VOGONS


Windows XP system spec recommendations.

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Reply 40 of 68, by gerry

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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:56:
Where as I do a lot. I dug out some of my old games and tried to run then on a Windows 7 PC and they wouldnt which is what got m […]
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gerry wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:40:

that's interesting because i realise that i hardly use XP for games at all now - and thats largely thanks to Dosbox, gog and varying patches plus the fairly good compatibility of W7 itself

it's worth having an XP machine, and indeed a 9x one, for some older games - hence i tend to think of specs for those as being 32bit era stuf

Where as I do a lot.
I dug out some of my old games and tried to run then on a Windows 7 PC and they wouldnt which is what got me to resurrect Windows XP.
For virtualisation you should be on the VMWare forums should you?
I mean this site is about having the old hardware and doing it for real right?
If youre going to do it that way then you can just run a VM in Proxmox pass through the hardware from a Tesla and call it a Windows 7 gaming PC right?

And theres nothing wrong with that at all, its just not what Im about. I like the hardware.
Like my music comes on vinyl, reels and discs not a button on a phone.

vogons stands for "very old games on new systems" so really it isn't about "having the old hardware and doing it for real" but the very opposite by that definition

however it has definitely become a forum that has a strong focus on old hardware (and software) and is better for it

dosbox would qualify as a VM but the others (gog, patches) don't so i'm not sure it would fit in a vm forum

I use my (32bit) XP machines mostly for non gaming software now (some games too) but found over time that so many run just fine in W7 that, given a typical W7 systems capacity and power, why not have most on there in one place ready to go

once the game starts the experience is about the same. As long as the game is 'owned' in some way i'm fine (I mean not depending on steam or something external)

to make a music comparison - listen to a song on streaming and its kind of 'rented', listen from mp3 or cd or vinyl and it doesn't depend on a service - and the experience of hearing it isn't that different only the physical actions surrounding the decision to listen to the song are mostly different (i.e. from place record on turntable to press play on mp3 player)

Reply 41 of 68, by ElectroSoldier

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gerry wrote on 2023-10-25, 08:38:
vogons stands for "very old games on new systems" so really it isn't about "having the old hardware and doing it for real" but t […]
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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-24, 17:56:
Where as I do a lot. I dug out some of my old games and tried to run then on a Windows 7 PC and they wouldnt which is what got m […]
Show full quote
gerry wrote on 2023-10-24, 15:40:

that's interesting because i realise that i hardly use XP for games at all now - and thats largely thanks to Dosbox, gog and varying patches plus the fairly good compatibility of W7 itself

it's worth having an XP machine, and indeed a 9x one, for some older games - hence i tend to think of specs for those as being 32bit era stuf

Where as I do a lot.
I dug out some of my old games and tried to run then on a Windows 7 PC and they wouldnt which is what got me to resurrect Windows XP.
For virtualisation you should be on the VMWare forums should you?
I mean this site is about having the old hardware and doing it for real right?
If youre going to do it that way then you can just run a VM in Proxmox pass through the hardware from a Tesla and call it a Windows 7 gaming PC right?

And theres nothing wrong with that at all, its just not what Im about. I like the hardware.
Like my music comes on vinyl, reels and discs not a button on a phone.

vogons stands for "very old games on new systems" so really it isn't about "having the old hardware and doing it for real" but the very opposite by that definition

however it has definitely become a forum that has a strong focus on old hardware (and software) and is better for it

dosbox would qualify as a VM but the others (gog, patches) don't so i'm not sure it would fit in a vm forum

I use my (32bit) XP machines mostly for non gaming software now (some games too) but found over time that so many run just fine in W7 that, given a typical W7 systems capacity and power, why not have most on there in one place ready to go

once the game starts the experience is about the same. As long as the game is 'owned' in some way i'm fine (I mean not depending on steam or something external)

to make a music comparison - listen to a song on streaming and its kind of 'rented', listen from mp3 or cd or vinyl and it doesn't depend on a service - and the experience of hearing it isn't that different only the physical actions surrounding the decision to listen to the song are mostly different (i.e. from place record on turntable to press play on mp3 player)

Oh really.
When was the last thread you saw somebody talking about how to get WipeOut 2097 running on Windows 11 and a 4090 to put those FPS even higher?
Maybe Cannon Fodder on a 3060 or any other very old game on a new system.
I too have a fondness for Windows 7, its a good OS, I just think that XP will have its place because it was the last of the 32bit OSs that has real world games that are not stored on the cloud.

Maybe Windows 7 will become the OS to have in the future because it will still be able to access the cloud, but as it stands today there are quite a few games that wont "just run" on Windows 7. They dont like WOW64 and refuse to run.
For me one of those games is Rainbow Six Rogue Spear. I just cant get it to run on Windows 7.

Reply 42 of 68, by Horun

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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-25, 23:35:

Maybe Windows 7 will become the OS to have in the future because it will still be able to access the cloud, but as it stands today there are quite a few games that wont "just run" on Windows 7. They dont like WOW64 and refuse to run.
For me one of those games is Rainbow Six Rogue Spear. I just cant get it to run on Windows 7.

Like XP if you want to run many old games Win9x proper on Win7 you run 32bit not 64bit.....just saying the 64bit OS of either is not very backward compatible natively .....IMHO
added: as I mentioned in another topic I can run Aldus Pagemaker 4 (1991 DOS app) from in XP 32bit with very little quirks...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 43 of 68, by nd22

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The number of games incompatible with NT 6.X would be too long to even mention them but the list of games incompatible with XP is much shorter and frankly XP has other advantages too like EAX for example! For the 99% of installs XP 32 bit is what I see at my friends, personally I use 32 bit version only, while for the newer version like 7 or 10 the vast majority of installs are the 64 bit version which introduces even more quirks!
From the hardware point of view XP has such a wide compatibility range that it is highly unlikely that will ever be a Windows version to match it, yet alone "out-range-it". I have XP installed on Pentium III Tualatin 1400 and on i7 3770 - and it works just fine with official drivers!

Reply 44 of 68, by darry

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Running an XP VM on modern hardware with PCI passthrough for the GPU and possibly the sound card is another option . See this example on how to get it working [1].

[1]
https://forum.mattkc.com/viewtopic.php?t=206

EDIT : I missed reading this Re: Windows XP system spec recommendations.
After fighting for a few days testing unoffical patches to try to get Windows 7 booting natively on an Asrock X570 board and Windows XP booting on an MSI B450 one, I just gave up .
The closest I got was booting XP into safe mode on the B450. I did not even get that far with Windows 7 on the X570. I did not want to switch XP to a non ACPI HAL and be stuck with a single CPU core .

Windows 7 does work fine natively on the MSI B450 (needed a few easy workarounds).
XP quite happily runs in a VM on a Gigabyte B450 (on which I ran most of my XP tests) with passthrough access to a GT 730 . On the MSI B450, I was able to boot an XP VM from a passed-through Promise Ultra 133 legacy (parallel) PCI controller. The Promise card was connected through a Pericom PCIE to PCI bridge . I suspect that a PCI/PCIE sound card would work just as well .

Reply 45 of 68, by ElectroSoldier

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darry wrote on 2023-10-26, 07:31:
Running an XP VM on modern hardware with PCI passthrough for the GPU and possibly the sound card is another option . See this ex […]
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Running an XP VM on modern hardware with PCI passthrough for the GPU and possibly the sound card is another option . See this example on how to get it working [1].

[1]
https://forum.mattkc.com/viewtopic.php?t=206

EDIT : I missed reading this Re: Windows XP system spec recommendations.
After fighting for a few days testing unoffical patches to try to get Windows 7 booting natively on an Asrock X570 board and Windows XP booting on an MSI B450 one, I just gave up .
The closest I got was booting XP into safe mode on the B450. I did not even get that far with Windows 7 on the X570. I did not want to switch XP to a non ACPI HAL and be stuck with a single CPU core .

Windows 7 does work fine natively on the MSI B450 (needed a few easy workarounds).
XP quite happily runs in a VM on a Gigabyte B450 (on which I ran most of my XP tests) with passthrough access to a GT 730 . On the MSI B450, I was able to boot an XP VM from a passed-through Promise Ultra 133 legacy (parallel) PCI controller. The Promise card was connected through a Pericom PCIE to PCI bridge . I suspect that a PCI/PCIE sound card would work just as well .

B450... Youre even more ambitious than I am ))))
Im thinking of pushing my luck with an X99 board but struggling to come up with a Mini-ITX X99 board that is affordable and not a Chinese Frankenstein board.
Oh and it has to be able to take one of the big Pure Rock tower coolers too so cant have the PCIe slot meer CMs away from the CPU socket.

I looked at that X570 board. I didnt realise Windows 7 support has been dropped.

Yeah a Proxmox KVM will pass any device on into the guest OS. From GPUs ro RAID controllers and you will get bare metal access to it.
There any a lot of tutorials on their web site if thats what youre into.
I had a play around with it a while ago. It could be weird having a 980Ti on an i865 😉

Baremetal Hyper visors have come a long way...

Reply 46 of 68, by darry

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ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-10-26, 10:16:
B450... Youre even more ambitious than I am )))) Im thinking of pushing my luck with an X99 board but struggling to come up with […]
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darry wrote on 2023-10-26, 07:31:
Running an XP VM on modern hardware with PCI passthrough for the GPU and possibly the sound card is another option . See this ex […]
Show full quote

Running an XP VM on modern hardware with PCI passthrough for the GPU and possibly the sound card is another option . See this example on how to get it working [1].

[1]
https://forum.mattkc.com/viewtopic.php?t=206

EDIT : I missed reading this Re: Windows XP system spec recommendations.
After fighting for a few days testing unoffical patches to try to get Windows 7 booting natively on an Asrock X570 board and Windows XP booting on an MSI B450 one, I just gave up .
The closest I got was booting XP into safe mode on the B450. I did not even get that far with Windows 7 on the X570. I did not want to switch XP to a non ACPI HAL and be stuck with a single CPU core .

Windows 7 does work fine natively on the MSI B450 (needed a few easy workarounds).
XP quite happily runs in a VM on a Gigabyte B450 (on which I ran most of my XP tests) with passthrough access to a GT 730 . On the MSI B450, I was able to boot an XP VM from a passed-through Promise Ultra 133 legacy (parallel) PCI controller. The Promise card was connected through a Pericom PCIE to PCI bridge . I suspect that a PCI/PCIE sound card would work just as well .

B450... Youre even more ambitious than I am ))))
Im thinking of pushing my luck with an X99 board but struggling to come up with a Mini-ITX X99 board that is affordable and not a Chinese Frankenstein board.
Oh and it has to be able to take one of the big Pure Rock tower coolers too so cant have the PCIe slot meer CMs away from the CPU socket.

I looked at that X570 board. I didnt realise Windows 7 support has been dropped.

Yeah a Proxmox KVM will pass any device on into the guest OS. From GPUs ro RAID controllers and you will get bare metal access to it.
There any a lot of tutorials on their web site if thats what youre into.
I had a play around with it a while ago. It could be weird having a 980Ti on an i865 😉

Baremetal Hyper visors have come a long way...

I got a GTX 970 to passthrough to an XP guest on my MSI B450 setup. I was previously testing a GTX 750 TI . The last few XP drivers sets for both of these have a black screen issue that affects at least some HDMI monitors, even when running on baremetal, by the way.

Otherwise, the main issue with GPU PCIE passthrough and XP guests with QEMU KVM is the apparent requirement of using the Q35 machine type (officially unsupported for XP guests, incidentally), which limits usable RAM to 2GB in 32-bit XP, at the least. Maybe there is a workaround.

I am experimenting with this under Debian. I could not get the apparently experimental x-vga QEMU command line option to work under stock RHEL builds of QEMU .

I did not want to derail this thread, I only wanted to outline virtualization with PCI passthrough as a possible viable option for Windows XP.

Reply 47 of 68, by shevalier

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theiceman085 wrote on 2023-10-22, 19:01:

This time for windows xp to play games like Far Cry, Doom 3, Call of Duty, Mdel of Honor Allied Assault, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, F.E.A.R, Half Life 2, Halo and many more.

It’s one thing when an application categorically refuses to launch and you need to collect the original rig of that time.
These games run great on Windows 11.
Drivers for X-Fi are also suitable from Windows 10.

Why create entities?

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Diamond monster sound MX300
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value

Reply 48 of 68, by RandomStranger

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shevalier wrote on 2023-11-02, 04:42:
It’s one thing when an application categorically refuses to launch and you need to collect the original rig of that time. These […]
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theiceman085 wrote on 2023-10-22, 19:01:

This time for windows xp to play games like Far Cry, Doom 3, Call of Duty, Mdel of Honor Allied Assault, Medal of Honor Pacific Assault, F.E.A.R, Half Life 2, Halo and many more.

It’s one thing when an application categorically refuses to launch and you need to collect the original rig of that time.
These games run great on Windows 11.
Drivers for X-Fi are also suitable from Windows 10.

Why create entities?

That applies to pretty much everything. You can emulate and use VMs on modern PCs and you won't have more issues than on a baremetal retro PC. This hobby is about continuing to use what's pretty much e-waste because we want to and not because it's the optimal way to do it.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 49 of 68, by CharlieFoxtrot

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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-11-03, 06:31:

That applies to pretty much everything. You can emulate and use VMs on modern PCs and you won't have more issues than on a baremetal retro PC. This hobby is about continuing to use what's pretty much e-waste because we want to and not because it's the optimal way to do it.

I wouldn't personally put it this way as there are different ways and resons to do retro (PC) computing. It all depends what is interesting to you and that can vary a lot.

For me hardware (including repairs and restoration) is very important and that is the reason why I mostly focus on building relatively period correct builds to tackle the era the system was actually used back in the day and as I have bunch of different systems, I can cover wide range of different OSs and time periods. I don't want to and I don't need to run W98 or early XP games 500FPS at 4K and as I'm using also CRTs, I don't need to worry about LCD native resolutions etc. to make things look not horrible: just lower or bump up the resolution if needed. I'm also not interested in hardware much beyond the Socket A/Intel equivalent (socket 754/939 is a borderline case for me). I find late 2000s and newer hardware just boring and it resembles too much what our current systems are, but just slower (Multicore, x64, SATA, unified shader architecture, PCI-X, boring motherboards and chipsets because stuff gets integrated more and more to CPUs from northbridge etc.). Late 2000s is still just obsolete, unintresting e-waste to me like you said. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't agree to the idea that using obsolete hardware and having tons of fun isn't true. On the contrary, it is very important as nowdays electronics are more and more throw-away stuff that is difficult to repair or just gets discarded when the new hottest thing gets released. It is disgusting waste of resources in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion, if someone could have fun with C64 or PC/XT 40 years ago, you can have same fun and even more today!

When talking about gaming, I don't find games from this later era that interesting either as titles itself get very contemporary-like and if I want to, I can play most later XP era stuff on my modern rig too. Besides being uninteresting to me, I find very little use case for these later systems because of the decent compatibility of late XP era games with newer hardware.

For example, my only XP rig is currently a watercooled and overclocked 2500+ Barton with nForce2, 1GB RAM and 5900XT, that is, a system that represents high end gaming system from 2003, and it plays pretty much everything from the era that the build was relevant beautifully and with CRT it is a nice time capsule to the time period when I fiddled with these similar systems A LOT. I don't need or want a system that runs this stuff any better, nor I'm intersted in having a system that can comfortably play significantly later stuff, because I can mostly do that with my modern rig if I want to.

Last edited by CharlieFoxtrot on 2023-11-03, 10:59. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 50 of 68, by RandomStranger

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CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2023-11-03, 08:29:
I wouldn't personally put it this way as there are different ways and resons to do retro (PC) computing. It all depends what is […]
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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-11-03, 06:31:

That applies to pretty much everything. You can emulate and use VMs on modern PCs and you won't have more issues than on a baremetal retro PC. This hobby is about continuing to use what's pretty much e-waste because we want to and not because it's the optimal way to do it.

I wouldn't personally put it this way as there are different ways and resons to do retro (PC) computing. It all depends what is interesting to you and that can vary a lot.

For me hardware (including repairs and restoration) is very important and that is the reason why I mostly focus on building relatively period correct builds to tackle the system was actually used back in the day and as I have bunch of different systems, I can cover wide range of different OSs and time periods. I don't want to and I don't need to run W98 or early XP games 500FPS at 4K and as I'm using also CRTs, I don't need to worry about LCD native resolutions etc. to make things look not horrible: just lower or bump up the resolution if needed. I'm also not interested in hardware much beyond the Socket A/Intel equivalent (socket 754/939 is a borderline case for me). I find late 2000s and newer hardware just boring and it resembles too much what our current systems are, but just slower (Multicore, x64, SATA, unified shader architecture, PCI-X, boring motherboards and chipsets because stuff gets integrated more and more to CPUs from northbridge etc.). Late 2000s is still just obsolete, unintresting e-waste to me like you said. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't agree to the idea that using obsolete hardware and having tons of fun isn't true. On the contrary, it is very important as nowdays electronics are more and more throw-away stuff that is difficult to repair or just gets discarded when the new hottest thing gets released. It is disgusting waste of resources in the grand scheme of things. In my opinion, if someone could have fun with C64 or PC/XT 40 years ago, you can have same fun and even more today!

When talking about gaming, I don't find games from this later era that interesting either as titles itself get very contemporary-like and if I want to, I can play most later XP era stuff on my modern rig too. Besides being uninteresting to me, I find very little use case for these later systems because of the decent compatibility of late XP era games with newer hardware.

For example, my only XP rig is currently a watercooled and overclocked 2500+ Barton with nForce2, 1GB RAM and 5900XT, that is, a system that represents high end gaming system from 2003, and it plays pretty much everything from the era that the build was relevant beautifully and with CRT it is a nice time capsule to the time period when I fiddled with these similar systems A LOT. I don't need or want a system that runs this stuff any better, nor I'm intersted in having a system that can comfortably play significantly later stuff, because I can mostly do that with my modern rig if I want to.

And then there are people who think the same about all retro hardware. Running DOSBox, ScummVM, PCem, x86Box and native running covers all their gaming needs. And it's not an invalid position to hold. This hobby is fueled by nostalgia not just towards the games but also the hardware and the software environment. Everyone interested in these fields to different digrees. Some has no interest in hardware whatsoever and goes full emulation, others build very recent rigs for Windows 7 just out of support, yet others mix old with new hacking old OS on unsupported modern hardware.

My point was shevalier taking an issue with someone else interested in building an XP rig because he personally is not interested in it as if implying you don't do retro right if you don't do it his way.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 51 of 68, by CharlieFoxtrot

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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-11-03, 09:01:

And then there are people who think the same about all retro hardware. Running DOSBox, ScummVM, PCem, x86Box and native running covers all their gaming needs. And it's not an invalid position to hold. This hobby is fueled by nostalgia not just towards the games but also the hardware and the software environment. Everyone interested in these fields to different digrees. Some has no interest in hardware whatsoever and goes full emulation, others build very recent rigs for Windows 7 just out of support, yet others mix old with new hacking old OS on unsupported modern hardware.

My point was shevalier taking an issue with someone else interested in building an XP rig because he personally is not interested in it as if implying you don't do retro right if you don't do it his way.

Yeah, I got you. And yes, emulation is just as valid option as using old hardware and it is definitely understandable why many are completely satisfied with using the emulators you mentioned. In fact, for software preservation emulation is pretty much the way to go in the long term. At some point, old hardware inevitably gives up the ghost and it will be uneconomical or even impossible to repair it, so the only practical way to experience old software after that is through some sort of emulation, either by hardware (FPGA etc.), software or both.

There is indeed no one correct way or correct platform. I'm not pointing any fingers here, only talk in general terms, but in niche hobbyist groups members can get a bit elitist and certain views about the "purity" of the hobby can arise. This should be avoided at all costs as it will not bring new people to the hobby. On the contrary, it turns them away. IMO Vogons is a great place, because here both emulation and old hardware fit nicely under the same roof, so to speak. I started my retro hobby through emulation and gradually moved to vintage hardware (nowadays I have HW roughly from Vectrex and VIC-20 all the way up to sixth gen consoles and early 2000s PCs). I am not that interested in the current emulation scene, so I spend my time here on the hardware side of things, but without emulation it is more than likely that I would't be here in the HW side either.

Reply 52 of 68, by Munx

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Go with a dual-core system - some games will take advantage of 2 threads, some wont. Most will not run faster on more than 2, so 2 cores are optimal.

Intel is preferable - some engines (For example Unreal, whatever Fallout 3 runs on) need tweaks to run properly on AMDs multi-core setups.

Don't go with less than Core2 or Athlon64 x2. Stuff like Pentium D or low-end A64 are not enough for all the games you listed to run smooth. Socket 1155 still supported XP, so 775-1155 platforms or AM2-AM3 should be the target.

2GB of RAM is plenty.

For GPU, higher-end Radeon X1000 series or geforce 7000 series will do. Anything less will result in having to reduce graphics settings for more demanding games like FEAR. You can go newer, even all the way to Radeon HD 7000 or Geforce 900, but some image comparisons I've seen show that newer gen graphics chipsets dont always render older games as well or some times even correctly. Overall it looks to me like Radeon does a better job for older games.

Also Put an Audigy or X-fi card in there, as XP still supports Creatives 3D audio natively.

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The FireStarter 2.0 - The wooden K5
The Underdog - The budget K6
The Voodoo powerhouse - The power-hungry K7
The troll PC - The Socket 423 Pentium 4

Reply 53 of 68, by shevalier

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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-11-03, 09:01:

My point was shevalier taking an issue with someone else interested in building an XP rig because he personally is not interested in it as if implying you don't do retro right if you don't do it his way.

To be honest, I don’t understand the option "let’s install Win98 on Ryzen Threadripper". It does not cover any case, except for the "look how I did it" option.
If you want to play comfortably in extra resolution with sky-high frame rates, then late Windows XP games run perfectly on Windows 11 with modern hardware.
If you want historical hardware, you need to assemble the appropriate rig.
It's like P3C Tualatin. For XP it is too slow, for 98 it is too fast. But everyone wants it.

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Diamond monster sound MX300
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value

Reply 54 of 68, by douglar

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shevalier wrote on 2023-11-03, 10:21:

It's like P3C Tualatin. For XP it is too slow, for 98 it is too fast. But everyone wants it.

"What's the fastest chip that can run on my platform" crosses just about everyone's mind.

So those FX-60 Athlon's, P3c Tualatin's, Pentium Overdrives, and other easy upgrades are always going to stay in high demand.

Curiously, I think the reason that so many high end K6 chips stay available is that is that there are probably more chips available today than working motherboards that support the correct bus speeds and bios.

Reply 55 of 68, by RandomStranger

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shevalier wrote on 2023-11-03, 10:21:
To be honest, I don’t understand the option "let’s install Win98 on Ryzen Threadripper". It does not cover any case, except for […]
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RandomStranger wrote on 2023-11-03, 09:01:

My point was shevalier taking an issue with someone else interested in building an XP rig because he personally is not interested in it as if implying you don't do retro right if you don't do it his way.

To be honest, I don’t understand the option "let’s install Win98 on Ryzen Threadripper". It does not cover any case, except for the "look how I did it" option.
If you want to play comfortably in extra resolution with sky-high frame rates, then late Windows XP games run perfectly on Windows 11 with modern hardware.
If you want historical hardware, you need to assemble the appropriate rig.
It's like P3C Tualatin. For XP it is too slow, for 98 it is too fast. But everyone wants it.

That's the point. You don't understand and you don't have to understand. But it tickles someone's fancy and if it satisfies them you have no room for complaint. If it's not your thing, just ignore it and move on to things that are.

sreq.png retrogamer-s.png

Reply 56 of 68, by timsdf

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People need to remember recommendation is different from "a dream spec" build of an era 😀

Cheap, quiet and reliable build could look like this:

Any LGA1155 motherboard with a PCI slot
i3 3220
2x2gb ddr3 1600mhz
GTX 560ti / 660ti
Soundblaster X-Fi or Augigy 2 ZS PCI
120gb SSD

Versus a dream spec build which makes no sense in real use (win xp) but is awesome regardless:
Evga X58 Classified
i7 980x
3x2gb ddr3 2133mhz cl9
GTX480 SLI
Soundblaster X-Fi titanium PCIe
1Tb SSD

Reply 57 of 68, by VivienM

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timsdf wrote on 2023-11-03, 23:32:
People need to remember recommendation is different from "a dream spec" build of an era :) […]
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People need to remember recommendation is different from "a dream spec" build of an era 😀

Cheap, quiet and reliable build could look like this:

Any LGA1155 motherboard with a PCI slot
i3 3220
2x2gb ddr3 1600mhz
GTX 560ti / 660ti
Soundblaster X-Fi or Augigy 2 ZS PCI
120gb SSD

The crazy thing about this build is, the sound card may be the most expensive part 😀

I admit, my initial reaction to the i3 was 'huh?' but thinking about it... high clock-rate dual core, probably makes at least as much sense for XP as, say, a 45nm C2Q. And if the i3-3220 is much cheaper than an i5 ivy bridge... why not?

Reply 58 of 68, by shevalier

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timsdf wrote on 2023-11-03, 23:32:

Soundblaster X-Fi titanium PCIe

A piece of trash, I apologize for saying this about your dream.
The only normal X-Fi on the PСI-e bus from Creative is Titanium HD.
The rest, regardless of the epithets Extra/Music/Gamer, are variations of the cheapest and most unsuccessful SB0880
Look towards X-Fi from Auzen - Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD or X-Fi Forte 7.1
Or, if you don’t mind the money, then top of X-fi DSP - the Onkyo se-300pcie.
1363d1407717685-onkyo-se-300pcie-sound-card-review-part-i-300pcie_4l.jpg

Unfortunately, it must be admitted that Creative did not know how to make sound cards, but only sound DSP.

Aopen MX3S, PIII-S Tualatin 1133, Radeon 9800Pro@XT BIOS, Diamond monster sound MX300
JetWay K8T8AS, Athlon DH-E6 3000+, Radeon HD2600Pro AGP, Audigy 2 Value

Reply 59 of 68, by ElectroSoldier

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shevalier wrote on 2023-11-04, 06:27:
A piece of trash, I apologize for saying this about your dream. The only normal X-Fi on the PСI-e bus from Creative is Titanium […]
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timsdf wrote on 2023-11-03, 23:32:

Soundblaster X-Fi titanium PCIe

A piece of trash, I apologize for saying this about your dream.
The only normal X-Fi on the PСI-e bus from Creative is Titanium HD.
The rest, regardless of the epithets Extra/Music/Gamer, are variations of the cheapest and most unsuccessful SB0880
Look towards X-Fi from Auzen - Auzen X-Fi HomeTheater HD or X-Fi Forte 7.1
Or, if you don’t mind the money, then top of X-fi DSP - the Onkyo se-300pcie.
1363d1407717685-onkyo-se-300pcie-sound-card-review-part-i-300pcie_4l.jpg

Unfortunately, it must be admitted that Creative did not know how to make sound cards, but only sound DSP.

What makes any of them better than a Titanium X-Fi by Creative?