pentiumspeed wrote:What I can choose from my stash of hardware inventory for C2D and ivy bridge (E8600 and i5-3570), can lock to 1 core if needed.
I'd go with the E8600 in that case. With a decent board you should be able run it anywhere from 1.2 GHz to around 4 GHz with ease. And none of the games 2002+ should have issues. If it is really about the maxímum supported under XP it would be a i5-2500K/i7-2700K on a Z68 board with a GTX 780 Ti. That's the fastest hardware with drivers for XP. But that's beside the point I guess.
Of the graphics cards mentioned:
- 2900XT
- HD 3850
- HD 3870
- 8800 GTX
- HD 4850
- GT 545 DDR3 3GB (as fast as GTX 285 could)
- HD 6850
- HD 7750 also HD7770
- HD 6950
- R9 270X
- GTX 580
- GTX 960 4GB (will work as 2GB in XP)
Take the latest/fastest you get with driver support. Since all of them are of later date, I guess stuff like fog shadows or 8-bit palleted textures aren't a concern.
The bigger question would be, is there a certain theme to the setup?
Period correct for a fast, late C2D would be something like the 8800 GTX, HD 3850/70, 4850, 6850, 6950. With a bit of a stretch the 2900 XT and GT 545 should also be fine, but all cards will do good.
pentiumspeed wrote:Any problem with G7x, G8x and G9x GPUs?
The latest cards with official support under 98 SE are Geforce 6000's and Radeon 9000s, anything later is unsupported and without drivers (although there are ways to get around that, but why) For XP it's the Geforce 700 and Radeon HD 7000/R200 series.
pentiumspeed wrote:My future plan is to build DOS game PC based on P4P800, do I need 98SE or XP 32? (already have gotten P4P800 full ATX) recently, I had a P4P800-VM once with excellent results on XP long ago) as well but did not have high end AGP GPU which will correct that later on). How often can encounter some games that is MHz sensitive?
For DOS games directly you'd need to run a system with DOS, in that case 98 SE, and then you 'll run into the usual issues with faster hardware. (Like the 512 MB limit)
Of course running a pure DOS is a different solution, but will lock out anything relying on 32 bit code.
XP with DOSBox would work, but then you could just run a system that is still getting updates.
Besides some wonky designs in later years and the usual issues with Bethesda's engine >60 fps there should be no speed sensitve game from the last 30 years. And for games before that any system that comfortably runs Windows is too fast anyway 😁
And the P4P800 is limited to a fast P4 anyway (Something like a 3.20 with HT) And for that all of the mentioned cards
Also basically all games in 32 bit should run fine on later systems, some may have some issues, but that's a good reason to setup an older machine in the first place.
pentiumspeed wrote:Speaking of sound compatibility for DOS under XP
I'm aware of audio issue with DOS but what about using XP and DOS instead of not using 98SE and using a PCI sound card like CMI8738 based, or any good PCI sound card with MIDI port and a MIDI to usb adapter as Phil has shown us can do it instead of expensive external MIDI box?
I'm actually running many DOS games in DOSBox with a software synth that can use soundfonts. One of the better solutions besides hunting all the expensive external devices. Or just use an external device that does sound in software.
TL;DR
If you go with the E8600 and a HD 4850 or 8800 GTX on the lower and maybe GT545, HD 6850, HD 7770 on the later part should run everything that will be supported on XP. Later games (like those that need a quad core) won't be okay with 32-bit anyway.
If you stay with the P4P800 it basically means getting a fast Pentium 4. ANd the era around 2000-2005 is basically where 98 completely died in favour of XP. So for a post 2000 games-setup XP will be the right solution. All games of that era will run on it, and for anything old enough to not do so, use DOSBox and a software synth.
For running DOS itself anything way below 500 MHz should be fine. Multicore is of no use, fast D3D acceleration is no use and it's more about having enough base memory free than being able to clock high.
P3 933EB @1035 (7x148) | CUSL2-C | GF3Ti200 | 256M PC133cl3 @148cl3 | 98SE & XP Pro SP3
X5460 @4.1 (9x456) | P35-DS3R | GTX660Ti | 8G DDR2-800cl5 @912cl6 | XP Pro SP3 & 7 SP1
3570K @4.4 GHz | Z77-D3H | GTX1060 | 16G DDR3-1600cl9 @2133cl12 | 7 SP1
