Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

awgamer wrote:

>My initial plan is to use intel-based PC; that is, Gigabyte H61-USB3 with Intel Pentium G2030. Hence, this thread. […]
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>My initial plan is to use intel-based PC; that is, Gigabyte H61-USB3 with Intel Pentium G2030. Hence, this thread.

Intel came out with the Pentium G3258 that's really good, going for around $66-70.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u380jWhRXTI

Motherboard from the youtube video: $75 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gc … 0140823011626:s

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g … nce,3849-2.html
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pe … 750K/2434vs1548

Thanks, although actually, faster single core speed is what I'm trying to avoid in this scenario.

You maybe missing it, it's an unlocked chip, lowest multiplier is 8x, software configurable, so you can change speed at will from 800 MHz to 4.x GHz. Going by this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_instruc … ions_per_second Current i7s do 8 IPS/core, compared to say, a PIV with 3 IPS, which means the i7 at 800 Mhz is equivalent to a 2.133 GHz PIV, or an Athlon XP 1800+(4.1 IPS.) 2 GHz PIV came out in 2001, aka the year Windows XP was released.

awgamer wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

awgamer wrote:

>My initial plan is to use intel-based PC; that is, Gigabyte H61-USB3 with Intel Pentium G2030. Hence, this thread. […]
Show full quote

>My initial plan is to use intel-based PC; that is, Gigabyte H61-USB3 with Intel Pentium G2030. Hence, this thread.

Intel came out with the Pentium G3258 that's really good, going for around $66-70.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u380jWhRXTI

Motherboard from the youtube video: $75 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?gc … 0140823011626:s

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g … nce,3849-2.html
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pe … 750K/2434vs1548

Thanks, although actually, faster single core speed is what I'm trying to avoid in this scenario.

You maybe missing it, it's an unlocked chip, lowest multiplier is 8x, software configurable, so you can change speed at will from 800 MHz to 4.x GHz.

Ah, but unfortunately, I couldn't find any LGA 1150 mini-ITX mobo that supports Windows XP. This model, for example, has Windows XP section in its "drivers and tools" page, but the Windows XP section only contains things like "Devices report" and "ACPI driver". Where is the chipset driver, for example? The audio driver? The wi-fi driver?

Well, the g2030 you're initially looking at does 8x as well, it's like a PIV 1.8 or xp 1500+ at 800 Mhz.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I see, interesting. Thanks! Anyway, once you had a system with both Radeon and GeForce on it, didn't you?

Multiple different systems yeah - never had issues. But each card is "independent" - so if you pick GeForce A in the game, the output will only be available from whatever output is configured on GeForce A, not Radeon B, and vice versa (if you pick Radeon B, Radeon B kicks out its output). Generally I've only bothered adding in an additional card for more monitors beyond whatever the primary card supports. It's admittedly simpler/neater if they're all under the same driver package, but with multiple cards it still isn't a problem.

I don't plan to use secondary monitor; merely want to be able to switch between Radeon IGP and GeForce dedicated GPU from BIOS.

I'm not sure exactly how that'd work - so say for example you pick PCIe as the primary adapter, when you boot into BIOS or some other VGA mode (like UBCD FreeDOS) it'll just go on the PCIe card, but once you load into Windows it will enable all adapters unless they're disabled within Windows. Enabling/disabling them in Windows generally will uninstall drivers unless you do hardware profiles (which is still kind of inconvenient/a pain). It'd be easier I would think to connect each output to multi-input monitor (so you have like monitor with input 1, 2, 3, etc and just multiple connections to the same machine), and then simply disable the montior output on the adapter you don't want to use at a given time - so Windows will believe it's a "multi-monitor" system, but you're only enabling one at a time. Then whatever is enabled is what gets used for gaming. At least I think that should work.

Anyway, suppose you're active video card (set through BIOS) is the GeForce, and you already have ForceWare installed. Would you need to reboot and switch to the Radeon IGP first (through BIOS), then install Catalyst? Or can you just install Catalyst while the nVidia is still the active card?

You don't have to disable to do any installation - Catalyst will install with a GeForce already loaded and configured, or vice versa with ForceWare and a Radeon. They'll also start-up with Windows side by side with no problems, and depending on which version of the drivers you're using they will even try to adjust settings on the monitors hooked up to the other card (e.g. iirc HydraVision's HydraGrid will enable on the nVidia-connected cards).

:shock:

I heard somewhere that Windows only supported 4 GPUs so I wanted to test that. All I did was add a third card (QuadSLI on dual cards + unrelated/unlinked third card) and it had issues. Supposedly if the GPUs are being used for GPGPU you can have more than 4, but I don't have such a configuration to test (I think I own a total of 3 or 4 working chips that can do some sort of GPGPU).

Ah, wouldn't use PhysX anyway since mini-ITX mobo only has single PCIe slot.

GeForce can do PhysX on the same GPU that does 3D rendering, if the GeForce supports PhysX.

This might be a way to get windows 7 drivers to work on xp: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Drivers-for-%2 … 2-in-Windows-Xp

Also: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/183362-w … ears-of-updates

obobskivich wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I see, interesting. Thanks! Anyway, once you had a system with both Radeon and GeForce on it, didn't you?

Multiple different systems yeah - never had issues. But each card is "independent" - so if you pick GeForce A in the game, the output will only be available from whatever output is configured on GeForce A, not Radeon B, and vice versa (if you pick Radeon B, Radeon B kicks out its output). Generally I've only bothered adding in an additional card for more monitors beyond whatever the primary card supports. It's admittedly simpler/neater if they're all under the same driver package, but with multiple cards it still isn't a problem.

That's actually my plan as well. I'm not going to use multi-monitors (extending desktop etc); I'd just like to experiment with Radeon IGP for old games. Besides, it's quite tempting to have both Radeon and GeForce on the same mini-ITX system. 😉

obobskivich wrote:

I don't plan to use secondary monitor; merely want to be able to switch between Radeon IGP and GeForce dedicated GPU from BIOS.

I'm not sure exactly how that'd work - so say for example you pick PCIe as the primary adapter, when you boot into BIOS or some other VGA mode (like UBCD FreeDOS) it'll just go on the PCIe card, but once you load into Windows it will enable all adapters unless they're disabled within Windows. Enabling/disabling them in Windows generally will uninstall drivers unless you do hardware profiles (which is still kind of inconvenient/a pain). It'd be easier I would think to connect each output to multi-input monitor (so you have like monitor with input 1, 2, 3, etc and just multiple connections to the same machine), and then simply disable the montior output on the adapter you don't want to use at a given time - so Windows will believe it's a "multi-monitor" system, but you're only enabling one at a time. Then whatever is enabled is what gets used for gaming. At least I think that should work.

How about DVI KVM switch?

obobskivich wrote:

Anyway, suppose you're active video card (set through BIOS) is the GeForce, and you already have ForceWare installed. Would you need to reboot and switch to the Radeon IGP first (through BIOS), then install Catalyst? Or can you just install Catalyst while the nVidia is still the active card?

You don't have to disable to do any installation - Catalyst will install with a GeForce already loaded and configured, or vice versa with ForceWare and a Radeon. They'll also start-up with Windows side by side with no problems, and depending on which version of the drivers you're using they will even try to adjust settings on the monitors hooked up to the other card (e.g. iirc HydraVision's HydraGrid will enable on the nVidia-connected cards).

Thanks! And according to your previous post, it won't be problematic.

obobskivich wrote:

:shock:

I heard somewhere that Windows only supported 4 GPUs so I wanted to test that. All I did was add a third card (QuadSLI on dual cards + unrelated/unlinked third card) and it had issues. Supposedly if the GPUs are being used for GPGPU you can have more than 4, but I don't have such a configuration to test (I think I own a total of 3 or 4 working chips that can do some sort of GPGPU).

Speaking of GPGPU, is there any games that support it?

obobskivich wrote:

Ah, wouldn't use PhysX anyway since mini-ITX mobo only has single PCIe slot.

GeForce can do PhysX on the same GPU that does 3D rendering, if the GeForce supports PhysX.

I see. I don't think I would miss PhysX though, since the system is primarily for old games.

awgamer wrote:

This might be a way to get windows 7 drivers to work on xp: http://www.wikihow.com/Install-Drivers-for-%2 … 2-in-Windows-Xp

Also: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/183362-w … ears-of-updates

Hmmm, probably worth trying, but having both GeForce and Radeon on the same mini-ITX system is tempting too.

Anyway, is there a way to underclock Trinity CPU while overclocking its GPU?

Games with GPGPU? If you count PhysX then however many use PhysX. Otherwise? None that I'm aware of (I don't think there's any games that run CUDA, OpenCL, DirectCompute, etc atm). Some sort of VGA/DVI/etc switch would work if the monitor doesn't have multiple inputs.

Interesting, if Intel had allowed multipliers down to 1x, G3258 would pretty much be able to match CPU speeds all the way back to 97'
97 pii 233-300 1x ~pii @ 235 MHz
98 pii 333-450 2x ~pii @ 470 MHz
99 piii 450-800 3x ~piii @ 705 MHz
00 piv 1.5 6x
01 piv 2.0 8x
02 piv 3.0 11x
03 a64 fx-51 2.2 12x
04 a64 fx-55 2.6 14x
05 a64 fx-57 2.8 15x
06 c2d x6800 17x
07 c2d qx6950 17x
..

Anyway, so anyone experienced in underclocking Trinity? And can we just underclock the CPU core without underclocking GPU core?

obobskivich wrote:

Games with GPGPU? If you count PhysX then however many use PhysX. Otherwise? None that I'm aware of (I don't think there's any games that run CUDA, OpenCL, DirectCompute, etc atm). Some sort of VGA/DVI/etc switch would work if the monitor doesn't have multiple inputs.

How about HavokFX, does it work with GPU?

awgamer wrote:

Interesting, if Intel had allowed multipliers down to 1x, G3258 would pretty much be able to match CPU speeds all the way back t […]
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Interesting, if Intel had allowed multipliers down to 1x, G3258 would pretty much be able to match CPU speeds all the way back to 97'
97 pii 233-300 1x ~pii @ 235 MHz
98 pii 333-450 2x ~pii @ 470 MHz
99 piii 450-800 3x ~piii @ 705 MHz
00 piv 1.5 6x
01 piv 2.0 8x
02 piv 3.0 11x
03 a64 fx-51 2.2 12x
04 a64 fx-55 2.6 14x
05 a64 fx-57 2.8 15x
06 c2d x6800 17x
07 c2d qx6950 17x
..

Very interesting, too bad there's no Haswell mobo that supports Windows XP - at least the mini-ITX ones.

My dream mobo, is, of course, a Haswell mobo that:
- has ISA slots
- has AGP 2x slots
- has chipset drivers for Windows 98

That way, we can build a DOS/Win98 dual-boot system using Pentium G3258 CPU. Heck, even an i7. A DOS-bootable i7 system, to play non-accelerated Quake in 1024x768. 😉

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

How about HavokFX, does it work with GPU?

Nope. They made *a lot* of noise about Havok coming to GPUs (called "HavokFX" which has never been released) around the time of Radeon HD 3800 and 4800 series, and some of the early marketing materials for the HD 4870X2 even talk about running hardware physics - but it never materialized. Currently PhysX is the only physics SDK that can use hardware accel, and not all PhysX titles actually do PhysX H/W - many are software enabled (like Mass Effect series) and in that situation PhysX is just the same as Havok or whatever other SDK.

My dream mobo, is, of course, a Haswell mobo that: - has ISA slots - has AGP 2x slots - has chipset drivers for Windows 98 […]
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My dream mobo, is, of course, a Haswell mobo that:
- has ISA slots
- has AGP 2x slots
- has chipset drivers for Windows 98

No reason to do that. Just get a Pentium 3 or 4, or AthlonXP. Will be mATX but otherwise can have that more or less (not all have ISA, some are universal AGP or 1.5V etc). No reason to do Haswell or whatever for 9x - no SMP support, no CMT support, etc. Get a powerful single core and be done with it. 😊

obobskivich wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

How about HavokFX, does it work with GPU?

Nope. They made *a lot* of noise about Havok coming to GPUs (called "HavokFX" which has never been released) around the time of Radeon HD 3800 and 4800 series, and some of the early marketing materials for the HD 4870X2 even talk about running hardware physics - but it never materialized. Currently PhysX is the only physics SDK that can use hardware accel, and not all PhysX titles actually do PhysX H/W - many are software enabled (like Mass Effect series) and in that situation PhysX is just the same as Havok or whatever other SDK.

I see. Well, IIRC the PhysX block can be hacked. Or can it?

obobskivich wrote:

My dream mobo, is, of course, a Haswell mobo that: - has ISA slots - has AGP 2x slots - has chipset drivers for Windows 98 […]
Show full quote

My dream mobo, is, of course, a Haswell mobo that:
- has ISA slots
- has AGP 2x slots
- has chipset drivers for Windows 98

No reason to do that. Just get a Pentium 3 or 4, or AthlonXP. Will be mATX but otherwise can have that more or less (not all have ISA, some are universal AGP or 1.5V etc). No reason to do Haswell or whatever for 9x - no SMP support, no CMT support, etc. Get a powerful single core and be done with it. 😊

That's for my dedicated gaming systems, and they will use full ATX tower. 😉

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

I see. Well, IIRC the PhysX block can be hacked. Or can it?

Yeah - the PhysX Info thing I linked to a few pages ago should include links to directions. Note that you will still need an nVidia or Ageia processor to do the actual computations, but folks have hacked it to let an ATi GPU do the 3D rendering (I think in theory the Ageia card shouldn't require hacks - when they were new they weren't nVidia-exclusive). I've never personally tried it though - like I said, I have like 1-2 games that even use it so it's nothing I've ever been much worried about. 😊

Also note that if you're just gonna buy an Ageia card (they're pretty cheap), they're apparently not supported by some newer games. I don't know if that can be hacked or not.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

That's for my dedicated gaming systems, and they will use full ATX tower. 😉

Oh I see.

obobskivich wrote:

Yeah - the PhysX Info thing I linked to a few pages ago should include links to directions. Note that you will still need an nVidia or Ageia processor to do the actual computations, but folks have hacked it to let an ATi GPU do the 3D rendering (I think in theory the Ageia card shouldn't require hacks - when they were new they weren't nVidia-exclusive). I've never personally tried it though - like I said, I have like 1-2 games that even use it so it's nothing I've ever been much worried about. 😊

Well I guess I won't miss PhysX too much. 😀

AA, on the other hand, is the one thing I'll desperately try to maximize with this system.

obobskivich wrote:

Also note that if you're just gonna buy an Ageia card (they're pretty cheap), they're apparently not supported by some newer games. I don't know if that can be hacked or not.

Kinda ironic since Agiea is the first and dedicated PhysX card.

obobskivich wrote:

Oh I see.

Yep. This system is for my everyday's work (Office, Visio, Photoshop, browsing, etc) and for maximizing AA and AF with old games. I'm still interested with the Radeon IGP though. When I bought the Lenovo B460 laptop on the first place, I was pleasantly surprised to see how compatible the GeForce 310M is with old games - even MDK! And that's where I got the Tesla-generation card as my 'yardstick'. Nonetheless, who knows the Radeon IGP will also give me such pleasant surprises as well.

Anyway, does anyone know how to underclock Trinity CPU without underclocking its GPU? My ideal scenario would be Trinity with underclocked CPU core and overclocked GPU core.

From this: CGA Composite Mode under DOSBOX (Commited r3804) I conclude real cga as the only way to go for composite out.

And this: http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_C … sensitive_games, along with covering system specific like tandy, want for particular speed sound combos & enough slots for particular sound cards, I would go with the following for real hardware.

xt for true 4.77 & composite
at for at speed & ega
tandy tl for tandy & tandy dac(at one time I thought to include the original tandy for composite+tandy sound and speed, but composite is borked and tl/rl have a utility to set to 4.77)
386 40 set @ 16/20/25/33/40 sb2 /w cms, innovation clone, speech thing, pvga1a
486 50 set @ 16/20/25/33/50 pas(there's a game or two where this is the best sound option,) sbpro(original for working stereo,) sound master(as yet to be realized clone, will have to be if at all as these cards are nowhere,) disney, et4000/w32p(for games written for et4k and w32)
dx2 66 gusmax/interwave(supposed to be a util that makes an iw work/look like a max,) adlib gold(rare/hard to get and of course would want the surround fx module as well but for this could pipe to your current system and run a software surround that's included/or app to create the effect,) ark2000(tops in dos compatibility and fast.)
pentium 200 set @ 75/90/133/166/200/250oc awe32, guspnp/interwave, tnt2 ultra & voodoo
pii 450 set @ 300/450/504oc awe32, audigy, ti4600 & voodoo3 pci
unlocked athlon xp, like the last barton mobles though it's overkill, but overlap is nice, audigy 2 series, geforce 5950 ultra, for under 1ghz & under 2ghz speeds or skip this system and use a slowdown util in the last system.
g3258 set @ 800-4.x, 290x or 780ti & x-fi, and the hope that drivers could be hacked to work on xp, I figure the odds are favorable, or if including the xp system in the line up, the latest and greatest i7 that only down clocks to 1.6 GHz.

and of course an mt-32 old, cm-32l, sc-55 mkii, & an xg module hooked up to everything with midi hubs and switchers.

& I'd try to wire up multi turbo button(s) for fast speed switching.

I overkill it a little on the 3d video and eax cards with the cpu/timeline match up slightly because it shouldn't hurt and will help on occasion, and stop at 5950 ultra for compatibility.

Otherwise, using an up to date system with dosbox & virtualbox does the trick.

edit: another reason why mobile xps are good for this task, multiplier settable on the fly in windows, ranging from 300 to 2300 MHz(~=piii 366-piv 3.2): http://www.cpuheat.wz.cz/html/AXP_multiplier/ … _Multiplier.htm if looking to drop machine count, could possibly drop the pentium II, add the aw32 and vooodoo3 to the xp, xp should cover games to 2004. Could drop another system picking one of the 486s, dropping the pas, adlib gold, & ark2k, for eight systems total.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Anyway, does anyone know how to underclock Trinity CPU without underclocking its GPU? My ideal scenario would be Trinity with underclocked CPU core and overclocked GPU core.

I don't know about Trinity but if it's any help, reviews of the A10-7850k [Kaveri] indicate that the GPU can be overclocked separately from the CPU - seems the CPU has a multiplier that can be adjusted without affecting the GPU speed; likewise the GPU core speed can be changed without affecting the CPU; neither affect the memory speed.

The GPU capability is potentially constrained by the RAM speed as APU graphics use system ram.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Kinda ironic since Agiea is the first and dedicated PhysX card.

Remember nVidia bought Ageia, and PhysX was just moved onto CUDA and development continued there. From a customer's perspective it's better because you don't have to buy this PCI/PCIe card that sucks up power and only provides functionality a very small portion of the time. The only bummer is that it deprecated the existing hardware, although my understanding is not too many people actually bought those cards. 😊

To note, for the last/latest i7 system, the idea would be it running windows 7 or 8 with the hope that xp games from 2005-2009 will run without issues, otherwise I'd use a sandybridge or ivybridge system to skip the driver support issue, running xp for that range.

awgamer wrote:

To note, for the last/latest i7 system, the idea would be it running windows 7 or 8 with the hope that xp games from 2005-2009 will run without issues, otherwise I'd use a sandybridge or ivybridge system to skip the driver support issue, running xp 32bit for that range.

"XP games from 2005-2009" will generally be a non-issue; I've never had an issue with a DirectX 9 game under 7x64, and most games from that era will have Windows Vista listed in their system requirements/specs (and many will have logo compatibility) - if Vista did nothing else for us, it created a lot of games that will work in 7/8 due to having Vista compatibility in mind. 😊

You're right, dx 9.0c came out in 04 so from there it should be smooth sailing. I'm liking the idea of the xp/sempron the more I think about it, and I would keep a pii but switch to an unlocked 350 for a speed range of 200-400 and have the xp /w xp 32 bit, pii /w 98se, & the pentium /w osr 2.5.

Anyway, just got myself an A8-5600K CPU and an FM2 A75IA mobo for quite a low price.