Pc build for somewhat retro gaming

[jd8791]

So I'm super new to pc gaming in general meaning im basically a toddler in my understanding of what a good build for my purposes would be. Essentially I'd like a pc that would run something akin to fallout 4, slightly more and all the way down to 90's dos games. Is there a good place to start with a build for these purposes, possibly an off the shelf pc that would already suit these needs? I'm also 100 percent a physical media guy with few exceptions, so a disc drive is a must. Any advice to put me in the right direction? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[mjs warlord]

Hi.. heres a few pointers for you ..

The first thing you need to do is decide what games you are going to use then make sure the pc parts are good enough , you can do it like this , for example you mention fallout 4 so type into your browser ... what do i need to run fallout 4 , you will get 2 different types of answer , some websites will just list the components you need to be able to run it and some sites have little programs for you to run , they will scan your pc and it will say if you can run it .

Depending on how old the game are you might have to run the game in compatibility mode , their are 2 ways to do this , to do this you might have a short cut or a program launcher , in both cases right click on them and go through the tabs and look for the one that says compatibility mode. once you open that click on the pull down tab and you will see a list of previous operating systems , choose the one that was in use when the game was made .... you have now technically fooled the game into thinking it is running on an older machine and not a brand new one

99% of the time this will work but occasionally it wont because your brand new pc will be too good for the old game. Example ... you could for example jump from a cliff onto another piece of ground BUT instead of landing on the other piece of ground you will go through it and the game will crash .... just something to be aware of.

I wont give you the technical reasons why this happens because you said your new to pc's

 

[D10S]

Fallout 4 needs sth like a gtx1070 to run smoothly.
New systems usually play old games just fine. I've recently tried max payne 1 and half life 2 on rtx3080+w10 and they required almost no tweaking. mp needed a simple copy + paste mod to enable sound during cutscenes.

 

[Brian Boru]

Fallout 4 needs sth like a gtx1070 to run smoothly

Yep, I played a few hours earlier in the year, ran fine on an i7-7700 and GTX 1060 6MB.

Get the cheapest gaming PC you can find and you should be fine. My CPU is 6-7 generations behind latest, and my GPU is 4 gens behind—anything being sold today should be much better than that, even lowest end. These may help:

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[jd8791]

Yep, I played a few hours earlier in the year, ran fine on an i7-7700 and GTX 1060 6MB.

Get the cheapest gaming PC you can find and you should be fine. My CPU is 6-7 generations behind latest, and my GPU is 4 gens behind—anything being sold today should be much better than that, even lowest end. These may help:

Best gaming PC builds: budget, mid-range and high-end recommendations

From an $800 penny-saving PC to a $4,000 monster.

www.pcgamer.com

Best cheap gaming PC deals August 2024

These are the best cheap gaming PC deals on the market in August 2024

www.gamesradar.com

Best budget gaming PC 2024: great cheap builds

Get into gaming without breaking the bank, with our pick of the best cheap gaming PCs around, including options from Acer, HP, and Intel.

www.pcgamesn.com

The best cheap gaming PC deals for July 2024

Don't spend more than you have to with our handy gaming PC deals roundup

www.techradar.com

Ok cool, this is all good info from you guys. I didnt figure i would run into compatability issues with fallout 4 or similar games. Fallout new vegas and oblivion not sure, but from what i gather those should be fine too. The old dos games, ill have to figure that out lol. I'll definitely look into the cheaper pcs then and see what i can find. Im mostly a retro console gamer and the pc is primarily there to give me the best experiences for games that were either never properly optimized on consoles, and for ease of mod use.

 

[Brian Boru]

The old dos games, ill have to figure that out lol

Any problems or experiences, share them in our Retro Gaming forum

Oh, and Welcome to the forum

 

[JarlBSoD]

If you are going to get a PC that can run relativley modern games then it is better to ignore the "old" part and solve those issues when they arrise. Unless you focus on buying games on GoG i would sugest you look in to setting upp DOSBox for varrious games, it's not that hard to learn the basics. Either that or try PCem but that stuff can get real quickly

Old DOS games are often not that tricky to get running on a modern system thanks to things like DOSBox, Early Windows games can become a real hazzle though.