Hey Gang,

As other posts have demonstrated, I've been well involved in console gaming over the years, but PC gaming has been almost completely absent from my repertoire and of late, I've been trying to think of ways to remedy this.

What I currently have in computer hardware is a 2009 Mac Book Pro 17". Great as a laptop, but probably not the best platform for comprehensive PC Gaming (current, modern, and retro....plus, I imagine running a mac would increase compatibility concerns.

The eras of PC gaming that I'm the most concerned about are pre-Windows DOS, Windows 3.1 era (win and dos), Windows 95/98 Era (win and dos), Windows XP era, and current games.

I also want to use my computer as a home media center on the TV (s) and big stereo. This much I could do with the macbook, getting the mac monitor out to HDMI converter, and a wireless keyboard/mouse...but where I think the macbook would fall short is on gaming.

I'd want to have a dual monitor setup: monitor 1 being the 1080i LCD via HDMI, monitor 2 being the 480i Toshiba CRT using composite. The idea is that the OS (s) would run through monitor 1, and any game that utilizes resolutions higher than 640x480 would run through monitor 1 as well. But lower resolution games would run on the Toshiba...this would be beneficial for things like EGA so they do't look all blocky like they do on SVGA+.

So, my questions are manifold: The first one is whether or not I can realistically accomplish this through virtualization and/or emulation, or am I looking at actually needing to buy legacy hardware (say, a 486 w Win 3.1, a Pentium 3 w/ Win 98, a Core 2 Duo w/ XP, and then a Core i7 with Win 7)? I'm running Parallels on my macbook with Windows 7, Windows XP, and Ubuntu 10.04 VMs, so I do have some familiarity and experience w virtualization.

If we're talking virtualization, what kind of software am I looking at using, especially with the older installs (Win 98 and back?) Am I looking at running DOSBOX and installing Windows systems into that? Does DOSBOX even work that way?

I'd prefer to stick with macs, but if that would only create problems, or at least be not worth the price, all things considered, I would be willing to go with a PC. Perhaps I could use the PC for the gaming stuff, and the macbook for the home media center business. Or I could have a powerful PC for gaming, and a powerful power mac for home recording studio/media center business...who knows.

If I can accomplish all of this with one computer via virtualization, what kind of hardware specs am I needing to go for to make this worth my while? If I can't pull this off with virtualization, what kind of legacy hardware collection should I go for?

Is there a great resource to get the most important PC games (besides ebay or half.com) and a list of the most crucial games to get?

Alright, I'm sure that this is -not- all the questions I have, but it's all that I can think of at this late hour, so I'll post now, get the thread started, and I'm sure the other questions will come back to me sooner or later.

Thanks guys!

-J