Should I build a Windows XP gaming PC? - "Use virtual machine!" /thread

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Never Scored said:
If you start from scratch I could easily see the project balooning to $250-300.
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That was a big concern. But I think I'll be taking @Jump s advice and buying either a HP Z400 or a Compaq 8000. Both are very cheap, and complete.

Never Scored said:
it's been sitting in a corner since late 2019 at this point and I just end up using DOSbox or Wine to play old PC games.
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This is a big concern for me. I have games for the Xbox 360 and Vita I haven't gotten around to playing yet. It's a case of finding the time and inclination to play them. For the 360, all I have to do is set it up, but even doing that is too much effort. That said, I was willing to dig my old WinXP rig out of storage and spend a day or two trying to fix it. So I really don't know.
 
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Sorry for the double post, but I have related content.

I still haven't got my XP machine yet (real life kind of got in the way, and space is still a problem).

But I wanted to ask about Win 7.



With GPU prices returning to normal, do you think it's worth building a dedicated Win7 PC at some point? I have a good idea of how to make the "ultimate" Win 7 gaming PC using Resident Evil 2 Remake as the test case. Supposedly that game requires 12gb of VRAM to run at max settings 4k, though I'd argue Win 7 should be a 1080p machine.

Already I'm seeing misinformation saying that anything beyond a GTX 700 series doesn't work on Win 7, but a simple check on Nvidia's site brings up drivers for even the 3090 for Win 7, and I assume AMD is similar. I also assume Win 7 works with all modern CPUs for the same reason, but I've not checked.

The main argument against is that I struggle to think of games that work on Win 7 but not Win 10.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
I also assume Win 7 works with all modern CPUs for the same reason, but I've not checked.
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There's "works with" and then there's "supports all the features of". Win7 won't know about any new CPU features or registers that were added after they stopped updating it, and programs won't be able to use them either.
 
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Sketch Turner said:
It helps that a lot of things are compatible with XP due to just how long it lasted.

As previously mentioned do be aware there is a LOT of spergery and troonery within the retro tech communities - one particularly notable lolcow, MisatoDX4/Proxima64, comes to mind as an example of a person circulating the legacy Windows communities.

There was also a bunch of autism surrounding a now-dead MSFN clone called eclipse.cx not too long ago, due to one of the ex-staffers having his PM perms removed or something; the community admin removed the guy who actually paid for his hosting (just a few days after it had been renewed), and proceeded to kick most of the actually important members away, leaving only the autistic twats behind.

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The VOGONS community is a pile of autism, to the point of deserving a Community Thead of their own.
 
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2.D. said:
Literally just run 7. It's not super secure, but way more than XP due to some kind of defender and UAC. If you really wanna be tismo about squeezing performance, run linux with proton.
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The best way to be secure is simply not be online. My win 2000 is not online. Everything that I need goes through another computer to check for viruses and if it is clear then it goes on to that rig.

Next if you are going to go HARDCORE, like the Neanderthal that I truly am. Then for the Dumb ass like me, I go...

Zorin Linux 16.1 as I love that is Window's 7 like (am using 15.3 right now) so I can be mostly brain numb to the Gui.

Then I would probably go Gnome Virtual Box because it seems to be easier to use than others.

And with that set up you can play any games with Any OS in your Virtual Machine.

Yes I have been doing a little research on this, but I have so much shit going on right now this concept is down the list of things to do.

And again I'm a fucking old man who knows he's losing brains cells so no more hard shit for me now. I'll let you young punks take over and rule the software world!... While I suck on a Bud and watch Rome burn.
 
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Pissmaster said:
So now that the two biggest posters in Games that never actually play PC games have gotten their posts in, does anyone have any actual suggestions about building out a retro PC?
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I think Core 2 Quads are still cheap enough... a must for your 775 kit. I might be talking trash here but I think that if you got something like a GTX 460 (dunno if they're still readily available) in theory it should work with XP.

Ahriman said:
Not XP related, but I am messing around with Virtualbox, setting up a kinda-sorta throwaway Win98 install on it, just to play old DOS games and use old software (Winamp 2.x).

This guide was pretty insightful, for anyone who cares: https://duncanbowring.wordpress.com...e-on-virtualbox-with-video-and-audio-drivers/ (archive: https://archive.md/96UyC)


EDIT: also, a really cool Win2k modernization guide, this one pretty much makes Win2000 usable in current day: https://w2k.phreaknet.org/guide

And also, Win2k on Docker: https://github.com/hectorm/docker-qemu-win2000
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For the love of god just use PCem.
 
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I have built a windows xp/ windows 98 gaming pc that can boot into either os from startup. It is really cool to have until you realize all the cool games from the early 2000s run better on new hardware and emulation. It collects dust most of the time then I sometimes decide to play doom or medal for honor or sim city on it.
 
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Chump said:
I have built a windows xp/ windows 98 gaming pc that can boot into either os from startup. It is really cool to have until you realize all the cool games from the early 2000s run better on new hardware and emulation. It collects dust most of the time then I sometimes decide to play doom or medal for honor or sim city on it.
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do you use a hard drive or solid state in it
 
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Optiplex 7010 tower. Ivy bridge, system runs XP out of the box and has driver packs available. They take normal ATX PSUs and can take a PCI sound card for XP EAX sound along with native usb 3.0 and large enough for GPUs like the GTX 285.

On top of all that, dirt cheap.

I recommend using a GeForce 200 series, or may e a GTX 465 or 470.

Also,on the SSD thing, the 7010 can run SATA in IDE mode so you don't need to load drivers beforehand. Really easy to set up
 
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Update. A windows XP build is back on the menu.

In doing research for my next gaming PC, I learned my current gaming PC is running a 4690k. ie. Haswell. It's a great CPU that has only now started to struggle. If it can run Resident Evil 2 Remake at high settings, it should run anything from the XP era no problem. And despite claims that Haswell support is spotty due to lack of drivers or instructions, it seems to work for what matters.

Worst case scenario, I can combine it with that XP machine in storage that refuses to post.

Jump said:
My XP and 7 machines are HP Z400's
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DNA_JACKED said:
Optiplex 7010 tower.
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This is the most likely option I'll take. At the time of this thread, prices had become more than I wanted to spend (£100+). Now they're down to £60 or so, which is much more reasonable. However, most local places seem to be selling 8th gen or newer office PCs, and postage really eats into the cost.

Dick Justice said:
Just use WINE lol. It's unironically the best and easiest way to play games from that era now.
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While I dismissed using Linux as yet another emulation or compatibility nightmare, I was watching a video about proton and, either by design or by accident, Proton has compatibility with old windows games that are difficult to get running on modern OS'. I'm considering Linux for my os on my next main PC, so I'll try it then.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
While I dismissed using Linux as yet another emulation or compatibility nightmare, I was watching a video about proton and, either by design or by accident, Proton has compatibility with old windows games that are difficult to get running on modern OS'. I'm considering Linux for my os on my next main PC, so I'll try it then.
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proton is basically a convenient steam based frontend for wine which is cool but nothing special. lutris for example does much the same stuff. anyway idr if you have any *nix experience but if you don't you should stand up a VM in virtualbox or w/e right now and try to use that as a daily driver for all your lawposting needs. decades of windows experience miscast as computer experience can turn the first couple weeks on *nix into a paradigm shift without a clutch, especially if you're unfortunate enough to pull a queen of spades with a distro whose exact version just happens to not play nice with your hardware and/or horoscope but aren't savvy enough to recognize it

as an added bonus you may accidentally stumble into a better computing experience and lucrative career
 
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I've tried Linux briefly a few times in the past, but never as a daily driver. Most recent was Raspberry Pi and a PopOS live USB. In both cases, the main limitation I ran into was hardware (Live USB can only do so much, and the Raspberry Pi is weak). Batosera doesn't count as an OS.

I'm doing a new build this month. It's all AMD so hopefully that means Linux will be fine on it. I'm likely going to take the tech nerd advice and run Win 10 LTSC eventually, but it's no skin off my nose to try Linux on it properly first. Of course, there's the nightmare that is choosing a distro. PoPOS and Mint seem to be the go-to beginner distros, but that's a whole rabbit hole.

Most of my daily driver needs should be fine out of the box. Text editing, video editing, and game development are all FOSS with linux version, with only one bit of software that I need for game development that is native to windows that apparently works on linux without issue.

As I said in the OP, when it comes to XP, I want to avoid compatibility issues, and emulation/virtual machines have those problems. If Linux runs them well without having to spend six months in the terminal diagnosing weird conflicts, it might be good enough.
 
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Judge Dredd said:
Update. A windows XP build is back on the menu.

In doing research for my next gaming PC, I learned my current gaming PC is running a 4690k. ie. Haswell. It's a great CPU that has only now started to struggle. If it can run Resident Evil 2 Remake at high settings, it should run anything from the XP era no problem. And despite claims that Haswell support is spotty due to lack of drivers or instructions, it seems to work for what matters.

Worst case scenario, I can combine it with that XP machine in storage that refuses to post.
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Haswell is good, so long as the motherboard plays nice.
Judge Dredd said:
This is the most likely option I'll take. At the time of this thread, prices had become more than I wanted to spend (£100+). Now they're down to £60 or so, which is much more reasonable. However, most local places seem to be selling 8th gen or newer office PCs, and postage really eats into the cost.
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UK postage appears to be a bitch. In the Us you can get one for $76-80 with free shipping.

Good place to check is government liquidations. Schools, offices, ece still have tons of these things running 10 and in the next 1-2 years will be dumping the stuff for win11 compatible boxes. Auctions are another good one, liquidators will collect these things and sell them for pennies at times.
Judge Dredd said:
While I dismissed using Linux as yet another emulation or compatibility nightmare, I was watching a video about proton and, either by design or by accident, Proton has compatibility with old windows games that are difficult to get running on modern OS'. I'm considering Linux for my os on my next main PC, so I'll try it then.
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Proton is a good option but take note: it's a Steam thing. Using it with non Steam games is a PITFA.

I want to love linux, I really do, but every time there's always 1 thing that just doesnt want to work right, even when you follow guides.
 
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Arm computers are a meme, you can get ~$100 low-end x86 (e.g. Celeron) and they'll run circles around them while also having the advantage that they're actually compatible to stuff. A few years ago they had their niche but the consistent unwillingness of ARM SoC manufacturers (even sometimes their downright hostility) to cooperate with OS-Developers and the introduction of capable and cheap entry level SoCs by AMD and intel make them pretty superfluous. Even power consumption between high-end ARM and low-end x86 becomes more and more of a toss-up.

For an old system setup, I'd look into thin clients. The normal usage scenario is booting via network but many do have normal IDE/SATA headers etc. anyways and with the wonders of modern flash it's not really a big problem to get them up to decent capacities. They often end up on ebay for very cheap and you get a compact, low-power-consuming and complete system. If you find a reasonably modern Thin Client with capable iGPU, it probably doesn't have any trouble running WinXP era stuff. Many also have an expansion slot and/or fit into ITX style cases.
 
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