Srandista wrote on 2020-12-17, 18:37:

Why he would use "retro" system for modern games, when he already started, that he have multiple Win 10 machines?

I am more thinking, why would he use such a retro system to run windows 7. It has PCI so it can run Audigy 2 ZS or XFI as they are intended and 7 has no hardware sound acceleration. It's also clearly too slow to run Directx 10 and 11 games at reasonable FPS. Unless he counts running 30FPS on low settings good. Which is pretty much the only reason to upgrade from XP to 7 to get DX 10 or 11. So yea.

So... this machine is simply overpowered for XP in my mind. I've often heard folks' opinions that Vista/7 are much more optimized for machines with >2 cores, but since I never used such a system myself for prolonged periods, I have no idea how true that actually said. Still, for me XP is Pentium 4 through Core 2 Duo, although that's probably simply because that's the systems I've used it on, historically.

I still have a couple of such computers running WinXP, the most powerful of which is a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad T60 with ATI GPU. I don't believe I encountered any games that wouldn't run on Vista/7, while at the same time being too heavy for my T60. So I never felt the need for a more XP machine.

This leaves us with hardware-accelerated audio, and here I confess I simply never got all the hoo-ha about it. At one point, my gaming machine was a Pentium 4 HT with an Audigy 2 ZS and a 7.1 audio system. Looked very impressive, but can I say I enjoyed games on that system more than I did when I was playing on a laptop with AC97 audio and simple stereo speakers? Probably not. So it's not important to me. In this P45 machine, I've had an X-Fi XtremeGamer at one point, and even fiddled with Creative ALchemy a bit, and still wasn't all that impressed compared to the built-in Realtek HD Audio codec. I realize some differences must be there, I just don't care enough.

I do use my computers for more than gaming, and in fact gaming is not even what I do most. As such I much prefer the better UI, richer feature set and vastly improved program compatibility of Windows 7 to that of Windows XP. The preceding points, except compatibility, also apply to Vista vs XP, which is why I was perfectly happy with Vista on this computer, until compatibility became a serious pain in the neck.

C2d came out in 2006 and XPSP3 didn't launch until 2008. Extended suppot for xp ended in 2014. Considering POS 2009 which is the same thing as XP Sp3, extended support didn't end until April 9, 2019. That puts C2d coming out in the 1st 3rd of the 18 year life span of the OS.

P4 is nothing more than a failed architecture and basically a engineering mistake. Wikipedia says that much. Pentium Ms launched in 2003 and are nothing like a P4, which essentially is the predecessor for the C2d.

That being said I respect your opinion

Hers a short video, as you can see windows 7 never took XP in market share until November 2011. Vista is not even a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuvKn5j_kE&feature=emb_logo

Again respect your opinion.

Sure, but QX9650 didn't come until November 2007, few months after Windows Vista release. Also, using 8GB RAM on XP (32-bit one) would be such a waste.

I'll admit, that I also using Core 2 era CPU for XP, but that architecture definitely have enough grunt to run Vista/7 without any issues.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:34:

P4 is nothing more than a failed architecture and basically a engineering mistake. Wikipedia says that much. Pentium Ms launched in 2003 and are nothing like a P4, which essentially is the predecessor for the C2d.

Oh boy. For a failed architecture, a lot of P4 technology has been used elsewhere (including quad-pumped FSB for the Pentium M), and is still in use today.

intel didn't "backpedal" from the P4, it took what worked and used it elsewhere. That's how science and engineering works.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:34:

C2d came out in 2006 and XPSP3 didn't launch until 2008. Extended suppot for xp ended in 2014. Considering POS 2009 which is the […]
Show full quote

C2d came out in 2006 and XPSP3 didn't launch until 2008. Extended suppot for xp ended in 2014. Considering POS 2009 which is the same thing as XP Sp3, extended support didn't end until April 9, 2019. That puts C2d coming out in the 1st 3rd of the 18 year life span of the OS.

P4 is nothing more than a failed architecture and basically a engineering mistake. Wikipedia says that much. Pentium Ms launched in 2003 and are nothing like a P4, which essentially is the predecessor for the C2d.

That being said I respect your opinion

Hers a short video, as you can see windows 7 never took XP in market share until November 2011. Vista is not even a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuvKn5j_kE&feature=emb_logo

Again respect your opinion.

I respect your opinion as well, though don't quite understand what point you are trying to make. Why should I care about OS extended support end dates, or their market share when deciding which OS to use on which machine? For the things I do on this computer, and considering the hardware that's in it, Vista/Win7 are a better fit.

Case in point - extended support dates are a pretty poor indicator of the usability of an OS. This is only for security patches / major bugfixes. Microsoft stops adding new features and capabilities when mainstream support ends, which for XP was in 2009 (and for Vista in 2012). Heck, Vista is still, unofficially, under extended support - as it accepts Server 2008 SP2 ESU updates. However, none of these updates (which I've been diligently installing all the way until I became fed up and upgraded to Win7) has done the slightest thing to improve the forward compatibility of Vista. If they had, I would not have bothered with the upgrade. The situation with XP is not better in any way.

I think the fundamental difference between our views is that you see such a system as 'retro' and think more about backward compatibility, whether I see it as a machine that can still be useful in the modern world, and so I care about forward compatibility. As I said, I have enough computers more 'retro' than this one, which happily run XP and older games/apps, because the hardware is not really capable of doing anything else.

Case in point - extended support dates are a pretty poor indicator of the usability of an OS

Actually it is, because third-party software is supported up to that point. Once an extension of extented support for Win7 will be finally dropped after 2023 (which is practically just paid support from Win8), it's basically total game over for the whole NT6.x family, i.e. Win Vista*/7/8.1. It won't make much difference between these three after that.

*With extended Kernel.

slivercr wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:54:

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:34:

P4 is nothing more than a failed architecture and basically a engineering mistake. Wikipedia says that much. Pentium Ms launched in 2003 and are nothing like a P4, which essentially is the predecessor for the C2d.

Oh boy. For a failed architecture, a lot of P4 technology has been used elsewhere (including quad-pumped FSB for the Pentium M), and is still in use today.

intel didn't "backpedal" from the P4, it took what worked and used it elsewhere. That's how science and engineering works.

I respect your opinion.

Youre only right about the quad pumped part but, you are right for the wrong reasons. you're mistaken. Pentium M is based on P6 architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_%28microarchitecture%29
P4s are P7/Netburst.
again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_C … roarchitectures

Quad pumped FSB is not a architecture. It has everything to do with data transfer rate between the CPU and the Memory controller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_divider

explanation of QDR quad data rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_data_rate

Pumping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumping_%28computer_systems%29

Patent information 1996 before P4 was invented. There is no mention on a pentium 4.
https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2001048621A1/en

Anyways FSB is a failure all together at this point in time. Intel was forced to copy AMD integrated memory controllers . Which isnt a FSB so its not in use today at all.

dr_st wrote on 2020-12-17, 23:10:

forward compatibility.

Youre right. I guess thats the difference. If I wanted Forward compatibility Id just build a new computer with a Ryzen 5 series on it, that will be compatible with everything in the foreseeable and non foreseeable future.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-18, 00:16:

Youre only right about the quad pumped part but, you are right for the wrong reasons. you're mistaken. Pentium M is based on P6 […]
Show full quote

slivercr wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:54:

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-17, 22:34:

P4 is nothing more than a failed architecture and basically a engineering mistake. Wikipedia says that much. Pentium Ms launched in 2003 and are nothing like a P4, which essentially is the predecessor for the C2d.

Oh boy. For a failed architecture, a lot of P4 technology has been used elsewhere (including quad-pumped FSB for the Pentium M), and is still in use today.

intel didn't "backpedal" from the P4, it took what worked and used it elsewhere. That's how science and engineering works.

Youre only right about the quad pumped part but, you are right for the wrong reasons. you're mistaken. Pentium M is based on P6 architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P6_%28microarchitecture%29
P4s are P7/Netburst.
again https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_C … roarchitectures

Quad pumped FSB is not a architecture. It has everything to do with data transfer rate between the CPU and the Memory controller.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_divider

explanation of QDR quad data rate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_data_rate

Pumping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumping_%28computer_systems%29

Patent information 1996 before P4 was invented. There is no mention on a pentium 4.
https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2001048621A1/en

Anyways FSB is a failure all together at this point in time. Intel was forced to copy AMD integrated memory controllers . Which isnt a FSB so its not in use today at all.

@warlord, you were not being rude, just maybe a bit condescending with all your wiki links.

If you want to discuss, try to not misquote me. I said something more along the lines of "technologies first used in the P4 transcended into other generations", disputing your claim that the P4 was an "engineering failure". It clearly wasn't. I also didn't say FSB was still being used. Again misquoting me.

If you want to talk about architectures, go ahead. I guess you dislike Netburst's long pipeline and need for a high frequency, like everyone on the internet. 🤷🏽

Not mean to be condescending. I just don't do TLDRs. No one would read it.

Youre right that intel did learn some lessons with P4, Hyperthreading which is still around today. Hyperthreading was more of a band aid fix due too an excessive pipline length.

To be fair, the Pentium 4 was never really competitive with AMDs offerings. It was killed by the Athalon 64.

The only way intel could compete is by ramping up clock speeds. Remember they said that the P4 architecture could reach 10ghz? It's unfortunate that the company decided to listen to its marketing department rather than its engineers.

TLDR
The P4 was a successful marketing campaign and abuse of Anti Trust laws to shut AMD out of the Business. Even though AMD had a better CPU, that Intel Later Copied and called it an I7.

Intel again isn't wining these days, I hope they come back with something good in 2021. Probs a lot hard not being able to cheat anymore without security flaws to increase IPC.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-18, 02:25:

Not mean to be condescending. I just don't do TLDRs. No one would read it.

👍🏽

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-18, 02:25:

...
The only way intel could compete is by ramping up clock speeds. Remember they said that the P4 architecture could reach 10ghz? It's unfortunate that the company decided to listen to its marketing department rather than its engineers.
...

The P4 was designed with high frequencies in mind. Remember at the time it came out intel was limited by 180 nm technology (CuMine / Willamette). Increasing the frequency was hard on P6 architecture precisely due to its short pipeline.

When 130 nm nodes were introduced (Tualatin / Northwood), the P4 really hit its stride. Again, P6 architecture got up to 1.4 GHz (or 1.8 GHz if you count Banias), while Northwood was able to eventually hit 3.4 GHz.

The P4 was really just a product of its time, and was a way of working around an existing physical limitation. In retrospect it may seem bad and its easy to talk ill of it, but if in 2002 you offered me a Pentium3-S or a P4 Northwood, I would have taken the Northwood without even thinking about it.

Sorry to OP for derailing the thread, this is my last reply concerning this.

The P4 was really just a product of its time

Eh, not exactly. Similar CPUs were made before (AMD K6) and after (IBM PowerPC G5) Netburst release. All three were banking on SIMD and other specific optimizations to negate drawbacks of long pipeline.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-12-18, 03:12:

The P4 was really just a product of its time

Eh, not exactly. Similar CPUs were made before (AMD K6) and after (IBM PowerPC G5) Netburst release. All three were banking on SIMD and other specific optimizations to negate drawbacks of long pipeline.

Did you miss the point on purpose?

OP was just saying XP is more suited to a P4.
I was like Core2 is period correct for XP also. p4 is trash.
OP explained I want to push my system to its limits. You value backwards compatibility more. I value forwards compatibility.
I was like I see your point, but if I wanted that I just build latest system. But OP already says he has win 10 boxes so yeah.
Pointless Convo.
Sliver was saying P4 wasn't a total failure.
I kinda agreed but was like AMD still beat it.
I think we kinda agree, But I think Prescott is a total failure still, Northwood is where its at if you want to do a p4 rig. we probs agree about that too.
Anyways Back to my main point Id still probably run XP on a system like this. It's too weak imo to play whatever good games run on DX10 or 11 orginal argument.
which basically was the reason to use Vista over xp, win 7 is really just vista but with all service packs and better supported.
Whatever anyways its still pretty sick system props.

dr_st wrote on 2020-12-17, 23:10:

I think the fundamental difference between our views is that you see such a system as 'retro' and think more about backward compatibility, whether I see it as a machine that can still be useful in the modern world, and so I care about forward compatibility. As I said, I have enough computers more 'retro' than this one, which happily run XP and older games/apps, because the hardware is not really capable of doing anything else.

I think it's great that you chose an operating system for this build that you enjoy and feel works for your intended purpose. That's really what matters.

Personally I recently re-acquired my old Core 2 Quad (it was my daily driver, 2 computers ago) and downgraded it to XP 32-bit. I enjoy using it as an amusingly overpowered XP build, and I find that some old software doesn't play nice with x64 editions of Windows 7/8/10. But I also appreciate that this hardware wasn't really intended for XP (even though it technically supports it)... I do remember at the time of initial build I was using Vista... then switched to 7 and eventually 10. In fact this machine was being used as a family member's daily driver until last year and it actually WAS (and could STILL BE, if we wanted it to be) useful in the modern world!

I think you raised an interesting point... the Core 2 Quad is currently near that boundary where it can be 'modern' or it could be 'retro', depending on your preference!

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-12-17, 23:37:

Case in point - extended support dates are a pretty poor indicator of the usability of an OS

Actually it is, because third-party software is supported up to that point.

That's not true. Generally, there is absolutely no correlation between Microsoft's extended support timelines, and third-party vendors software support. Everyone does what they want. Some choose to follow those timelines (this is often the case with critical infrastructure software such as security or connectivity), others drop support much earlier, and yet others again continue supporting as long as technically possible.

There is also the matter of driver support for new hardware on old OS, which for most hardware vendors becomes an "after thought" long before the OS reaches the end of extended support. Not relevant for a system like this, which is obviously "period correct" for XP, Vista and Win7.

bZbZbZ wrote on 2020-12-18, 05:48:

I think you raised an interesting point... the Core 2 Quad is currently near that boundary where it can be 'modern' or it could be 'retro', depending on your preference!

Exactly. I think what a lot of people ignore is that there is a huge difference between a Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, and a big difference in clock speeds during the life span of Core 2. The Core 2 architecture is not very efficient clock-for-clock compared to modern ones, but the later >3GHz offerings are 50%+ faster than the early ~2GHz offerings just by clock, and the extra two cores of a C2Q make it compete very well in modern multi-tasking, multi-threaded work environments, where a C2D would quickly be brought to its knees.

Depends what your idea of "modern" multi threaded work environments is. My experience as know a C2Q pegs at 75% CPU utilization just to play a 4k video on youtube, and that is considered a menial task by todays standards.

Warlord wrote on 2020-12-18, 11:48:

Depends what your idea of "modern" multi threaded work environments is. My experience as know a C2Q pegs at 75% CPU utilization just to play a 4k video on youtube, and that is considered a menial task by todays standards.

Exactly. 75% CPU utilization for C2Q means that it's still doable, whereas a C2D would choke at this point.

"Menial" or not, but this computer is not connected to a 4K LCD, and never will be, so this is a task I can do without. When I want to play something in 4K, I go to my i7-8700K desktop with GTX 1070 Ti and BenQ PD3200U.

I currently use my core 2 quad box as an overpowered windows XP machine as well.

But, it certainly has some legs, and would still do a surprising amount of the stuff I need to do today with OK performance. Running Vista or Windows 7, or even windows 10, really isn't bad at all on it. Likewise, running windows XP really isn't a waste either, as there are plenty of newer computers about to run my later software.

As for the Pentium 4 .... bleugh. It was a pretty terrible, marketing focused design. However, for building retro computers with them, the northwood and cedar wood versions of the P4 are not too bad. The Prescott versions are quite awful, and the original Willamette versions, are fun because of their uniqueness and rareness. I always stuck with the Athlon CPUs at the time, switching back to Intel with the core 2 quad Q6600 came out.