Very cool idea/thread - recently I've really liked the idea of a "retro gaming box" also being compact and low power. Just because it took a full-tower monster to run 1999 games full max in 1999, doesn't mean it has to today. 😊

Some other games I'd consider:

- Something based on Source Engine (if I remember right CS:S has a benchmark utility), and something based on Unreal 3 (I forget if UT3 has a benchmark utility, but there's probably time-demos in the wild). Both were very popular mid-decade, and still continue on today with some developers.

- Oblivion would be great, but it's worth pointing out how variable Oblivion's performance can be based on both configuration of the base game, but also expansion packs, modifications, etc that are run (much like Morrowind before it, and Skyrim after it). The other problem with benchmarking Oblivion is there's no uniform way to do it (it doesn't have a built-in benchmark, and performance can vary heavily depending on where you are/what you're doing in the game).

Other thoughts:

- Newer GPUs will generally not have equivalent performance to a GeForce 7-era card because their shader performance/optimization is *considerably* higher. This can mean substantial differences in performance with games that rely heavily on shaders (like modern games do). Here's an example of that in action, with a GeForce 8800GTX and a Radeon HD 4870: http://www.hwcompare.com/2489/geforce-8800-gt … on-hd-4870-1gb/ And again with the 8800 and 7950GX2: http://bcchardware.com/index.php?option=com_c … 74&limitstart=4 In general the performance should line-up in applications where shader performance isn't as substantial a factor (Quake 3 for example), but for newer titles like Oblivion or what-have-you, I think it's fair to assume the newer card will do better even if it has similar memory bandwidth/fill #s, simply because of improvements in shader performance over the last decade.

- For external sound via USB, there's always the SB Extigy and A2NX. I've used neither, but contemporaneous reviews from IXBT, Tom's, etc seem to indicate good things. I'd personally probably just go with an Audigy SE or something though - they're cheap and easy to find.

squareguy wrote:

Alright I am not going to fight some of the issues I have had with Nvidia's installer requirements and a couple of other minor details so I installed XP SP3. HDMI audio is now functioning.

So newer drivers want SP3? And what is your take on SP3? Notice much of a difference?

- Something based on Source Engine (if I remember right CS:S has a benchmark utility), and something based on Unreal 3 (I forget if UT3 has a benchmark utility, but there's probably time-demos in the wild). Both were very popular mid-decade, and still continue on today with some developers.

Will buy UT3 when it's on sale. A good benchmark is HL2 Lost Coast. Built-in ready to go 😀 Gets around 50 fps at 1920 x 1200 with a 7800GTX. So demanding enough to see some GPU scaling.

- For external sound via USB, there's always the SB Extigy and A2NX. I've used neither, but contemporaneous reviews from IXBT, Tom's, etc seem to indicate good things. I'd personally probably just go with an Audigy SE or something though - they're cheap and easy to find.

PCIe X-Fi Titanium gets my vote. For period correctness Audigy 2 ZS or X-Fi Xteme Music or Xtreme Gamer depending on the game. But PCIe is my favourite.

obobskivich wrote:

Very cool idea/thread - recently I've really liked the idea of a "retro gaming box" also being compact and low power. Just because it took a full-tower monster to run 1999 games full max in 1999, doesn't mean it has to today. 😊

I agree, but on the other hand what else are you going to do with the older hardware, and it will feel like cheating if your "retro" machine is running an i3 or something. :p

My "retro" (as in XP games, roughly 2007 and under) PC is a Core 2 Duo, 3GB DDR2, and a Radeon X800 GTO. As far as compatability goes, XP has a pretty wide reach. I don't have any systems right now I can put Windows 98 on, but when I get some I definitely will.

My "retro" laptop is from 2003, running a Pentium M, with 512MB of ram. It's missing some keys, has a dead battery, and one of the sodimm slots is malfunctioning. But even then, it's used as my router with pfSense installed on it. Best router ever, and the old hardware gets put to use! An old and "slow" laptop can make for a very powerful router, and pfSense has all the features commercial routers have, just finished setting up an OpenVPN server on it so now I can VPN to my house from any public wifi, thanks to that little old laptop. I just recently pulled the mechanical drive and put a flash drive onto it as well. Going to be interesting to see how long the little flash drive lasts before it dies, because it will, eventually. The only moving part left is the fan.

Phil,

On this box I do not notice any difference, it has plenty of RAM and CPU. The issue was with the Nvidia installer, unsure if the HDMI drivers actually require SP3 but it seemed like it did. The video drivers extracted from the installer worked fine on SP2.

obobskivich,

I will try a GTX750 soon but it is a double slot card so I will have to plug it into the PCI-e x4 slot in a HP DC7900 CMT to try. Honestly there is little difference in a video card running in a x4 slot as compared to a x16 slot at least on games of the same generation of the card. It might make a larger difference on games that aren't working the card as hard. If I remember right it was definitely less than 10% and might have been more around 5%.

EDIT:

for giggles... GLQuake 640x480 = 1800FPS, 1920x1080 = 500FPS I think I was getting about 30FPS back when I had a Pentium 200MMX and a Voodoo 1 card. Can't remember if that was at 640x480 or 512x384.

I'm kinda in the same position as you squareguy. My main components (cpu, ram) are there for my XP gaming box, but my video card ( X800 ) was just an extra I had. I mean it works out nicely, but it only has 128MB instead of 256MB vram like most X800s, so if I had a choice i'd probably go with something else. This motherboard also has an AGP and a PCIe 4x slot, so ... choices choices. 😀

fyy is the x4 slot physically a x4 slot or just electrically? If it is a physically full length slot plug in an x16 video card and enjoy. If it is the physically shorter slot then you have two choices, cut the back side of the slot out or cut your card. I have cut a card before and it works rather well hehe. I think it was a Radeon 4670 if I remember right.

squareguy wrote:

fyy is the x4 slot physically a x4 slot or just electrically? If it is a physically full length slot plug in an x16 video card and enjoy. If it is the physically shorter slot then you have two choices, cut the back side of the slot out or cut your card. I have cut a card before and it works rather well hehe. I think it was a Radeon 4670 if I remember right.

Yeah it's just electrically. Physically it's a x16. I had alot of insecurity in plugging a x16 card into a x4 slot, like "Will my performance suffer?!" but all of the reports show that there's very little if any performance difference, atleast for back in the ~2010 times.

As far as 4x physical slots, yeah I thought about cutting some of my cards to fit them in cases with a 4x physical, never had the balls to though, haha! Oh, you can also cut the one end off of the 4x slot so it fits as well. It just depends on whether or not you want to spare the card or the motherboard the pain!

Cheaper cards are the 7900GT and 9600GT. And they are very fast.

What about Resident Evil 4 released for PC in 2007? DirectX 9.0c but I am not sure if there is a benchmark.

maybe Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

squareguy wrote:

What about Resident Evil 4 released for PC in 2007? DirectX 9.0c but I am not sure if there is a benchmark.

maybe Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

I don't know about a benchmark, but I literally finished Resident Evil 4 a few weeks ago on my retro pc with its X800 128MB and it ran smooth as silk at 1280x1024 4xAA and 4xAF. All the cards you guys are mentioning are much faster, so it should be no problem at all. Quite a fun game too.

The list is growing 😀

I think I will settle on a game for every year otherwise it will become too much work.

Ok this is just a rule of thumb list I'm making for myself. Nothing too fancy, expensive or hard to obtain. Sound about right to you?

Basically just need the following.

Core 2 Duo CPU, looks to me like a Wolfdale core is the one to get (I have an E8400, 3.0 GHz). No sense in getting a quad core for an XP gaming box as at best games from this era will make some use of the second core. Save the quad core for a Windows 7 desktop workhorse, if you already have one, those things are getting expensive.

Whatever motherboard that supports the CPU you have. Nothing fancy here, just make sure it has XP drivers, it should.

Somewhere between 2-4 GB RAM. DDR2 or DDR3 depending on your board.

Video card is up to you but if using an OEM computer (these things are a cheap way to get everything except video card, somebody might even give you one) then I would stay away from cards that require any external power. I cannot look at every OEM computer but all the ones I have seen have a non-standard PSU. This means you will be limited to a card of 75-Watts or possibly 35-Watts (as with the HP DC7900 SFF). Otherwise they sky is the limit. If your OEM computer actually still has 4-pin Molex power connectors then of course you can use an adapter for PCI-e external power. I have been tempted to simply use self-piercing power taps or hard solder an adapter to the SATA 12V lines, maybe another time.

For full-height, 75-Watt cards nothing is going to beat a GTX 750 or GTX 750 Ti, these are the new Maxwell architecture and are very power efficient. The GT 740 DDDR5 card is another option, it is less expensive and a little slower than a GTX 750 using 10-Watts more power. Unfortunately the GT 740 I have is factory overclocked and requires external power.

For 35-Watt, low-profile cards its between the GT 635 OEM or the GT 730 GDDR5 card. The GT 630 Rev 2 card is a slightly slower option if you cannot find a GT 635 OEM card. These 3 cards all use the GK208 GPU, any other version of these cards will either be slower, draw a lot more than 35-Watts or both. The 605, 610, 620, 625, 705, 710 and 720 cards are junk.

Luckily Nvidia drivers are still XP compatible... we'll see for how much longer. At that point no future GPU will have XP support. I am actually surprised it has lasted this long. I am sure they didn't go out of their way.

I really do like inexpensive, power efficient and quiet boxes;)

EDIT:

I guess the AMD R7 250 is an option but I have not been a fan of AMD since the days of the Radeon 9600 Pro.

You know mucking around with XP, I haven't had so much fun in a long time!

People say, that's not retro, but for me it was a different retro time in my life. 386 and Pentium I was a poor kid and couldn't afford most of the things. So I was always dreaming of a Roland MT-32 and other gear. But when it comes to the AMD Athlon 64 and Core 2 Duo, I was working in my first proper job, had money, and could afford nice hardware. So this "XP Retro Gaming" is special to me, but for other reasons 😀

The GTX 750 Ti is the efficiency king. Can't wait to see what the next die shrink will brings.

I guess it all comes down to the driver and what games are supported. For that card the earliest driver seems to be from February 24, 2014. This means you are really at the mercy of these drivers with little options if you do run into a compatibility problem.

8800GTX seems to go back to 2006 and 8800GT go back to 2007. After the 8800GT I think Nvidia changed a lot of things in their drivers. This could be something for you to keep an eye out. But unless the glitches are super obvious I don't think it will be easy. I mean the reflections in Far Cry I've never noticed them 😀 It was only after reading forum entries on GOG.com 😊

fyy wrote:

Going with 4GB ram on XP 32 bit is going to have issues. The complete max addressable space on 32 bit is 4GB, that's counting not just ram but motherboard devices and the video card itself. Basically it's going to go like this: 4GB - 256MB (motherboard stuff) - VRAM = Available RAM

So with 4GB ram and a 1GB video card you're looking at around 2.75GB of usable ram.

I think we had this discussion before, just a while ago, don't remember the thread.
The whole video RAM is not necessarily mapped as an LFB into the CPU's address space. Just imagine what would happen with a 4GB card.
The XP limit of 4GB is somewhat artificial. PAE allows to use more than 4GB. The Windows server editions (Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Windows Server 2003 Enterprise) can use more than 4GB even in 32 bit mode.
Windows XP SP1 32 bit can use more than 4GB when using PAE mode, SP2 introduced a change to limit the address space to 4 GB. (Depending on what you want to believe that was either to prevent compatibility problems, or Microsoft being evil as usual and restricting that feature to more expensive server versions of Windows.
There are unofficial patches for the 32 bit versions of Vista and 7, but in that case using the 64 bit version might be easier.
(Of course Linux won't have that restriction.)

Of course it's still possible that the chipset also has a restriction. I recently installed a Dell Latitude D820 and 4GB get limited to about 3.25GB already visible in the BIOS setup.

philscomputerlab wrote:

PCIe X-Fi Titanium gets my vote. For period correctness Audigy 2 ZS or X-Fi Xteme Music or Xtreme Gamer depending on the game. But PCIe is my favourite.

None of those are low profile though. 😊

A good benchmark is HL2 Lost Coast. Built-in ready to go 😀 Gets around 50 fps at 1920 x 1200 with a 7800GTX. So demanding enough to see some GPU scaling.

Doesn't Lost Coast require Half-Life 2 though? I was thinking of CS:S' benchmark primarily because it's free. 😊

fyy wrote:

I agree, but on the other hand what else are you going to do with the older hardware, and it will feel like cheating if your "retro" machine is running an i3 or something. :p

I think it's an ontological debate. Personally I'm more interested in being able to play games of yesteryear than being able to fully re-create the computing experience of yesteryear. So I don't have a big issue with, for example, my Win98 box having a GeForce FX - especially when the FX lets me enable AA and AF across the board, where a GeForce or Voodoo 2 would not.

Sure, building a big old dinosaur is fun, but I think it's working at a different goal. 😊

squareguy wrote:

obobskivich,

I will try a GTX750 soon but it is a double slot card so I will have to plug it into the PCI-e x4 slot in a HP DC7900 CMT to try. Honestly there is little difference in a video card running in a x4 slot as compared to a x16 slot at least on games of the same generation of the card. It might make a larger difference on games that aren't working the card as hard. If I remember right it was definitely less than 10% and might have been more around 5%.

Tom's Hardware has done tests on PCIe scaling every few years since it was released, you can see some of them here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-expre … sis,1572-8.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-expre … nce,2887-9.html

There's also this review from TPU:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_587 … _Scaling/3.html

You can see it depends fairly heavily on the specific game/settings as to whether or not there's a big impact.

Something else to keep in mind - the newer GeForce 700 cards may have issues with older PCIe boards, even if they're supposed to be compatible on paper. I've personally observed this with GTX 770, and read of others having similar woes with the 770 and 750. So there may be a chance that the 750 will not even work with the DC7900 based on its age.

philscomputerlab wrote:

8800GTX seems to go back to 2006 and 8800GT go back to 2007. After the 8800GT I think Nvidia changed a lot of things in their drivers. This could be something for you to keep an eye out. But unless the glitches are super obvious I don't think it will be easy. I mean the reflections in Far Cry I've never noticed them 😀 It was only after reading forum entries on GOG.com 😊

They broke some shadows and lighting in TS2 and possibly SAGE somewhere around 320 (which is fairly recent), and it's across all supported products from what I've read (I've only personally seen/confirmed it on Kepler - it is super obvious). If you want super wide ranging driver support, GeForce 7 and 8 tend to be good choices - GeForce 7 was discontinued in early 2013, and GeForce 8/9/200 will be coming off post-340 (probably by the end of this year).

idspispopd wrote:

I think we had this discussion before, just a while ago, don't remember the thread.

Almost every thread that mentions XP invariably ends up entangled in a quasi-conspiracy-theory-esque debate about the evil sorcerer Bill Gates and his minion Steve Ballmer and their quest to ruin everyone's fun by limiting Windows 2000 and XP to 4GB of memory, while flaunting Windows 2000 ASE and DCE with 16GB+ of memory as proof of their nefarious misdeeds.

Of course reality doesn't quite align with that story, but it's always fun to see what new permutations folks come up with. 🤣

In a more specific context: for our purposes running videogames from mid-decade, the 4GB limit is a non-issue, and for the most part only having 2GB of system memory is also a non-issue (I can't actually think of a mid-decade game that would have a problem with "only" 2GB, but there are some later DirectX 9 titles that may, which a system like the one proposed in this thread could certainly run).

I will slam a GTX 750 in a DC7900 CMT or a HP 6000 CMT today and report back.

Not sure about Lost Coast, I got it from Steam and do own HL2 + Episode 1 and 2.

Anyone know how to benchmark Unreal II? And UT 2004?

Also a shame that the Far Cry benchmarking utility doesn't do 1920 x 1080 or 1920 x 1200. At least it does 1600 x 1200.

HP DC7900 CMT with exact same specs as the HP DC7900 SFF I used, even the same hard drive so software is definitely the same.

Nvidia GTX 750

Far Cry

Here we see that enabling HDR barely makes an impact and it looks like the x4 slot is not hindering performance.

Resolution: 1280×1024
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Pier, demo: 1.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: From System×
Anisotropic filtering: From System×
HDR: level 7
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 129.84 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 129.05 FPS (Run 2)
Average score = 129.44 FPS

Resolution: 1280×1024
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Pier, demo: 1.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: From System×
Anisotropic filtering: From System×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 143.23 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 144.27 FPS (Run 2)
Average score = 143.75 FPS

Phil, here is the demo you like with HDR (Ubisoft -Training)

Resolution: 1280×1024
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Training, demo: Training.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: From System×
Anisotropic filtering: From System×
HDR: level 7
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 160.54 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 166.08 FPS (Run 2)
Average score = 163.30 FPS

Here is a comparison of the three cards I am talking about. I do not yet have the GT 730.

GT635 OEM

GP/S: 7.74
GT/S: 15.5
GB/S: 16
GFLOPS: 742.7

GT 730 (GDDR5)

GP/S: 7.22
GT/S: 14.4
GB/S: 40.0
GFLOPS: 692.7

GTX 750

GP/S: 16.3
GT/S: 32.6
GB/S: 80
GFLOPS: 1044

EDIT:

F.E.A.R at max settings 1280x1024

Minimum: 67
Average: 162
Maximum: 438

Some serious FPS there...

Been looking at the 8800GT and 8800GTS 512. There are sooooo many cards using this chip it gets quite confusing. Seems the fastest cards are the 9800GTX+ and 1 GB version of the GTS250. They are still not really available for peanuts so I don't think I will get any soon, but I will keep my eye out for them.

Now there must be a game or two that have issues with these newer cards, just got to find them 😊 Or maybe not?

I am sure there are games that will have issues. This is fun for me for several reasons. I can build a small, quiet, power efficient box that stomps the crap out of what I had back when the games came out. I am ok with the fact that some games may not look 100% correct or may even fail to run properly. Enough works that I am going to dedicate some hardware and it will be my XP gaming box. That doesn't mean that I won't build something that is actually retro for a game that requires it, if I really want to play it bad enough. Doom 3, F.E.A.R., Half-Life 2 and Far Cry definitely pass the test. If it handles a few others I like, such as Hidden & Dangerous 2, then I will be very happy with it indeed.

The GTX 750 has really spoiled me with excellent frame rates with everything turned on and at high resolutions. It forces me to use a CMT (I had a spare one without RAM so no big deal) since I am a little nervous to use a low-profile GTX 750 (55-Watt card) in the SFF's 35-Watt slot. I think I will actually use the GT 740 in the CMT with a Molex to PCI-e power adapter, since I have not other real use for that card, it is damn close in performance to the GTX 750 on paper even if it does use more power. Since it use the GK107 GPU it also allows me to use alightly older drivers that might possibly be helpful. It is basically a re-badged GTX 650.

Since it will be a CMT I can toss in a full-height audio card and I think I will put in my Audigy 2 card.

If you have never messed with a DC7900 CMT/SFF they are a metric shit-ton of fun for many things. They are enterprise class that is available dirt cheap these days. It has all the stability and bells/whistles you'd expect in enterprise class hardware including onboard TPM module, VT-x, VT-d, and other stuff if interested in VM/security Linux type stuff. Also makes a great Mac OS Mavericks box but I would get a low-profile audio card that has Mavericks support, the Nvidia HDMI can be an issue with the latest patches.

Phil,

Nvidia is sooo bad about rebadging GPU's and having multiple versions of the same card with different GPUs. My joke about GT 640s eludes to that fact, of course AMD does it too.

EDIT:

Then again I am easily confused with the same user having multiple handles.....