SpaceCowboy87 wrote:

Thanks a lot for the advice. I really like you're XP build videos, they inspired me to put something together. I know the FX is the best upgrade for that socket, they're just hard to find even used. Im even considering building an AMD FM2+ based modern platform with DDR3 to run XP for the best results. There are some modern motherboards from AsRock that still have XP 32 and 64 bit drivers available for download but it also raises another question. Would 64 bit be better due to no RAM limitation like 32 bit? granted I can find the right drivers for everything.

You can also look for Opterons. They are easier to find and cheaper (relatively), while equivalent to AMD X2 / FX processors. And I personally don't recommend XP 64. Had problems like driver unavailability and some software refusing to run. It will not give you anything but more than 4GB RAM, but who cares about more than 4GB when using XP era software (games and otherwise)? 🤣

if needing more than 3gb of ram that XP lets you use, go with XP SP1 and enable LBA

AFAIK a 32 bit application (like a game) can only use / reserve up to 2 GB. Seeing that all the games are 32 bit games, RAM is really not an issue 😀

3 GB available RAM is all you need.

I'm thinking of getting an all new board and CPU for this project, considering an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.33 paired with a GIGABYTE GA-G41MT and 4GB of Ram. Using a dual-core chip should run high frame rates if paired with the right card. Any thoughts?

SpaceCowboy87 wrote:

I'm thinking of getting an all new board and CPU for this project, considering an Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale Dual-Core 3.33 paired with a GIGABYTE GA-G41MT and 4GB of Ram. Using a dual-core chip should run high frame rates if paired with the right card. Any thoughts?

I think a fast C2D is a perfect chip for XP. 😀 I've got a Xeon 3070 (identical to an E6700) paired with a GF 8800GTX and it runs everything I throw at it easily: My 3DMark01 Mega Thread

Its the sweet spot, I considered a socket AM3+ since most of those motherboards still offer drivers for XP but I had a feeling an Intel setup would run cooler and more efficient. Nothing against AMD processors I love them but Intel takes the win in this case. Now its just a matter of getting the best frame rate with an appropriate card

What's great about AM3+ is the wide range of processors.

With intel there are too many sockets. 775, 1156, 1155, 1150...

The CPUs are cheap, but then you got to hunt down boards. Whereas with AMD you just need one decent AM3 board and you can use a huge range of processors. All of them are plenty fast for a XP retro gamer.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

What's great about AM3+ is the wide range of processors.

With intel there are too many sockets. 775, 1156, 1155, 1150...

The CPUs are cheap, but then you got to hunt down boards. Whereas with AMD you just need one decent AM3 board and you can use a huge range of processors. All of them are plenty fast for a XP retro gamer.

I agree, if one wants to do Intel one is forced to "pick one" and stick with it. As for AMD I will never bother with Bulldozer.

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

What's great about AM3+ is the wide range of processors.

With intel there are too many sockets. 775, 1156, 1155, 1150...

The CPUs are cheap, but then you got to hunt down boards. Whereas with AMD you just need one decent AM3 board and you can use a huge range of processors. All of them are plenty fast for a XP retro gamer.

That's a great point. I never considered it because I had a good 775 board to begin with.

The other reason to avoid 64-bit XP is that it cannot run 16-bit code. That can bite you if you are trying to run some older software.