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Gpu advice needed for a WinXP build.

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First post, by flynth

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I'm in the planning phase of a windows XP build and I have 2 GPUs to choose from(currently). A gts250 1gb and a gt310 low height. I know that the gts is much faster, but in practice what is the magnitude of the difference on such system? The lesser card was released in 2009, perhaps it will be fast enough for all the games I would play on a win XP? (late win98 and win XP games like UT, Q3, Doom 3, Crysis[will it run it well?] etc. ).

This will be either a P4 or Athlon 64 system with a motherboard that has one pcie-e slot and few pci. (again I have 2 to choose from, I don't know which cpu is faster as I haven't taken their cooler off yet. I'll choose one with a faster cpu).

I heard best cards for such windows XP build would be similar to Gtx770, but they are a bit expensive still.

I currently have my old Gts250 with 1gb ram, and a low height gt310. Previously I was sure I'll use the gts250, but I was recently given two small desktop cases (one, a lenovo "think centre" pc, the other a hp pc) both cases support only low height cards and between the two only one psu is usable (lenovo psu has no 3.3v).

So instead of a large atx case I'm now thinking about one of those slim cases in desktop configuration.

A gts250 felt like a compromise, but gt310 being even slower... Perhaps it is inadequate for such build. What do you think?

Reply 1 of 28, by SScorpio

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The GTS250 is a much faster card than the GT310.

That said, what is your goal with this system? A P4/A64 build is on the low end of XP performance. And you would be bottlenecking a GTX700 series card an insane amount. If you are shooting for Crysis and the like, Core2 systems are still very inexpensive. An even 2-3 gen i3/5 which will give you the highest XP performance are still very cheap.

Reply 3 of 28, by RandomStranger

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The GT310 is basically an OEM rebranded 9400GT with some OC on its RAM. The GTS250 is a rebranded 9800GTX with a decent OC. It's over 6x faster.

Also, for XP you want a dual core. By today a decent low-end lga775 board with a CPU and probably RAM included you can get for around $10-20. There is no reason going for a single core CPU, especially with a GTS250. As for the GT310, you can use it for a troll build with a Celeron D if you want NetBurst so much.

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Reply 4 of 28, by emosun

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SScorpio wrote on 2022-11-25, 16:17:

That said, what is your goal with this system?

flynth wrote on 2022-11-25, 14:04:

(late win98 and win XP games like UT, Q3, Doom 3, Crysis[will it run it well?] etc. ).

Reply 5 of 28, by flynth

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emosun wrote on 2022-11-25, 17:29:
SScorpio wrote on 2022-11-25, 16:17:

That said, what is your goal with this system?

flynth wrote on 2022-11-25, 14:04:

(late win98 and win XP games like UT, Q3, Doom 3, Crysis[will it run it well?] etc. ).

I've pulled the cooler off of what I thought was an athlon 64, but it turned out to be a phenom 2 x4 at 3ghz (4core). So cpu wise this should be pretty good (allegedly it is only 13% slower per core than i3 at the same clock).

As everyone said gts250 is a much faster card, but realistically would putting in gt310 mean a difference big enough to make some games unplayable/non-enjoyable (fps under 45 etc) in comparison with gts250? I'm trying to understand a measure of difference. For example the difference between 100fps and 200 although huge doesn't really affect playability that much I guess. 100fps is perfectly playable. But the same ratio at let's say 30fps vs 60fps does affect the enjoyment of the game a lot.

So considering games from WinXP era, am I likely to see most of them run well enough on gt310, or do I really need the gts250 for a proper WinXP gaming machine? Also it is worth mentioning I do have a powerfull gpu in my modern rig (an rtx 2070). I run Linux daily, but I do have Windows 10 so any newish games that run on Win7 and above should run well enough on that. The WinXP rig is only for stuff that doesn't work on Win 7 and up.

Reply 6 of 28, by pentiumspeed

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GT310 is really low end and will not offer much even on low details, go with GTS250, will let you have stuff on medium with 1280x1024. If 1080p, there will be loss of performance. Get a GTX 285 later on.

I know this, as I had played with low end video card due to cost on PCs I had back in the day. Started with Geforce2 MX then HD3650. I eventually went on with mid end video cards on main computers current one is GTX 960, and also I have good set of vintage high end GPUs up to GTX 580 to play with.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 7 of 28, by Shponglefan

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flynth wrote on 2022-11-26, 21:57:

The WinXP rig is only for stuff that doesn't work on Win 7 and up.

If that's the case, then I wouldn't worry as much about performance. Generally the only games which won't natively work with later Windows versions are going to be 16-bit Windows games, or games that might have certain features that don't work properly on later systems (e.g. Far Cry w/ certain graphical effects).

All the games you list in the OP (UT, Q3, Crysis, Doom 3) can be run on a more modern system, if performance is a concern. Crysis especially would be much better suited to a later-era XP or Vista / Win 7 machine.

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Reply 8 of 28, by RandomStranger

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pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-11-26, 22:06:

GT310 is really low end and will not offer much even on low details, go with GTS250, will let you have stuff on medium with 1280x1024.

With a decent CPU the GTS250 will allow him to max out almost everything from the XP era (pre-2010) at that resolution and keep it at 60fps (in most cases well above). Crysis however is one exception which requires at least a twice as fast GPU even for that resolution and even with that GPU 60fps is still iffy. Other than that, it's mostly some very late XP era games which can give it a hard time on 1280×1024 or 900p.

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Reply 9 of 28, by flynth

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pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-11-26, 22:06:

GT310 is really low end and will not offer much even on low details, go with GTS250, will let you have stuff on medium with 1280x1024. If 1080p, there will be loss of performance. Get a GTX 285 later on.

I know this, as I had played with low end video card due to cost on PCs I had back in the day. Started with Geforce2 MX then HD3650. I eventually went on with mid end video cards on main computers current one is GTX 960, and also I have good set of vintage high end GPUs up to GTX 580 to play with.

Cheers,

I think I'll have to go with the gts250. That will be my third pc tower case under one desk... . The space is getting a bit cramped, but I guess it is not easy to squeeze a good gpu in a small case on the cheap.

Other games I remember liking back then is System Shock 2, Splinter Cell, Colin McRae Rally, Half Life, Skyrim, Medals of Honor. Also this system will be for older (win98 games) that can benefit from the better performance (starcraft, fallout 1&2, anything else I forgot).

Above it was said gt310 is basically a 9400gt so I looked up some YouTube videos and many games I could possibly try to play on this box run at 20~30 fps on low settings. That convinced me it is definitely an underpowered gpu for this build.

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-11-26, 22:11:
flynth wrote on 2022-11-26, 21:57:

The WinXP rig is only for stuff that doesn't work on Win 7 and up.

If that's the case, then I wouldn't worry as much about performance. Generally the only games which won't natively work with later Windows versions are going to be 16-bit Windows games, or games that might have certain features that don't work properly on later systems (e.g. Far Cry w/ certain graphical effects).

All the games you list in the OP (UT, Q3, Crysis, Doom 3) can be run on a more modern system, if performance is a concern. Crysis especially would be much better suited to a later-era XP or Vista / Win 7 machine.

I didn't realise UT, Doom3,and Crysis will be better on a modern pc. I just assumed there would be compatibility/performance issues with Win 10 being a 64 bit system etc. I heard some copy protection prevents some games from running on win7 and up so I assumed anything older than 10 years is not going to work. Also I have various non-gaming software, but that would be happy with integrated graphics so it is not a factor.

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-26, 22:24:
pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-11-26, 22:06:

GT310 is really low end and will not offer much even on low details, go with GTS250, will let you have stuff on medium with 1280x1024.

With a decent CPU the GTS250 will allow him to max out almost everything from the XP era (pre-2010) at that resolution and keep it at 60fps (in most cases well above). Crysis however is one exception which requires at least a twice as fast GPU even for that resolution and even with that GPU 60fps is still iffy. Other than that, it's mostly some very late XP era games which can give it a hard time on 1280×1024 or 900p.

OK, if crysis runs on Win10 64bit that's fine. I can run it on that.

Reply 10 of 28, by Shponglefan

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flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 00:42:

I didn't realise UT, Doom3,and Crysis will be better on a modern pc. I just assumed there would be compatibility/performance issues with Win 10 being a 64 bit system etc. I heard some copy protection prevents some games from running on win7 and up so I assumed anything older than 10 years is not going to work. Also I have various non-gaming software, but that would be happy with integrated graphics so it is not a factor.

The Steam version of Crysis has copy protection issues, but the GOG version is fine. It's better on a more recent OS since it can use DirectX 10 and Very High settings (Windows XP is limited to High), and it can take advantage of modern ultrawide monitors. I run it on a Win 10 machine with a 21:9 display and it looks fantastic.

There are newer patches for Unreal Tournament that can enable it to run on a modern PC as well, and take better advantage of modern h/w and ultrawide monitors. I similarly run the Steam version of UT with the 469b patch on my Win 10 machine.

Doom 3 also should work on a modern PC. Last time I used it was running the Steam BFG Edition with the VR mod running on either Win 7 or Win 10. The base game should work on a modern Win 10 machine though.

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Reply 11 of 28, by RandomStranger

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flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 00:42:

Other games I remember liking back then is System Shock 2, Splinter Cell, Colin McRae Rally, Half Life, Skyrim, Medals of Honor. Also this system will be for older (win98 games) that can benefit from the better performance (starcraft, fallout 1&2, anything else I forgot).

Skyrim, the original is a modern game from this side of 2010, it requires Steam even for the retail copies and Steam no longer supports anything older than Windows 7. System Shock, Splinter Cell (the original), Colin McRae Rally (the original), Medal of Honor (Allied Assault), StarCraft and Fallout 1-2 really aren't all that pefrormance hungry. Even a GT310 should do well in them.

flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 00:42:

I didn't realise UT, Doom3,and Crysis will be better on a modern pc. I just assumed there would be compatibility/performance issues with Win 10 being a 64 bit system etc. I heard some copy protection prevents some games from running on win7 and up so I assumed anything older than 10 years is not going to work. Also I have various non-gaming software, but that would be happy with integrated graphics so it is not a factor.

To be fair we usually don't do real hardware retro gaming because those games cannot be run on modern PCs. There are some problematic ones, true, but almost everything can be run with a better performance and quality of life improvements on a modern PC. We do it, because for us, the retro hardware and retro OS is part of the experience.

For retail and unpatched games there are cases with incompatibilities, including incompatibilities with DRM, but the digital versions come pre-patched and from GoG without(or non-functioning) copy protection. But that goes both ways. Some mid/late 2000s games which were early on the online authentication bandwagon has copy protection issues. The original retail Half-Life 2 needs Steam authentication, a lot of EA games, like Crysis or Mass Effect (with the exception of Czech and Hungarian releases) as well as Split/Second and GTA IV requires online authentication. So you either have to crack these or connect your retro PC to the internet and hope that the authentication servers are still accessible.

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Reply 12 of 28, by Sombrero

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 07:31:

a lot of EA games, like Crysis or Mass Effect (with the exception of Czech and Hungarian releases) as well as Split/Second and GTA IV requires online authentication. So you either have to crack these or connect your retro PC to the internet and hope that the authentication servers are still accessible.

At least in Mass Effects case the online authentication can be circumvented simply by deleting a single file, I've tested it myself. No idea does that work with every game that has the same crappy DRM.

flynth wrote on 2022-11-25, 14:04:

late win98 and win XP games like UT, Q3, Doom 3, Crysis[will it run it well?] etc.

Other games I remember liking back then is System Shock 2, Splinter Cell, Colin McRae Rally, Half Life, Skyrim, Medals of Honor. Also this system will be for older (win98 games) that can benefit from the better performance (starcraft, fallout 1&2, anything else I forgot).

You will run into some compatibility problems with some Win98 era games. Many if not all of them can be fixed in some way but straight up installing the game from original retail disc and playing it vanilla may not work with all games. I have to use a new renderer with Unreal Tournament to make it playable with my P4 6800 GT rig. System Shock 2 supports only 16-bit color depth out of the box and the GPU's that are being talked here do not support 16-bit dithering causing color banding with the game, this also can be fixed by using the NewDark patch that adds support for DirectX 9 renderer and makes the game compatible with modern systems. Fallout 1&2 will also need a new renderer.

Colin McRae Rally has some unofficial compatibility patch for Win2k/XP so I don't know how well that will work, I have the game but haven't gotten around playing around with it yet. So some trouble is to be expected, but many of them should be fixable.

Reply 13 of 28, by RandomStranger

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Sombrero wrote on 2022-11-27, 08:22:
RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 07:31:

a lot of EA games, like Crysis or Mass Effect (with the exception of Czech and Hungarian releases) as well as Split/Second and GTA IV requires online authentication. So you either have to crack these or connect your retro PC to the internet and hope that the authentication servers are still accessible.

At least in Mass Effects case the online authentication can be circumvented simply by deleting a single file, I've tested it myself. No idea does that work with every game that has the same crappy DRM.

I see. This was the reason I avoided the retail copy of Dead Space for my XP build. But as I see there is a de-authorization tool for these games.
https://activate.ea.com/deauthorize/

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Reply 14 of 28, by Sombrero

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 08:38:
Sombrero wrote on 2022-11-27, 08:22:

At least in Mass Effects case the online authentication can be circumvented simply by deleting a single file, I've tested it myself. No idea does that work with every game that has the same crappy DRM.

I see. This was the reason I avoided the retail copy of Dead Space for my XP build. But as I see there is a de-authorization tool for these games.
https://activate.ea.com/deauthorize/

That just gives the "activation" back if one of the three or five activations the games give have been used and only on the machine where one has been used. If you start the game after de-authorization it will want to activate it online again. Also as it needs to be run on a machine where an activation has been used it can't be used to get activations back if say a previous owner of the game has used them all, which is wonderful.

Also since it needs to call home to an old EA server, the stupid thing might not even work just like Mass Effects DRM if you update the game first before activating.

Reply 15 of 28, by The Serpent Rider

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flynth wrote:

A gts250 felt like a compromise, but gt310 being even slower... Perhaps it is inadequate for such build. What do you think?

That depends if you need or don't need 16-bit dithering support in games. For former you need DirectX 9 video card like Radeon X1900/X1950 and DirectX 10 capable hardware won't do.

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Reply 16 of 28, by flynth

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 07:31:
flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 00:42:

I didn't realise UT, Doom3,and Crysis will be better on a modern pc. I just assumed there would be compatibility/performance issues with Win 10 being a 64 bit system etc. I heard some copy protection prevents some games from running on win7 and up so I assumed anything older than 10 years is not going to work. Also I have various non-gaming software, but that would be happy with integrated graphics so it is not a factor.

To be fair we usually don't do real hardware retro gaming because those games cannot be run on modern PCs. There are some problematic ones, true, but almost everything can be run with a better performance and quality of life improvements on a modern PC. We do it, because for us, the retro hardware and retro OS is part of the experience.

Yes, I too like building those old boxes just for the experience of it mostly. Games are just an extra (as are other programs). I have a Win98 machine too, but that one is not that powerful. It has a Geforce mx440 and a P3 running at 650mhz (100mhz fsb).

RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 07:31:

For retail and unpatched games there are cases with incompatibilities, including incompatibilities with DRM, but the digital versions come pre-patched and from GoG without(or non-functioning) copy protection. But that goes both ways. Some mid/late 2000s games which were early on the online authentication bandwagon has copy protection issues. The original retail Half-Life 2 needs Steam authentication, a lot of EA games, like Crysis or Mass Effect (with the exception of Czech and Hungarian releases) as well as Split/Second and GTA IV requires online authentication. So you either have to crack these or connect your retro PC to the internet and hope that the authentication servers are still accessible.

Back in the day I would buy retail copies of games when they were available in thrift stores for <$5. Those discs landed on a shelf and were never opened usually as by then I moved on to other titles. When they were new releases I would play let's call them backups (for lack of a better word). So I never experienced Skyrim's requirement of Internet connection. I definitely remember having an original half life(all parts) and portal on one disc though, but it might have been on an Xbox rather than pc (I sold the Xbox and all my original games for it long time ago).

Now, I would love to have more original retail discs as I have only a handful, but when they do show up online the prices are quite high. However, I was tempted to buy them, but knowing now that some of those original game discs will not work at all (even on old machines) without Internet access is pretty sad. One of the experiences I really like with old hardware is a certain feeling of independence. No matter what happens, if I have the media and a pc capable of running It, I should be able to run it. This "online requirement" ruins it completely.

It would be useful to have a list of old games that will not work without online auth just to know not to buy them when they show up at various auctions.

Reply 17 of 28, by Sombrero

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flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 11:05:

Now, I would love to have more original retail discs as I have only a handful, but when they do show up online the prices are quite high. However, I was tempted to buy them, but knowing now that some of those original game discs will not work at all (even on old machines) without Internet access is pretty sad. One of the experiences I really like with old hardware is a certain feeling of independence. No matter what happens, if I have the media and a pc capable of running It, I should be able to run it. This "online requirement" ruins it completely.

It would be useful to have a list of old games that will not work without online auth just to know not to buy them when they show up at various auctions.

The link RandomStranger posted should show all the EA games that has the craptastic online activation DRM. Most of them are games you probably aren't interested in, some can be bought from GOG like Dragon Age: Origins and at least in Mass Effects case the DRM can be circumvented.

Other than those there really aren't many others than the ones that are tied to Steam/Origin and besides Half-Life 2 those didn't really start come out until around 2010 I think? But you can always check sites like PCGamingWiki first before buying.

Reply 18 of 28, by RandomStranger

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Sombrero wrote on 2022-11-27, 12:12:
flynth wrote on 2022-11-27, 11:05:

Now, I would love to have more original retail discs as I have only a handful, but when they do show up online the prices are quite high. However, I was tempted to buy them, but knowing now that some of those original game discs will not work at all (even on old machines) without Internet access is pretty sad. One of the experiences I really like with old hardware is a certain feeling of independence. No matter what happens, if I have the media and a pc capable of running It, I should be able to run it. This "online requirement" ruins it completely.

It would be useful to have a list of old games that will not work without online auth just to know not to buy them when they show up at various auctions.

The link RandomStranger posted should show all the EA games that has the craptastic online activation DRM. Most of them are games you probably aren't interested in, some can be bought from GOG like Dragon Age: Origins and at least in Mass Effects case the DRM can be circumvented.

Other than those there really aren't many others than the ones that are tied to Steam/Origin and besides Half-Life 2 those didn't really start come out until around 2010 I think? But you can always check sites like PCGamingWiki first before buying.

I have a retail version of Dragon Age: Origins and it's either one of those games like Mass Effect for which some versions aren't affected or it just works without online activation despite being on the list. PCGamingWiki also doesn't say if it requires online activation.

Anyway, before you buy the retail version of an old game, it's best to check it's PCGamingWiki page.

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Reply 19 of 28, by Sombrero

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-11-27, 15:35:

I have a retail version of Dragon Age: Origins and it's either one of those games like Mass Effect for which some versions aren't affected or it just works without online activation despite being on the list. PCGamingWiki also doesn't say if it requires online activation.

Right, I forgot the main game doesn't have any online requirement but the DLC for it does need online activation, that could also be why it's there. Though they do it through EA/Origin account and not the Securom online DRM. Maybe the expansion did have that.