VOGONS


Which XP?

Topic actions

Reply 40 of 102, by candle_86

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

Anything that uses SecureDisk won't work post XP, that means my disk copy of Brothers in Arms road to hill 30 won't work on anything newer than XP for instance

Reply 41 of 102, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
jarreboum wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

So if you ever happen to have any questions, feel free to ask 😀 Let us be your hardware angels guiding you on your way to your own little piece of digital heaven 😀

Haha thanks, it's mostly because I'm a perfectionist though 😉 It started when I decided to refurbish my old mid-00s computer and give it new old parts: giving it the better processor for its socket, getting a new case, then a new motherboard that can fit in... In the end I'll be able to rebuild my old computer with all the spare parts left out 🤣. My main struggle is fitting everything together, new coolers aren't designed for old junk and my tiny case is cramped. I'm getting there though!

If you're referring to HSFs for s5/s7/s370/sA, these are all interchangeable. The only problem might be due to most of the older boards having stuff like caps and tiny resistors in the way.

I got myself about a dozen spare Arctic Cooling Copper Lites a couple years ago. Dunno if these are still for sale, but I actually found a nice page about it over here http://www.amd-k6.com/arctic-cooling-copper-silent-3/

And feel free to ask any additional questions. There usually is someone who knows a way (and maybe even a very cheap way 😁)

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 42 of 102, by jarreboum

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Tetrium wrote:

If you're referring to HSFs for s5/s7/s370/sA, these are all interchangeable. The only problem might be due to most of the older boards having stuff like caps and tiny resistors in the way.

Even then, finding them used or new old stock can be quite difficult. I do have some stupid requirements of height and noise which only adds to the problem. But the CPUs are done now, now I'm busy with the graphics card and cutting parts of the original heatsink to retrofit a new fanless one. I'll make a thread with pretty pictures once I'm done, because I'm quite proud of what I'm doing 😀

Reply 43 of 102, by notsofossil

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Azarien wrote:
WinFLP was meant to do one thing: be a client OS for Remote Desktop. Most of XP's standard services are removed or disabled by d […]
Show full quote

WinFLP was meant to do one thing: be a client OS for Remote Desktop.
Most of XP's standard services are removed or disabled by default.
It doesn't even have Paint or Calc (or both, don't remember exactly) and it's missing joy.cpl, among other things.

And when you reenable missing but useful services you get close to Home or Pro in terms of memory usage, which makes FLP sort of pointless on a home PC.

It only makes sense if all you have is 64 or 128 MB of RAM.

I think the WinFLP release being restricted to Microsoft Software Assurance says it all. What really kills it for me is no Compatibiity tab for executable files.

If you really need an efficient XP, just go with SP2, disable the Luna theme and turn off any Windows services you don't use. Why use a crippled version of XP instead?

DosFreak wrote:

Windows 2000 and XP were roughly equally compatible. I've tested 3,000+ games on it so I'd know.

Only thing that makes XP pull ahead is games specifically only supporting XP and above which requires API wrappers or recoded Windows files to get those games to work. I g

I think I forgot to mention you are wrong. Sure, in the early 2000s, Win2k and XP shared equal software support. After Vista's 2007 launch, the Windows software support changed to XP/Vista, then later 7 was added. Win2K feels its age most with internet support.

Thinkpad T42 Win9x Drivers | Latitude D600 Win9x Drivers
Next: Dell Inspiron 8000

Reply 44 of 102, by DosFreak

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Nope. Read your original post, reread mine, then read your last post. You basically just restated what I already did in a more convoluted way.

How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
Make your games work offline

Reply 45 of 102, by Asaki

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Jorpho wrote:

There are just so many unknowns. Seems to me that getting old software and drivers to cooperate is already tricky enough as it is without having to worry about something that might be mysteriously changed or missing in WinFLP. And there's the whole questionable-legality.

I've been using FLP on two of my notebook computers for a long time now, and the only issue I've run into is that .NET won't update past a certain point (4.0 or thereabouts). I never use the features that were removed from the OS, so YMMV.

I still use XP on my desktop, but FLP saves a lot of space on these smaller HDDs. Is it faster than XP? I'm not sure.

All of these computers run Firefox just fine, so I don't know why they would need to be kept offline.

notsofossil wrote:

What really kills it for me is no Compatibiity tab for executable files.

Maybe it's just me, but I've never gotten that feature to actually do anything. Is there a list somewhere of games/programs that require it?

Either the games worked without running them in a different compatibility mode, or I had to run them in DOXBox, or on a Win9x machine, or in Virtual PC, etc.

Reply 46 of 102, by feipoa

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
jarreboum wrote:

Let's say for a computer forever offline, is the initial release better? (less bloated, snappier?) or crippled with BSODs that it's better to get SP3? or SP1 or SP2?

And for a connected computer? Purely for gaming, without going to dodgy sites with ie6 (but that doesn't stop Sasser now, does it?). I suppose SP2 is a minimum here.

My first thought is to go with SP2 as I recall quite a bit of software requesting it. I was using XP Pro on a dual PIII-850 when SP3 came out. This was my everyday online computer. After I upgraded to SP3, I noticed the computer had become quite a bit more sluggish. I am not sure if the issue is from SP3 alone, or some combination of SP3 with past updates or some other installed software. I did not quantify the issue at the time but not long after, I started using a dual PIII-S 1.4 GHz due to speed issues. By comparison, the suspected SP3 slow down issue wasn't really noticeable on the dual PIII-S 1.4 GHz.

I still have SP3 installed as part of a multi-boot environment on several slower systems, such as an AMD K6-III-450 (430TX) with 256 MB, a Cyrix MII-433GP (MVP3) with 512 MB, dual PIII-850 (440BX) with 1 GB, and various dual PIII-S Tualatin systems. I rarely boot into XP with the K6-III or Cyrix MII. W2K is a lot faster all around.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 47 of 102, by notsofossil

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
DosFreak wrote:

Nope. Read your original post, reread mine, then read your last post. You basically just restated what I already did in a more convoluted way.

I found it pretty frustrating to never find a wireless LAN card with Windows 2000 drivers.

Thinkpad T42 Win9x Drivers | Latitude D600 Win9x Drivers
Next: Dell Inspiron 8000

Reply 48 of 102, by emosun

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

For those wondering. I got my copy of fflp about 10 years ago. Our steel manufacturing facility still ran pentium 1 based systems in all the offices and factory floor and every machine was upgraded to fflp. I still have it and it really does work well on anything with 64mb of ram or higher. Im sure if you ebay around you can find a copy

Reply 49 of 102, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
emosun wrote:

For those wondering. I got my copy of fflp about 10 years ago. Our steel manufacturing facility still ran pentium 1 based systems in all the offices and factory floor and every machine was upgraded to fflp. I still have it and it really does work well on anything with 64mb of ram or higher. Im sure if you ebay around you can find a copy

Does it also work for gaming?

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 51 of 102, by Jorpho

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Someone suggested a while ago that XP SP2 and SP3 were optimized for the Pentium IV and later and accordingly will not run as well as SP1 on an older system lacking SSE2. It would be interesting to see if the same applies to WinFLP and its service packs.

Reply 52 of 102, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Asaki wrote:
Tetrium wrote:

Does it also work for gaming?

Yes. (that is to say, it still has the same limitations as XP)

But isn't it the problem that games that run on XP, typically won't run on machines that are too slow for them and that machines that are fast enough are better off with a more regular (or perhaps tweaked) install of XP?

Personally I think this is a very interesting OS. Heck, I even tried Neptune and Server 2003 once or twice! And especially Neptune is hardly any good for gaming 🤣

Server 2003 is veeery interesting though, it ran much faster on my Coppermine 800 than XP (SP1 or SP2) ran on my Coppermine 1000, even though the Coppermine 1000 had more RAM. Both rigs used i815 chipset and otherwise the 800MHz rig should've been slower in virtually all regards.

And personally I like XP having a compatibility mode.

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 53 of 102, by Asaki

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
Tetrium wrote:

But isn't it the problem that games that run on XP, typically won't run on machines that are too slow for them and that machines that are fast enough are better off with a more regular (or perhaps tweaked) install of XP?

Oh, I don't know, I've never tried FLP on an older computer. I just use it on two XP-era machines, because it takes up less space.

Reply 54 of 102, by PhilsComputerLab

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Just follow the time-period.

If you got a machine that is from the early days of XP, running a game from that era, I see vanilla XP as a great choice. Stay offline, stick with GOG and disc based games and you shouldn't have any issues 😀

YouTube, Facebook, Website

Reply 56 of 102, by PhilsComputerLab

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
skitters wrote:

Are there video or sound card drivers that require XP SP1 or later?
That might affect what you choose for sound and video cards.

I know Creative state SP2 in the requirements, however I've never tested if this is actually true.

Worst case, you can just find old installation CDs and you should be fine.

YouTube, Facebook, Website

Reply 57 of 102, by Azarien

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
notsofossil wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I've never gotten that feature to actually do anything. Is there a list somewhere of games/programs that require it?

I don't know, but it helped me more than once.
Note also that Windows has a list of "well-known" programs that have various compatibility modes enabled by default, even if you don't turn them on by yourself. So the "compatibility subsystem" does its job even behind your back.

There's also Windows ADK (Assessment and Deployment Kit) on Microsoft's website which includes Compatibility Administrator, a program that gives you more control over all the compatibility options. I used it to fix fullscreen mode in Tomb Raider 2, 4 and 5 on Windows 10 (for some reason TR3 doesn't have this bug).

Reply 58 of 102, by Tetrium

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
Jorpho wrote:

Someone suggested a while ago that XP SP2 and SP3 were optimized for the Pentium IV and later and accordingly will not run as well as SP1 on an older system lacking SSE2. It would be interesting to see if the same applies to WinFLP and its service packs.

This here:

hyoenmadan wrote:

If you want to run XP in a PIII and older system, you would like to stay in XP SP1. SP2 was built with a version of Visual Studio CL.exe compiler which adds optimizations to output excutables, specifically SSE2, so them can run better in P4+ and the upcoming AMD64, thus making them run slower on older CPUs. They also ditched MMX optimization code and added stuff to Kernel and HAL which runs slower in PIII and older CPUs. And it only gets worse with SP3.

Also don't forget to disable System Restore after system install.

I've read the underlined part as "They made it using a compiler that added support for SSE2, and this automatically guarantees that it will run slower on systems that do not use SSE2" which does not have to be the case at all! The part about ditching MMX optimalization, even if it were true...wasn't MMX part of all consumer graded Intel CPUs since Pentium MMX?

And to add to this, SP2 added a bunch of nice stuff and when NLited it still runs quite nicely on more recent Pentium 3 stuff (XP SP2 connected to the net did make any P3 almost crawl though, one had to really tweak it down to at least be usable). For stuff that runs too slow even with a significantly de-fatted XP, it's probably better to use some earlier version of Windows anyway (probably 9x).

But I'd like to actually read more about it and apparently it was also a matter of needing more memory. But even i815 could still use 512MB.

I think I'd still prefer SP2 on all my XP installs, if only for the uniformity between rigs (including this may lessen potential issues when networking rigs together).

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 59 of 102, by jade_angel

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

I wonder if they built it with something like the equivalent of "-march=i586 -mtune=pentium4" on gcc, that would schedule instructions in a way optimized for the Pentium 4 without being outright incompatible with others. That could potentially make it run a lot worse on earlier architectures.

And yeah, memory is a huge deal - I realized that when reconditioning some old Sun boxes a while back. I was installing Solaris 10 on an Ultra 60, and it seemed to be horrifically slow, until I upgraded it to its maximum of 4GB of RAM, at which point the apparent performance took off hard. I've seen that on PCs too - my rule of thumb is to max out RAM, if I can afford to and it won't break anything.

I haven't on my K6, though, since Win98 can only use 512MB. The board can take 768MB, and Win2k can use that much so I've been tempted...

Main Box: Ryzen-TR 1900X | GTX 1050/Radeon RX 580
98/2000 Box: PIII/766 |Quadro4 380 XGL