Well yeah that's definitely overkill for XP 🤣, but if you already have the components why not? Those components are well into the Windows 7 era. As to the RAM, if you're running 32-bit XP then yes more than 4 GB is a waste, it will not be utilized.

As for the 7970 driver, is this not what you need?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/previous-drive … -radeon-hd-7970

Brawndo wrote on 2021-09-08, 23:50:

RAM, if you're running 32-bit XP then yes more than 4 GB is a waste, it will not be utilized.

With a PAE ramdrive the swapfile , and anything else can use the space as a file. So yes, it can be utilized.
I have a 5520 series chipset running XP32 with up to 48GB and it's fine. For speed, as many dimms as memory channels is the fastest, so I wouldn't use just one stick, or all slots - all A slots.

Brawndo wrote on 2021-09-08, 23:50:

Well yeah that's definitely overkill for XP 🤣, but if you already have the components why not? Those components are well into the Windows 7 era. As to the RAM, if you're running 32-bit XP then yes more than 4 GB is a waste, it will not be utilized.

As for the 7970 driver, is this not what you need?
https://www.amd.com/en/support/previous-drive … -radeon-hd-7970

I know it's daft overkill but it's a bit of fun isn't it and the parts are just hanging around in the loft so why not ? And there's sooo many good XP era games to play , I'm chomping at the bit 🤣.
I've already done a P4 3gig , GF4 Ti 4400 Win98se build and that's been really superb playing all my old games again , although at higher frame rates and better resolutions than I ever did back then.
I've really been bitten by the bug now , I'm on ebay , gumtree and marketplace almost every bloody day , got myself two Voodoo 3's for next to nothing and they both work flawlessly which was a big surprise , so now I've been back searching again and found two old retro cases and two socket A boards/cpus , got a ton of old ram with the assorted lot that the voodoo's were in so sorted there as well , I'll build a more era correct PC with those parts , be interesting to see it's performance versus the P4/GF4 build , plus , you have to love a bit of glide too. 😁

As for the drivers , I'm just not too sure , I don't think it's looking good , I'll D/L the last ones and the ones you linked and see how I get on when the PSU arrives , might have to resort to the 5870 if it works but I don't think that's overkill enough for this rig 🤣.

Thanks for the reply , much appreciated

Lee

CwF wrote on 2021-09-08, 23:58:

Brawndo wrote on 2021-09-08, 23:50:

RAM, if you're running 32-bit XP then yes more than 4 GB is a waste, it will not be utilized.

With a PAE ramdrive the swapfile , and anything else can use the space as a file. So yes, it can be utilized.
I have a 5520 series chipset running XP32 with up to 48GB and it's fine. For speed, as many dimms as memory channels is the fastest, so I wouldn't use just one stick, or all slots - all A slots.

Ok thank you CWF , When/If I get it up and running with the 7970 I may just have to come back to you on that , if that's ok ? Pick your brain etc ?

Lee

Macca70 wrote on 2021-09-09, 00:28:

Pick your brain etc ?

I use Gavotte Ramdisk for this. I'm narrowly experienced with engineering analysis openGL 3D stuff and not much of a gamer, so my systems may not be representative. My XP's are long term stable and I still have 24/7/365 boxes.

Now I primarily use a vm under debian with passed quadros for my purposes. The extra memory is used as a primary smb dump for all on the network. Any risk has proved theoretical. Those don't need swap, but get some on the ramdrive.

If I'm going to really focus on some log analysis and push the usage, I fire up a bare metal XP. The one I've tested up to 48GB on is fastest at 24. It is a dual X5672 I reduce to dual dual cores, and it runs a sky 500 roughly equivelant to a w7000 or a HD78xx. With the pro drivers it's 4GB of vram works, it drives a 4k panel. It makes very quick work of things. There the excess ramdrive is used for swap and GB's of the log files I'm working with. It runs silent.

If I remember right, the retail drivers for HD7xxx need .net slipped into to the install, the Pro drivers don't.

Outside of efficiency, there is no such thing as overkill.

Well , bit of an update , the 7970 is causing me a lot of headaches , having all sorts of weird issues , the 14.4 driver will just not have it , won't install manually or via the installer , the 13.9 driver installs manually through device manager but the whole system feels laggy and weird and performance is no where near the expected level , I got another driver installed , forgot which version my heads wrecked and then it just plain wouldn't boot to XP at all.
Then I had some proper head wrecking weird stuff going on where it wouldn't even post a display even though it completed the boot into windows , tried a different PCI-e slot , nothing , removed the 7970 , booted from iGPU and then refitted and it displayed again , then got into XP , removed all AMD drivers and started over , a few boots later it decides to not display again , the card works perfectly in both my sons PC's , Z77 and z97.
Kinda gave up with the 7970 as it was really doing my brain in , decided to try the 5870 because I wasn't sure if it was good or not , popped that in and it booted up just fine , no weirdness , no lagginess , performs really really well , ran several bench's and games and it's really flawless (for XP).
Had it like that for a few days and just generally played lots of games on it , it's been great but it's not REALLY overkill is it ? And that's what I was kind of going for , sigh!!
Are we ever happy or must we just tinker continually ?
Looking around the net it seems there are a few cases of people having no real issues using it in XP and others with continual problems and not being able to get drivers installed.
I have another Z77 motherboard , a Maximus V formula , I might just try it in case it's just one of those weird unexplainable motherboard issues.
I also noticed the 7970 is an Asus Ghz edition which I know were a little later than the vanilla version ?
Clutching at straws , I dunno.
If all that fails I might have to source another card for my sons PC and pinch back my 780ti classy for this XP build 🤣 😂
If anyone has experienced any of this weirdness or has any ideas , please feel free to share any experiences.
Thanks

Lee

Clutching at straws seemed to work , I swapped out the z77 sabertooth for the Z77 Maximus V Formula and the 7970 works absolutely perfectly now , no weird issues , no crashes , XP detects it properly, CCC works fine and all on 14.4 drivers.
Everything runs great Farcry , Doom 3 , Mohaa , Motoracer 1+2 , Grid , Tombraiders , Settlers , NFSU 1+2 etc etc, Mostly GoG installs.
Here's a pic of it in the little Coolermaster Centurion case.
I'm at a loss to explain why the sabertooth just won't work with the 7970 , it's the same chipset etc , it does have a different PCI-e config so whether that's something to do with that I'm not sure , if anything there's a lot more stuff on the board than the sabertooth, I'd think there was something wrong with the sabertooth if the 8800gtx and the HD5870 didn't work so well, odd.
The build needs a bit of wiring tidying to finish it off but I'm happy overall , it is proper overkill for XP with the 3770k @ 4.4 and I love that I can just max everything out and play games at their top graphics settings which I couldn't back in the day with the systems I had back then.

If you go the nVidia rout, its possible to get up too a GTX Titan (Maxwell) working with Windows Xp. Best part is that the GTX Titan still has a DVI-A port, so you can use a DVI-A to VGA adapter to run a CRT directly without converting the signal

Intel also have drivers for the Z87 platform. I've tested both and confirmed that the combination works. Definitely overkill, but still fun

I don't know what's the point of building an XP rig this much overkill, unless dual booting Vista or W7 X64. Half of it's power will be un-utilized and even late-XP era period correct hardware can run any games with triple digit frame rate, maybe except Crysis and World in Conflict unless you go way overboard with the resolution.

With more than 4gb ram, windows server 2003 32bit or windows xp 64bit can be useful I played battlefield 2 on xp 64bit and have run both OS on AMD A8 with 32gb ram. With built in GPU that allocates 2gb ram and of course 4 disk raid 0 😀

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-09-28, 06:22:

I don't know what's the point of building an XP rig this much overkill, unless dual booting Vista or W7 X64. Half of it's power will be un-utilized and even late-XP era period correct hardware can run any games with triple digit frame rate, maybe except Crysis and World in Conflict unless you go way overboard with the resolution.

I dual boot with Windows 10 as its still capable of playing modern games, emulators and GOG/Steam releases that work with Win 10. Works really well TBH.

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-09-28, 06:22:

I don't know what's the point of building an XP rig this much overkill, unless dual booting Vista or W7 X64. Half of it's power will be un-utilized and even late-XP era period correct hardware can run any games with triple digit frame rate, maybe except Crysis and World in Conflict unless you go way overboard with the resolution.

I never think much of it either, it's like having a V8 engine but only firing the cylinders on one side (ok it's not, but you get the idea!)

but sometimes it just for a fun experiment and using what's available i guess, though i'd always use a 64 bit system for a 64 bit OS

it would be interesting to see if it's actually (and meaningfully) faster than a maxxed out 32 bit system

anyway, all the games mentioned also run fine on a late 2000's circa 3ghz dual core with a modest card like the hd5450, even crysis, and all within windows 7

gerry wrote on 2021-09-28, 07:49:

anyway, all the games mentioned also run fine on a late 2000's circa 3ghz dual core with a modest card like the hd5450, even crysis, and all within windows 7

Back in the day I played Crysis with a 2.4GHz Northwood Celeron, Radeon 9600 Pro and 768MB DDR1. It ran 11-15fps on average 1024×768 low, but I almost beat it. For a stealthy style it just about worked.

So "running" is not the issue 😁

RandomStranger wrote on 2021-09-28, 06:22:

I don't know what's the point of building an XP rig this much overkill, unless dual booting Vista or W7 X64. Half of it's power will be un-utilized and even late-XP era period correct hardware can run any games with triple digit frame rate, maybe except Crysis and World in Conflict unless you go way overboard with the resolution.

Like I said above , it was just purely for the hell of it and for fun and it was fun, the best bit ?
Virtually free 👍

Macca70 wrote on 2021-09-08, 23:41:

Hi all […]
Show full quote

Hi all

I've decided to go through some stuff in the loft and build an over the top retro XP rig , I have 2 Asus z77 boards , a sabertooth and a Maximus formula , a 3770k or an i3 3220 ( I'm assuming I'd be better off with the i3 for 4 core 8 thread reasons with the 3770k?)
I've found an old coolermaster case and gave it a clean , drives , cables etc and I'm just waiting for a Corsair PSU to arrive off ebay (Leebay as my wife calls it🙄) , thought I had a spare but the PSU's I have don't have 8 pin cpu cable , I also came across an 8800gtx (known good) a HD 5870(Mmm working ? not sure?) and a HD 7970 (known good) and for ridiculous overkill reasons I fitted the 7970 , so off I went and created a e2b USB Install drive and started gathering drivers and games/apps on another usb drive until I came across the AMD Drivers which only seemed to list 7790 and not 7970 ?
Is this going to scupper my virtually free XP overkill system plans ?
AMD are going to bum me aren't they ?
Also , I've got 16gb of Corsair dom ddr3 in 4 sticks , should I just stick 2 in for 8gig , XP won't use more then 4gb is it ?
SO , just kinda asking if any other idiot like me tried to get a 7970 working in XP ?
Thanks

Lee

Unless you download Windows XP x64 bit edition

The best part of a build like this is you can dual boot 10 and use it for like 80% of modern games with pretty nice performance

ODwilly wrote on 2021-10-01, 04:49:

The best part of a build like this is you can dual boot 10 and use it for like 80% of modern games with pretty nice performance

Exactly