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What would be the most compatible Windows XP computer?

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First post, by WildW

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I recently encountered some problems with Sid Meier's Railroads, a game from 2006 which I guess puts it in the XP era. It crashes to desktop quite a lot on more modern computers. I found a patch that cured the issue, and the notes with it claim it is required for any computer with more than 3GB of memory. The same zip file also contains a patch to allow Oblivion to use more than 2GB of memory. This is all bringing back vague memories about executables in XP usually only being able to use up to 2GB of ram . . .anyway, it seems like if you have more than 2GB you may run into problems with some games.

The XP era also saw more CPU cores becoming more common. I remember Fallout 3 having an issue that made it crash on systems with more than 2 cores - perhaps there were other games with similar problems, maybe for different numbers of cores?

So if I wanted a Windows XP machine to play those older games, especially if they hadn't been patched, I guess I'd want no more than 2 GB of ram and two cores. Does anyone know of any other barriers like this for compatibility in an XP machine? Is it common to have problems due to a graphics card that is too new, for instance? And if so, where is the cutoff? I think I remember Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic having heavy graphical glitches when I tried it, with lines spiking off to infinity everywhere. Arguably this is a Win9x game, but XP is listed on the box.

What's the spec of a compatibility-sweet-spot XP machine?

Reply 2 of 4, by buckeye

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See my specs for my XP sys in my sig, so far the range of games played on it is from 1999-2006, not
including the games played via DosBox/GOG enhanced of course.

Asus P5N-E Intel Core 2 Duo 3.33ghz. 4GB DDR2 Geforce 470 1GB SB X-Fi Titanium 650W XP SP3
Intel SE440BX P3 450 256MB 80GB SSD Radeon 7200 64mb SB 32pnp 350W 98SE
MSI x570 Gaming Pro Carbon Ryzen 3700x 32GB DDR4 Zotac RTX 3070 8GB WD Black 1TB 850W

Reply 3 of 4, by Jorpho

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WildW wrote on 2020-05-15, 10:05:

I remember Fallout 3 having an issue that made it crash on systems with more than 2 cores - perhaps there were other games with similar problems, maybe for different numbers of cores?

So if I wanted a Windows XP machine to play those older games, especially if they hadn't been patched, I guess I'd want no more than 2 GB of ram and two cores.

System Shock 2, at least, would crash on a machine with two cores unless its "affinity" was explicitly set to run on one core.

But is something like that really a concern when the problem is well-known and the fix is straightforward?

Reply 4 of 4, by cyclone3d

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-05-15, 14:42:
WildW wrote on 2020-05-15, 10:05:

I remember Fallout 3 having an issue that made it crash on systems with more than 2 cores - perhaps there were other games with similar problems, maybe for different numbers of cores?

So if I wanted a Windows XP machine to play those older games, especially if they hadn't been patched, I guess I'd want no more than 2 GB of ram and two cores.

System Shock 2, at least, would crash on a machine with two cores unless its "affinity" was explicitly set to run on one core.

But is something like that really a concern when the problem is well-known and the fix is straightforward?

And you should even be able to make a shortcut that sets the affinity when you load it instead of having to set it through task manager:
https://www.eightforums.com/threads/cpu-affin … -windows.40339/

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