gerry wrote on 2025-04-24, 07:22:

Generally i find the advice regarding XP and its RAM requirements is overstated too. Sure, have 2gb if its there but lets not say its actually necessary or changes anything in OS performance over 1gb, and lets not pretend that XP is somehow struggling if ram is 512mb

While WinXP will mostly run fine with just 512 MB, many games won't.

As I've said before, it's very easy to test this by using MSI Afterburner and simply looking at the RAM usage while playing a game.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-24, 07:27:

While WinXP will mostly run fine with just 512 MB, many games won't.

As I've said before, it's very easy to test this by using MSI Afterburner and simply looking at the RAM usage while playing a game.

I definitely agree with this.
I mean, even a game such as Far Cry from 2004, will run noticeably better on 1 GB RAM compared to 512 MB.

gerry wrote on 2025-04-22, 13:03:

There are some combinations of hardware / software that i just don't like, often for reasons that aren't informed by performance […]
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There are some combinations of hardware / software that i just don't like, often for reasons that aren't informed by performance, compatibility or any factual thing - more a kind of aesthetic preference. a few:

1) Very old graphics cards on powerful systems - a TNT2 is great on an early agp board, but i just wouldnt like it on a late agp board - even if it "works"
2) office 97 on windows xp - yes i knows its odd but i just prefer some alignment in release dates when it comes to software, even games (except gog, dosbox etc ... )
3), most contentious i guess - 32 bit OSes on 64bit CPUS. I appreciate the effort when someone persuades windows 98 to run on a core 2 or later, but there is something i really don't like about it. its like using a ferrari to go to a corner shop or something, a waste of the second 32bits on the cpu, and one or more of the cores. I even get a lesser version of the same reaction to XP on later 64 bit CPUS and that was actually normal in the last few years of XP's life!

anyway, any Combinations of hardware/software that you just don't like?

I agree with 1 and 2, but not with 3. 😁
I love playing with overpowered systems, seeing what works and what doesn't and I especially love the ability to crank everything up to the max, including the resolution up to 1920 x 1440. 😀

I also have a pet peeve regarding hardware combos: while I like seeing modern recreations of vintage components - such as video cards, sound cards (especially from an engineering achievement standpoint), it's not something I would ever use in any of my builds. I prefer the original hardware with its quirks and weaknesses.

To me it's connecting TFT monitors using VGA cables. Even nowadays I sometimes see it in public stores/offices, and to me that's just so wrong. Even 25 years ago, when I got my first TFT monitor, I made sure it had DVI and also bought a graphics card that had DVI as well.

For the rest, I'm guilty of all of it 😁 I used Office 97 basically throughout the whole XP era and then moved to Office 2K, which I still use nowadays on Win7 32 on my Core 2 Duo 😀 And no, it doesn't look wrong to me. What looks wrong to me is new software. So ugly, so bloated.
Also, bits alone don't determine what is wasted. When I got my Core2Duo laptop, it shipped with Vista. I gave it a chance, ran it for 3 months. But Vista was downright horrible, it was slow and sluggish. After those 3 months I installed XP on it and it was a breeze. No, I did not waste 16 bits by installing XP on it, it was Vista that wasted 16 bits by doing I-don't-know-what that made it so slow. At some point I moved on to Windows 7 on that laptop and it ran fine, definitely faster than Vista. I get it that it's nice to run a 64 bit OS (or 64 bit software in general) on a 64 bit CPU, but in real life it's not that simple.

Kalle wrote on 2025-04-24, 08:58:

To me it's connecting TFT monitors using VGA cables. Even nowadays I sometimes see it in public stores/offices, and to me that's just so wrong. Even 25 years ago, when I got my first TFT monitor, I made sure it had DVI and also bought a graphics card that had DVI as well.

I witnessed an even worse crime than that… I was working on a government site probably around 2005/6 and they got all new computers (P4s) with 17” TFT’s. Not only did they use VGA cables but they also used NT4 images which were set to use only 1024x768 resolution and couldn’t be changed by the user… on 1280x1024 panels! The end result was an atrocious blurry mess.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-24, 07:27:

While WinXP will mostly run fine with just 512 MB, many games won't.

As I've said before, it's very easy to test this by using MSI Afterburner and simply looking at the RAM usage while playing a game.

Sure, there are some games generally mid to late 2000's that can do with a genuine GB of ram on XP, although many of those will play fine on vista / w7 it would be 'period correct' to add some ram and the best graphics card one could get for gaming on XP in those years.

bloodem wrote on 2025-04-24, 07:54:

I agree with 1 and 2, but not with 3. 😁
I love playing with overpowered systems, seeing what works and what doesn't and I especially love the ability to crank everything up to the max, including the resolution up to 1920 x 1440. 😀

I also have a pet peeve regarding hardware combos: while I like seeing modern recreations of vintage components - such as video cards, sound cards (especially from an engineering achievement standpoint), it's not something I would ever use in any of my builds. I prefer the original hardware with its quirks and weaknesses.

pushing machines as a hobby is fine though really, its just an aesthetic thing (not even sure that word actually described it right) and noticing absolutely ott specs being described as entry level or minimal for a good XP experience.

Interesting about recreations as they can be quite popular discussion points on the forum (and on youtube etc), i've nver used any but i'm not sure i'd be put off

Kalle wrote on 2025-04-24, 08:58:

To me it's connecting TFT monitors using VGA cables. Even nowadays I sometimes see it in public stores/offices, and to me that's just so wrong.
Even 25 years ago, when I got my first TFT monitor, I made sure it had DVI and also bought a graphics card that had DVI as well.

There are some good reasons to go VGA, though.. 😀
a) VGA output is free of DRM/copy protection.
b) Some consumer class monitors do apply a filter or scaler to HDMI/DVI input, but not VGA - because VGA is considered PC port.
c) VGA allows all sorts of refresh rates, all sort of timings as input.
DVI/HDMI, however, force the source device to use native panel resolution or refresh rate (60 Hz, often).
This again is bad for users of emulators, such as DOSBox or ZSNES, because the emulated applications aren't exactly fixed to 60 Hz (some use 72 Hz, 50 or 59 Hz).
Using some refresh rate that seems "close enough" results in micro stutters and so on.

hornet1990 wrote on 2025-04-24, 11:20:

Kalle wrote on 2025-04-24, 08:58:

To me it's connecting TFT monitors using VGA cables. Even nowadays I sometimes see it in public stores/offices, and to me that's just so wrong. Even 25 years ago, when I got my first TFT monitor, I made sure it had DVI and also bought a graphics card that had DVI as well.

I witnessed an even worse crime than that… I was working on a government site probably around 2005/6 and they got all new computers (P4s) with 17” TFT’s. Not only did they use VGA cables but they also used NT4 images which were set to use only 1024x768 resolution and couldn’t be changed by the user… on 1280x1024 panels! The end result was an atrocious blurry mess.

I was mostly tolerant of vga to tft, having been guilty myself, but a brand new P4 in 2005 and NT4..... and using non native resolution on tft .... a recipe for slow build headaches and system frustrations

I'm not really opposed to much except 32bit windows versions newer than XP, if it can handle the newer OS's run 64bit for crying out loud, now 32bit OS on a 64bit, nah even back in the day I dual booted 98SE and XP on my AThlon 64

Pairing a 3dfx video card with anything newer than a Pentium III/Athlon is a questionable choice.

I've grown tired of the Pentium III/Windows 98 builds I keep seeing on here. A Pentium III can run an awful lot of operating systems – I once had everything from Windows 3.1 to 7 and several Linux distributions installed on mine.

dr_st wrote on 2025-04-23, 20:52:

Myself I have a strange aversion to Windows XP on Core 2 Quad or newer. For me it's Vista/Win7 territory. There is no logical reason for it - XP is perfectly compatible with even up-to 4th generation Core i7 systems and legitimate use cases exist. It is solely because of the systems I was running during that time period.

Same here.

I don't like the voodoo 2 being paired with a gigahertz system

Odd hardware combinations are fine with me, if a silly combination works then its not silly.

That said some silly combinations don't merit the time spent making it work. like getting 98/XP running on Ryzen systems, I mean why ? so you got it to boot .. what now, you have no driver support and cant do fuck all with it but hey it boots.

So what did you achieve here exactly ?

Or the people who have spent hours and hours trying to get unified shader GPUs to fully run under 98 ...sorry that will never work and no amount of hacking drivers will make it work. At best it'll be a really expensive VGA display adapter with zero acceleration capabilities. Same can be said of the people trying to get Pascal 10XX GPUs to run under XP ... same issue as above, Nvidia software locked them to not run under XP. (Locked in such a way that you cant hack around it)

Other than the clearly waste of time combinations Im ok with silly working combinations.

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-04-25, 02:05:

That said some silly combinations don't merit the time spent making it work. like getting 98/XP running on Ryzen systems, I mean why ? so you got it to boot .. what now, you have no driver support and cant do fuck all with it but hey it boots.

To be fair, some such Win98 compatibility issues arise even when you're running it inside a VM, and therefore are arguably still work debugging rather than having to resort to full emulation

gerry wrote on 2025-04-22, 13:03:

anyway, any Combinations of hardware/software that you just don't like?

Intel Macs! I hate them all.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-25, 01:10:

I don't like the voodoo 2 being paired with a gigahertz system

GemCookie wrote on 2025-04-24, 20:19:

Pairing a 3dfx video card with anything newer than a Pentium III/Athlon is a questionable choice.

I've grown tired of the Pentium III/Windows 98 builds I keep seeing on here. A Pentium III can run an awful lot of operating systems – I once had everything from Windows 3.1 to 7 and several Linux distributions installed on mine.

agree on 3dfx - once tnt2, geforce 2 and later are available they start making more sense for the era.
Also agree on P3 - very capable across many OSes, again there is tendency for some to mistake absolutely top end specs for 'minimal requirements' when discussion the setting up of 98 or xp based retro gaming systems

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-04-25, 02:05:

Odd hardware combinations are fine with me, if a silly combination works then its not silly.

That said some silly combinations don't merit the time spent making it work. like getting 98/XP running on Ryzen systems, I mean why ? so you got it to boot .. what now, you have no driver support and cant do fuck all with it but hey it boots.

it's a good point practically, i still dont like some of the extreme combinations though, and doubt how much use they actually are. Getting 98 or xp running on the latest hardware must just be to have fun testing though, there can't be any serious purpose behind it

maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-25, 01:10:

I don't like the voodoo 2 being paired with a gigahertz system

This one is tricky for me. For a Voodoo 2 (SLI) focused build, I also prefer to go with a Pentium 2 / Pentium 3 / Athlon CPU up to 1 GHz.

However, if the Voodoo 2 is simply used as an added bonus, to enhance compatibility (i.e.: you have a fast Athlon XP / GeForce 4 Ti build, and you also add a Voodoo 2 in order to play good ol' Glide games or even older Direct3D games that the GeForce 4 might not be able to handle properly), then I'm all up for it. In fact, I have not one, but multiple such builds. 😁

Hi, Voodoo 2 is that one 3D accelerator being supported by Power Macs running OS 9.x. Edit: And Mac OS 8.5.
The first Voodoo can also be used in Virtual PC 2/3, but not for native Mac games.
Voodoo 2 is thus *the* 3D add-on card to use for Virtual PC 2/3, SoftWindows 98 and Mac OS 8/9 games.
Early G3 iMacs even had a special Voodoo 2 for mezzanine slot.
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvCDQu9mBR8
And some high end Power Macs G4 do hit the GHz marker just easily.

Edit: Related: Re: Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator Card

gerry wrote on 2025-04-25, 08:38:

agree on 3dfx - once tnt2, geforce 2 and later are available they start making more sense for the era. Also agree on P3 - very […]
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maxtherabbit wrote on 2025-04-25, 01:10:

I don't like the voodoo 2 being paired with a gigahertz system

GemCookie wrote on 2025-04-24, 20:19:

Pairing a 3dfx video card with anything newer than a Pentium III/Athlon is a questionable choice.

I've grown tired of the Pentium III/Windows 98 builds I keep seeing on here. A Pentium III can run an awful lot of operating systems – I once had everything from Windows 3.1 to 7 and several Linux distributions installed on mine.

agree on 3dfx - once tnt2, geforce 2 and later are available they start making more sense for the era.
Also agree on P3 - very capable across many OSes, again there is tendency for some to mistake absolutely top end specs for 'minimal requirements' when discussion the setting up of 98 or xp based retro gaming systems

Trashbytes wrote on 2025-04-25, 02:05:

Odd hardware combinations are fine with me, if a silly combination works then its not silly.

That said some silly combinations don't merit the time spent making it work. like getting 98/XP running on Ryzen systems, I mean why ? so you got it to boot .. what now, you have no driver support and cant do fuck all with it but hey it boots.

it's a good point practically, i still dont like some of the extreme combinations though, and doubt how much use they actually are. Getting 98 or xp running on the latest hardware must just be to have fun testing though, there can't be any serious purpose behind it

3DFX I agree to a point, Voodoo 4500 and 5500 are both fine for later setups anything Voodoo 3 and lower is just silly beyond the P2/P3 unless its for compatibility, that said I still wouldn't throw a Voodoo 5 into anything later than a non HT Northwood P4.

As for the point about it being fun getting 98/Xp to run on a Ryzen ...I guess if you are into self frustration, quite a bit of it for 98 in particular. I suppose it might be as much fun as forcing Win11 to run on a P4 ...thats been done too and it runs okish....if you like slideshows.

I could never get on with the Adptec CD burning software.
I cant remember what it was called. I used it way back when CD burners were new and have memories of it turning out coasters more often than not.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2025-04-25, 22:34:

I could never get on with the Adptec CD burning software.
I cant remember what it was called. I used it way back when CD burners were new and have memories of it turning out coasters more often than not.

Easy CD Creator

It was way too heavy for my system, only used it once or twice then discovered CDRWIN

we used Gear Replicator before switching to Discjuggler