VOGONS


Reply 20 of 49, by Warlord

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-17, 07:31:

I happen to have one such PC built, mostly because I had the parts and it felt like a fun project - but I am not sure I actually need it. Mine is an Athlon64 3700+ (Socket 754) with 1GB RAM, an X800XT PE and Audigy2 ZS. Are there games that actually justify building such a system? I can't think of anything offhand that doesn't work on more powerful PCs in Windows 7/10, to be honest.

What if you are somone like me that never stopped using XP, and are one of the XP DIE Hard Hold outs. I mean It is just because core2 architectonic was so good. 10 years ago I made a X38 chipset supermicro and I upgraded the CPU to whatever is the fasttest quad core like 4 years ago. I put a Nividia 960 GTX in it and I got an X=FI. I don't see any need to upgrade becasue I don't really need to. That supermicro x38 Quad core has been running trouble free for like 10 years and has plenty of power for me.

It sound to me like your question should be why should i build a 2003-2004 Period computer. Not on the merits of XP as a viable OS>

Reply 21 of 49, by Baoran

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kolderman wrote on 2020-09-17, 10:29:

I prefer gtx5xx, usually gtx560ti as it's less power hungry but plenty powerful for XP games.

Unfortunately I don't have many nvidia cards in that range. I have a radeon 5870 that I used before I got the 780ti, but I don't like radeon drivers that much. Lots of problems went away when I bought that 780ti founders edition back then.

Reply 22 of 49, by kolderman

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Baoran wrote on 2020-09-18, 19:28:
kolderman wrote on 2020-09-17, 10:29:

I prefer gtx5xx, usually gtx560ti as it's less power hungry but plenty powerful for XP games.

Unfortunately I don't have many nvidia cards in that range. I have a radeon 5870 that I used before I got the 780ti, but I don't like radeon drivers that much. Lots of problems went away when I bought that 780ti founders edition back then.

The 5870 is the same era as gtx5xx, but less backwards compatible. But a gtx560 is so cheap on ebay, it'll cost about as much as a nice lunch.

Reply 24 of 49, by kolderman

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Shagittarius wrote on 2020-09-18, 21:41:

I run my XP machine with a 780Ti I don't see why you would choose to run anything less than that if you already have the 780Ti.

Can you test if Star Wars Republic Commando starts up on it?

Reply 25 of 49, by Shagittarius

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kolderman wrote on 2020-09-18, 21:46:
Shagittarius wrote on 2020-09-18, 21:41:

I run my XP machine with a 780Ti I don't see why you would choose to run anything less than that if you already have the 780Ti.

Can you test if Star Wars Republic Commando starts up on it?

I only have the Steam version of that game, which runs on Windows 10 with both my 780ti and 2080Ti. I tried to copy the files to XP but it has Steam DRM and I don't have steam configured for an XP machine since its no longer supported.

Reply 26 of 49, by Jorpho

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Windows XP only games

Microsoft dropped support for DirectX for Visual Basic in Vista/7, so any program that uses that interface won't run.

I'm not sure if it's possible to get such programs to run just by copying the DLLs from an XP installation, though, or if all such programs will also run in Win9x.

But really, aren't most compatibility problems resolvable these days? Aren't there CD cracks for any worthwhile Starforce game?

Reply 27 of 49, by Jo22

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Shagittarius wrote on 2020-09-18, 21:41:

I run my XP machine with a 780Ti I don't see why you would choose to run anything less than that if you already have the 780Ti.

Oh, is that similar to the GTX 750 Ti? 🙂🤔
That card was outstanding, since it worked with office computers that had got little 350W PSUs.
This was nice for BTX systems, also, since they have/had PSUs in a strange form factor (tricky to upgrade thus)..

Edit:

Jorpho wrote on 2020-09-19, 03:08:

Windows XP only games

Microsoft dropped support for DirectX for Visual Basic in Vista/7, so any program that uses that interface won't run.

I'm not sure if it's possible to get such programs to run just by copying the DLLs from an XP installation, though, or if all such programs will also run in Win9x.

But really, aren't most compatibility problems resolvable these days? Aren't there CD cracks for any worthwhile Starforce game?

Ah yes, VB6. The core runtime ships with Windows 98 to 10 and the WINE folks still refuse to implement a clone as they did with Visual C++ .. 🙄
But yes, WindowsXP is best for VB6,I think.
For once,because that was VB6's last official OS and second, because it had the most features. Unicode, D3D Retained Mode, full MIDI support, Manifest support (new commons dialogs), the DirectX7 SDK fully worked still (native DirectDraw, GDI+), full DirectX 8.1 support et cetera et cetera.
But generally speaking, Windows Me and 98SE could be brought to XP levels more or less, too. VB6 Community Runtime, VB7-9.0c runtime, Unicows.dll, KernelEx etc.

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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 28 of 49, by pixel_workbench

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kolderman wrote on 2020-09-18, 19:32:

The 5870 is the same era as gtx5xx, but less backwards compatible. But a gtx560 is so cheap on ebay, it'll cost about as much as a nice lunch.

Any example of gtx5xx being more compatible? I remember people complained about Fermi cards dropping the option for negative LOD bias clamp, which is useful for supersampling in older games.

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Reply 29 of 49, by kolderman

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pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-09-19, 04:15:
kolderman wrote on 2020-09-18, 19:32:

The 5870 is the same era as gtx5xx, but less backwards compatible. But a gtx560 is so cheap on ebay, it'll cost about as much as a nice lunch.

Any example of gtx5xx being more compatible? I remember people complained about Fermi cards dropping the option for negative LOD bias clamp, which is useful for supersampling in older games.

That star wars game i have mentioned several times above. Also hd5xxxx series have a nasty bug exposed by some games where complex textures show banding or lack gradient detail.

Reply 30 of 49, by pixel_workbench

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kolderman wrote on 2020-09-19, 04:31:

That star wars game i have mentioned several times above. Also hd5xxxx series have a nasty bug exposed by some games where complex textures show banding or lack gradient detail.

I used to care about that, until I realized that the texture banding only happens in synthetic AF tests. Never seen the problem in actual games that I tried.

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Reply 31 of 49, by kolderman

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pixel_workbench wrote on 2020-09-19, 21:00:
kolderman wrote on 2020-09-19, 04:31:

That star wars game i have mentioned several times above. Also hd5xxxx series have a nasty bug exposed by some games where complex textures show banding or lack gradient detail.

I used to care about that, until I realized that the texture banding only happens in synthetic AF tests. Never seen the problem in actual games that I tried.

I actually did see it just once! I think it was in the training mission of the original Rainbow 6, and there was a flat horizontal grate above a vertical grate...and when you looked through the top grate from above at the second grate while moving, the combined complexity of the two grates against each other was enough to trigger it, pretty severely too. That being said, I have played through entire FPS games like FarCry without seeing it once.

Reply 32 of 49, by alfer

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-17, 07:31:

I happen to have one such PC built, mostly because I had the parts and it felt like a fun project - but I am not sure I actually need it

Warlord wrote on 2020-09-18, 01:43:

What if you are somone like me that never stopped using XP

First of all, it should be mentioned that I love XP dearly and jealous of Warlord, who found a way to make it work for him in 2020+.
I'll try to address the problem in a few distinct steps, just as I tackled it myself. Only I had it backwards - "could I justify an XP build to play some games?"

TLDR: atm I don't have a working XP installation.

1. I have a P3 800 build. Shall I add a hard drive and install the system? I'll probably do it at some point, but it doesn't make much sense (with a few exceptions) other than for pure nostalgia.

2. Building a dedicated XP PC on 775 with e7500+.
I guess this depends on how much of a gamer you are and how many titles released from ~2003 to early 2010s you want to play on a period correct OS, if any. No one can answer this but you. Personally I would struggle to recall more than 20. It's much worse with your AMD64.

3. Retrofitting my modern i7 with the appropriate xp-supported hardware. It's fairly easy, actually. You could find unofficial drivers for most of Intel AHCIs . Some Asmedia USB controllers still have XP support, same goes for LAN. It's always possible to get PCI-E cards for these two. As for VGA - something like 750Ti sounds just about right. An extra monitor is a must, it's fairly uncomfortable to use the OS on anything larger than 20 inch.

To sum it up, ask yourself this:
1. Do you want to play XP era games? How much and how many? If you ask for a list - you probably know the answer.
2. How often you feel the urge to use winxp?
3. Would you like to have an XP installation/ dedicated machine for the sake of having it?

If you say yes to (3) - go for it, regardless of any other doubts.

Reply 34 of 49, by Jorpho

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alfer wrote on 2020-09-19, 22:40:

1. I have a P3 800 build. Shall I add a hard drive and install the system? I'll probably do it at some point, but it doesn't make much sense (with a few exceptions) other than for pure nostalgia.

XP with 512 MB of RAM is really not a pleasant experience - at least, not SP3. (I'm still not convinced that SP2 would be much better.)

Reply 35 of 49, by alfer

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-09-20, 20:54:

XP with 512 MB of RAM is really not a pleasant experience - at least, not SP3. (I'm still not convinced that SP2 would be much better.)

I know! SP3 killed XP in my book. At least for machines with less than 1Gb of Ram. Would probably go for RTM or SP1 with P3.
And to think it used to be smooth as butter with just 256 in 2002..

Reply 36 of 49, by notsofossil

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alfer wrote on 2020-09-20, 21:41:
Jorpho wrote on 2020-09-20, 20:54:

XP with 512 MB of RAM is really not a pleasant experience - at least, not SP3. (I'm still not convinced that SP2 would be much better.)

I know! SP3 killed XP in my book. At least for machines with less than 1Gb of Ram. Would probably go for RTM or SP1 with P3.
And to think it used to be smooth as butter with just 256 in 2002..

At that point, wouldn't it just be better to run Windows 2000 SP4 + rollup?

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Reply 37 of 49, by The Serpent Rider

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Despite popular myth, Windows XP SP3 works perfectly fine with 512 Mb RAM. But late games will require more, to avoid swapping.

I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.

Reply 38 of 49, by pixel_workbench

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It also depends what games have problems running on your main rig. I personally still use Windows 7 as my primary OS, and general compatibility with XP era games is pretty good. But if you jumped on the Windows 10 bandwagon, you will probably have to deal with more hacks to get those games working, especially DX8 and DX7 titles.

Of course you can build an overkill Win9x rig for DX8 games, but I personally was using XP by the time late DX7 and DX8 games were released, and don't see the point of trying to juggle DX8 performance with ISA slots and DOS compatibility.

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Reply 39 of 49, by nd22

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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-25, 01:26:

Despite popular myth, Windows XP SP3 works perfectly fine with 512 Mb RAM. But late games will require more, to avoid swapping.

With all due respect sir, I think that 1gb of ram is the absolute minimum for Windows XP SP3 if you consider running games such as Far cry, Doom 3, Half life 2 or any other resource intensive applications or browsing the internet. In fact I consider the RAM to be the main obstacle in building a fast period correct WinXP machine - the other being the storage unit. 2gb is the best possible scenario providing the best possible "Windows XP experience". Also 1.5gb is just fine - in fact a 1400mhz Tualatin scores consistently faster with XP if upgraded to the maximum amount of ram possible than Win 98 with 512mb of ram on the same machine. Beyond 2gb I think I could not find any measurable gain - the most I could used was 3.5gb of ram on a LGA775 system.
Far cry is one of the games that runs best under Windows XP - correct water reflections and shadows are only available on Windows XP.