOS, Windows won't really even start. Boots to a pure DOS partition. The system will usually have the "real mode" drivers that you'll need. The older sim used X86 assembly code, too. I don't if it will run on the AMDs or later Intel processors. You probably will need a PS2 mouse and keyboard for it.

Have a look, maybe youll turn up one that you like. Sometimes you get the monitor, keyboard, and mouse, too. If you can turn one up, it coould save lots of time and money and most of the things that are likely to need replacement, IDE drives, power supplies, PS2 keyboards and mice can still found (Amazon, NewEgg, ProVantage, eBay, et al) too.

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickwrks.com

Thanks for all your replies, fellas...

Bob - That actually sounds like a good idea, never thought of buying a complete computer.

Took a quick peek on eBay and found this guy that seems to specialize in Legacy gaming PCs. Who knew there was even a market for that type of thing, lol... Anyway, how do you think something like this would handle the older Jane's titles? The price is very reasonable, I think.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-XPS-Windows-98-...=item3f02d2c386

Hi MonsterZero,

I don't really have any idea about Janes. What I usually do when I'm unsure of things is to go to Google Groups, search on the sim or whatever, and see what the guys were hot to have at the time, what worked and what didn't, recommended video and audio cards, that sort of thing. There's usually some info that will point you in the right direction, give you an idea of what was working well and what wasn't, and common problems and what you might run into them. It's all been hashed over, much better than the reviews that show up when the thing is released.

Edit: If you can arrange to use PS2 keyboard and mouse on both machines, you can get by with a two-port KVM switch and not have to have a lot of extra hardware. The older boxes wouldn't support USB, especially during boot since the keyboard and mice that would run before Windows was loaded we're pretty rare. If you've got PS2 hooked up to your current box, there's no real problem. You just need the main PC and the joysticks and things that need to connect to it.

Good luck with it!

Best regards,

- Bob

The StickWorks
http://www.stickworks.com

I have an old Voodoo card I salvaged years ago just in case I need a legacy computer. Also a Nvidia TNT2 card stored away somewhere. Not to mention a like new ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128Mb I had to RMA.

You can get hardware supported 3D with WinXP hosts, but not 9x.

Haven't tried this one myself, but since it's free it might be worth setting up Player with an XP host, and see how games on that run in XP's 98 emulation mode.

alot of those games wont run, even in 98 Emu Mode.

Im restoring an Old 1.1 Ghz Athlon Windows 98 PC for janes USAF, IAF, Fighters Anthology etc. I have a nice Voodoo5 Card