Nice! Cool to see that you're branching out in new directions 😀

My take on Windows XP gaming is that after 2006 / 2007 most games had some sort of DX10 feature. Be it something little as better waves or whatever. EAX also stopped getting used after that, which is sad. Crysis for example does look nicer under DX10.

But this is just my personal approach.

Definitely a X-Fi card. As for processor, A fast Core 2 Duo should do the trick. For graphics, a GeForce 8, 9 or 200 series would be my pick.

> Windows XP SP2 32-bit (maybe SP3? discuss)

Some games may want SP3.
It's good to have a dual boot for DX10 on XP machine. If you named Crysis, - you want DX10.

> NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 video card: because it's fast

For XP you may use faster card too.

> Would a Core2 Duo E8400 (3.0-GHz, 1333-MHz FSB) do the trick?

GTA 4 worked better with 4 cores and later CPUs had MB with good support of XP too. In case you want best I'd look at Sandy Bridge, at least.

This is what I run as a Windows XP DX9 system.
The system isnt always intact though as I often use the Gigabyte X48 board for "testing stuff".

Core 2 Duo E8600 @10x400, stock voltage.
Gigabyte X48-DS4
2x2GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12
GTX285 with driver 186.18

This system only runs a stripped version of XP-SP3 and while its often connected to the Internet its behind a firewall so I dont care much about security.

I also have a system with a Q6600@3.6 GHz running on a MSI P35 board but it isnt used as often, it also has a GTX285 and 4GB DDR2 4-4-4-12.

For a pure DX9 rig I would use some pre-DX10 video card. DX10+ hardware actually renders DX9 a little differently and actually make artifacts in some cases.

Think Geforce7 and Radeon x1x00s

leileilol wrote:

I would use some pre-DX10 video card. DX10 hardware actually renders DX9 a little differently

Think Geforce7 and Radeon x1x00s

If one is a pureist both the Radeon x1950XTX and Geforce 7900GTX are very nice but they wont play all "late XP-era" games at 1920*1200 with all eye candy.

I think if you do not really know what differences to look for the Tesla cards will be perfectly fine, I have never noticed any artifacts. 😀

Yea GF7 is ok up to 1024 x 768 or something like that, but when you game at 1600 x 1200 or Full HD, it simply doesn't have enough power. Not to mention AA.

Curious about these artefacts though.

My final XP system (back in the day) was a Core 2 Duo and 8800GT. It was awesome. Had XP and was playing Doom 3, Far Cry, Half Life 2. I think I had a 1680 x 1050 screen and the frames would dip every now and then.

Ordered the following, looks to be a good eBay seller. Crossing my fingers!

2 Factory refurbished Dell NVIDIA GTX 285 video cards
2 Factory refurbished Dell X-Fi SB0460 sound cards

Not sure if you are planning to use Steam, but I had a problem installing it on my XP SP2 system. Problem could have been with my setup only.

@boxpressed

No Steam for this box, just games installed the ole fashioned way. Trying to keep it simple and compatible.

I am leaning heavily towards a Socket 1155 motherboard. I have a spare Celeron G1620 lying about somewhere. PassMark scores are a little higher than an E8500 with the option to upgrade it later to any other 1155 CPU. Now, what motherboard? I am considering grabbing a couple of NOS Intel Micro-ATX boards from eBay. I do not need overclocking options, just a quality board that will last. The reason I am thinking about Micro-ATX is to be nice and compact and I could toss it inside a Dell 4600 case (Stealth system 😉)or a Supermicro case still sealed in the box that I probably won't ever use for work. I certainly could use a full ATX case if needed. Thoughts on a quality Micro-ATX / ATX Socket 1155 motherboard that doesn't have fancy features?

Here is one board I am currently looking at. Still available brand new from newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?It … 7-304-_-Product

squareguy wrote:

@boxpressed
No Steam for this box, just games installed the ole fashioned way. Trying to keep it simple and compatible.

I was planning to do the same thing, and then I tried to install Half-Life 2 off the DVD. It installed an old version of Steam which, combined with XP SP2, sent my computer into an infinite reboot loop. I ended up reimaging, but I could have just booted into Safe Mode and uninstalled Steam. It worked fine under SP3.

I'm currently doing something very similar to your build with similar goals.

I'm building a new HTPC since my old Athlon 64 system is having issues. I've decided to keep it at WinXP since it seems to offer the most compatibility for games that interest me. However, this time around I'm going to be using WinXP MCE 2005 with SP3. Specs are:

ABIT IP35 Pro
Intel C2D E6850 3Ghz
4GB (4 X 1GB) RAM
Radeon HD 5770
Audigy 2 ZS
TV Wonder Theater 650 PCI

The Audigy 2 ZS is unfortunately a SB0358 Dell variant. Yeah, I know. I should have looked at the auction pictures better. However, I seem to have figured out how to get all the drivers and software installed.

My goal here is to create a kickass HTPC that covers alot of ground. It should be able to do the MCE stuff as well as play almost any game I can throw at it, including most Win9x-era titles.

This build is still in progress and I'm crossing my fingers for success. This is my first attempt at WinXP MCE and I've heard it can be tricky. If all else fails, I suppose I can just put Win7 Pro x86 on it to retain some measure of backwards compatibility.

I would have preferred to keep this system at SP2, but I couldn't get Microsoft Update to work. Since I intend for this PC to be used by others in my entertainment center, I want it to be as updated and compatible with everything as much as possible. After installing the MCE Update Rollup 2, SP3, KB2497281, and Windows Update Agent 3.0, I finally got Microsoft Update working.

boxpressed wrote:

This is my first attempt at WinXP MCE and I've heard it can be tricky.

I remember working at a computer shop back when MCE was around. I think I mostly saw it on Dells. Anyways, I recall it being a PITA but I cannot remember exactly why. I think it may have been drivers and if you have those then it shouldn't really be an issue.

I am not really concerned with updates myself. I am planning on setting up a new firewall at home that protects my network from any of my old machines in case they get owned. Basically multiple firewall routers sharing a common outside IP. I will then keep the old stuff completely separated, not even sharing a common datastore. I plan to introduce data into that network only by physically copying directly to its own NAS or by one of the old computers putting data on that separate NAS. Whow knows?

I trust XP about as far as I can throw Bill Gates. I still remember the time when a virus came out that would infect any XP machine on the network, simply by the fact it was on the network. Hmm I'll plug the CAT-5 cable into my laptop so I can have Interwebs... 5-seconds later... infected. I honestly forget which virus it was. We had to segment the dorms onto different VLANs like ASAP, ahhh... those were the days. We'd monitor switch traffic, knock on doors, tell them their room was disconnected from the network until they got it fixed. That was also the early days of file sharing and viruses were rampant in the dorms. Anyways... I know they fixed all of that but remember this. There will never be another security patch ever released for XP. It does not matter if it is updated or not because there are no more updates. There are still a large number of XP machines on the net and hackers know this. Expect at some point a serious unknown security flaw to be discovered and exploited on a massive scale at some point and who know what it will do. Imagine your XP box get owned and everything it is connected to gets destroyed, datawise I mean.

family at the door gotta run

Great thing with XP is that the GOG games install without issues 😀

Steam also works fine, though I can't remember if I used SP3, I think I did.

In terms of hassle, installing from discs + finding the latest patches can sometimes be more hassle. It depends.

Skyscraper wrote:

If one is a pureist both the Radeon x1950XTX and Geforce 7900GTX are very nice

Nice are in games' recommended hardware. Where many XP games have higher. So for mythic purity you'd get real low fps or lack of normal picture quality.

Tertz wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

If one is a pureist both the Radeon x1950XTX and Geforce 7900GTX are very nice

Nice are in games' recommended hardware. Where many XP games have higher. So for mythic purity you'd get real low fps or lack of normal picture quality.

But if you are not going to be purist you can just as well pick up cards from two years ago, and there will be nothing retro about these builds. Also "low fps" and "normal quality" are highly relative terms.

I just "finished" mine (have posted about it in a couple other threads already.) It sits in the bottom of my 'gaming cabinet' pretending it's a console. This is probably the closest I've had to a 'modern' gaming rig since the Super7 era. No, it's not very modern.

P4/3.0HT @ 800FSB
Gigabyte 8IPE1000-G
4GB PC3200 DDR
Onboard sound 😒
Radeon HD 3850 512MB AGP <-- most expensive component in this thing, cost $20
Big SDTV connected to S-Video
460W Enermax PSU
WinXP-32 SP2 or 3 (I forget)

Because the sole display is the TV I run games & stuff in 640x480. Most of what I want to play is pretty smooth. Finally got a copy of NFS Hot Pursuit 2010 and it's the only thing I've tried that's noticeably slow, it seems to average about 18-20 FPS and often drops to 10. But still fairly playable. However I'm not buying brand new 'AAA' titles at retail for this thing.

So it's 'complete', well, sort of... Today I scored a Core2 Duo AGP mobo at a garage sale for $5 so if I get super ambitious I'll swap that in. Also still looking for a decent gamepad or joystick. Don't bother buying Microsoft Sidewinder DB15 controllers for an XP machine, NONE of them work.

Putas wrote:

Tertz wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

If one is a pureist both the Radeon x1950XTX and Geforce 7900GTX are very nice

Nice are in games' recommended hardware. Where many XP games have higher. So for mythic purity you'd get real low fps or lack of normal picture quality.

But if you are not going to be purist you can just as well pick up cards from two years ago, and there will be nothing retro about these builds. Also "low fps" and "normal quality" are highly relative terms.

The Geforce GTX285 will probably become a sought after retro card in 10-15 years time when the XP nostalgia really gets going 😀.

I will not argue that you could not use a newer card but I can at least share why I use the GTX285 in some of my XP systems. The Geforce GTX285 is the last and and best of the cards in the last generation of cards most people used with XP. I know there were poeple using Vista but most people diddnt, I diddnt move over to Windows 6.x until the summer 2009 and I diddnt install Vista, I installed the Windows 7 beta. The GTX285 uses the GT200 which is Tesla architecture, the same as the G80 in 8800 GTX from 2006 uses only with extra everything and cheeze on top.

A more pureist approach would be to use Geforce 8800GTX SLI as I do in my "2006 build", the performance is about the same as the GTX285. The issues with running 8800GTX SLI are many, I will list a few.

You need a 700W PSU.
You need watercooling on the video cards or the 8800GTX will soon die from the heat.
Finding a working 8800GTX that hasnt already died from the heat is hard and expensive.
Many working 8800GTX cards only works because they have been "baked".
SLI isnt flawless.

On the other hand the GTX285 will be happy with a 400W PSU and unlike the GTX280 it dosnt run hot at all so it will probably last a very long time. The GTX285 is easy to find for ~$20 (at least in Sweden) and it is as fast of a card you ever need for Windows XP. Newer cards dosnt add performance running DX9 unless you use a really fast i5 or i7 CPU.

I'll admit, I had a dedicated XP gaming box not too long ago, an overclocked dual-core Opteron with a GTX 260 SP216 and X-Fi Ti. I still have the machine, but it's no longer used for DX9c gaming. I now play all of those games on my main computer. It's far from period correct, but having my entire library of DX9-11 games on one machine is just so convenient. DX9C games are new enough to run without any problems on Win7+, and the performance is just insane. We're talking triple digit frame rates with everything completely maxed out--performance several times higher than what was possible with my dedicated XP box. And the breakneck speed of a modern CPU really helps to shorten load times.

I just don't see the point of building a dedicated, offline XP machine. Unless hardware accelerated audio means that much to you. 🤣