It's happened a few times when an Apple/Mac enthusiast acquires a PC but doesn't know what to do with it, what games are good for it? What sound card should you get?
Here's my take on it, having used a:
386 SX25 in 1992-1996**
Pentium 1 166 in 1996-2000*
Athlon 600 MHz in 2000-2004
etc, to this day, daily driving a PC.
** this is the period in my life when I had the most free time to play computer games
* this one too, but significantly less
ISA sound card recommendation, in descending order:
-Sound Blaster 16 should be found in ISA form and relatively cheap and cover most needs
-PicoGUS project where you self assemble that manufactured ISA card and paste a Pico on it and get access to the world of the Gravis UltraSound, gives you better music in some games that relied on tracker music and used 32 bit sound samples
-Sound Blaster Pro / Adlib are ok choices but might be rarer / pricier
If you have a cable connected to your sound card's joystick port, you can use pin 12 (and some others related to gnd and 5V) to get some MIDI out to a midi device like a Roland MT-32, or a Sound Canvas Sc-55, SC-88 or others. No need for a MPU401 interface like you needed back in the day, you can use SOFTMPU (a recent program that emulates it) but you can only run it with expanded memory configured in config.sys.
MS-DOS Games that I HEAVILY recommend, this entire list plays fine (mostly) on a 486, doesn't require a Pentium, doesn't require 3d acceleration which is tricky to get for the 97-2000 era.
Fast 486 or Pentium
Slow 486
386
286
Turn-based strategy games:
Civlization 1
Master of Orion
Master of Magic
X-COM: UFO Defense (known as X-COM: Enemy Unknown in Europe)
Story based epic adventure with exploration:
Dune (from Cryo/Virgin)
Star Control II
Flight Sims:
X-Wing
TIE Fighter
Wing Commander II
Combat games:
OMF 2097 (One Must Fall)
Adventure Games:
King's Quest V and VI
Space Quest III, IV and V
Manhunter: New York
Gold Rush!
Quest for Glory 1
Secret of Monkey Island
RPGs:
Ultima VII
Might and Might III
Eye of the Beholder 1
FPS:
Wolfenstein 3D
DOOM
Hexen
If you can only try out just 3 games out of this big list, then here they are:
Dune, Master of Magic, Star Control II
If you're strapped for time and can only spare quick bursts:
OMF 2097 (One Must Fall), TIE Fighter, DOOM
Best heard with soundblaster with fm synth despite other choices: Dune
Best heard with GUS despite other choices: Star Control II, OMF 2097
Best heard with MIDI output despite other choices: X-Wing, TIE Fighter
Best heard with MT-32 despite other choices: Ultima VII, Wing Commander II, Secret of Monkey Island
known people who I've seen expressed a need for this thread in the past:
@jdmcs @Adam
@eric
Here's my take on it, having used a:
386 SX25 in 1992-1996**
Pentium 1 166 in 1996-2000*
Athlon 600 MHz in 2000-2004
etc, to this day, daily driving a PC.
** this is the period in my life when I had the most free time to play computer games
* this one too, but significantly less
ISA sound card recommendation, in descending order:
-Sound Blaster 16 should be found in ISA form and relatively cheap and cover most needs
-PicoGUS project where you self assemble that manufactured ISA card and paste a Pico on it and get access to the world of the Gravis UltraSound, gives you better music in some games that relied on tracker music and used 32 bit sound samples
-Sound Blaster Pro / Adlib are ok choices but might be rarer / pricier
If you have a cable connected to your sound card's joystick port, you can use pin 12 (and some others related to gnd and 5V) to get some MIDI out to a midi device like a Roland MT-32, or a Sound Canvas Sc-55, SC-88 or others. No need for a MPU401 interface like you needed back in the day, you can use SOFTMPU (a recent program that emulates it) but you can only run it with expanded memory configured in config.sys.
MS-DOS Games that I HEAVILY recommend, this entire list plays fine (mostly) on a 486, doesn't require a Pentium, doesn't require 3d acceleration which is tricky to get for the 97-2000 era.
Fast 486 or Pentium
Slow 486
386
286
Turn-based strategy games:
Civlization 1
Master of Orion
Master of Magic
X-COM: UFO Defense (known as X-COM: Enemy Unknown in Europe)
Story based epic adventure with exploration:
Dune (from Cryo/Virgin)
Star Control II
Flight Sims:
X-Wing
TIE Fighter
Wing Commander II
Combat games:
OMF 2097 (One Must Fall)
Adventure Games:
King's Quest V and VI
Space Quest III, IV and V
Manhunter: New York
Gold Rush!
Quest for Glory 1
Secret of Monkey Island
RPGs:
Ultima VII
Might and Might III
Eye of the Beholder 1
FPS:
Wolfenstein 3D
DOOM
Hexen
If you can only try out just 3 games out of this big list, then here they are:
Dune, Master of Magic, Star Control II
If you're strapped for time and can only spare quick bursts:
OMF 2097 (One Must Fall), TIE Fighter, DOOM
Best heard with soundblaster with fm synth despite other choices: Dune
Best heard with GUS despite other choices: Star Control II, OMF 2097
Best heard with MIDI output despite other choices: X-Wing, TIE Fighter
Best heard with MT-32 despite other choices: Ultima VII, Wing Commander II, Secret of Monkey Island
known people who I've seen expressed a need for this thread in the past:
@jdmcs @Adam
@eric
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