well i consider something retro when it's usability with newer software and newer versions of windows is crippled
of course there are some exceptions, like the older P4 Cedar Mill, these can run the latest windows and most newer apps (sluggish), but they're retro to me because of age and companion hardware (chipsets, RAM, GPU, HDD's) and because they don't perform adequately anymore.

that being said, i don't consider Fermi being retro, at least for two more years, because they still can run the latest games, only when it's performance/compatibility is becoming bad i will say that they're retro, like it happened with Radeon HD4000 series, that while with modded drivers they can run far newer games, but officially they're retro

3-10 years = old junk.
10+ years = retro.

Is Windows Vista retro?

Only if you consider Windows ME abomination as retro.

Short definitions :
"Old stuff" : Old hardware that still is "good enough",
Vintage : Pentium III/Athlon XP and older (15+ years and anything without SSE2 support).
"Retro" : Old "cool" hardware (sometimes it's needed for particular game/program to run "as intended", it's usually sought after).

I draw the line at the agp slot: pci-e is not retro.

There's been entire threads where everybody voices their idea of when something becomes retro. There is obviously no concrete definition.

The older you get, the longer it takes for something to feel "retro" as well.

Let's just say it's retro when you feel nostalgia for it while knowing it's useless by today's standards. I'd vote the 480 in sli is still quite useable though :p

BeginnerGuy wrote:

I'd vote the 480 in sli is still quite useable though :p

It's certainly useful as a space heater! 🤣

I agree with meljor. PCI-e is the line for me.

Even PCIe 1.0? With only 250MB/s per lane transfer speeds? This also means the 8000 series and earlier for NVIDIA, as the 8800GTS is where they started making PCIe 2.0 compatible cards. I think the competing cards of the day were Radeon HD 4000 series cards. Somebody wanna correct me on that?

HD 3000 cards were first PCIE 2 from ATI.

I think anything that has windows 9x or dos drivers is retro.

Fermi is less than 1 year and half from becoming a decade old, also it runs well on windows XP which feels retro by now I think... I can see it, in any case, it's a good card for retro gaming!

In my view, it's retro if you use it for running retro software.

My vote would be not yet. Fermi drivers even support DX12, and a GTX480 is approximately equal to a GTX1030 in modern games.

It depends what aspect of 'retro' matters to you. You can build a really good windows XP gaming box with a GTX480, but it doesn't really fit with a period correct XP gaming pc.

BinaryDemon wrote:

My vote would be not yet. Fermi drivers even support DX12, and a GTX480 is approximately equal to a GTX1030 in modern games.

it is a bit stronger than the 1030 on most games but... DX12 support on Fermi is really bad, I don't think it even counts.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

3-10 years = old junk. 10+ years = retro. […]
Show full quote

3-10 years = old junk.
10+ years = retro.

Is Windows Vista retro?

Only if you consider Windows ME abomination as retro.

Heh I agree with this. I’m sure there will be ton of ‘2007-2009 period correct OS’ debates in future but basically most peoples answer will be - I hung onto to XP until Win7 was released.

BinaryDemon wrote:

I’m sure there will be ton of ‘2007-2009 period correct OS’ debates in future but basically most peoples answer will be - I hung onto to XP until Win7 was released.

Then I will be one of the dissenters to this.

In 2005 I bought a laptop with Windows XP, having used Windows XP since ~2003 when I built my Athlon XP system. And that little laptop still works to this day for gaming, but without support from Microsoft, lack of updates to Google Chrome and Firefox, it's not useful for modern internet browsing.

In 2008 I built my mother a computer for roughly $560 with the express purpose of running Windows Vista. The only thing she didn't get was a top-of-the-line graphics card. I put in a Geforce 8400GS instead. Windows Vista worked like charm and NEVER gave her any problems. The two reasons I never upgraded to Vista on my laptop were

A) The hardware couldn't handle Vista as my experience has shown that single-core processors simply are not able to keep up with Vista and later operating systems, including Windows 7/8/8.1/10. It also had a hard limit of 2GB of memory - woefully inadequate for Vista or later. Yes, I include Windows 7 in the "Needs 4GB minimum to be happy" rule I have.

B) I didn't want to spend $100 to get a new license of Vista.

I didn't even get to play with Windows 7 until I bought a copy of it for my 2010 gaming rig I was putting together at the time. Win7 Home 64-bit, dual GTX 480s in SLI, a Core i7-860 quad-core with HT running @ 3GHz with 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory? What's not to like? The system was silky smooth, powerful as shit, and blew me away with what it could do. Also, when it started snowing outside, I could just stick my feet behind the GPU blowers and run a game. Kept my feet toasty warm!

I'm not a Vista advocate by any means.

But I will say that I think it did get a bit of a bad rap, at launch driver support was pretty abysmal but it did get better relatively quickly.

More so though I think the hardware requirements were waaaaay under stated by Microsoft.

There were a ton of cheapie OEM built machines with single core Sempron's and 512MB of RAM that were sold as "Vista Capable"

Throw in a 1GB stick and they would say they were recommended for Windows Vista, with Aero support.

What a joke.

By the time driver support for existing hardware was up to par and people had realized that you needed a dual core and minimum of 3GB of RAM, Windows 7 was on the horizon....

Bottom line: Anything Vista can do, Windows 7 can do better.

That said, nobody loves Vista and you can buy Vista Ultimate box quite cheap, if authentic physical copy of OS is your thing.