A lot of games that were meant for Win9x will run just fine in XP so that isn't an issue except for early titles. XP is better for newer machines and is often more stable although there are exceptions. My opinion about socket A is that for all that one would want or needs is a problem if you need ISA and or agp 3.3v compatibility. Last but not least is the quality of the boards and cpu compatibility. You could go for a late generation board with a nforce 2 chipset with good overclocking and voltage options.

I agree with nforce4max, and I'd add that the system you've got parts for would make a good DX7/8 machine - games from around 2000 to 2003 or thereabouts. Some of them do have trouble running on newer Win Vista/Win7/Win8 boxes (I can think of a few at least). I'd suggest Windows XP for such a machine (especially since you have that Pentium 3 933 on hand). If you found a faster CPU and swapped the graphics card for something like say, a Radeon 9800, it'd handle DX9 much better (probably up to more like 2005 or thereabouts). But as you get further into DX9 games, support with your DX10+ machine will be more or less constant, making it less worthwhile.

As far as "better options" for DX7/8 - aside from a faster CPU, not much comes to mind. The Ti 4600 is the "king" of nVidia's DirectX 8 cards, and is generally faster than its various competition (Matrox Parhelia, SiS Xabre, Radeon 8000, etc), so you should be set there. Newer cards (like the Radeon 9800) would probably be faster, but I don't think the extra performance is really needed for DX7/8 games unless you need to run at very high resolutions.

I've also got a Barton 2800+ sitting on an OEM Compaq motherboard. I could swap that in. My intent for keeping the 1800+ was to try and keep the parts more or less period contemporary. I kind of like the idea of slightly overdoing the CPU so that the system has enough oomph to keep the video card fed.

I'm ok with putting XP on a machine like this but I think I'd keep it at SP1 at the latest. Later service packs just slow down a system like this.

It's kinda hard to think of a really suitable system that sits between a Windows 9x P3 and a Windows XP fast Athlon XP or P4 because there isn't really an OS that sits between XP and 9x. You'll either get a very quick 9x (but will have to limit memory or somehow deal with 9x's memory limitations) or a slower XP rig.

But I guess you could use NLite to tweak XP for performance, perhaps that would help make XP more lean.

I had a similar issue some years ago when I build an Athlon XP (Palomino) 2000+ with 1GB SDRAM. I ended up putting XP on that but (as I never bothered to really put some effort into optimizing both hardware and software) it was kinda sluggish iirc.

senrew wrote:

I've also got a Barton 2800+ sitting on an OEM Compaq motherboard. I could swap that in. My intent for keeping the 1800+ was to try and keep the parts more or less period contemporary. I kind of like the idea of slightly overdoing the CPU so that the system has enough oomph to keep the video card fed.

Personally I'm all for novelty/nostalgia, until it gets in the way of functionality or performance. The Barton is a year or two "newer" than the Ti 4600 or T-Bred/Palomino, but it will provide the extra oomph for games that need it, which seems worthwhile imho.

MSI's website indicates the Barton 2800+ should work too, so it should make a very nice DX7/8 gaming box; here's the webpage I found: http://msi.com/product/mb/KT4V__KT4VL_v1.0.ht … #/?div=Overview

Looks like they still have the various software utilities available too. 😀

I'm ok with putting XP on a machine like this but I think I'd keep it at SP1 at the latest. Later service packs just slow down a system like this.

I'd agree with that too. 😀

Tetrium wrote:

It's kinda hard to think of a really suitable system that sits between a Windows 9x P3 and a Windows XP fast Athlon XP or P4 because there isn't really an OS that sits between XP and 9x. You'll either get a very quick 9x (but will have to limit memory or somehow deal with 9x's memory limitations) or a slower XP rig.

But I guess you could use NLite to tweak XP for performance, perhaps that would help make XP more lean.

I had a similar issue some years ago when I build an Athlon XP (Palomino) 2000+ with 1GB SDRAM. I ended up putting XP on that but (as I never bothered to really put some effort into optimizing both hardware and software) it was kinda sluggish iirc.

With my 2GHz P4 I don't remember noticing any major sluggishness under XP as long as I keep SP3 and heavy anti-virus/spyware/etc stuff off of it. I've got its latest hardware iteration back together and will be reloading the OS soon - will certainly re-assess that situation once it's done. But I'm not expecting any problems. I'm not sure if the chip having SSE2 has any bearing on this - that's the only difference I could potentially think of with the AthlonXP.

As an aside: what about Windows 2000? Lower overall requirements than XP (I think roughly halved), usually lighter running, and has very similar support/compatibility.

Microsoft claims that XP will perform better than Windows ME on the same hardware: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx

No idea how truthful that is, but it's interesting to read nonetheless.

I will add a little more to it that I have done P3 rigs with XP and got great performance for what I needed but for any new build it is best to not let it on the net. Keep any thing in the background to the bare essentials and one won't need to worry much about ram but having fast hard drives is important. The gripe about socket A is that you end up breaking it down into two major categories that determine compatibility, early to mid gives you 3.3v agp but limited cpu support but almost anything after gives DDR 333 and barton support. XP will run just fine with 512mb ram and a 1ghz athlon/duron if everything else is decent. Cheap and sluggish boards shouldn't be used in performance builds plus a sluggish northbridge will sabotage all the hard work. Good cooling for the northbridge for stable memory performance and good cooling on the vrms solves instability when overclocking. Socket 370 is very easy by comparison but socket A is as good as it gets for a medium to low budget 3DFX rocket and GF4-6 build without it being a 64bit era platform. If all possible search out mobile editions that are compatible with the board you pick out for easier use and they overclock better without the huge power consumption. Personally I would get choosy when afforded but when restricted go for less than the newest socket A boards. As for power a small few tap the 12v rail instead of the 5v rail for the cpu but for the rest you will need a strong psu to really enjoy those boards. Ennermax units from the time are more than good enough aside from the cap plague.

nforce4max wrote:

I will add a little more to it that I have done P3 rigs with XP and got great performance for what I needed but for any new build it is best to not let it on the net. Keep any thing in the background to the bare essentials and one won't need to worry much about ram but having fast hard drives is important. The gripe about socket A is that you end up breaking it down into two major categories that determine compatibility, early to mid gives you 3.3v agp but limited cpu support but almost anything after gives DDR 333 and barton support. XP will run just fine with 512mb ram and a 1ghz athlon/duron if everything else is decent. Cheap and sluggish boards shouldn't be used in performance builds plus a sluggish northbridge will sabotage all the hard work. Good cooling for the northbridge for stable memory performance and good cooling on the vrms solves instability when overclocking. Socket 370 is very easy by comparison but socket A is as good as it gets for a medium to low budget 3DFX rocket and GF4-6 build without it being a 64bit era platform. If all possible search out mobile editions that are compatible with the board you pick out for easier use and they overclock better without the huge power consumption. Personally I would get choosy when afforded but when restricted go for less than the newest socket A boards. As for power a small few tap the 12v rail instead of the 5v rail for the cpu but for the rest you will need a strong psu to really enjoy those boards. Ennermax units from the time are more than good enough aside from the cap plague.

I'd add Fortron and Antec to the PSU thing - both of them produced a few models that'll deliver at least 35A on the +5V. 😁

And Mobiles are nice... 😎

obobskivich wrote:

With my 2GHz P4 I don't remember noticing any major sluggishness under XP as long as I keep SP3 and heavy anti-virus/spyware/etc […]
Show full quote

With my 2GHz P4 I don't remember noticing any major sluggishness under XP as long as I keep SP3 and heavy anti-virus/spyware/etc stuff off of it. I've got its latest hardware iteration back together and will be reloading the OS soon - will certainly re-assess that situation once it's done. But I'm not expecting any problems. I'm not sure if the chip having SSE2 has any bearing on this - that's the only difference I could potentially think of with the AthlonXP.

As an aside: what about Windows 2000? Lower overall requirements than XP (I think roughly halved), usually lighter running, and has very similar support/compatibility.

Microsoft claims that XP will perform better than Windows ME on the same hardware: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457057.aspx

No idea how truthful that is, but it's interesting to read nonetheless.

It may very well have been a badly configured system as it was one of my earlier rigs (possibly even from before I joined Vogons). It ran stable, but I think it had a crummy harddrive and a GF2MX or something in it. Can't remember if I gave it SP3 or not.
I've run both ME and XP on Coppermines and ME felt for me more quick then XP (iirc the time it took to get to desktop was quicker and ME's shutdowntime is phenomenal) while requiring much less RAM. Also the GUI feels more quicker in ME.
However, it may very well be that ME is actually relatively slower on newer hardware then XP.
Something else for my todo list 🤣!

I only ever used 2k once. It was alright I guess, but again probably a badly configured computer. I think I used 2k in my 3rd or 4th rig even!
So to me that was back in my stone age 😜

Edit: Now what did impress me was 2003! I gave 2003 a try on a Coppermine 800 and I was impressed by how quick it ran!

I've seen 2000 run pretty successfully on ~500MHz Pentium 3s in the past; my 1GHz Coppermine came with it installed, and was pretty zippy. I've never built a gaming box with Windows 2000 though - honestly have never seen the point, because most of the games that'd warrant such a modern OS have requirements beyond the 300MHz Pentium II that XP requires, so might as well have XP installed. I think the one advantage Windows 2000 has is that it can support up to 8 CPUs depending on version - I've personally never had such a machine at home (and I *despise* every quad-socket board I've ever had the displeasure of working with; the last one met its end at the tip of a pretty big hammer to the sound of "RUSSIAN SPACE STATION, AMERICAN SPACE STATION, ALL. MADE. IN TAIWAN. I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!"), but I know there are some older-ish workstations out there that would need that (like the Gateway NS-9000; if you can find one and have deep enough pockets to deal with any problems it might have).

As far as XP goes - I've had my 2.0GHz P4 since the beginning (way back in 2001); it was lightning fast when it was brand new (especially relative to the Pentium IIs and IIIs I usually dealt with back then). As time went on, the bloat of anti-virus/anti-spyware/etc plus SP2 (and beyond) did slow it down pretty seriously. It was perfectly content to boot up XP or XP SP1 and play WarCraft III all day long, but running SP2 with Norton and Windows Defender and Spybot S&D and on and on...not so much. With PC-BSD it was a great web browsing box though, and I suspect that would still hold true.

It originally had a GeForce 2 MX 200 SDR in it, which was fine in 2001, but very quickly became a thorn in its side. First upgraded it to an MX 440 (which I honestly have no idea what happened to - it was there and then not there; I still theorize it is buried somewhere in my garage, but for all I know it was abducted by aliens), then a GeForce FX; both were substantial for game and multimedia support (especially DVD playback). Especially the FX. A GeForce 4 Ti (like the 4600 mentioned in this thread) should provide similar improvements; if I remember right the 4 Ti cards are relatively well matched to the GeForce FX when you're talking about older games like Quake III or Unreal. They should provide some sort of DVD decode to (if the MX can do it...).

As far as 98/ME vs XP - I'm guessing that for more modern systems with powerful CPUs and lots of memory, XP is probably a better choice for performance, but for hardware that's on the fence for meeting XP's requires, 98 is probably a better choice. I know that when I had a P3-450 in the back, Windows 95 OSR2 was a much better choice than Windows XP from a performance perspective, despite that the machine met XP's system requirements. Of course the other side is, if your application requires one version of Windows over another, that's what you gotta do.

senrew wrote:

Are there better component options for a rig to handle DX7/8 period exclusively?

KT400 is not the optimal performer. If you want a socket A build, then NForce2 Ultra 400 is the chipset to go. But ... well, you already have this MSI board, so you can give it a try.

Most of the Athlon XP 1800+ with Thoroughbred (rev B) core will run "out of the box" @ 166 FSB, which is 11.5x166=1900Mhz.

Some of them will run (slightly overvolted - 1.75-1.8V) @ 200 FSB for 2300 Mhz. If your CPU's Multiplier is unlocked, then you have plenty of other options. Athlons are cheap. Burn them.

Thus you can go for these extra "oomph" and keep it period correct - you can squeeze a lot from the Athlon 😀

The Ti4600 is a cool card, but if you plan to buy it, you could look for Radeon 9700 pro too. Not sure when it was released, but it was a hell of a card.

All the socket A chipsets I have tried, work best when FSB/DDR ratio is 1:1. The problem with KT400 is, that you have PCI/AGP dividers for 166, and then you have to increase both PCI/AGP, together with FSB. If you go for the 200 FSB, to get the max from your DDR400, then you will run it at 40/80 PCI/AGP.

Edit: As some other people already said - stay up to SP1 or SP2 at max. I think that some rumors could actually be true - that after SP3, Microsoft started to destroy XP with the new patches, to open market for their new OS's. I've seen XP deadly slow on a C2D E7500 with 2GB DDR2. (our office HP's) Same PC's are still capable office machines as of today, upgraded with Windows 7.

Yeah the AGP freq is a good thing to note - forgot to bring that up with the K400. The board's BIOS has to be able to run a divider or lock the AGP frequency if you're going to get into serious overclocking. A lot of NF2 boards seem to support this feature, but I'm not sure about VIA based boards.

The Radeon 9700 Pro came out in late 2002, ahead of the nVidia GeForce FX, but after the GeForce 4 Ti. Along with the later 9800 series, it's probably the "jewel" of that generation in terms of overall performance, features, and so on. It would be more "period contemporary" for the Barton AthlonXP, and overall a good choice. If you're going out shopping, why limit yourself to the 9700 Pro? The 9800Pro and 9800XT are faster still. 😎

Here's a review comparison of the Ti 4600 and the 9700 Pro:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/970/6
(the images don't seem to load, but the numbers/data are still there).

For me strict period correctness do not matter much. Also system builds presented here in the forum show that while this may be intended at the start it usually doesn't stay due to 'uncomfortable' limitation in some aspects.

I used Socket A systems as everyday system when it was current tech. From today's perspective there is not much unique use of a late socket A system, since nearly all games run on a modern Win7 system. One relevant thing that comes to mind may be sound acceleration and AGP if you like that.

As platform the early socket A systems need more configuration and have their issues. If you know how to solve them they work well too. From my experience later systems that work well are: KT400 with VT8237 southbridge, KT600, nForce2, KT880 and SIS chipset, where KT600+ is recommended if you want to go for FSB200 CPUs. The Dual channel capabilities of NF2, KT880 do not give much performance benefit in real life.
Graphics card wise depending on CPU I think a GF4Ti4200-4600/Radeon 9600XT (more or less equal perf as 4600 but DX9) would be a start going up to GF6600GT, 6800GT/Ultra or as already written 9800XT. Anything beyond that would not improve performance anymore. It is too bad that they dropped the Video Playback Acceleration from the 6800GT AGP cards.
For newer software don't expect too much performance on an AthlonXP. The main drawback is the missing SSE2 that most new software (video/games) use. With a dedicated player H.264 video runs well, but not using Flash.
The most demanding game I played on my Athlon system was Bioshock. But already this runs now better on modern hardware with more eye candy enabled.

elianda wrote:

I used Socket A systems as everyday system when it was current tech

Me too. I kinda love it ... 😀

elianda wrote:

For newer software don't expect too much performance on an AthlonXP.

This is what I'm gonna check personally - I just need a few more weeks, then I'll open my Socket A topic with a bunch of tests 😀

I had, an still have, the exact same MSI KT4V (MS-6712) board. There is thread about it here. The only edge it has over the other boards in storage, is that it still supports SB-Live "SB16" emulation in pure DOS. So it is one of the fastest DOS-Prompt with Sound Motherboards. But that feature does not seem to matter for the topic starter's intended use.

A lot of this XP talk is boggling. For me, SP2 was slow, but SP3 returned to being quick. I would suggest however, that on an older system, SP1 may be the best choice because you can still disable ACPI which speeds up XP noticeably.

I think I'm going to keep the parts as described for now. It currently has 1.5gb of RAM in it so that should be good for XP if I keep it to SP1 or so. I'll test it there and see how it performs. I may do a double install and swap around a couple of hard drives, one for 98 and one for XP to compare it and see how it behaves under each configuration. I haven't decided on a sound card yet. I've got a Vortex2 Quad card available, but I think my SB Live! may be a better match. I've also got a spare Audigy 2 SE but from what I can tell it's a pretty crappy card. I may try to find a full Audigy for it though.