Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-03-05, 13:07:

Updated my benchmarks to include the 1600x1200 results. I have to say, most WinXP games do actually have enough texture detail to justify this resolution (and higher ones). This is in stark contrast to Win9x games, because they often only used low-res textures (256x256 and such). Of course, that makes perfect sense considering the hardware of that time period. But it's still a bit jarring to see blurry textures paired with ultra-crisp polygons when you crank up the resolution.

Anyway, I can see why 1600x1200 remained popular well into the late 2000s under WinXP. I never experienced it back in the day, since the monitor and GPU which I was using at that time couldn't handle it. Now, it's a real treat to finally play games like Doom 3 and Far Cry at that resolution.

I came to the same conclusion after I got a 1600x1200 monitor, somehow I thought I'd only use that resolution for games that were released 2006 or later but I've already used it with one game from 2002.

Which is surprising considering I usually don't go for max resolution and AA, old games all too often start looking somehow clinical to my eyes (not to mention UI going tiny annoyingly often) but there definitely are exeptions. I compared UT2004 at 1600x1200 to 1024x768 which is how I played it back in the day and yeah, I think I'll stick with 1600x1200 😀

Sombrero wrote on 2023-03-05, 14:10:

I came to the same conclusion after I got a 1600x1200 monitor, somehow I thought I'd only use that resolution for games that were released 2006 or later but I've already used it with one game from 2002.

If I were to wager a guess, I'd say that game developers probably started using higher resolution textures around 2000-2001, which is when the GeForce 2 MX became a big hit in the budget market. Of course, some did it even earlier, but they seem to be in the minority.

Which is surprising considering I usually don't go for max resolution and AA, old games all too often start looking somehow clinical to my eyes (not to mention UI going tiny annoyingly often) but there definitely are exeptions.

I think I was using 1024x768 up to around 2007, which is when I got my first 1280x1024 LCD monitor. Kept using that monitor at its native resolution until 2010 or so, and then finally made the switch to widescreen. And yeah, non-scaling UI elements are an annoyance for sure (e.g. Quake 2 HUD looks tiny at 1600x1200) but newer games seem to handle that a bit better.

And here are some of my physical games from the good old XP days:

Again, not all of these will be played on this specific system (e.g. the original Splinter Cell looks best on a GeForce3/4/FX) but they are (mostly) from the WinXP era of gaming. Being budget re-releases, they were all quite cheap. Nowadays, I generally prefer using GOG for WinXP games, but sometimes it's good to have an actual physical copy to compare. Just in case GOG included some wrappers aimed at modern systems and such. Anyhow, here's a brief review of some of these:

Command & Conquer Saga

This release contains The First Decade and Tiberium Wars. Meaning, it has every game in the C&C series (including expansions) released until 2007. I also have Kane's Wrath in physical form, but for the remaining C&C games, I went fully digital via Steam.

Thief Collection

A later re-release of the first three games. Interestingly, it features the standard version of the original Thief, instead of the later Gold edition. Personally, I don't mind, as that's the version which I played as a kid. I still have the Gold edition on GOG of course. BTW, it says "Windows 2000/XP" on the discs, but I was able to install Thief 1&2 under WinME just fine. This collections contains the base (unpatched) versions of the games, but it does have the latest official patches included on the discs.

Splinter Cell Espionage Pack

Includes the original Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow, as well as physical manuals for both, which is very much appreciated. Surprisingly, these still come on CDs (3 per game) despite this being a budget release. I really like the larger box housing all of this.

Gothic 2

I prefer having the retail release since it allows me to play the base game, without the NOTR expansion. While the new content is fairly good, the expansion completely changes the game balance, making every enemy encounter about ten times harder. I don't mind this too much, but it does necessitate a change my play style, putting more focus on grinding. Sometimes, I'm in the mood for a more relaxed stroll through the world of Gothic 2, in which case I go with just the base game. And when I do want the expansion content, I use the GOG version.

Risen

Another one that comes with a physical manual. This is the German version, which is my preferred way of playing all Piranha Bytes games. These tend to have better voice acting since PB is a German developer. An audio CD containing the game's soundtrack is also included. In my view, this is a great addition since the music in this game is absolutely fantastic.

Star Wars: The Best of PC

A compilation from the mid 2000s which contains five Star Wars games: Battlefront, Empire at War, Jedi Outcast, Knights of the Old Republic and Republic Commando. Not bad for a budget release.

Replaced the 3350P CPU with an 3570K. I wasn't really looking to upgrade, but the 3570K came bundled with some other parts that I bought, so I figured why not. The new CPU improved my benchmarks a bit, but I'm still GPU bound at the highest resolutions. Still, plenty of performance for most WinXP era games.

I'm thinking of getting a GTX 970 or something similar, if I can find one cheap. Such a card would certainly pack a bit more punch, but I don't think it would be as silent as my current GTX 650Ti. Seriously, I'm very impressed with how quiet this entire setup is, even under full load.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-13, 16:30:

Replaced the 3350P CPU with an 3570K. I wasn't really looking to upgrade, but the 3570K came bundled with some other parts that I bought, so I figured why not. The new CPU improved my benchmarks a bit, but I'm still GPU bound at the highest resolutions. Still, plenty of performance for most WinXP era games.

I'm thinking of getting a GTX 970 or something similar, if I can find one cheap. Such a card would certainly pack a bit more punch, but I don't think it would be as silent as my current GTX 650Ti. Seriously, I'm very impressed with how quiet this entire setup is, even under full load.

I'm running the non-K 3570 which apparently has the same clocks as the K model. It's incredibly power efficient, IIRC Prime95 all core small fft made it eat about 50W according to HWiNFO. I don't personally need the turbo clocks I so disabled it completely so it runs max 3.4GHz decreasing power usage even further. If I recall correctly it eats something like 15W during UT2004 😆

I've been happy with Asus Strix GTX 960 fan noise, GTX 970 could be a bit noisier as it's faster but that's the model I'd give a try.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-06-13, 17:09:

I've been happy with Asus Strix GTX 960 fan noise, GTX 970 could be a bit noisier as it's faster but that's the model I'd give a try.

Thanks, I'll check out some reviews of that one.

That said, most reviewers appear to be more tolerant to noise than me. For example, they labeled the MSI GTX 970 4G as "very quiet" but when I saw that card in person, it was anything but. That's what always irks me with more powerful hardware. You get more performance, but also more heat and noise. Sometimes, it might not be worth the trade off.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-13, 17:44:

Sombrero wrote on 2023-06-13, 17:09:

I've been happy with Asus Strix GTX 960 fan noise, GTX 970 could be a bit noisier as it's faster but that's the model I'd give a try.

Thanks, I'll check out some reviews of that one.

That said, most reviewers appear to be more tolerant to noise than me. For example, they labeled the MSI GTX 970 4G as "very quiet" but when I saw that card in person, it was anything but. That's what always irks me with more powerful hardware. You get more performance, but also more heat and noise. Sometimes, it might not be worth the trade off.

Yup, I'm also in the less tolerant end of spectrum, when I build I try to get just enough speed to do what I want while minimizing noise and power usage. Just today replaced the original case fans of Fractal Design Define R4 with Noctua NF-S12B redux-700, the original fans weren't too loud but it's so blissfully quiet now.

Also not going full honking ultimate power with the GPU lowers the likelihood of coil whine which is like the worst thing ever.

Interesting reading, got something in the same ballpark coming together here, 3570 non K that I'm putting into a SFF box with a quadro K620, going to be an HTPC machine with whatever games are fun to play on a 32" 720p TV (i.e. nothing with tiny interfaces that I can't read a few feet away)

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-06-13, 19:16:

Interesting reading, got something in the same ballpark coming together here, 3570 non K that I'm putting into a SFF box with a quadro K620, going to be an HTPC machine with whatever games are fun to play on a 32" 720p TV (i.e. nothing with tiny interfaces that I can't read a few feet away)

I like that idea.

A few years back, I had this system set up for a "couch experience" with a PlayStation controller being used for supported Steam games. Also, it served as a nice emulation platform with RetroArch, for those times when I was too lazy to take my physical consoles and CRT TV out of storage.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-06-13, 18:03:

Also not going full honking ultimate power with the GPU lowers the likelihood of coil whine which is like the worst thing ever.

Heh, true. I was fortunate enough to rarely encounter this, but I concur that it's very irritating.

The only thing that comes close to that, in terms of annoyance, are those tiny chipset cooling fans from the early 2000s. They sound unpleasant even when brand new. But when one of these cheap, crappy fans gets worn out through use and age, the noise becomes truly awful.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-06-13, 20:30:

The only thing that comes close to that, in terms of annoyance, are those tiny chipset cooling fans from the early 2000s. They sound unpleasant even when brand new. But when one of these cheap, crappy fans gets worn out through use and age, the noise becomes truly awful.

I used a third party heatsink (some blue Zalman) with my Abit NF7, even back then I found that fan unbearable and I don't even want to know how they sound when worn. Later on I've wondered just how cool that nForce2 chipset was with that passive cooler, may have been a bit toasty. Worked for the 5+ years I used it though, I wish I'd still had that motherboard.

But those damn fans should have stayed in their grave.

PSU and GPU upgrades incoming:

I haven't actually added them to this build yet, but I did try out both on my LGA775 system since it's currently sitting on my test bench. The PSU is brand new of course, while the GPU is used. Prices have finally come down enough that I could actually justify getting this card for 75 EUR. It worked fine under WinXP.

On that note, it seems than an official (not modded) driver which supports GTX 970 cards under WinXP does exist. More info in this thread on MSFN.

The driver version is 344.11 and aspect ratio scaling is present and working fine.

GTX 970 is some thing you should know, memory full capacity across datapath is crooked. First 3.5GB is full bits, last .5GB is reduced to 64bits If I recall correctly will mess up with bandwidth as it get full. This is due to neutered cells in the GPU die.

Safer GPUs is 960 or 980, 980 Ti.

Cheers,

Oh dear, this system is comparable or a bit better than my current Windows 10 system.

I guess your system even would be good enough for StarCraft II - except the operating system ofc.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-09-07, 23:39:

GTX 970 is some thing you should know, memory full capacity across datapath is crooked. First 3.5GB is full bits, last .5GB is reduced to 64bits If I recall correctly will mess up with bandwidth as it get full. This is due to neutered cells in the GPU die.

Safer GPUs is 960 or 980, 980 Ti.

Cheers,

Yup, I've read the Anandtech article on that issue. Apparently, there was even a class-action lawsuit which Nvidia lost. 😁

In-game performance should still be pretty good, at least for pre-2015 games, which is what I'll be playing on this system for the most part. I did take a look at the GTX 960 before making the purchase, but it didn't seem like it would have been a huge upgrade over my old GTX 650 Ti. Maybe 25-30% improvement, or am I wrong there?

The GTX 980 is certainly the more desirable card, but it features a larger TDP, higher price and potentially produces more noise. For those reasons, the GTX 970 seemed like a relatively cheap middle-ground solution. We'll see how it works out.

Disruptor wrote on 2023-09-07, 23:56:

Oh dear, this system is comparable or a bit better than my current Windows 10 system.

I guess your system even would be good enough for StarCraft II - except the operating system ofc.

Cheers! I was actually pretty happy with my GTX 650 Ti until I recently played through Prey (2006) at 1600x1200 with 16xAF and 2xAA. While the game was hitting 60+ FPS most of the time, it would dip below that in some areas with a lot of alpha effects like fire and fog.

This wasn't a huge deal, and could be mitigated by turning on Adaptive V-Sync, but it didn't feel like my system was as powerful as I had originally imagined. That's what prompted me to go for a GPU and PSU upgrade.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-08, 00:08:

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-09-07, 23:39:

GTX 970 is some thing you should know, memory full capacity across datapath is crooked. First 3.5GB is full bits, last .5GB is reduced to 64bits If I recall correctly will mess up with bandwidth as it get full. This is due to neutered cells in the GPU die.

Safer GPUs is 960 or 980, 980 Ti.

Cheers,

Yup, I've read the Anandtech article on that issue. Apparently, there was even a class-action lawsuit which Nvidia lost. 😁

I kept an eye of that at the time, while NVIDIA handled it in it's usual asshole way in the end I never once saw that 3.5GB+0.5GB causing problems with anything other than some test programs that vere specifically designed to trigger an issue with it. In practice the drivers handle themselves around it so well you'll never run into an issue because of it while playing games. It was a great card and still is, no reason to avoid it.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-09-08, 00:08:

In-game performance should still be pretty good, at least for pre-2015 games, which is what I'll be playing on this system for the most part. I did take a look at the GTX 960 before making the purchase, but it didn't seem like it would have been a huge upgrade over my old GTX 650 Ti. Maybe 25-30% improvement, or am I wrong there?

The GTX 980 is certainly the more desirable card, but it features a larger TDP, higher price and potentially produces more noise. For those reasons, the GTX 970 seemed like a relatively cheap middle-ground solution. We'll see how it works out.

At least Techpowerup sets GTX 650 Ti at 53% of GTX 960 relatively so the difference should be bigger than 25-30% on avarage, but as long you are happy with the fan noise and don't mind a bit larger power consumption at 100% GPU utilization I don't see any reason why not go straight to GTX 970 if there is even a remote chance you could use the extra speed with something.

Sombrero wrote on 2023-09-08, 03:43:

I kept an eye of that at the time, while NVIDIA handled it in it's usual asshole way in the end I never once saw that 3.5GB+0.5GB causing problems with anything other than some test programs that vere specifically designed to trigger an issue with it. In practice the drivers handle themselves around it so well you'll never run into an issue because of it while playing games. It was a great card and still is, no reason to avoid it.

Cheers! I've been researching the 970 for a while and came to the conclusion that it can't be so bad since it was Steam's No.1 card for quite some time. 😀

I think what ultimately swayed me were the "4K on a budget" videos from Digital Foundry where they tweaked various settings in order to make older games run at 4K on a 970. This is not exactly my use case, but I figured if it's good enough for that stuff, it should have no problems running WinXP games at 1600x1200 with cranked up AA and AF. I also wanted to run some games at 1080p (whenever that resolution is officially supported) and maybe also play a few Win7 titles from the early 2010s like Bioshock Infinite.

At least Techpowerup sets GTX 650 Ti at 53% of GTX 960 relatively so the difference should be bigger than 25-30% on avarage, but as long you are happy with the fan noise and don't mind a bit larger power consumption at 100% GPU utilization I don't see any reason why not go straight to GTX 970 if there is even a remote chance you could use the extra speed with something.

My bad, I just double checked and you're right of course. I've been looking at so many cards while researching, and it all kinda blurred together. I think the price was the primary deciding factor for the 970 since it was fairly affordable and the ad had just been posted. I've also seen some 4 GB 980s go for slightly higher prices, but those appear to be far less common in my neck of the woods. The 970 was a local purchase with minuscule shipping costs, and that expedited my decision.

I'm still a bit concerned about the noise, since I have seen this card in person before, and it's not exactly silent at full load. But to be fair, I doubt it will ever reach those load parameters while running WinXP era titles, so hopefully, it should be quiet enough for my needs.

650ti has wattage of 110W, yet one could overclock the 750ti bit more or get 760 but all of them blew the watts. But 960 is bit odd on performance for wattage, yet 980 is way better.

980 is way efficient wattage, and pretty good performance for 175W.

Cheers,

Added the new GPU and PSU to the build and updated my benchmarks.

Although it took me the better part of the day to to replace the PSU, revise the cable management and redo the benchmarks on the 970, I'm very happy with the performance boost.