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Best WinXP Video Card

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Reply 260 of 328, by dormcat

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After reading this thread I might start building a dual-boot XP/10 hybrid, after acquiring an MB with B75 chipset (already got an i7-3770 and a GTX 960): Unlike the H61 MB I already have, the B75 has native USB3 and PCI support, allowing faster file transfer using USB drives and high-end EAX sound cards e.g. Audigy 2 ZS, respectively. This build should be able to handle all XP-era games and still very smooth for daily tasks, as well as most Steam-based (Win10 required) games except the latest, most demanding ones.

Reply 261 of 328, by bestemor

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God Of Gaming wrote on 2024-07-28, 09:53:

...when I can now build a win7 pc with a 7800x3d and 3090ti and 8tb hard drives, and of course 1440p 144hz monitor, free from needing to dualboot it with XP...

Now color me intrigued - I've seen that the 3090Ti for some strange reason has (1 single!) official Windows 7 driver (while the 3090 has none!), but how do you (EASILY) make a Ryzen 7800X3d work nicely with Windows 7 , with everything else onboard also functioning normally ? From USB>soundcard>SATA etc etc.

And what motherboard would be best for this, I wonder?

- Me looking to make the fastest but still 100% reliable Windows 7 computer, while still booting via CSM.

Reply 262 of 328, by God Of Gaming

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bestemor wrote on 2024-07-29, 02:05:
Now color me intrigued - I've seen that the 3090Ti for some strange reason has (1 single!) official Windows 7 driver (while the […]
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God Of Gaming wrote on 2024-07-28, 09:53:

...when I can now build a win7 pc with a 7800x3d and 3090ti and 8tb hard drives, and of course 1440p 144hz monitor, free from needing to dualboot it with XP...

Now color me intrigued - I've seen that the 3090Ti for some strange reason has (1 single!) official Windows 7 driver (while the 3090 has none!), but how do you (EASILY) make a Ryzen 7800X3d work nicely with Windows 7 , with everything else onboard also functioning normally ? From USB>soundcard>SATA etc etc.

And what motherboard would be best for this, I wonder?

- Me looking to make the fastest but still 100% reliable Windows 7 computer, while still booting via CSM.

Eh Im pretty sure theres more than 1 driver, and for the 3090 too. Even on nvidia geforce site theres a dozen listed for the 3090 / win7, idk where you've been looking.

As for making 7800x3d working nicely with win7 with everything onboard functioning normally, well, easily is not the right word, it requires some extra work, but its pretty doable. Theres unofficial drivers for just about anything, you gotta integrate some stuff into the windows image before installing too. But I have tested it myself and confirmed. I build a PC for a friend with a MSI B650 Edge WiFi mobo and 7800x3d, and before I installed him win11 that he wanted, I first tried win7 to see how it goes. Was able to get it fully functional with the only yellow checkmark in device manager being the wifi card. But Im pretty sure it is slotted so it should be able to replace it with an older wifi card that has win7 drivers too.

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Reply 263 of 328, by ux-3

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JSO wrote on 2024-07-28, 19:49:

freshly installed Windows XP Pro SP3. ...
I reduced memory to 4 GB's of RAM.

Did you have to do it for stability or just to avoid waste?

Retro PC warning: The things you own end up owning you.

Reply 264 of 328, by darry

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KT7AGuy wrote on 2024-07-28, 05:57:
Good grief. […]
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Good grief.

No WinXP box needs a 970 or 980. I'm pretty sure they won't even work without some fuckery.

I send more props to lordmogul for being practical, reasonable, responsible, and legit. Their response truly answered the question re: Best WinXP Video Card across all categories and concerns.

Even with an I5-2550K, a 970 or 980 is so mismatched as to be ridiculous.

darry, Ozzuneoj, stop being silly.

The 960 is the best you can hope for under WinXP without hacks, and even that's OP stupid under ideal conditions with an I5-3570K and DDR3 RAM.

See lordmogul's post again for a reality check.

DO NOT reply to me with a Simpson's Comic-Book-Guy ackshually post...

This has all been litigated numerous times before. I'm ashamed to even be participating now.

You should be too.

I don't feel that I have anything to be ashamed about. The GTX 970 only needs an inf mod to the drivers to work in XP. If you're not comfortable with or disapprove of doing this, that 's your choice, but it works for others. This is common knowledge, AFAIK. That a GTX 970 is overkill for XP era hardware, I will concede. However, having a GTX 970 passed through to an XP virtual machine , as needed, while still having decent GPU performance on the host in a modern OS (for what I do), is my current use case.

As for using a baremetal XP setup with an overspecced video card (versus the CPU), so what ? If it works well and parts were affordable, I do not see a problem.

By the way, In my neck of the woods a GTX 970 is about the same price as a GTX 780 and the specific 970 I bought might actually have been cheaper when I bought it (at the time I was considering both and price was my criterion).

EDIT: Clarified a statement and corrected grammar

Last edited by darry on 2024-07-29, 15:48. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 265 of 328, by JSO

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ux-3 wrote on 2024-07-29, 06:58:
JSO wrote on 2024-07-28, 19:49:

freshly installed Windows XP Pro SP3. ...
I reduced memory to 4 GB's of RAM.

Did you have to do it for stability or just to avoid waste?

No need to waste ram! I sold it!

DOS IS THE POWER OF OUR CHILDHOOD MEMORIES!

Reply 266 of 328, by Martli

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dormcat wrote on 2024-07-29, 00:21:

After reading this thread I might start building a dual-boot XP/10 hybrid, after acquiring an MB with B75 chipset (already got an i7-3770 and a GTX 960): Unlike the H61 MB I already have, the B75 has native USB3 and PCI support, allowing faster file transfer using USB drives and high-end EAX sound cards e.g. Audigy 2 ZS, respectively. This build should be able to handle all XP-era games and still very smooth for daily tasks, as well as most Steam-based (Win10 required) games except the latest, most demanding ones.

This is basically what I do with my over-powered XP machine. It works great, I don’t game on the win10 install, but I do use it to maintain my other retro PCs as my ‘daily driver’ is a Mac - formatting and backing up drives, a central repository for all my retro files, installing gog games before transferring them etc. I highly recommend it.

Fenrir Pentium MMX 166 | Voodoo1 | YMF719 | AWE64 | SC-88ST pro | MT-32
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Thor P4 3.0ghz | 4200ti | Audigy 2 | YMF 754
Jupiter i5 3470 | GTX 670 | X-Fi

Reply 267 of 328, by God Of Gaming

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I am trying to do something a little different, so I am setting up a small and relatively efficient and quiet PC with a 4770k and gtx960 4gb and a X-Fi of course, and instead of the usual XP 32bit and win7 64bit dualboot, I decided I will go with server 2003 r2 32bit + server 2008 r2 64bit. Everything was going well till the time came for the video drivers.... nvidia 368.81 winXP driver refuses to install on server 2003 r2, it just wont proceed since its not seeing XP SP3. I managed to manually force install the .infs for the gpu and the hd audio device, so I suppose its working now, gpu-z detects all its data, but I dont have all the other components like physx or nvidia control panel and such and cant figure out how to manually install those... sigh...

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Reply 268 of 328, by ubertrout

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Read through this whole thread with interest - I've been using a Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked as my XP rig with a 750ti, and it's making me wonder if I should use a different one. I have a 7900 GS in my parts drawer I could use, and the system has the power and (I think) the space for a GTX 285. I just built a ridiculous XP machine for fun to see how cheap it would be with a i5-4690 and a GTX 960, so I could downgrade the C2D machine's graphics and use the i5 for higher-end XP stuff. Does that make sense, or should I leave well enough alone? I'll be honest that I haven't had a lot of compatibility issues but I like the thought of greater compatibility.

Reply 269 of 328, by Joseph_Joestar

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ubertrout wrote on 2024-08-25, 05:36:

I'll be honest that I haven't had a lot of compatibility issues but I like the thought of greater compatibility.

The 7900 GS would give you better compatibility with older (pre-WinXP) games, since Nvidia GPUs from the GeForce 7 series still natively support 16-bit dithering. Thief 2 and System Shock 2 are examples of games which need that.

Additionally, there are a few edge cases from the WinXP era like Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, which won't correctly display all shadows and lights on cards newer than the GeForce 7 series and drivers later than 169.21. Also, some games based on the Unreal 2 engine can exhibit micro stutter under WinXP on newer Nvidia cards.

That said, these are all fairly minor issues. But if you already have a 7900 GS, and another rig with a GTX 960, might as well use both cards to their full potential.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 / Audigy2 ZS
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 270 of 328, by ubertrout

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-08-25, 06:36:

The 7900 GS would give you better compatibility with older (pre-WinXP) games, since Nvidia GPUs from the GeForce 7 series still natively support 16-bit dithering. Thief 2 and System Shock 2 are examples of games which need that.

Additionally, there are a few edge cases from the WinXP era like Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, which won't correctly display all shadows and lights on cards newer than the GeForce 7 series and drivers later than 169.21. Also, some games based on the Unreal 2 engine can exhibit micro stutter under WinXP on newer Nvidia cards.

That said, these are all fairly minor issues. But if you already have a 7900 GS, and another rig with a GTX 960, might as well use both cards to their full potential.

Interesting...it's a bit scary to downgrade the system so dramatically but it's a thought. I also (when I put it like this it sounds like hoarding...uh oh) have a P4 3 GHZ box I got essentially for free I could put the 7900 GS in. I knew I should have gotten the 8-port KVM 😜

I'll admit the GTX 275 is intriguing me as an option too. The MSI Twin Frozr ii variant has a VGA port on it and better cooling, but I don't see any on the secondary market for cheap. It would also not be quite the performance downgrade...I have a Doom 3 game going on the XP machine and while the 7900 GS will run it, it won't run as well. I could probably just transfer my save file or use any number of other methods there to play on the 960 machine too, I know.

Reply 271 of 328, by Shagittarius

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Why not just run a 780ti which is officially supported on XP? You aren't going to need the extra 1GB RAM of the 970 for anything you plan to run on XP and its more than 10% faster than the 970 too.

Reply 272 of 328, by SPBHM

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970 is much nicer on the power/heat front and if you try to dual boot on newer windows/linux the 970 is much nicer but yeah, also I think a good working 970 is easier to find?

Reply 273 of 328, by ubertrout

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Shagittarius wrote on 2024-08-25, 18:08:

Why not just run a 780ti which is officially supported on XP? You aren't going to need the extra 1GB RAM of the 970 for anything you plan to run on XP and its more than 10% faster than the 970 too.

The 960 and 970 are both quite cheap now and need less power. You can get a 2 GB 960 for $30 and only need a single 6-pin to power it. Total overkill for XP but cheaper than a flagship with a fraction of its power from eras past.

Reply 274 of 328, by lordmogul

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God Of Gaming wrote on 2024-07-28, 06:57:

if you gonna dualboot, I say it makes more sense to dualboot 98se with XP, than XP with 7 or 10, because, most of the games you would need XP for, would be made for 4:3 aspect ratio, so then you can have one desk set up with a CRT and your harrdware for winXP and below, and another desk with your modern widescreen setup with win 7 or 10 or linux or whatever. I am saying this after using a XP + 7 dualboot build with a gtx980 for a few years and becoming displeased with having CRT and LCD both on same desk side by side in order to have both plugged into the same PC, and having to move keyboard, mouse, speakers, mic and webcam to the other monitor each time I switch OS, not to mention being limited to five 2TB hard drives and unable to upgrade to 8TB hard drives since XP doesnt support GPT

Obviously you'd use the same monitor for both systems. There are about as many issues running 7 on a CRT as there are running XP on an LCD.
And lets not forget that "made for XP" also incorporates all those 2006-2010 games from the period when 16:10 was the common gaming resolution (think 1680x1050 and 1920x1200). I still remember 16:10 being used in reviews in 2012 when Sandy Bridge was around. So I'd say that is absolutely an XP aspect ratio.

The XP/7 dual boot is more an idea of having less machines sitting around. No need to have a 2001 system, a 2003 system, a 2006 system, a 2010 system, a 2013 system, etc. when one single 2012 system can do all the stuff.
With XP you get hardware audio, including EAX, while 7 gives access to D3D11, and thus games made after 2013-ish. (when a D3D9 path wasn't included anymore)
On my 7 system I can run games up until around 2018 pretty much maxed out, and it isn't even using the fastest hardware supported by the OS.

A high end, late XP system with a widescreen TFT could easily do all the games that run on XP, while also having enough performance to do well in many D3D11 games.

And if any of them are better played in 4:3, it is always possible to set up a custom resolution. I ran my CRT back in the day in 2048x1536 and can convince my 1080p TFT to do 4K with downsampling.
I can also run 1440x1080 for 4:3 with pixel accuracy or any other 4:3 res I want. Sure, there are black bars on the side, but on a large enough screen that shouldn't be an issue.
A 21.5'' 16:9 or a 27'' 21:9 screen is about the same height as a 17.5'' 4:3 or a 17'' 5:4 screen
A 23.5'' 16:9 or a 29'' 21:9 screen is about the same height as a 19'' 4:3 screen
A 27'' 16:9 or a 34'' 21:9 or a 49'' 32:9 screen is about the same height as a 22'' 4:3 screen
A 32'' 16:9 screen is about the same height as a 26'' 4:3 screen
So physical screen size is not an issue.

I wouldn't worry about hard drive size either. 2TB is plenty.
Sure you could run 5 drives plus a DVD, but who needs 10 TB on a dedicated retro setup. One drive should be plenty.
Those games will be in the low double digit GB as worst, even a modded Skyrim would barely take over 20-25 GB, Half Life 2 is under 5 GB, Bioshock is about 6 GB, Fallout New Vegas just over 9 GB, Borderlands 2 about 20 GB.
And even games for booting into 7 won't be huge. The largest I have around (that runs under 7) is GTA V with about 112 GB, followed by a couple in the 40-70 GB range.
Many games will even be below a GB. How many of the really huge 2015 and later games would one install?

For input, either a KVM or a separate set would do the trick.
Speakers can even be simply linked together with a Y-cable. I have my three systems all running on the same pair of speakers without issues.
I'm not really sure about the purpose of a webcam on a retro setup, but to each their own.

P3 933EB @1035 (7x148) | CUSL2-C | GF3Ti200 | 256M PC133cl3 @148cl3 | 98SE & XP Pro SP3
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Reply 275 of 328, by VivienM

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So I bought a 7970 a while ago because somehow something I read at the time had convinced me it was like the greatest retro video card ever, and... well... seemed to be too new to run NFS Porsche Unleashed, at least without some significant messing around, going to older drivers, etc, and... that has me wondering if I should look at something else and more NVIDIAesque. I have a GTX 660 (I think) sitting idle, but I think that'd be a downgrade... is it worth buying a 780Ti?

Reply 276 of 328, by God Of Gaming

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lordmogul wrote on 2024-08-30, 21:53:

And lets not forget that "made for XP" also incorporates all those 2006-2010 games from the period when 16:10 was the common gaming resolution (think 1680x1050 and 1920x1200). I still remember 16:10 being used in reviews in 2012 when Sandy Bridge was around. So I'd say that is absolutely an XP aspect ratio.

Any of those "made for XP"2006-2010 widescreen games will work absolutely fine on a win7 machine, and you can have newer faster hardware and drivers on that win7 machine that will more than offset the slightly higher framerates on XP. Doesnt matter what OS/machine a game was made for as much as it matters what OS/machine it works best on.

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Reply 277 of 328, by Joseph_Joestar

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lordmogul wrote on 2024-08-30, 21:53:

Obviously you'd use the same monitor for both systems. There are about as many issues running 7 on a CRT as there are running XP on an LCD.
And lets not forget that "made for XP" also incorporates all those 2006-2010 games from the period when 16:10 was the common gaming resolution (think 1680x1050 and 1920x1200). I still remember 16:10 being used in reviews in 2012 when Sandy Bridge was around. So I'd say that is absolutely an XP aspect ratio.

As mentioned before, the widescreen stuff is easily solved by using a 16:10 LCD monitor (WUXGA). You get native 1920x1200 for widescreen games and centered 1600x1200 (with black bars on the sides) for 4:3 games.

There were also some 16:10 widescreen CRT monitors like the Sony FW900, but those cost a fortune nowadays. Digital Foundry has an interesting video showcasing one in action. Detailed specs and additional info for the FW900 can be found here.

God Of Gaming wrote on 2024-09-05, 05:35:

Any of those "made for XP"2006-2010 widescreen games will work absolutely fine on a win7 machine

Not if you want proper DirectSound3D support, as that doesn't exist in Vista and later Windows versions. The lack of DS3D also means no EAX, in most cases.

To be fair, certain games are supported by Creative ALchemy, and there are of course third-party wrappers which can emulate EAX to some degree. Furthermore, games that implement EAX via OpenAL will mostly work fine on Vista+ and game developers did start moving away from DS3D around 2006. But there will be a few edge cases where that's not enough, and you still need WinXP for proper EAX support.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 / Audigy2 ZS
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 278 of 328, by God Of Gaming

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-05, 06:02:

Not if you want proper DirectSound3D support, as that doesn't exist in Vista and later Windows versions. The lack of DS3D also means no EAX, in most cases.

To be fair, certain games are supported by Creative ALchemy, and there are of course third-party wrappers which can emulate EAX to some degree. Furthermore, games that implement EAX via OpenAL will mostly work fine on Vista+ and game developers did start moving away from DS3D around 2006. But there will be a few edge cases where that's not enough, and you still need WinXP for proper EAX support.

I have yet to see a ds3d game that doesnt sound indentical trough alchemy, would be interested in getting a list of known problematic games to mythbust on my end

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Reply 279 of 328, by Joseph_Joestar

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God Of Gaming wrote on 2024-09-06, 08:56:

I have yet to see a ds3d game that doesnt sound indentical trough alchemy, would be interested in getting a list of known problematic games to mythbust on my end

I haven't tested this thoroughly, but from what little I've heard, Creative ALchemy usually does the job quite well.

One game where I noticed slight issues with EAX was Baldur's Gate 2, specifically the Throne of Bhaal expansion. With ALchemy, EAX effects are too strong in the expansion areas (e.g. Saradush) compared to playing the game on WinXP. But that's probably an outlier, since that game has (different and unrelated) EAX issues even under WinXP. It's not entirely surprising since Baldur's Gate 2 was released way back in 2000. That's probably why its occlusion effects only work correctly when using VxD drivers under Win9x.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Core 2 Duo E8600 / Foxconn P35AX-S / X800 / Audigy2 ZS
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi