Videos

Building a NEW (OLD) Windows 98 Gaming PC! – Hardware, Accessories & Games

I work with RE-PC to build a new (old) Dell Dimension XPS R400
Pentium II 400mhz, Voodoo3 3000 video card, Soundblaster 16 soundcard, 384MB ram, IBM P96 monitor and more!

Video Transcription:

– Hey guys, Metal Jesus here. Now you guys know that I love my big box PC games, but you may be surprised to learn that up until recently, I did not own a 90’s MS-DOS gaming PC. Until now. I’ve actually recently worked with a local Seattle company to help me build the ultimate 90’s gaming PC. And in this video we’re gonna talk about the hardware that we chose, we’re gonna talk about some of the software that we put on it, and of course we’ve gotta play some games. Let’s take a look. Now I know some of you are thinking wait a second. I mean, how could you not have a 90’s gaming PC? Didn’t you work at Sierra? Yes, in the 90’s I had several gaming PCs. I had a 286, a 386, actually I had an 8088 at one point. At Sierra I bought my first Pentium 100. And so on. But I didn’t keep them for some reason. And so for the longest time, this was actually my oldest Windows gaming PC. Obviously I have Commodores and Ataris and things like that. But for the longest time, this was my oldest Windows PC. This is an Athlon 2100. It runs at, I think, 1.7 gigahertz. It has an ATI Radeon 8500. And it runs Windows XP, which is great if you want to play games from the 2000s to maybe 2005, 2006. But I was looking for something even older. My adventure started when I went down and visited a store called RE-PC. They’re local to Seattle here. And, basically, it’s this massive warehouse of used PC components from pretty much the dawn of the PC era, all the way up to stuff that’s current. And it’s amazing to go through this if you are on old school gamer like me. By the way, full disclosure, this may feel like a sponsored video, but it’s not actually. At the end of this video I’m going to tell you exactly how much I paid to have this computer built. But when you walk in here you are faced with just bins full of old video cards, sound cards, drives, mice, keyboards, everything you could possibly want to build your own computer. And so it was after strolling around in here for a while, I was like, wait, why don’t I work with these guys to help me build the ultimate gaming gaming PC from 1998 or 1999? So we ultimately landed on this. We started with a Dell Dimension XPS R400. And that’s because it has a case the size that I need so I can put everything in there, including two optical drives, as well as a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, and I didn’t know if I wanted a 3 1/2 inch or a 5 1/4, so I ended up actually getting both. And I can swap them out if I need to. This Dell also comes with a Pentium II, running at 400 megahertz, which is a good speed for that era. This was actually a fairly high-end Dell at the time, and so it has the good base that I wanted. The RAM in this machine is capped out at 384 megabytes of RAM, which, again, is plenty for the time. As you guys know, when it comes to gaming, the video card is very important, and so for this machine I went with the Voodoo 3 3000. That’s a really nice, powerful card for the time. It has S-video out as well as VGA. It supports MS-DOS and Windows really well. However, it is known to run a little on the hot side, so for this computer an extra fan was put in, which does add to the overall sound of the computer. It’s a little bit more noisy than, say, I would like. But it’s very important to make sure that these things don’t fail. And then when it comes to audio, well, there is nothing better than the Soundblaster 16 by Creative Labs. This was important for me because, again, I wanted 100% compatibility both in Windows and also in DOS, and this card does that. For my monitor, I’m using the one I’ve had for years and years, and that is a great one here. This is the IBM P96. It’s a 19-inch monitor, and has worked flawlessly for years. As for my keyboard and mouse, these are taken from spare parts I just had lying around. Nothing really special here. I do really like the Microsoft natural keyboard. It’s very comfortable and I’m used to it. And then the mouse is a bit of a newer one. It’s an optical mouse that I’ve just had lying around, but I like it. And then one of the benefits of buying a computer from a store like this, is that they give you all the software. So in this Ziploc bag, there are copies of MS-DOS, which is pretty cool to have, as well as your official Windows 98 CD. They even gave me a copy of, I guess the manual. I mean, look at this, it’s talking about Internet Explorer 5, but better than that, yes, they gave me a copy of Windows 98 for Dummies. That is brilliant. Of course I need a joystick. But it’s important to know that these old joysticks are not USB. They actually plug into the game port built into your sound card. We’re all set up. Let’s play some games. Let’s start with Quake Two, running on Windows 98. Now the first thing I notice is that this doesn’t look quite right. That’s because initially it boots up in software rendering mode, so that’s what you’re seeing here. Although I have to admit I actually don’t mind the software rendering look of Quake 2. It looks pretty cool. But you go into Options, Video, and you change it over to the 3Dfx OpenGL, crank it up to 800 by 600 resolution, and this is how it’s supposed to look. This is much better. You can immediately tell that the polygons look smoothed out, there’s no rough edges, as well as the realtime lighting is way better than the software version. Now I did play around with running the game in higher resolutions, but the results were kind of less than optimal. It kept crashing back to Windows if I went higher than 800 by 600. Now, I have a theory, I don’t know if it’s true, but my copy of this game is the retail release version of it, so I just opened up my box and put the disk in and installed that, so it’s very possible that there’s a patch out there both for the Voodoo 3 as well as the game itself. But you can see here, I’m playing the game just fine. The next game I wanted to check out is one of my favorite Need for Speed games, and that is Porsche Unleashed. The PC version is so much better than all the console versions. And it’s cool to go back and play this game. I loved the history of Porsche that you can play through in this game. It’s kind of funny though, when you play this game for the first time, it’s actually really difficult in the beginning, because the original models of Porsche were so hard to drive. They’re so squirrely, you spin out all the time, but again, an absolute joy to be back playing this game. I absolutely love it. All right, let’s check out some Sierra classics. This is the King’s Quest collection, so this is the first six King’s Quest games, but they’ve been modified to run in Windows 95/98, and this is the sixth game here. This was definitely a transitional time for gaming, because it seems like almost every game that came out at the time would support both running in DOS and also running in Windows, but a game like this, yes it would run in Windows, but if you had any problems with it whatsoever, basically the manual would say, hey, play it in DOS, because usually it ran better there. Although as you can see here, this game works fine in Windows 98, so that’s where I played it. Here’s another one of my all time favorites, that is System Shock Two. This is a great first-person shooter, but it’s so much more than that. It’s also a horror game. It’s also a full-blown RPG. Just absolutely fantastic. And as you can see, it runs great with the Voodoo 3. It’s funny, because this is one of those games where you remember it looking better than it actually does. So going back and playing this, I haven’t played this in probably 20 years, and so going back and playing it now, I’m like huh, a little rough around the edges. Although to be fair, actually the gameplay still holds up. This is still a really cool game, despite its kind of dated graphics. But yeah, just an absolute joy to play this game. The next game is a bit of a challenge to get working. And that is because it was a challenge to get Ultima Seven working back in the day. This game… First of all, this is a MS-DOS game only. You might be able to play it in Windows, but I’ve never tried. The other thing is that it is very strict on how much RAM that you have. Specifically conventional memory. And so this is one of those games where you absolutely had to use a boot disk, so I had to create one for this to even run on my computer. The other challenge is, you’ll notice it right here. It’s running really, really, really fast. And that’s because on a Pentium Two, it doesn’t know what that is. And so, in order to work this properly, you have to use a program called SlowMo. Since we’re already in DOS, let’s try another classic. This is Duke Nukem 3D. And as you can see here, it runs perfectly. This is such a great game. An absolute classic. I don’t need to tell you guys this. But it’s cool to be playing this game on the original hardware. We’ve all played this game a million times, and it’s cool to go back and sit on a proper Windows machine with an old school CRT, and just play Duke Nukem 3D. It was really cool to do, so I’m very happy this runs flawlessly.

– Damn, I’m looking good.

– All right, let’s hop back into Windows and try Star Wars Episode One Racer. This is the pod racing game that was converted over from the arcade. And I am happy to report that the PC version works absolutely great. Now one thing I’m going to notice here, some of you may notice that you might see some screen tearing on some of the video capture. That is not noticeable in the games themselves. It’s probably because of the way that I’m having to capture this footage. I might actually do a dedicated video, showing you guys just how to capture old school MS-DOS and Windows games, because it is quite challenging. You have to use very specific hardware to do it. Thankfully, as you can see, it works really well, but occasionally you do get those screen tears. Now let’s go back a bit. I used to absolutely love the game Stunts. This is a stunt racing game for MS-DOS that’s pretty old. You’re going to see here that the graphics are pretty ancient, but this was a really cool game at the time. I believe it was made by the same people who also made the original Test Drive games. And I know I just have very fond memories of this. Actually it’s not that difficult to get running, although this game has copy protection, and the way it handles it is that it makes you look up to a certain page, certain line, certain word in the manual, and you have to type it in in order to launch the game. And so I had completely forgotten about that. But that’s a really important thing to know when you’re playing these old school DOS games, is that a lot of them, the copy protection is not something on the disk, it is actually a word that you’ll have to look up in the printed manual. Thankfully, of course, I have the game. It’s the full version of it, so it wasn’t a big deal. But this game is fun to play. I mean, despite having very rudimentary graphics, it actually has a pretty decent physics engine. It’s actually tougher than it looks, and yeah, if you’re looking for something kind of fun to play on your MS-DOS machine, give Stunts a try. It’s pretty cool. Another thing I was looking forward to checking out is my collection of PC Gamer demo discs. This are demo discs that game with PC gamer magazine, of course, but they were legendary at the time, because you got to play some of the best games every single month, and it also had a really cool bonus feature. If you had a subscription like me and you played these every month, well, you of course remember Coconut Monkey. That was basically the mascot for the magazine. He would provide commentary on the demo discs as well as there were mods to put him into different games. He was just kind of like this unofficial, official mascot that fans of this magazine know and love, and so it’s cool to have him back on my computer. So how much did the whole computer cost? Well, 200 dollars, plus tax. That seems like a good deal to me. Needless to say, it is long overdue that I finally added a proper 90’s gaming PC to my game room. I couldn’t be happier. I do want to give a huge shout-out to RE-PC. They’re a great company here in the Seattle area, and specifically Gene. He’s the guy, he’s the employee, who helped me come up with the list of requirements that we wanted. Also he did all of the durability testing for this machine, because originally, when it got assembled, many of the parts failed. They wouldn’t last throughout a weekend running continuously. So it’s something to keep in mind if you are looking to build your own, especially if you are going to be buying components on eBay, sometimes on eBay you’ll see like sound cards and video cards listed, and they’ll be like, “Oh, well, it worked “last time we turned it on.” Well keep in mind that might have been 20 years ago, and these things may have been sitting in a moldy basement, or they may just fail over time. So something to keep in mind. It’s nice to have a company like RE-PC here that can do all that testing and swap out parts as needed, so it was a total pleasure to work with those guys. I’d love to know what you guys think about my new old gaming PC. As you can see I’m very excited about it. All right, guys. Thanks for watching. A side benefit of me doing this video, as I mentioned earlier, is that I now have the ability to capture gameplay footage, both in MS-DOS as well as Windows, and that’s huge because I want to be able to cover more of that stuff on my channel, and up until now it’s been pretty tough to do. But I have a solution that works really well. So hopefully in the future I’ll be able to do more Let’s Plays and maybe hidden gems of PC games back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I think that’d be pretty cool. Love to know what you guys think. If you guys like this video, please subscribe to my channel, because I release two videos every single week. All right, guys. Thanks for watching.

What’s on my Nintendo SWITCH? 18 Retail & eShop Games w/Gameplay!

Games I am currently playing on my Nintendo Switch:

eSHOP GAMES SHOWN:
Rogue Trooper Redux
The Mummy Demastered
Neon Chrome
SteamWorld Dig 2
Strikers 1945
Knight Terrors
Ironcast
Alpha Mission II

RETAIL GAMES SHOWN:
The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth +
Cave Story +
Super Mario Odyssey
Splatoon 2
Disgaea 5
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Lego City Undercover
PuyoPuyo Tetris
Tiny Barbarians DX

VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION:

– Hey guys, Metal Jesus here. Now the Nintendo Switch is a relatively new console, yet can you believe there are already almost 100 games you can play on it? So today I’m going to show you the Switch games that I’ve been playing, and that includes both the physical retail releases as well as the eShop games. Let’s take a look. Before we get into the physical retail releases, let’s take a look at the eShop games I have. First up from my eShop games is a game I never thought I would see being remade. And that is Rogue Trooper Re-doo, Redux. I wanna say Redux, I know that’s not right. It’s Re-doo. But here’s a game that I covered previously on a PlayStation 2 Hidden Gems video. Although, now it’s been remade and updated for the Switch as you can see. In this game you play as a genetically altered soldier that is bred to withstand fairly harsh conditions that would kill any normal soldier. Maybe that’s why their skin is blue, I have no idea. I do know this this based on a fairly popular British comic called 2000 AD, which also used to feature Judge Dredd. One of the things that gives this game a bit of personality has to do with the soldiers that fight with you. Whenever they fall in battle, you pull out a knife and pull out their personality chip and then you embed it into your gun, into your helmet, into your backpack, and then they help you and talk to you while you’re in battle, it’s pretty cool. This update has HD graphics, it also has remodeled polygons so the characters look a little bit better. Also improved lighting and, more importantly, it also has modern controls, so anybody used to playing games like, say, Uncharted, you’re gonna feel right at home here. The campaign’s gonna take you about five to 10 hours to complete through 13 large missions. It also has online co-op for two to four players and there’s really nothing quite like it in the eShop, so if this looks interesting to you, definitely check it out. Next up on my Switch is The Mummy Demastered. However, I know what you’re thinking but don’t let a licensed game based on a fairly mediocre movie dissuade you. This is actually a really great game. The first thing that caught my eye is that WayForward made this, now you not familiar with WayForward? Well they’ve made some truly excellent games like Shantae, they also made Mighty Switch Force, Contra 4, and also the new Ducktales Remastered. All really great games. Obviously the 16-bit graphics look amazing, but the gameplay is really solid too. It reminds me of Super Metroid or Contra, which makes sense because again, these guys made a Contra game. And like Super Metroid or Castlevania, these levels are non-linear, allowing you to explore as you want while upgrading your weapons and your skills to unlock new areas and take on new monsters. I just love finding games like this where it’s based on a movie that nobody cares about, nobody went and saw, but yet in the right hands with a great developer can just make an outstanding game so, despite the name, definitely go check this out. Next up is Neon Chrome. Now it calls itself a ruthless, cyberpunk, top down shooter and I would say that’s pretty accurate. Basically, it’s a twin stick shooter with randomly generated levels that change every time you start the game. However, what makes this game fresh is that you unlock new abilities, enhancements, and weapons. Which is nice because every time you die, you come back stronger, ready to see if you can make it just a little bit further. Another neat part of this game that I wasn’t really expecting when I started playing it is that you can shoot through some walls. You can also make entire rooms explode and later on, you can take out entire floors. It definitely keeps you on your toes. In addition to a pretty tough single player game, this also has local co-op with two to four players. So if you like twin stick shooters with a little bit of RPG elements in there and a serious challenge, definitely check out Neon Chrome. I was a big fan of the first Steamworld Dig game. But when I heard that the sequel was losing the randomly generated levels, going for more of a hand crafted experience, I knew that this would make the game even better. See, I don’t mind a randomly generated game. Especially when it’s done really well. But in my opinion, there’s nothing quite like having a level designer sculpt a game to perfection, that’s what I really like about this. How would I describe this game? Well, basically think Super Metroid meets Dig Dug. Now, there is a story here, but honestly I skip it every time, because it just slows me down because I want to get digging, and yes you do a lot of digging in this game. What makes this game so much fun and why it reminds me so much of Dig Dug is that you are creating your own path through the dirt to find those hidden objectives. But you have to do it before your light runs out. You also upgrade your tools along the way, which slowly changes the experience as previously blocked areas suddenly become open to you, and newer, tougher monsters also provide additional challenges. This is a well made game with lots of hidden surprises to discover, as well as a unique art style and a nice polish. All right, now it’s time to blow some stuff up with Strikers 1945. This is an arcade shooter that has been ported to a bunch of systems like the PlayStation One, the Saturn, I believe there was a compilation on the PlayStation 2. Now if you’ve played these type of games before, you’re gonna feel right at home here. You have some options here, you have three planes to choose from, and then you fight through eight different stages. Now you have your normal attack, of course you have your bombs, but then you also have an extra formation attack with a support craft. But let me say, I just love games that have a vehicle that transforms into a mech. So cool. Another nice feature of this game is that it haves many, many difficulty settings so you can play this on basically stupid easy if you just want to learn the patterns, and then you can increase the difficulty as needed. I like taking a chance on some of these budget titles. This is a budget friendly game here at only three dollars called Knight Terrors. This game feels like a mobile game, it’s fairly simple. Actually, maybe it was a mobile game, I have no idea. But it starts simple and then it gets really tough. It’s an endless runner that plays a bit like Flappy Bird or the classic arcade game Joust where you need to avoid obstacles while attacking enemies that are coming at you. What I mean by that is that one button flaps your wings, so you need to do that a bunch of times to gain height, and then the other button is to attack. That’s it, those are the controls. However, if three enemies get by you, it is game over. I will say I really love the visual style here, it reminds me of those early 80’s computers like say the ZX Spectrum. Now this is not a game you’re gonna spend a ton of time with but at three dollars, it’s good for a quick play when you have just a few minutes. Next up is Ironcast, and I was very much looking forward to this game after watching some previews. Initially, this looks like a standard match three game. But let me assure you it is much more than that. This game is incredibly deep as a tactical RPG. So as you can see here, there’s a bit of a steam punk theme going on here. The game takes place in a fictional Victorian England where you command a mech known as an Ironcast here against the French who are invading. Each gem type represents a particular element needed to keep your Ironcast running in tip top shape. For instance, you have coolant gems, gems that will repair your mech, give you more power, lets you attack, but there’s also special gems that will boost or allow you to do link combos. Each turn has you gathering these gems, fixing things on your mech, boosting your weapons and defenses, or even attacking specific hard points on your enemy. Oh yeah, and did I mention that there’s permadeath? Yes. If you die in this game, it’s back to the main menu to start all over again. This is definitely one of the best match three puzzle games I’ve ever played. Now there is a lot to learn in this game, and at times it kind of reminds me of Puzzle Quest, another one of my favorites, but that’s a good thing. There are a ton of great Neo Geo games in the eShop, and so I had to pick up a few of them. I’m just gonna highlight one of them here, and that is a shooter called Alpha Mission II. As you might expect, Alpha Mission II is an arcade shooter from SNK, all the way back in 1991. This game is mostly known for having 11 different armored power ups, and the ability to switch them on the fly. Initially when I launched this game, I had no idea what those letters meant, and that’s kind of the downside for this game, it’s not exactly beginner friendly. After a while, you start to pick on some things like for instance, S means speed, also E for energy. But then later on it gets a little weird. So for instance, R means reverse, which means it’s gonna send you back a little bit in the level. Also C means clear, and that will clear your current armor. Now I’m aware this is not the most amazing shooter on the Switch, and honestly if I had to recommend one, it probably would be Strikers 1945 over this one, but I think they’re both unique and a lot of fun to play. Those are the eShop games I’ve been playing, but let’s take a look at the physical releases too. I want to start off with The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth and the reason for that is because surprisingly, it comes with some really cool extras packed in this small little case. The Switch case is not big enough to hold this stuff, but yet somehow they stuff it all in there. Usually it bulges but this is a really cool physical release. They also did something similar for Cave Story +. Check this out, this little baggie here holds a keychain as well as a mini soundtrack. And then a full color manual. Again, it fits in this case but just barely. Of course I had to get Super Mario Odyssey. Oh man, this game is not disappointing, it’s amazing. Also, Splatoon 2, another game that has not disappointed, and I think it’s even better than the Wii U version because there’s so many people playing online. I have to admit that Disgaea 5 is a bit of an impulse buy, I bought it when I first got the Switch. And I need to give it some more time, I don’t know what I’m doing in the game. Of course every Switch owner should own Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It is the best Mario Kart game ever made. I love it. What to say about Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild other than of course it’s amazing, it’s a system seller. Everyone should own it. Lego City Undercover used to be a Wii U exclusive, but they brought it to the Switch and it’s fantastic. I finished this game, super fun. PuyoPuyo Tetris was another impulse buy. I would say I need to spend a bit more time with it, I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s cool to have a puzzle game. Another game that got a physical release on the Switch is Tiny Barbarian DX. Pretty cool here, has a pouch with a keychain on the inside like so many others. As well as a full color manual, this one with a comic book on the inside telling you the story so far. That’s a quick look at the Switch games that I’ve been playing, but I’d love to know what games do you recommend that I get because as you know, there are tons of them and they’re being released all the time. So please post a comment down below. Also, I’m really curious to know, do you play your Switch in the console mode connected to an HD television or do you play it portably? Me personally, I actually like it on a big HD television with the pro controller, but I’ve heard that most gamers prefer this to be portable. So, love to know what you guys are doing with your Switch down in the comments below. All right guys, as always, I want to thank you for watching my channel, thank you for subscribing, and take care. I was recently at a gaming expo hanging out with a bunch of YouTubers in the hotel room. And it was so cool to have the Switch hooked up to the television in the hotel room and everyone just grabbing a controller, passing it around, and it was just so natural. I mean, there’s not really many other consoles you can do that, yes you can haul in your PlayStation 4 or whatever, but you’re just not gonna do that, it’s so much more convenient to have the Switch, and that was a real light bulb moment for me, it was very cool. All right guys, thanks so much for watching.

Sharp Nintendo TV – Television With A Built In NES!

This is a really cool piece of hardware and I’m happy to own it and talk about it! I did a lot of research to find some unique information, and towards the end I realized I should be keeping better track of my sources. This isn’t all of them unfortunately, but I want to start sharing those with you so that you can know I take this seriously! (Let me know if that’s something you want to see more of, btw!)

Upcoming Arcade RACING game for Nintendo Switch : Gear.Club Unlimited

Discover the features of Gear.Club Unlimited, the first car racing game on Nintendo Switch™

Gear.Club Unlimited, developed by Eden Games and published by Microïds, is to be released on December 1st in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on Nintendo Switch™.

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