VOGONS


First post, by appiah4

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I happen to have one such PC built, mostly because I had the parts and it felt like a fun project - but I am not sure I actually need it. Mine is an Athlon64 3700+ (Socket 754) with 1GB RAM, an X800XT PE and Audigy2 ZS. Are there games that actually justify building such a system? I can't think of anything offhand that doesn't work on more powerful PCs in Windows 7/10, to be honest.

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Reply 2 of 49, by Doornkaat

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Isn't the whole EAX thing better in XP? I think people regularly complain Creative's Aalchemy workaround for Vista and up just isn't all that great.
Don't take my word on this though. I have no first hand experience with this.

Reply 3 of 49, by Joseph_Joestar

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-17, 07:31:

I can't think of anything offhand that doesn't work on more powerful PCs in Windows 7/10, to be honest.

EAX games come to mind.

Granted, Creative's Alchemy does a decent job overall and other software solutions do exist for Win7 and up. However, I personally prefer the hardware EAX sound of a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium that you get when running games under WinXP. If you want a concrete example, the Splinter Cell series of games showcase what EAX can do very nicely.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
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Reply 4 of 49, by Almoststew1990

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I am struggling to justify that PC for XP gaming, when it'll be fairly under powered for anything beyond 2003 or so. XP builds + EAX + proper working starforce support are still an essential part of my gaming line up but I would usually have a faster CPU and make sure the PC can hit 75fps in games up to 2007 or so without struggling, quietly, and cooly (so that's a later Core 2 Duo, 4GB of DDR2 and something like a 280/460/550ti/645/740).

But if your PC was fun to make and use, and you simply like it, then who cares? This is what I am struggling with for the moment!

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Reply 5 of 49, by Jo22

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DirectMusic/Software Syntesizers (SYXG50, Sound Canvas etc) are also better supported by XP.
On later systems, Timidity and such must be used. But I'm not sure if they support DirectX still or or use MCI API only.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

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Reply 6 of 49, by kolderman

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Star Wars: Republic Commando basically won't work on modern GPUs that you are likely to have in a modern PC.

And yeah EAX.

And yeah lot's of games just won't boot or will be glitchy on Win10. There is a big jump in everything between XP and 10.

Reply 7 of 49, by Jo22

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2D support on XP is also better.
XPDM supports GDI acceleration, DirectDraw overlay/frame buffer access and in some cases, VGA modes (NTVDM; DOS games).
On Vista onwards, it is emulated. Though Win 7 and its driver model support things like GDI (not GDI+) acceleration again.

Also, XP 32-Bit can run 16-Bit software more or less just fine.
And it is less strict, because it runs in administrator level by default.

On Vista and up you're faced with an Unix/Linux level of nastiness. You can't kill system tasks, programs can't access certain folders due to permissions.

Global settings don't work properly
(DOSBox, for example, uses a dosbox.conf
Located in a home directory instead of its application folder).

Efit: On XP, it is possible to record StereoMix output.
On Vista and up, this nolonger works as easily, because of DRM "paranoia".

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 8 of 49, by chinny22

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EAX is the number 1 reason.
but my XP rig is my most heavily used PC.
It plays vast majority of my Win9x games, with enough power to fully maximize AA, AF, and all that if I want to see games in all their glory.
It's also bridges the gap nicely between modern and retro on my network and talks happily to my daily driver's on Win7 or 10 but also connects to 9x/3.11 just fine.
And like Jo22 said its 16 bit support is helpful for drives, etc that come in exe files.

Reply 10 of 49, by Baoran

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I was thinking of just putting my old gtx 780ti to xp pc that I was planning to build. Now this thread is making me to think that perhaps it is not a good idea if there are xp games that don't work on more modern gpus.
Which gpus would be the newest ones that would not have problems in such games?

Reply 12 of 49, by Oetker

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Baoran wrote on 2020-09-17, 10:04:

I was thinking of just putting my old gtx 780ti to xp pc that I was planning to build. Now this thread is making me to think that perhaps it is not a good idea if there are xp games that don't work on more modern gpus.
Which gpus would be the newest ones that would not have problems in such games?

I was going by https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2017 … linter-cell-pc/ which says Geforce 3/4/5.

Reply 13 of 49, by jmarsh

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Jo22 wrote on 2020-09-17, 08:33:

Global settings don't work properly
(DOSBox, for example, uses a dosbox.conf
Located in a home directory instead of its application folder).

That's by design, as a cross-platform app DOSBox always looks for a user specific config by default. If it's not found it will fall back to looking in the same directory as the executable.

Reply 14 of 49, by Jo22

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jmarsh wrote on 2020-09-17, 12:20:
Jo22 wrote on 2020-09-17, 08:33:

Global settings don't work properly
(DOSBox, for example, uses a dosbox.conf
Located in a home directory instead of its application folder).

That's by design, as a cross-platform app DOSBox always looks for a user specific config by default. If it's not found it will fall back to looking in the same directory as the executable.

I know, it's the same on my Raspberry Pi running Raspbian/Raspberry OS. 🙂

It's just that in 2006 or so, when I used DOSBox 0.63 (?), the default location was the application folder still.

Of course, someone can still use dosbox.conf in DOSBox folder, but the PIF/BAT/LNK files have to be modified. Currently, they contain a command to load dosbox.conf from user directory.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 15 of 49, by moumiaq

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-17, 07:31:

I happen to have one such PC built, mostly because I had the parts and it felt like a fun project - but I am not sure I actually need it. Mine is an Athlon64 3700+ (Socket 754) with 1GB RAM, an X800XT PE and Audigy2 ZS. Are there games that actually justify building such a system? I can't think of anything offhand that doesn't work on more powerful PCs in Windows 7/10, to be honest.

What where your favorite XP era games ?

Reply 16 of 49, by gerry

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appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-17, 07:31:

Are there games that actually justify building such a system? I can't think of anything offhand that doesn't work on more powerful PCs in Windows 7/10, to be honest.

Other than some of the comments already made, if those particular aspects are important to you, I think you're right. If it works just as well on a W7+ machine then why not play it there.

I like WinXP but for me it is suited to machines of the 2000 to 2007 era, before things started to become more and more multi core and 64 bit, at that point you may as well use W7+

as a straightforward easy to use OS with an ability to cope (reasonably well) with Win16 and Win9x era software as well as run mid 2000's and some later games, it does span the software world quite well and is perhaps the best option for typical 32 bit systems able to run it

Reply 17 of 49, by Baoran

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I would like to be able to play Silent Hunter 3 or similar games that come with Starforce. I don't know if version exists of Silent Hunter 3 that has starforce removed, but my original disk installs it when you install the game and I assume it would not work on any other OS.

Reply 19 of 49, by mastergamma12

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Baoran wrote on 2020-09-17, 20:48:

I would like to be able to play Silent Hunter 3 or similar games that come with Starforce. I don't know if version exists of Silent Hunter 3 that has starforce removed, but my original disk installs it when you install the game and I assume it would not work on any other OS.

I've got a disc version of Silent Hunter 3 and it works completely fine on Windows 10 x64 with modern hardware no issues. Doesn't need the disc to play it.

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