gerwin wrote on 2023-09-24, 17:12:

What I would be curious about, if there is any GCN 2.0 based card that can work in Windows XP x86.

this ? https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/?archit … sort=generation

kasfruit wrote on 2023-09-25, 00:19:

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-24, 17:12:

All GCN 1.0 / 28nm. Only that some have 2GB where my HD7750 has 1GB memory.

is this good or bad news ?
I looked at the specs sheet and the 2GB GDDR3 variants have half of memory bandwidth in comparison to the 1 or 2GB GDDR5

When I exchanged my HD6670 for a HD7750 I did similar research in the AMD relabeling hell. I don't know the details from the top of my head now.
Obviously there are many very similar GCN 1.0 chipsets, rehashed and renamed. Though the risk is that a small change has broken XP driver compatibility, no way of knowing until someone tries it.

As for the memory. Is GDDR3 a thing there? Should it not hold either GDDR5 (a little faster) or DDR3 (cheaper). Having an extra GB would not hurt.

Yesterday I felt like trying the "iCafe" 2015 Windows XP driver. It actually has a larger OpenGL driver component, I was curious if it would work better for OpenGL compared to v13.1 / 14.4.

Results Neutral/Pro:

• 95% of about two dozen games still working fine, like they did with driver v13.1. The other 5% I mention in the following.
• LZDoom / GZDoom legacy v3.x.x branch now works fine, that branch did not work with the v13.1 driver.
• eDuke32 / Ion Fury now runs at 60 FPS in OpenGL mode. Used to be rather slow with the v13.1 driver.
• The Force Engine 8-bit GPU rendering now works somewhat Okay-ish. That did not work with the v13.1 driver.
• X-Wing Alliance and such render fine. It was broken with the v12.6 and earlier drivers.
• 3Dmark2005 result was a pretty much the same as with the v13.1 driver

Results Con:

• Cannot get IL-2 sturmovik FB to render entirely right with OpenGL. There is shimmering in the terrain, regardless of FSAA setting. For driver v13.1 I had the below workaround, not here.
• No OpenGL driver override possible. By putting another version of the atioglxx.dll file in a game folder. v14.4 atioglxx.dll and earlier are not compatible.
• GZDoom v4.0.0 and later crash at startup. Also with the -glversion 3.3 parameter. Also with the v4.7.0 -gles2_renderer parameter. Edit: They worked with the v13.1 driver.

Still to determine if OpenGL VSync-handling is less wonky with this driver...

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-24, 17:12:

What I would be curious about, if there is any GCN 2.0 based card that can work in Windows XP x86. By the way, the AMD datasheets sometimes define GCN 2.0 as GCN 1.1.

Radeon R7 260X is GCN 2.0 and it has XP drivers. Also here someone is testing 260X with 14.4 Pack 3 driver: Re: What would be the fastest XP Setup with XP Era Hardware ?

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-25, 17:59:

As for the memory. Is GDDR3 a thing there? Should it not hold either GDDR5 (a little faster) or DDR3 (cheaper). Having an extra GB would not hurt.

Yes it's DDR3 but HWiNFO64 displays it as GDDR3 and all other cards that feature more than 2GB of RAM are suceptible to be fake because they are mostly suplied by some chinese makers.

the more RAM the better because you have to shift more pixels on high screen resolutions.

janih wrote on 2023-09-25, 19:41:

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-24, 17:12:

What I would be curious about, if there is any GCN 2.0 based card that can work in Windows XP x86. By the way, the AMD datasheets sometimes define GCN 2.0 as GCN 1.1.

Radeon R7 260X is GCN 2.0 and it has XP drivers. Also here someone is testing 260X with 14.4 Pack 3 driver: Re: What would be the fastest XP Setup with XP Era Hardware ?

Cool. I actually glanced over God Of Gaming's finding before. That opens up new possibilities. 😀

I continued the iCafe 2015 driver testing.
For IL-2 Forgotten battles I found some graphics settings that were good enough for me, and had no shimmering issue.

OpenGL VSync is indeed still troublesome at times 🙁.
This web tester is quite nice: https://www.vsynctester.com/
But to actually test it with SDL2 based software, I just made this minimal animated test example.
http://www.gb-homepage.nl/download/temp/OpenGL-Test.zip
Like I wrote earlier, it is usually OK after boot-up, then after a little while, or maybe some hours it starts to show interruptions.

Edit, resembles this: https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/5797

the performance difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 is highly noticeable.
they have made a lot of money with such a dirty marketing practices

https://www.hardware.fr/focus/76/amd-radeon-h … de-etouffe.html

kasfruit wrote on 2023-09-27, 04:19:

the performance difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 is highly noticeable.
they have made a lot of money with such a dirty marketing practices

https://www.hardware.fr/focus/76/amd-radeon-h … de-etouffe.html

Thanks for the link. The difference is more extreme there, compared to my results with 3DMark:

3D Mark 2001 SE:
MSI/NVidia GT 710, 1GB DDR3 --- 32440 3D Marks
Gigabyte/NVidia GT710, 2GB GDDR5 --- 41096 3D Marks

3D Mark 2005:
MSI/NVidia GT 710, 1GB DDR3 --- 13706 3D Marks
Gigabyte/NVidia GT 710, 2GB GDDR5 --- 16899 3D Marks

Maybe because GT 710 is such a low-end card.
https://msfn.org/board/topic/182534-geforce-g … ws-xp-findings/

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-27, 21:47:

Maybe because GT 710 is such a low-end card.

I have had the GT 210 and 520 and they are crap cards for gaming

in my opinion the built-in intel HD 3000 or AMD HD 3000 graphics perform equally well or even better

I fail to understand why the GT 730 (2014) is still available for sale in the computer stores because the GT 1030 features the same TDP and a much better performance. 🤣

kasfruit wrote on 2023-09-29, 04:25:

I have had the GT 210 and 520 and they are crap cards for gaming […]
Show full quote

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-27, 21:47:

Maybe because GT 710 is such a low-end card.

I have had the GT 210 and 520 and they are crap cards for gaming

in my opinion the built-in intel HD 3000 or AMD HD 3000 graphics perform equally well or even better

I fail to understand why the GT 730 (2014) is still available for sale in the computer stores because the GT 1030 features the same TDP and a much better performance. 🤣

Yeah GT 210 is even worse IIRC.
Intel HD 3000 may seem better then GT 710, but for my use cases I ran into the limitations of the intel HD 2500/3000, and therefor always "replace" them in any desktop system. Limitations such as: No settings for FSAA override, poor support for GPU aspect correct scaling, occasional stutters in 3D CAD programs, problems rendering small bitmapped fonts in OpenGL, earlier driver cutoff points for OpenGL versions in Windows XP**.

If you take te earlier link to the MSFN post, you can see an image of the small ITX case that I got the passively-cooled GT 710 GDDR5 for. Even a lowly Radeon HD 6450 gets too hot in there.

** This Intel HD3000 on an Asus-P53E-Notebook, Sandy Bridge. On Windows XP it is not even OpenGL 3.3 capable (But with Windows 7 drivers it is >=3.3).
[WGL] OpenGL version string: 3.0.0 - Build 6.14.10.5384 (Driver dated 10-9-2011) / OpenGL shading language version string: 1.30

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-29, 14:57:

If you take te earlier link to the MSFN post, you can see an image of the small ITX

I didn't find any image of your case and I also regularly check on ebay some ITX mobos because I want to build my last XP rig
I could have bought everything new in box back in the day but I didn't expect XP was going to last me for so long and now I m using W7 regularly because of the faster browsers and some games 🤣

gerwin wrote on 2023-09-29, 14:57:

I got the passively-cooled GT 710 GDDR5 for. Even a lowly Radeon HD 6450 gets too hot in there.

I am not a fan of passive cooling heat sinks.... as you can basically fry on egg on them

a good low rpm fan is pretty unnoticeable except when playing games but the speaker sound will make the noise totally irrelevant.

kasfruit wrote on 2023-09-29, 04:25:

I fail to understand why the GT 730 (2014) is still available for sale in the computer stores because the GT 1030 features the same TDP and a much better performance. 🤣

For various reasons. For example, the GT 730 officially supports Windows XP, while the GT 1030 has no such support. Although I would still prefer for Windows XP something like GTX TITAN Black or even GTX TITAN X, which would most fully cover the entire range of late Windows XP games, in the best quality, on the one hand, and also have the potential to run later games (Including many modern ones for which the card details still fit) on the other side. Demand generates supply here. I would never buy a GT 1030, knowing that it will limit my choice of operating system and will not bring anything very useful, both in terms of performance and in terms of game support. And this is not surprising. Even now, you can still buy the GeForce FX 5500 from some vendors, apparently for Windows 9x compatibility.

DoZator wrote on 2023-09-30, 17:11:

For various reasons. For example, the GT 730 officially supports Windows XP, while the GT 1030 has no such support.

it would just be easier to develop drivers for the GT 1030 ( or whatever budget graphic card that uses the current chips) than keep up another production lineup based on old technology

where can I find more visual themes (skins) for the Catalyst control panel ?

http://www.123seminarsonly.com/Tips/002/About … creenshots.html

Does anybody have the files
10-2_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe
and
10-2_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe
?
All I could find for download was the 10.2 legacy package, but the installer doesn't work for my HD 4000 onboard GPU I'd like to try out, so I guess I need the non-legacy variant.

*EDIT* I found the latter on https://filehippo.com/download_ati_catalyst_x … 6.14.10.7050.0/ and https://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php … riverid=1804701. Both files downloaded were exactly the same bit by bit, so I guess they were not edited in any way by the download providers and an antivirus scan claimed it to be clean.
I still couldn not find 10-2_vista64_win7_64_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe from a trust worthy source though.

Neither of those websites seems to have an actual legit "download" button anymore.
Thankfully I could still find the file here.

Fun fact: 10.2 is the first driver with blb profiles.