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Build #1

Windows 95 Games

Installed

Command & Conquer Win95 Edition
C&C: Tiberian Sun
C&C: Red Alert

Doom 95 (Final Doom)
Duke Nukem 3D
Sonic CD

Tom Clancy's Rainbow 6 & Eagle Watch Expansion
Half Life
GLQuake (Quake)
Quake III
Heretic II
Hexen II
Mechwarrior 3
Resident Evil 3
Blood 2: The Chosen
Warcraft 2
Wipeout XL
Twisted Metal 2
Destruction Derby 2
Final Fantasy 7

Build #1 Pictures
Front
Front Plate
Internal Side View
Thermaltake CPU Cooler
 
 
Modified VGA Cooler for Voodoo 3 2000
Original VGA Cooler for Voodoo 3 2000
Strider's "Retro" Box (Formerly the "DOS" Box)

I decided one day after trying to use virtual machines and emulators to play some of my favorite old school games, that it was simply not the best way to go about playing these classics. Some games simply don't emulate well, or at all for that matter, and they simply don't have the same feel being played in an emulator on a modern machine. So I went digging for parts and started to put together an old school PC designed just for playing all the games I used to love from back in the early days of PC gaming. What I ended up with was a great little PC that runs all my old games perfectly and operates at lightning speed. Check out the details below. Thanks to Viper for donating several games for the box!
History

I actually started messing with making a "Retro" PC a while back, just for fun. I liked to see how far I could push the old school technology. I started on 486/DX4 100's and Pentium 133-166 powered systems running windows 3.1 and trying to see how much I could get these machines to do. I was surprised to find a wealth of information, utilities, and applications out there that give this old school technology an incredible amount of usefulness, even in today's high powered world.

Being heavy into retro console gaming, I decided I wanted to play some of my old school PC game favorites. The only problem was, very few will run under Windows XP and they don't all emulate well. One good example was the game "Crusader: No Remorse", it will not play in anything but a pure DOS environment and it does not run in a VM or DOS Emulator. So that's when I decided I wanted a old machine to run all my old games on. What you see below is the result.

This "Retro" machine was originally going to be a DOS powered system only. In the process of digging around through all my old games, and many that were donated by a good friend, I noticed that almost every game I wanted to play were DOS only games. However, over time I began to come across many more games that needed Windows 95 in order to play. So I decided to rework my "DOS" box into a "Retro" box by making it a dual boot system. Running both Windows 95 OSR2 and MS-DOS 6.22. DOS 6.22 for those rare oldies that simply wont run on anything else, and Windows 95 for everything else.
Retro Box System Specifications
Build #1

* Windows 95 OSR2
* Compaq Presario 7360 Case
* ASUS TUSI-M Micro-ATX Motherboard
* Intel Celeron 1Ghz CPU
* 256 MB PC 133 SDRAM (2X128MB)
* PCI Voodoo 3 2000 16MB (Overclocked)
* 6.4 GB HD Capacity (2x3.2GB IDE)
* On-Board C-Media CM18738/C3DX Audio

Build #2

* Windows 95 OSR2
* Standard ATX Case
* A-OPEN AK-72 ATX Socket A Motherboard
* AMD Athlon 700MHz CPU
* 384 MB PC 133 SDRAM (3X128MB)
* VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 MX 440 64MB AGP
* 10.0 GB Space (3x3.2GB IDE)
* Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold ISA Sound

Operating System Information

Windows 95 OSR2

OSR2 is basically the immediate predecessor to Windows 98. The benefits of running OSR2 over older versions of Win95 is it has USB support as well as support for much newer hardware compared to its previous versions. On the other side of the coin, OSR2 has many benefits of Windows 98 without all of the integration and performance issues that came with it. OSR2 to put it simply, ran faster and better than the first editions of Windows 98.

Motherboard Information

ASUS TUSI-M Socket 370 Micro-ATX

This motherboard was the best of 3 older Micro-ATX boards I had collecting dust. It was also the only one I had that still had a working CPU sitting on it. So I put a new Thermaltake cooler on it and decided to use it for my first build. The primary drawbacks to this board are the fact it has no AGP support and only 2 DIMMS.
A-OPEN AK-72 ATX Socket A Motherboard
Great Motherboard, in mint physical and operation condition. Slot A, 5 PCI, 1 ISA, 1 AGP 4x, and 3 DIMMS. Exactly what I wanted for my build!

CPU Information

Intel Celeron 1Ghz

This 1GHz Celeron is overkill for it's intended use, but more is better than not enough. I have never been much of an Intel fan, preferring AMD. However in this case, it's the best motherboard I had for the build.
AMD Athlon 700MHz CPU
This CPU is more than enough power for what it will be used for. I also have a 1000MHz version lying around here somewhere, if I can find it, I will use it instead. Giving it the same speed at Build #1

Memory Information

 

Standard 128 MB PC 133 SDRAM DIMMS

 

Video Card Information
3DFX Voodoo 3 2000 16MB PCI (Overclocked)
Overclocked from 143MHz to 170MHz using the "Voodoo 3 Overclocker". With it's much larger heatsink, borrowed from the Northbridge of a dead Gigabyte Motherboard, and a case fan mounted to blow cool air directly over the entire card, it runs incredibly cool and smooth!
VisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 MX 440 64MB AGP
I chose this card for this build to take full advantage of the motherboards AGP support and for the fact the card has a full driver set for Windows 95. It's far more power than this rig will ever need. I will be replacing the heatsink on this card as well though, in favor of a much better GPU cooler. I am not big on old school fanless heatsink's.

Hard Drive Information

3.2 GB Western Digital HD's

I have 5 3.2GB Western Digital Caviar 23200 HD's.  So I am using 2 in Build #1 and 3 in Build #2. Far more than enough room than I will ever need for the games I want to play and it also leaves a great deal of room for future expansion. 

Sound Information
On-Board C-Media CM18738/C3DX Audio
Standard 6CH on-board Audio from C-Media. This chip does emulate SB16, but I much prefer a pure SB card to being emulated on a chip.
Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold ISA
This card was used in this build for the simple fact it's easy to setup in DOS and more than powerful enough for all the Windows 95 games I has to run as well. I wanted to be able to use a pure old school Sound Blaster card since that was the standard back when all these games were made. Build #1 can emulate SB16, but for the sake of DOS, emulation is a pain and this card has its on DOS driver set.