Core2duo + gtx560 + x-fi is the gold standard. And yes, it does early xp just fine.

Agree with the above.
Socket 775 is dirt cheap and fine for XP games.
I've 2 GTX590's in mine (because I can XP can't even SLI them) Most demanding games are GTA SA or Farming Simulator 2013 (don't judge me!) and run fine with AA, AF, etc maxed out.
Even earlier 9x/XP cross over games are ok If they ran on the P4 the'll run on the new PC.

This is on my Duel Core Xeon with 4GB ram. And yeh I got a Sound blaster X-Fi as well 😀

I got a E8400 Core 2 Duo/Geforce 7950GT/X-Fi Extreme Music setup runs Castle Wolfenstein/Serious Sam/Clive Barker's Undying just fine.
Heck it even runs Unreal Gold but I think that required a tweak of some sort, can't remember.

Yep, E8400 C2D, 2 Gb ram, Radeon HD4870 and a SB Audigy 2 ZS for me, runs pretty much everything.

SSD for XP, spinners for games, it even has a USB-3 card in there. Great machine.

Possible issues that may arise can be related to Dual Cores/Hyperthreading and Speedstep/Cool'n'Quiet on the CPU side, so keep this in mind. Also, some games have issues with CPUs in the high MHz range, classic example that I remember is FIFA 2002 which will crash on anything above 2GHz.

GPU wise, later drivers might cause issues with older games, so that's something to keep in mind as well.

kolderman wrote on 2020-04-06, 11:10:

Core2duo + gtx560 + x-fi is the gold standard. And yes, it does early xp just fine.

You nearly described my system right there!

i have Q9650@3.6ghz Stock Volts, MSI GTX 560ti 1GB and a Fatality X-Fi (PCI)

TEST DESKTOP

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.87GHZ FSB:431MHZ @ 1.35000v
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900A LED Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler Replaced fan with Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Case cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte X38-DQ6
Memory: 16GB DDR2 F2-6400CL5D-8GBPQ @ 862Mhz CL5-6-6-17 @1.8v
GPU 1: Zotac Geforce GTX 980 Ti 6GB AMP! Extreme GDDR5 ZT-90507-10B PCIe (Works fine in XP on my 1920X1200 monitor via DVI for my uses)
GPU 2: Quadro FX 1300 128MB PCIe
NIC: Realtek RTL8111 PCI-E Gigabit
Audio: Audigy 2 Platinum 6.1 SB0240 (9x-8.1)
Audio: Realtek (Windows 10)
Audio: Yamaha YMF724E-V DOS-XP (Possibly Vista-10 32bit)
Monitor Dell U2410 1920x1200
DVD 1: Blu-ray LG UH12LS28
DVD 2: Plextor DVD-R PX-760A
SSD: 2x Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB w/ StarTech.com M.2 to SATA Adapter
HD: Seagate Ironwolf 10TB ST10000VN0004 (XP+)
Case: CoolerMaster ATC-110 Replaced fans with 4x Thermaltake TT-8025A-2B 80mm Case Cooling Fan
PSU: Corsair RM850x
USB3: Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 (5 Ports) (KT5001) w/ Amebay 5.25 Inch Front Panel USB Hub 2port 3.0, USB 2.0 for Computer Case

Multiplier 9
CPU HOST 431
PCI 100
Memory 862
CPU 1.35000v

I have three XP PCs - P4 GF-FX5900, A64 X2 GF-9800GT (1GB) SLI, C2Q HD7870 (2GB) - all with >2GB RAM .

I could not discouver any trouble with early XP-Games on later machines.

My absolute overkill Win7/Win XP dual boot rig:

1Core i5 3570K @ 4.5 GHz
28 GB RAM DDR3 1866 MHz (Windows XP 32bit only sees 4 GB)
3nVidia GeForce GTX 760
4Asus Xonar DX (I actually prefer this one instead of a Creative X-Fi, but that's just me).

No issues with old games, other than a few that need CPU affinity or disabling a few cores in BIOS (Splinter Cell is one of those games - it works with two cores / stutters like crazy on four cores).
But other than that, most games run at 150+ FPS with Antialiasing/Anisotropic Filtering

I also have another WinXP/Win98 dual boot rig, which is a bit more period correct (just a tiny bit 😀 )

1Pentium Dual Core E5800 @ 3.8 GHz
22 GB RAM
3GeForce 6800
4Audigy 2 ZS

This one is fine for most games between 1999 - 2005. Usability in Windows 98 is quite limited, though, because of poor driver support. I also have a GeForce FX 5900 which will most likely replace the 6800 very soon.

Oh, yeah... and another one (also WinXP/Win98 dual boot) 😁

1Core 2 Duo E4700 @ 3.2 GHz
22 GB RAM
3ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (just bought three of these, new & sealed - an absolute beast of a video card for its time)
4Audigy 2 ZS.

This one is extremely versatile. DOS games that I have tested work great, even some that are normally speed sensitive (I don't even understand how this is possible on a Core 2 Duo CPU - could be because of the Audigy 2 SB emulation, but still strange). 2D quality is excellent, very sharp. And as for Windows, most games between 1995 and 2005 work just fine (except games that need 8 bit palleted textures).

Ugh, I got carried away, you were asking something else 😀

Thanks for the replies guys, seems to be little to no problem running early WinXP games on late hardware. I'll take that into consideration moving forward. First I'd like to test an AGP X850XT PE to see if it can give the few extra FPS needed to continue running a Win98/XP dual boot system.

bloodem wrote on 2020-04-06, 19:08:

...... Oh, yeah... and another one (also WinXP/Win98 dual boot) :D […]
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......
Oh, yeah... and another one (also WinXP/Win98 dual boot) 😁

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1Core 2 Duo E4700 @ 3.2 GHz
22 GB RAM
3ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (just bought three of these, new & sealed - an absolute beast of a video card for its time)
4Audigy 2 ZS.

This one is extremely versatile. DOS games that I have tested work great, even some that are normally speed sensitive (I don't even understand how this is possible on a Core 2 Duo CPU - could be because of the Audigy 2 SB emulation, but still strange). 2D quality is excellent, very sharp. And as for Windows, most games between 1995 and 2005 work just fine (except games that need 8 bit palleted textures).

Me just very curious as to what exact motherboard this is, that allows for win98 to work flawlessly(?) with a Core2 and 2Gb of ram ?
And that 9800PRO, is that AGP or PCI-e ?

The motherboard is the famous ASRock 775i65g (at least I thought that it was famous by now?). I have three of these motherboards and they are 100% stable in both Win98 & WinXP when using a Core 2 Duo / Pentium Dual Core (of course, Windows 98 will only see one core - not that this is a problem, since that core is faster than the fastest Pentium 4s out there).
2 GB on Win98 is possible in various ways. I for one am using the patch created by the late R. Loew, which I find to be the most reliable out of all the other fixes.

The 9800 Pro is on AGP (pretty sure no PCI-e card or PCI-e motherboard will work in Win98, but I might be wrong).
I tested tens of games/benchmarks in Win 98 (without encountering a single crash/instability), including, but not limited to: 3DMark99/2000/2001/2003, Expendable (hehe, this one does crash, because it doesn't recognize the CPU, but it's easily fixable with "-nocputest"), GLQuake, Quake 2, Prince of Persia 3D, Need for speed 3/High Stakes/Porsche, Half life, Nocturne, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Gold, Unreal II, Re-Volt and many others. And most of them are running at 500+ FPS (some at 1000+ FPS). 😀 By the way, if anybody is interested, I'm using Catalyst 4.3.
Some pics: