I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head:

Mafia - flickering shadows under cars, ehm, automobiles
GTA Vice City - crashes
NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - crashes

Its not the cards fault I think its usually more about drivers and I have used the latest ones from nVidia website and there are some older ones as well that I could still try.

If you have a favorite game or something, I am happy to try it if I have it, just let me know.

duga3 wrote:

I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head: […]
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I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head:

Mafia - flickering shadows under cars, ehm, automobiles
GTA Vice City - crashes
NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - crashes

Its not the cards fault I think its usually more about drivers and I have used the latest ones from nVidia website and there are some older ones as well that I could still try.

If you have a favorite game or something, I am happy to try it if I have it, just let me know.

Thanks! But no need, my XP build is going to have 7600 GT for nearly all of my 98-XP games and a GTS 250 for those couple games that could use a bit more juice. More powerful Windows 7 build takes care of the rest like Stalker Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with directx 10+ support. But I did get really close of getting a GT 710 originally thinking it's powerful enough, it has drivers for XP and you can get those for new so why not? Luckily I realized what a mistake that would have been, many of my games are pre dx9.

I just misunderstood when you mentioned that many other games had problems, thought you meant dx9 games specifically.

Crank9000 wrote:

duga3 wrote:

I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head: […]
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I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head:

Mafia - flickering shadows under cars, ehm, automobiles
GTA Vice City - crashes
NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - crashes

Its not the cards fault I think its usually more about drivers and I have used the latest ones from nVidia website and there are some older ones as well that I could still try.

If you have a favorite game or something, I am happy to try it if I have it, just let me know.

Thanks! But no need, my XP build is going to have 7600 GT for nearly all of my 98-XP games and a GTS 250 for those couple games that could use a bit more juice. More powerful Windows 7 build takes care of the rest like Stalker Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with directx 10+ support. But I did get really close of getting a GT 710 originally thinking it's powerful enough, it has drivers for XP and you can get those for new so why not? Luckily I realized what a mistake that would have been, many of my games are pre dx9.

I just misunderstood when you mentioned that many other games had problems, thought you meant dx9 games specifically.

Good thinking, only maybe after GF6 there is a lack 16-bit dithering so games like System Shock 2 (1999) will not work out of the box at all (you need community patch with 32-bit rendering) and I dont think 250 would be fast enough (in my eyes) to run the early XP titles in at least FullHD, with crazy amounts of AA and max speed. Even on my gtx960 the GTA 3 drops to around 30-40FPS when it rains for example (1920x1440@60Hz, 4x4SSAA+8xSGTRSSAA). But then again gtx960 is not compatible with some older pre-dx9 games. Just something to keep in mind, one cant have it all I guess.

duga3 wrote:

Good thinking, only maybe after GF6 there is a lack 16-bit dithering so games like System Shock 2 (1999) will not work out of the box at all (you need community patch with 32-bit rendering) and I dont think 250 would be fast enough (in my eyes) to run the early XP titles in at least FullHD, with crazy amounts of AA and max speed. Even on my gtx960 the GTA 3 drops to around 30-40FPS when it rains for example (1920x1440@60Hz, 4x4SSAA+8xSGTRSSAA). But then again gtx960 is not compatible with some older pre-dx9 games. Just something to keep in mind, one cant have it all I guess.

GF7 should still have 16-bit dithering, at least so have I read other people say who know way more about that stuff than I. I did also pick up a 6600 GT for backup just in case the 7600 GT has trouble with some games or just craps out and dies. GTS 250 is more than fast enough for me, only using max 1280x1024 resolution and only 2-3 of my games could use the extra speed, all the rest can be run at max with the 6600 GT (at least if AA is kept at 2-4 at maximum). Widescreen full hd games go to that W7 build.

I also like to keep my PC's as silent as possible, both of those 7600 GT and 6600 GT are passively cooled and GTS 250's have silent coolers, at least some of them have if not all. Can't stand loud GPU fans, that rules out many faster cards. Had a 4870 back in the day, loved the card but the fan of that Sapphire Toxic (or was it Vapor-X, can't remember) drove me nuts less than a week, replaced it with a third party cooler and all was good.

Edit: Except I just realized just how long nvidia 2xx series cards are physically, no chance of fitting one in the case I was planning to use. Welp, I guess I'll use a 9800 GTX+ instead. Or a 450. Might as well go for a 460? This is a never ending road isn't it, soon I'll have a RTX 2080 Ti in there with modded drivers 😵

I love this thread. The only card that I have that is XP compatible is a Radeon R7 260X 2GB, which I think its fine for 99% of XP games. Will try some and post results when I can.

It's really a great thread.

May I ask what's the ATI card equivalent to Nvidia GTX 960 and which one is better for XP gaming (no specific titles want to play)?

Tom's GPU Hierarchy Chart is a great resource for finding comparable alternatives.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html

While not really 100% accurate, there's not much else like it out there.

Thanks for the info. It seems that HD 7950 is the one. 😀

Is CSAA (Antialiasing) of any concern with regards to XP? Were there games that used this for their ingame AA options or was it only used through nVidia control panel?

GeForce 7800 GTX

duga3 wrote:

I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head: […]
Show full quote

I have not had the time to try too many games but yes, its mostly pre-directx9 issue I would think. From the top of my head:

Mafia - flickering shadows under cars, ehm, automobiles
GTA Vice City - crashes
NFS Hot Pursuit 2 - crashes

Its not the cards fault I think its usually more about drivers and I have used the latest ones from nVidia website and there are some older ones as well that I could still try.

If you have a favorite game or something, I am happy to try it if I have it, just let me know.

I haven't tried mafia but I can attest that GTA vice city and hot pursuit 2 both work 100% and run for hours with zero issues and zero crashes under XP with a GTX 780 with the latest supported nvidia drivers for XP. The Kepler family of cards are still the fastest, best supported and most compatible cards for XP gaming.

These 2 could be a bit too old to be considered winXP games, but I had some major issues in Serious Sam and NFS Hot Pursuit 2 when I had AMD HD7950, and when I talked with people I confirmed I was not alone, the oldest card I could confirm had those issues was HD 5670, so probably safe to assume any DX11+ AMD card is not that great of a choice for retro gaming. I used to have a HD 4850 and those 2 games worked fine on it btw.

For a while now my main PC has been running MSI GTX780 Lightning on Gigabyte Z77X-UP7 mobo with 3770K and Auzen X-Fi HTHD (I smell some incomming rivalry with kithylin having very similar system from what I've read) Triple booting XP, 7 and 10. The 780 solved the issues in those 2 games but Im not 100% convinced there wont be issues in any other XP games.

These days I've been piling up some old AGP cards and motherboards and PCI sound cards and I intend to do some comprehensive testing to find the ultimate 98SE configuration, after that I might do the same for XP, comparing a known compatible card such as nvidia 7900 against the gtx780 to see if I can spot anything amiss. Ideally though, I'd like to eventually upgrade my system to X79 with 8-core xeon and maxwell titan x just to know I have the cream of the crop XP system, that is, if I don't first find issues with XP games on the 780 😀

Won't Titan X (M) crash WinXP x86 when VRAM usage goes over 4GB ?

Should be noted, that proper 32-bit OS can use more than 4Gb (benefits of 36-bit addressing).

@God Of Gaming: hm, just when I have a HD7970 incoming for a system multi-booting XP, Vista, 7 & Linux.
Strictly speaking Serious Sam isn't a Windows XP game. On the initial boxes the closest to XP operating system mentioned is NT, newer but still original releases and the manual I have state Windows 2000 as the newest compatible operating system. Re-releases of the game of course mention Windows XP also. Did you run the newest patch version of Serious Sam, which apparently came out when Windows XP was just on the market, during your testing?
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is a DirectX 8.1 game, so it would be interesting if DX9 games run fine on newer Radeons and only DX8.x games are problematic.
What were the issues with the two games then?

For Serious Sam I have the Gold Edition rerelease which is both TFE and TSE updated to latest patches and with a few bonus maps. Issues were, in OpenGL, weird triangular holes visible in geometry in distance, and in TSE distant trees had a blue overlay, in Direct3D these issues were gone but instead a very unpleasant stutter and occasional mouse input weirdness going on. on the gtx780 it works fine in both D3D and OGL with none of these issues. For NFS Hot Pursuit 2, there was something very wrong with the rendering, all cars were gray, and the road textures looked pretty off in places too. I think fog was missing as well.

These are surely not the only 2 games with issues but I hadnt tested too many old games on that card while I had it. It did pretty well for modern games tho. Sold it for a profit when the mining craze started, don't regret it.

kithylin wrote:

My next goal will be to switch this system up to a ivy bridge processor and try for 5.5+ Ghz with it.

agent_x007 wrote:

Ask and you shall receive (4960X OC'ed + GTX 780 Ti [Reference with Skyn3t mod vBIOS]) :) […]
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Ask and you shall receive (4960X OC'ed + GTX 780 Ti [Reference with Skyn3t mod vBIOS]) 😀

Crysis @ 2560x1600 + 16xQ AA (that's native 16x MSAA) :
1) I can't use DSR or Downsampling with WinXP (I didn't install GeForce Experience, just FYI - it didn't do anything).
2) I tested Crysis stock with 4k Downsampling*, and 3GB VRAM is good enough for 4k @ MSAA 8x (without "Q").
*On Windows 7 (since XP doesn't do DSR/Downsampling).

I can't tell you both (kithylin and agent_x007) how helpful your posts have been for me. I love this subforum but I wish there was a better way of collecting and organizing this kind of info. We do have a wiki at our disposal but I'm not sure of the best way to organize this.

There have to be more of us out there who prefer to push the limits of which hardware is (or potentially can be made) compatible with older OS's, SP's, drivers, Dx Versions, etc.
It would be awesome to have an easy to read reference point for these scenarios.
It would also be awesome to get an idea of how your system compares to others..
..or to see what sort of performance you could expect from certain hardware.

For those of us who enjoy chronicling the games from our archives and prefer to build a dedicated system for certain eras, chances are pretty high that some of us will want to make that system as capable as possible in terms of performance. Personally, there are several periods throughout the last 25 years where I had far from what I'd consider "desirable" hardware to work with. Being that most of that hardware is much more affordable today, building the fastest possible system for each scenario is within reach. It's also easier and more affordable to experiment with different combinations to find what works for more complicated situations and games.

All I'm saying is that having a database with proven bench results for our various system outcomes could help a lot of people.
Having a database of games, categorized by OS, and listing issues based on service pack, driver version, or other incompatibility notes and workarounds would also be very helpful.

Much easier to review proven benchmark results and see the exact system configuration and say: "That works!" rather than read through pages of debates and opinions..
My trust always lies in the numbers.

I am currently building the following system as an "end of support life" WinXP box:

• EVGA Geforce GTX 780 Ti Classified
• EKWB EK-FC780 GTX Classy water block
• ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition (X79 Chipset)
• EKWB EK-FB Kit ASUS R4BE (Covers PCH and VRM/MOSFETs)
• Intel i7-4960X
• EKWB Water block for CPU (I forget which model)
• G.SKILL F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL (DDR3 1866, 4x4GB.. didn't want to break up the kit)
• LSI MegaRAID 9266-8i
• Probably going to mount everything in an NZXT H500 but whatever I can get for a decent price that has room for the cooling will prevail.

I'm not sure what the software and game compatibility will be like for absolutely everything. I was planning to create a few different OS partitions on this box;
Windows XP Pro (x86 and x64) with different partitions for different service packs
Windows Vista
Windows 7
Windows 8

For the games and software that end up being incompatible, I was going to reserve them for the next project build: A Windows 98 SE, 2000, and early XP system.
I was planning to build this system based around an AGP Nvidia GeForce FX5950 Ultra but can't decide on the CPU and motherboard. I'll be using RLoew fixes and want to go with whatever will give me the best performance and compatibility in gaming.

Any tips, criticism, or further discussion would be appreciated.

My MSI N780 Lightning died 😦 Idk why, I rarelly pushed it, and it was getting really good cooling. A friend working in electronics repair service told me its an issue with BGA chips, when you're pushing 250 watts trough them, even if you cool them well, they give out eventually. I was planning to go up to 980Ti, but after this, perhaps I will have to go down a notch to just a GTX 980, still faster than 780Ti, still compatible with winXP, and is only 165 watts, so hopefully it doesnt die so easily.

for what is worth this is NFSHP2 demo running on my HD 7850 2GB/C2D e7300 with Catalyst 12.8 under windows xp sp3,
I didn't notice any issues, maybe @God Of Gaming was unlucky with the driver version?!

I haven't tested many games, but quake 3 arena runs a lot faster on XP with this card than it does in windows 10.

Well thats cool, and yeah, I think I was using the latest driver? Like, can't remember, maybe 14.4 or something? Yeah could indeed be a driver issue, I should really buy an AMD card for testing again and give it another chance. ideally something compatible with even older driver versions so I can test driver compatibility. HD 5870 perhaps? Its the first DX11 card and where supposedly game compatibility went downhill, its also compatible with pretty old driver versions, and should be cheap now. But till I can confirm if its usable or not, nvidia cards up to maxwell will remain my recomendation