Today I would like to introduce you to my little retro PC project. I named it "GOGbox" and it is almost clear what it is about :)
INTRODUCTION:
The idea was to have a small, compact PC that could easily start 32bit PC games that were released until 2015. It shouldn't cost too much and of course not be that loud. The built-in components should not necessarily come from the same time. It was also important to me that everything works WITHOUT STEAM.
HARDWARE: CPU: AMD Ahtlon 64 X2 5200+ (Sockel AM2) MAINBOARD: Shuttle SN68SG2 (Glamor Series) RAM: 4GB G.Skill (G.Skill F2-6400CL6D-4GBMQ) VIDEO: nvidia ZOTAC Geforce GT1030, 2GB DDR3 Ram (64bit), pciExpress HDD: 2TB Western Digital
POWER: Shuttle 350W
MODIFICATION:
Since a larger power supply unit was used (with bigger measures). The actual internal fan had to be modified due to lack of space. In order to still generate enough cooling, a special "retention module" made. So another fan (40x40)
could be placed at the CPU. Furthermore, a 90mm fan was attached to the back of the case (adjustable) which draws the warm air to the outside.
SOFTWARE: As the operating system I have chosen "Windows 7 Ultimate" in the 32-bit version. Therefore only 3GB of the 4GB RAM are recognized. But that's enough for most 32bit games. For the "Games Menu" I chose "True Launch Bar" and sorted it by genre.
I've only actually installed games for the past few days. Most of my original BigBoxes. It is not always easy to install them first or to get them up and running. But the compatibility mode of Windows 7 is pretty decent. In the meantime there are also many patches that allow old games to start again under a newer Windows.
And if a game really doesn't work, you can check out the GOG version. I have now installed 186 Windows games, all of which run perfectly. I probably won't play all these games anymore, but it's about the challenge of getting them to run again.
FAZIT: A small, compact, almost silent, energy-saving retro PC, which can start almost all games up to the 32-bit era. More than sufficient for my purposes.
