GeForce 4 is a solid card.

What I usually do is check the release data of a game. This gives you a clue what hardware was available. Graphics card reviews are also a good resource as they often use time relevant games to test.

But your V5 setup might be fast enough to handle these games anyway.

Ok, so looking back, it seems as if the only games I listed that HAS to be run on something newer than my V5 rig would be battlefront II. I'm going to test a few more games on my modern machine to see what else I can't get to play.

Still, the request for suggestions holds.

One thought does come to mind. Since you have late W98 and W8 covered - how about using the WTF hardware for the 'in-between' XP build, but also add W7 along for the ride. There is a wide hardware/driver overlap between the two OS's, and at some point you may start discovering W7-only titles have crept into the 'retro' niche that neither run, or run properly, on either XP or W8+. Kind of 'future-proofing' your proto-retro rig..

In this case max out the system for the benefit of both XP and W7.

I guess I can go with the wtf hardware. Will I lose any backwards compatability with the 9800GX2 when it comes to dx9 or even dx8 games? This would have to handle the older games that require HWT&L that the V5 can't handle.

The 9800 should run older Dx versions fine - in W7 at least, since with XP you are locked into Dx9 anyway. That's not a bad thing,since you can boot off W7 if you need Dx10.

On the other hand, the 9800gx2 is a dual-chip card so you may occasionally run into things like micro stutter or SLI-like performance issues with XP. It's not insurmountable - I ran XP for years on a 7800GT SLI rig and got most things to work out fine. At that point I moved up to W7 and a pair of HD5770 in CF which is similar in performance to the 9800gx2, and it cut right through most early-mid W7 era games. Since the late W7 games will probably find a home in the higher performance W8+ rig - you'll never be short on performance.

The way I see it you're pretty much well covered with a V5 for DX5-6 games plus DX7 games that support Glide. GF4Ti/FX will usually come up at this point, if you want even beefier hardware for those DX5~8 games up to 2003 or so (right to the end of win9x support in games), especially paired with a faster CPU. Though honestly, I don't have much of a problem running DX8+ games on a modern GTX either, once they're installed properly, YMMV though. I did even get some hardware T&L-requiring DX7 games to work IIRC.

A good reason to build an XP machine is to run games that use EAX Advanced HD (from about 2002 on up to the time Vista came and broke support for hardware-accelerated 3D sound). Using ALchemy in Vista/7/8 with these titles may or may not give the same experience as running them in XP (with a proper Creative Audigy or X-Fi of course). Depending on your i7 board/chipset you might still be able to install XP 32bit without problem and have an X-Fi installed for these games. In that case you won't need to build another machine just for XP.

senrew wrote:

I guess I can go with the wtf hardware. Will I lose any backwards compatability with the 9800GX2 when it comes to dx9 or even dx8 games? This would have to handle the older games that require HWT&L that the V5 can't handle.

Can't say for the latter. I mean even with GF6800 you're starting to have problems with DX5-6 games. With DX9+ cards, DX8 might be just alright, DX9+ certainly no problem with modern hardware (even DX11 cards, and I'm sure DX12 cards as well), but DX7--I haven't tried enough titles.

As for Battlefront II, since it's a DX9 game made for XP, I suggest troubleshooting that on your modern rig first.

Anything older than DX7 would automatically be played on the V5 system, with the Glide supporting games and even some standard DX7 games that didn't need the T&L too. The inbetween rig would more appropriately be needed for games that just refuse to run on the modern machine but would be too new for the V5 rig.

I'm going to put together the wtf parts tonight and get XP going and see how these problem games behave.

senrew wrote:

Anything older than DX7 would automatically be played on the V5 system, with the Glide supporting games and even some standard DX7 games that didn't need the T&L too. The inbetween rig would more appropriately be needed for games that just refuse to run on the modern machine but would be too new for the V5 rig.

I'm going to put together the wtf parts tonight and get XP going and see how these problem games behave.

OK, so I have a "modern" enough i7/X58 platform that can run XP 32bit in addition to 7 64bit, and similarly, I'm interested in the list of those "problem games" (DX7/8/9) that I can't play on this machine as well. Let me hypothesize that there are only two criteria that I'll want another machine for DX7+ games (2000 and up):
1) the game really must be run in win9x (therefore it goes on my 9x rig with geforce FX, along with even older DX5-6 games)
2) the game has Aureal A3D support which needs win9x drivers anyway (>>again it goes on 9x rig with Vortex2)

In other words, this X58 rig is my "in-between" rig also. 😀

That's just it, my modern machine has no XP drivers, and no 32-bit drivers for any OS, at least from the manufacturer (It's a Dell XPS 8700).

The inbetween criteria are EAX versions beyond 2.x and games with no OS support for 7. There are a few of them I've come across here and there.

I see, i7-4770 / Haswell is definitely not for XP. Just did a quick search, it seems that there's still some support for XP up to Ivy Bridge (on H77/Z77 boards) with a few caveats, but that's another discussion. At least now we know where the cutoff is.

Yup, EAX "Advanced HD" moniker covers ver 3.0~5.0 (Audigy/Audigy2ZS/X-Fi). Not sure about SE version though.

One more argument for a tricked-out XP/decent W7 build. You'll cover all the 'inbetween' XP/mid-W7 era being set with compatible hardware/drivers/Dx etc.

I wouldn't bother with XP beyond Core2 processors and even that's overkill!

Yea Core 2 Duo, Phenom II or Athlon II make a fine XP machine 😀

DX 10 games (that run under DX9 but have extra features under DX10) like Bioshock came out quite soon.

That "WTF/tricked-out" XP spec is coming to a close now it seems. For now it makes more than a decent win7/8 rig, but of course win7/8 still has room for official support in the coming years.

CPU/platform: i7 Nehalem/Gulftown on X58 or i7 Ivy Bridge on H77/Z77, AMD 990FX/990X (not sure about newer platforms)
RAM: as big as you want for 7/8 64bit, though obviously XP 32-bit will only be able to use up to 4GB
graphics: ?? -- open to suggestion -- GTX780/780Ti/Titan seems to have XP 32bit drivers still, not sure about AMD/Radeon (HD7xxx?)
sound card: X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

Overkill? in a couple years you may be able to get these parts for cheap, so you might want to put these parts on your watch list. 😉
Besides you can also run 7/8-64 on this.

I need to find an X-Fi for the build. C2Q Q6600, 4GB RAM, 9800GX2....X-Fi for sound and I'm set for a 32-bit XP machine.

senrew wrote:

I need to find an X-Fi for the build. C2Q Q6600, 4GB RAM, 9800GX2....X-Fi for sound and I'm set for a 32-bit XP machine.

PCIe Titanium would be the best choice. The other option is a PCI Xtreme Music. There are OEM cards on eBay for little money. But not all of them take the Creative drivers. So be careful.

Why SLI?

😀 It just happens to be the only other PCIe card I have. The 4650 is there too but not too sure on it's backwards compatibility with AMDs driver issues.

The 9800GX2 is a single card/dual gpu deal. Basically two underclocked 8800GTS 512MB cards in a single enclosure.

EDIT: Secondary question...are there any recommended driver versions for this video card? Since it'll be run under XP most of the time, at what point do the drivers hinder DX9 performance?

The first-gen X-Fi cards actually look much nicer with the gold plates indeed. The Titanium series look like a toy in comparison (except maybe the two-channel Ti HD). Assuming there's no practical difference for gaming purposes between the two generations (EMU20K1 vs EMU20K2), apart from the PCI vs PCIe interface, I'll actually go for the first-gen. Also having a legacy PCI card adds to the retro touch/feel. 😎

The Titanium PCIe is a much newer card. It is of higher quality and that is the main reason I would go for them.