Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-03-24, 19:53:

Horun wrote on 2025-03-23, 22:05:

I did not have any issues (with my e8500 or the q9650) with Call of Duty 4 MW or WAW which recommend a dual core 2.4ghz or better, those games do utilize dual cores.
My only downfall is the nV 8800 GT but have kept it since all the parts are from same 2007-2008 era, there are better vid cards...

I've got myself a much faster GPU. The XP system came with an HD4850, wich was decent enough at 1024x768, but I wanted something similar to a 560ti. I ended up finding an auction for a Sapphire HD 6970, and snatching it for 21€ shipping included. Now I can easily max out games up to 2008 even at 1280x1024, and even add a sprinkle of anti aliasing. Unfortunately some higher details settings for objects and rendering distances will still hamper performances, and it's not the GPU bottlenecking, because I can see it's usage dropping to less than 80%. I guessed it must be a CPU bottleneck. After all those recommended settings weren't there for rocksolid 60 fps at max settings. It's not like today where, if you meet recommended settings, 60 fps at 1080p and higher are a no brainer.

And that's why I wanna max out the gaming potential of the CPU too. Then I can OC it to a 400MHz FSB and run it 1:1 with the 800MHz Corsair ram kit I got. It's a pretty tight ram kit.

Nice GPU for our uses and more than a match for the E8600.
At 21euros it would be rude not to use it.
I have an E8600 system, I run Windows 2000 on it and it runs amazingly well. I had XP on there to see what happens before settling on i7 power for XP, but kept the E8600 for Win2k.

I dont think you would regret that combo, and like you said its more than capable of playing any XP game.

SScorpio wrote on 2025-03-24, 21:31:

Nehalem was out for two years by the time that GPU was released. And Sandybridge was release 2.5 months after that GPU. 2008 games were also a 1 to 1.5 years into Vista, with 7 coming out the next year. LGA 775 can make a good XP machine. But if you want to max games from Vista, 3-4 year old hardware was no longer top of the line. It's not uncommon for games to release where even the best CPU and GPU can't max it. But two years later new hardware is out that finally lets you hit 60fps at maxed settings.

That's why I'm alredy planning a Win7 built around socket 1150 and an Haswell processor (got everything except the GPU for free), coupled with an nVidia card for PhysX support.
Running games like Assassin's Creed and Cod 4 are just an experiment on this machine. NFS Most Wanted alredy is wasted because some ThirteenAG's mods won't work on XP (even with the modified XP ASI Loader).

But, I have to say, modded GTA San Andreas is quite nice on this machine and the CRT, and even Quake 4 is quite nice to look at.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-03-24, 22:08:

Nice GPU for our uses and more than a match for the E8600. At 21euros it would be rude not to use it. I have an E8600 system, I […]
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Nice GPU for our uses and more than a match for the E8600.
At 21euros it would be rude not to use it.
I have an E8600 system, I run Windows 2000 on it and it runs amazingly well. I had XP on there to see what happens before settling on i7 power for XP, but kept the E8600 for Win2k.

I dont think you would regret that combo, and like you said its more than capable of playing any XP game.

Yeah, my plan is to throw at it anything that will give me problems on the 9x systems. Usually they are transitional games that will work fine on Windows XP. I just hope Radeon drivers wont *uck me on that. A 560ti would've costed me double that with shipping.

I now have all drivers except Wifi installed.

Video card is an Nvidia Geforce GTX Titan X.

Driver version is 368.81.

Besides AIDA64 (any specific version?), what other benches would you like results from?

Right now I am going to run:
AIDI64
3DMark2001se
3DMark03
3DMark05
3DMark06
Unigine Sanctuary
Unigine Tropics
Unigine Valley
Unigine Heaven

Also located the chart I made for RAM latency:

@cyclone3d
I'd thrown in SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M + 16M or 32M (depending on how much time you want to spent on benching), Cinebench 2003 or R10/R11.5 and maybe 7-zip benchmark (SiSoft Sandra 2003/2004/2006 if you need a free alternative for AIDA64) ?

Unless you prefer games, in which case you can quite easily test things like Quake III Arena, FEAR, Crysis or Far Cry (last two have bench tools to help with result management, while first two have build-in benchmarks).

I will watch with interest. My 775 XP build is planned to have E8600 and two Geforce 7900 Ultra in SLI. I am debating whether to use an nForce-based DDR2 based motherboard or Intel-based DDR3 motherboard

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-03-26, 18:43:

I will watch with interest. My 775 XP build is planned to have E8600 and two Geforce 7900 Ultra in SLI. I am debating whether to use an nForce-based DDR2 based motherboard or Intel-based DDR3 motherboard

Now, I've been reading forums from that era in the past two/three months since I got my 775 mobo, and I've found out that the nForce chipset wasn't well regarded among overclockers.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-03-27, 08:25:

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2025-03-26, 18:43:

I will watch with interest. My 775 XP build is planned to have E8600 and two Geforce 7900 Ultra in SLI. I am debating whether to use an nForce-based DDR2 based motherboard or Intel-based DDR3 motherboard

Now, I've been reading forums from that era in the past two/three months since I got my 775 mobo, and I've found out that the nForce chipset wasn't well regarded among overclockers.

SLI doesn't work on non nVidia 775 boards, only Xfire does. (Excluding 3rd party SLI hacking)

So if you want SLI and dont want to go down the rabbit hole of hacking SLI on non nVidia boards then its your only option for 775.

Thats a deep dark rabbit hole too involving 3rd party SLI tools to get it kinda working ...have been there myself and I can say for certain it wasn't worth the amount of trouble it caused getting it working.

Now days I just use a EVGA i790 SLI FTW Digital PWM board, the revision I have fixed pretty much all the issues nVidia SLI boards were known for including the shitty northbridge cooling.

The other alternative is to go with X58, which is really just Core2 on steroids, most if not all X58 boards supported SLI and Xfire.

agent_x007 wrote on 2025-03-26, 08:53:

@cyclone3d
I'd thrown in SuperPI 1.5 XS 1M + 16M or 32M (depending on how much time you want to spent on benching), Cinebench 2003 or R10/R11.5 and maybe 7-zip benchmark (SiSoft Sandra 2003/2004/2006 if you need a free alternative for AIDA64) ?

Unless you prefer games, in which case you can quite easily test things like Quake III Arena, FEAR, Crysis or Far Cry (last two have bench tools to help with result management, while first two have build-in benchmarks).

Thanks for the tips. Still working on gathering benchmarks and doing some testing.

The Unigine Heaven and Valley benchmarks would not install on XP, giving the "this in not a valid Win32 application" error. Ended up installing them on my main PC and then just copying over the files it extracted and they work.

Have just about everything except a few games as far as benchmarking goes.

The Titan X gets up to about 75c with just this Pentium D running stock speeds on the Heaven benchmark. Going to cut the exhaust grill bars on it and that should about double the airflow through through the card. I have done the same on newer blower style cards and it helps the heat escape a lot faster. If I was using a junky case, I would also remove the bar in between the slots which also helps these type of cards.

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-03-28, 05:47:

The Unigine Heaven and Valley benchmarks would not install on XP, giving the "this in not a valid Win32 application" error. Ended up installing them on my main PC and then just copying over the files it extracted and they work.

Same, that's why I went for Heaven 1.0 on my rig. I don't know why it happens, since these apps should still be functional on Win XP. Mine is even up to date.

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-03-28, 13:10:

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-03-28, 05:47:

The Unigine Heaven and Valley benchmarks would not install on XP, giving the "this in not a valid Win32 application" error. Ended up installing them on my main PC and then just copying over the files it extracted and they work.

Same, that's why I went for Heaven 1.0 on my rig. I don't know why it happens, since these apps should still be functional on Win XP. Mine is even up to date.

I'm 100% sure it is the install packager they are using that is wanting something that is not in XP and it doesn't actually have proper error catching and reporting.

And even though their web page says it works with XP, they for sure didn't test it after it was packaged up.

I use Heaven 3.0 under WinXP (for widest DX10 option). Getting easy screenshots/results with some sort of validation is hard for it though. Valley is overkill on XP (at least to me), since it's meant to be used on DX11 by default.

"Not Win32 app" error, may mean a lack of .NET 3.x(4.x), DirectX update or Visual C++

For screenshots, I have been using the Print Screen button and then pasting that into Paint and using the select box to cut the results and then pasting the results to the desktop.

Then I open that file that is on the desktop in Paint and save it as a .PNG.

Sounds like a lot more trouble than it is worth but it really is quite quick.

Making progress.
.NET 4.0 didn't help the CPU-Z installer so I downloaded the portable version.

Was doing a bit of research and it turns out that some of the newer installer will never work in XP... or at least will not work unless somebody makes a patch to make them work.

Still have a couple more games to get working and then I should be able to finish the stock tests for the Pentium D 965.

I'll then write down the stock settings so I can replicate with different CPUs and then start messing with RAM speed and timings.

This is going to end up being a huge project. I will post results as I finish rounds of testing. Will probably post results here and then post links to the zipped up screenshots depending on the size. May make a separate thread for this testing, not sure.

For F.E.A.R what version are you using? I own the Platinum Edition on Steam but the main game will not run, but the expansions do... Something about having to have Steam installed.

The GOG version has been recompiled and requires Windows 10.

Guessing the original is the only one that will work?

Really want a full working version for XP that doesn't have the copy protection stuff built-in.

Maybe the Steam version with the .exe for the main game from the original? Not sure what files have stuff for copy protection in them.

Edit: Steam version and using Steamless to remove the Steam DRM should work for any game like this that won't run unless Steam is running / installed.

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-04-03, 05:13:

...
The GOG version has been recompiled and requires Windows 10.
...

Did you test it alredy? Because I was able to install a GOG game on my Win XP machine, with the installer created by them. Assassin's Creed - Director's Cut

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-04-03, 09:30:

Did you test it alredy? Because I was able to install a GOG game on my Win XP machine, with the installer created by them. Assassin's Creed - Director's Cut

F.E.A.R. is the latest victim of the GOG Preservation Program. Once a game has been "preserved" by them, it only works on Win10 and up.

See this thread for more details: Some GOG offline installers not executing under Windows XP

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-03, 10:01:

F.E.A.R. is the latest victim of the GOG Preservation Program. Once a game has been "preserved" by them, it only works on Win10 and up.

See this thread for more details: Some GOG offline installers not executing under Windows XP

Most times you can run the installer and then just copy the files. You might need to delete DLLs that are wrappers for the newer systems.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-03, 10:01:

F.E.A.R. is the latest victim of the GOG Preservation Program. Once a game has been "preserved" by them, it only works on Win10 and up.

Not necessarily, The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2 Special Editions still install on Win7 even though they are both on that preservation program.

But yeah, one should still expect the very real possibility that games on that program might not install on pre-Win10 systems, wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority are like that and quite frankly I think it sucks ass.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-03, 10:01:

Mondodimotori wrote on 2025-04-03, 09:30:

Did you test it alredy? Because I was able to install a GOG game on my Win XP machine, with the installer created by them. Assassin's Creed - Director's Cut

F.E.A.R. is the latest victim of the GOG Preservation Program. Once a game has been "preserved" by them, it only works on Win10 and up.

See this thread for more details: Some GOG offline installers not executing under Windows XP

Ah, rip then.

I mean, it would be cool if they would still offer the older and unpatched version of the game. It feels weird they don't do that alredy.

SScorpio wrote on 2025-04-03, 11:53:

Most times you can run the installer and then just copy the files. You might need to delete DLLs that are wrappers for the newer systems.

Not always. GOG sometimes makes changes to the executable which prevent it from running on WinXP since its (unmodified) kernel lacks the needed functionality.

Quake 2 is one such example. The GOG version of the game will simply error out under WinXP, while working fine on Win10. And that one isn't even on the "preservation" list yet.

Sombrero wrote on 2025-04-03, 11:55:

But yeah, one should still expect the very real possibility that games on that program might not install on pre-Win10 systems, wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority are like that and quite frankly I think it sucks ass.

Sadly, it's not the first time they did this.

I remember watching an older video from Phil where he showed how to extract the ISO image from the (old) GOG version of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. You could then burn that image to a disc, and play it on real DOS hardware. In Phil's video, GOG was still shipping the game with DOSBox, so that was a relatively easy process. But when I bought the game a few years back, GOG had switched to ScummVM, which made the procedure no longer possible.