C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:54:

Command and Conquer 3, and 4
Red Alert 3

These games are beyond Pentium 4, not only in power requirements, but also in time period. People were playing these on dual core systems. Also C&C4 totally does not exist, no need to even look it up.

Personally I'd go with an HT Prescott, since IMO it kind of represents Netburst better (even higher clocks for even less per-clock performance)

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:54:

Motherboard?[/b]
And finally, which graphics card should I couple with this CPU? Do you recommend nVIDIA based or ATi?

I don't know all the games from your list, but I have an Athlon64 based system on which I played both F.E.A.R and Doom III recently.
It is built around an SLI of GTX7800 512. It is period correct (2005) and can run both maxed out at 60+ fps. (My first retro build : 2005's finest (almost))

Even if you don't want to max out these games, a single GeForce 7 (7800/7900) or a Radeon X1900/X1950 will be required for average performance in medium/high settings.

Latest games in your list are from around 2008.
Last Northwood is from 2004, 3.4GHz socket 478, 800 MHz FSB.

Cpu I recommend is a 3.2GHz (3.4 being the fastest comes at a premium price).

Probably some DDR1 motherboard with Intel chipset. I don't have much knowledge on this but this is the main line.

I don't recommend any graphics card as it is a jungle and you need advice from a pundit.
AGP and PCIe were around and alternatives between Nvidia and ATI could be based solely on a specific game's needs based on drivers.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:06:

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:54:

Command and Conquer 3, and 4
Red Alert 3

Also C&C4 totally does not exist, no need to even look it up.

Really? How come I still own a physical copy in my library? It is called Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight

https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/ … berian-twilight

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:14:

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:06:

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:54:

Command and Conquer 3, and 4
Red Alert 3

Also C&C4 totally does not exist, no need to even look it up.

Really? How come I still own a physical copy in my library? It is called Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight

https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/ … berian-twilight

Must be some kind of prank, no way could a reputable company like EA release a cancelled mobile game on PC as a franchise finale.

Well, back in 2002 we had a 2,53ghz p4, on a gigabyte motherboard with a sis chipset and 512mb ram. On board sound, network etc. An asus ti4200 for graphics.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:19:

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:14:

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:06:

Also C&C4 totally does not exist, no need to even look it up.

Really? How come I still own a physical copy in my library? It is called Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight

https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/ … berian-twilight

Must be some kind of prank, no way could a reputable company like EA release a cancelled mobile game on PC as a franchise finale.

EA is not a 'reputable company'. And yes, they did release a C&C4 which was so bad... that was the end of the franchise.

Iconic and less of a laugh than coupled with the PIII is an 3,06 Ghz i850 based Rdram-system. First to have HT and ridicoulously expensive. Put a 9700 Pro in and you have the killer system of 2002.

Top end 478 is Gallatin on a i875 dual channel DDR system, but finding Gallatins is difficult, and the speed difference in real life compared to a relatively cheap 3,2/800 is negligible.

I'm not a fan of Netburst on socket 775, I much rather have a Core cpu coupled with that socket, so for me that's a no go.

I have an i865 775 system with a fast Core2 and an AGP Ati 3850, but I prefer my Asus P4T533-R based Win98 system.

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 10:54:

Half Life 2 Soldier of Fortune II Doom III Fear Halo Far Cry Command and Conquer 3, and 4 Red Alert 3 […]
Show full quote

Half Life 2
Soldier of Fortune II
Doom III
Fear
Halo
Far Cry
Command and Conquer 3, and 4
Red Alert 3

As others have said, at least some of those games are going to be a disaster on machines that old. Back in the day, I could never get Doom 3 working correctly on a 1..9GHz Willamette P4 with a Radeon 9800 AIW. Just had mad display artifacts.

Far Cry was known for its steep requirements when it came out. Maybe not Crysis-level steep, but...

Command and Conquer 3/4 and Red Alert 3 I played extensively, but those are ~2007-9-era games. I think I was playing those on an E6600 with either a 7900GT or an 8800GT. One core of an E6600 is probably... at least 3X... the speed of a Northwood. And I would note that on that setup, it would slow down massively if you had a big battle with 20-30+ units on screen.

My strong recommendation - if you want an XP box but don't want to go too high-performance, look at a ~2006-era setup with a C2D. Doesn't even need to be the E6600, though that was the 'sweet spot' for most people. The 7900GT was the card to get at the time, then the 8800GT a year or two later was very much a sweet spot card. While the Northwood (or maybe Cedar Mill) is the least bad of Pentium 4s, honestly, Pentium 4s are best forgotten except for Win98 SE duty. Now, if you wanted a 98 SE machine, a Northwood makes sense...

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:41:

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:19:

C0deHunter wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:14:

Really? How come I still own a physical copy in my library? It is called Command & Conquer 4 Tiberian Twilight

https://www.ea.com/games/command-and-conquer/ … berian-twilight

Must be some kind of prank, no way could a reputable company like EA release a cancelled mobile game on PC as a franchise finale.

EA is not a 'reputable company'. And yes, they did release a C&C4 which was so bad... that was the end of the franchise.

Why would you call EA, a company which released such great hits like Battlefield 2042, Anthem, SimCity 2013 and Dungeon Keeper 2014, provided us the innovative surprise mechanics with FIFA Ultimate Team packs and streamlined their game development by "retiring" a few unknown game developers like Westwood, Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin, etc., not reputable?

Anyway, C&C ended on C&C3 and Red Alert 3. The end.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 11:06:

Also C&C4 totally does not exist, no need to even look it up.

"Never existed." - Chrono Legionnaire

To the OP, I too would suggest going for a Core2 system (or even an i5) if the aim is to play post-2005 WinXP games. Some of those can be fairly demanding on the CPU.

Munx wrote on 2023-09-03, 12:12:

Why would you call EA, a company which released such great hits like Battlefield 2042, Anthem, SimCity 2013 and Dungeon Keeper 2014, provided us the innovative surprise mechanics with FIFA Ultimate Team packs and streamlined their game development by "retiring" a few unknown game developers like Westwood, Maxis, Bullfrog, Origin, etc., not reputable?

Anyway, C&C ended on C&C3 and Red Alert 3. The end.

Yes, just like SimCity ended at SimCity 4. (Or maybe even 3000 - my recollection is that 4 had a whole number of bugs that were never fixed)

It's the EA Way - release a last game that's complete garbage (and probably developed by a different team than all the previous ones), then when that complete garbage game flops, kill the franchise and say there's no demand for that type of game. Then go back to making yearly sports games.

I'm sure someone at EA is still amazed that Cities: Skylines was a commercial success.

Sounds like you want two things

- build retro system based on P4
- play some retro games

Optimal course of action is:

1 build retro system based on P4
2 play some retro games on your current Windows 10/11 computer/laptop. Yes, all of them will work just fine, with perfect framerate maxed out in any resolution you want. Yes, building "retro winXP rig" doesnt make any sense unless you are nostalgic for slow specific old piece of hardware. Almost nobody is nostalgic for stuttering games tho.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-09-03, 13:07:

Sounds like you want two things […]
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Sounds like you want two things

- build retro system based on P4
- play some retro games

Optimal course of action is:

1 build retro system based on P4
2 play some retro games on your current Windows 10/11 computer/laptop. Yes, all of them will fork just fine. Yes, building "retro winXP rig" doesnt make any sense unless you are nostalgic for slow specific old piece of hardware. Almost nobody is nostalgic for stuttering games tho.

And if the OP wants to build a retro system based on P4, then the obvious solution is to target 98 SE. Then the system actually serves a purpose other than stuttering games. 😀

Half Life 2 Soldier of Fortune II Doom III Fear Halo Far Cry Command and Conquer 3, and 4 Red Alert 3 Which P4 Northwood CPU sp […]
Show full quote

Half Life 2
Soldier of Fortune II
Doom III
Fear
Halo
Far Cry
Command and Conquer 3, and 4
Red Alert 3

Which P4 Northwood CPU speed do you recommend?
Which Motherboard?

NONE.

VivienM wrote on 2023-09-03, 13:10:

And if the OP wants to build a retro system based on P4, then the obvious solution is to target 98 SE. Then the system actually serves a purpose other than stuttering games. 😀

Yes, for games that only run well on 95-98SE.

If your aim is to relive to early days of XP on a Northwood core CPU there are many options out there for a motherboard, but not all of them are available, at least readily.
I would suggest you roll your sleeves up and start trawling the usual sites for a 478 motherboard.

Its an era I remember quite well myself, there were many good boards at the time. AOpen, MSI, Asrock...
You must first decide it you want full ATX or mATX and then narrow it down from there.

Personally I like that hardware era for Windows 98.
Not that it was the last of the line for 98, there are many "ultimate 98" machines on here that show the end of the line for it, but it is certainly the hardware era that represents when 98 was relivent in the minds of the masses as it was at that point peoples minds turned to Windows XP, but Windows 98 ran very well on the same hardware.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-09-03, 14:36:

Personally I like that hardware era for Windows 98.
Not that it was the last of the line for 98, there are many "ultimate 98" machines on here that show the end of the line for it, but it is certainly the hardware era that represents when 98 was relivent in the minds of the masses as it was at that point peoples minds turned to Windows XP, but Windows 98 ran very well on the same hardware.

I admit that I don't understand how anyone could have used 98SE on a P4 except for a dedicated gaming rig and not lost their mind. At least if they had an always-on Internet connection (DSL/cable/etc) and wanted to keep an IM client, email client, MP3 player, etc running. My last 98SE system back in the day was a PIII 700 with 128 megs of RAM, and you could make 98SE run out of system resources within... 30-60... minutes after booting. After six months of this, ended up installing Win2000 and that was a massive breath of fresh air. No more constant reboots and resource-related glitches... at the cost of needing a ton more RAM. (128 megs wasn't great and that machine got more RAM real quick after that) Oh, and throwing out a <1-2 year old scanner (thank you UMAX.). And that was the second half of 2000. I would presume that, if anything, things would have been worse in 2002-2004 with 2002-2004 era software, more always-on Internet connections, etc.

One of the reasons, I think, that XP ended up being so popular and people were so Vista-hostile is that, for people who went 95 -> 98/98SE -> Me, XP was the first time they experienced a computer that didn't need multiple reboots per day, didn't get random graphical glitches because your system resources were too low, etc. Meanwhile folks who has used 2000 found pre-SP1 XP to be a disappointment...

I didnt like Win98 myself.
I went from a PIII 450 on Win98 to a dual PIII 700 on Win2k so I never had the end of Win98 in the same way other people did. I wasnt much into games, scanners/printers and MSN chat.
I would agree with you about the resource problems with Win98 but games were king then, and the early days of XP wernt so good.
At least not for me, because I ran Win2k, and have had a Win2k system ever since. I remember getting the Devils0wn copy of XP before it was released on IRC and while it was cool to use it I had many problems with it and so did a lot of people because their old systems that ran 98 ok couldnt run on XP as well.
Install XP onto a PIII 450 - 933 with 128Mb RAM and an old 8.4 - 20Gb EIDE hard disk and you will see the problems, not with itself but it relation to how that hardware runs 98.

Win98 wasnt popular on a P4 system, but when done it could really fly, while the XP system on the same hardware was just ok because XP had its own set of problems.