DoZator wrote on 2023-09-24, 10:47:

Due to not having the appropriate hardware, I have no way to check this, but in the installation INF of one of the extreme releases of the AMD Radeon driver for Windows XP:
https://www.amd.com/zh-hans/support/kb/releas … ndows-xp-driver

is it a mistake or did they intentionally forget to list the R7 350 on that page ?
I didn't knew this chinese website because I mostly use the US page (https://www.amd.com/en/support) and there are some cards not listed on there either for example the R9 255

I asked this question because these cards ara based on the Cape Verde variant so if the 14.4 driver works for the 7750 in theory should work with all other cards that dodn't have official XP drivers
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/amd-cape-verde.g100

agent_x007 wrote on 2023-09-24, 12:06:

As for R7 250, it does work with moded drivers, example :

All cards based on "Oland" die will work on XP.

what do you need moded drivers for ?

kasfruit wrote on 2023-09-23, 22:54:

I have a ATI 7750 that I mostly use with W7 x64 and it seems to perform equally well or better than a GTX 460 (same setup) even […]
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I have a ATI 7750 that I mostly use with W7 x64 and it seems to perform equally well or better than a GTX 460 (same setup) even though the 460 scores much better in all benchmarks

I was looking for a direct replacement which seems to be the R7 250 but it's built upon different variants and this drives me crazy to find the right one. (it must be 2GB GDDR5 NOT DDR3)
...
the R7 350 doesn't have drivers for XP I wonder if older drivers may work with it....???????
surprinsingly the performance is the same or even worse than the R7 250 Cape Verde variant.... !!!!!!!
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-r7-350.c3135

From what I see in the TechPowerUp spec sheets It is all practically the same or remarkably similar to the HD7750. All GCN 1.0 / 28nm. Only that some have 2GB where my HD7750 has 1GB memory.
GCN 1.0 is told quite different from the earlier Terascale architecture. Since it is the first version of a new architecture, it is bound to be a bit premature, and potentially prone to incompatibilities. Especially on Windows XP, because by then it was hardly worth the investment of their time.
What I have seen since with my HD7750, is some strange behaviour with VSync in OpenGL. Where it starts to stutter to various degrees. A reboot then fixes it for a good while, but I now have the habit of disabling VSync for OpenGL anywhere I can.

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.

For Linux, GCN cards are preferable, because they are supported by both the Radeon and AMDGPU driver. For a long time GCN 1.0 was not supported properly by the AMDGPU driver, because for GCN 1.0 it required an overly large firmware to make it work. If it wasn't for the Linux and Windows 7 multiboot, I would consider putting a HD6xxx back for Windows XP use.

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

From what I see in the TechPowerUp spec sheets It is all practically the same or remarkably similar to the HD7750.

I have just checked it out with HWiNFO64 and it displays HD7750/R7 250E
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/radeon-r7-250e.c2559

there are two variants for either of them so you can find the R7 250 (Oland 65W and Cave Verde 55W) or R7 350 (Oland 65W and Cave Verde 55W)
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/?mfgr=A … 5%20W&sort=name

the TDP is probably related to the GPU clock because the R9 255 or R7 430 feature a Cape Verde chipset however the chipset TDP is 65W
I can't tell whether this data is accurate or not but the max resolution of the DVI port should be higher and the price is good if it's really new in box.
https://www.quantelectronic.de/de/Fujitsu-ATI … -Bauhoehen.html

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

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 […]
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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.