As mentioned before, the R7 250E is just an HD 7750. I can't find any reports online of there being any difference between them.

And FirePro W4100 is a low profile 7750. I also tried FirePro Windows XP drivers which have FirePro W600 (basically the same card, but not low profile). There is clear device id string to mod, but unfortunately it doesn't work too, maybe because I screwed up my OS install by previous attempts somehow. The drivers are dated 2012 though, so pretty early in GCN life.

It seems like using Maxwell Bios Tweaker + nVflash should solve the issue of voltage control

It's not as simple. Kepler/Maxwell GPUs have complicated voltage table and Quadro analogs usually have very stripped down version of that table which can't be edited directly. So it may have issues where adjusting power limit will drop performance through the floor, because there are no values between low power 3D and normal 3D.

Hoping wrote on 2024-08-18, 17:19:

The R7 250 on paper, seems to be quite a bit worse than the K620 and let's not mention the 750Ti which will make even more of a […]
Show full quote

The R7 250 on paper, seems to be quite a bit worse than the K620 and let's not mention the 750Ti which will make even more of a difference. Around here the low profile R7 250 is not very common from what I've looked and its price tends to be higher than the K620 so it's not a logical choice.
And from what I've read in some threads on this forum, the AMD GNC cards don't seem to me to have very suitable drivers for XP.
Drivers have been a problem for AMD for years, it seems that they inherited Ati's problem, everything is fine as long as you don't ask too much in aspects for which they were not intended, for me the clearest current example are the RX problems with DX11, I have a RX6700XT, and I already learned that if the game uses DX11 is better to use another computer with another graphics, for example a RX 580, even a RX 470 and Windows 7.
Although the GNC architecture at the beginning I think it was very good, but it didn't develop well over the years. The HD 7970 had high power consumption, but showed very good performance at the time, but all GNC2 and GNC3 cards were pretty weak in power consumption/performance, GNC4 I think improved, but I don't think they have XP support,
That's why there don't seem to be any interesting low profile options, because high power consumption needs a big heatsink, and a more complex VRM, simple as that.

To be fair, the HD 7750 (GCN 1.0, Cape Verde Pro) and the half dozen or so rebadges of it aren't bad cards. I bought one for my HTPC back in 2013 and it was decent enough for light gaming at the time, as long as I didn't expect too much of it. Granted, this was on Windows 8. I have no idea what the XP drivers for this card are like. In 2012-2013, it was the budget king for low power power gaming. Nvidia's Kepler cards that came out soon after, like the GTX 650 were decently competitive, but the 7750 offered slightly better combination of price, performance and power consumption.

... but this was all before the Maxwell cards came out.

I don't doubt that the HD7750\R7 250\250E\W4100 trade blows performance wise with the K620 in some cases, despite the architectural advantages of Maxwell (most importantly would be tile-based rasterization, apparently), but as you said there is just no way that they compete in efficiency. This Anandtech review shows pretty clearly how the 7750 stacks up to the GTX 750. They aren't far off in load power consumption, with the HD7750 using a bit less overall, but the GTX 750 is 50-70% faster in most of the tests that compare the two.

Scaling the GTX 750 down to the K620 and K1200 isn't going to completely get rid of those efficiency advantages.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-08-18, 17:49:

It seems like using Maxwell Bios Tweaker + nVflash should solve the issue of voltage control

It's not as simple. Kepler/Maxwell GPUs have complicated voltage table and Quadro analogs usually have very stripped down version of that table which can't be edited directly. So it may have issues where adjusting power limit will drop performance through the floor, because there are no values between low power 3D and normal 3D.

I just dropped some K620 BIOS files into Maxwell BIOS Tweaker and it seems to have all the expected voltage settings available. It looks a little tedious to change them all, but the program doesn't show that any are locked down.

There are lots of different variations of the K620 BIOS available here, some with different clocks, and from what I can tell the voltage tables are different between some of them as well.

The highly overclocked BIOS I linked to earlier can be downloaded here too.

Also, in MBT there is a tab for "Power Table" which also has very different values between BIOS files I looked at.

So, it seems like the options to undervolt these cards exists. Have you just tried a K620 in a T730 Thin Client though? Maybe it just works fine...

Have you just tried a K620 in a T730 Thin Client though? Maybe it just works fine...

I never claimed that it doesn't work.

They aren't far off in load power consumption, with the HD7750 using a bit less overall

Regular 7750 and low profile variations have different voltage. So it's not that simple.

So, one thing has just occurred to me amongst all of this talk of small PCs for Windows XP. I have generally viewed Windows XP as really only being useful as a retro gaming OS because it is the last one with native support for hardware accelerated 3D audio through DirectSound3D. The vast majority of games that work in XP will also work in later versions of Windows either with unofficial patches or other methods (unless we're talking about games that work best under Windows 9x), but the main thing that is lost is 3D sound support. So games that need it to have surround sound or to have any environmental effects will sound pretty flat under anything newer than XP.

With all that said, there are actually several options that can be used to restore 3D audio on newer operating systems. I remember tinkering with them years ago and having decent success, even with the ones that allow Creative ALchemy to work on non-Creative devices.

So, for a Windows XP systems to really provide some tangible benefit for retro gaming, it seems like it needs to either (A) run a game that simply cannot work properly on newer operating systems or (B) run a game better than newer operating systems (possibly due to drivers), or (C) allow 3D sound in a game that simply doesn't work with the methods of restoring these features on newer operating systems.

The problem with tiny PCs is that they generally cannot hold most of the sound cards that were built for gaming in Windows XP. I think the X-Fi XtremeGamer is the only card from the lineup that provides all of the latest EAX features in a low-profile form factor. The XtremeAudio is very stripped down and I think it may at least provide SBLive! levels of 3D audio, but I'm not positive. Other than that, there are a few scattered SB Live! variants that are low profile, but if you're trying to build a peak XP-era system, it is a little lame to have to settle for EAX 2.0, even if the later versions didn't always make a huge difference. Also, getting these low profile cards with low profile brackets is probably quite tough.

... and of course you need a free PCI slot in the system, AND it has to not interfere with the use of a gaming-worthy GPU.

I had been thinking about putting together some Ivy Bridge and Haswell Optiplex SFF systems for XP gaming, and they would certainly do the job with a K620 or K1200 installed, but they have no PCI slots, which would make it quite a bit tougher (and more expensive) to get hardware 3D audio.

There are some low profile PCI-E X-Fi cards out there, like the Auzen X-Fi Forte 7.1, but these seem to be very expensive and rely on a (usually missing) breakout cable for most of their connections. The Asus Xonar series, and some others, can also provide 3D audio in low profile PCI-E cards but apparently it is different from the "native" support provided by most X-Fi cards. I have a Xonar DX (low profile PCI-E) which I've been carrying over to my main PC build for 15 years and it still works, but I guess I could experiment with using it in Windows XP vs an X-Fi at some point to see if there is any real audible difference.

Anyway... I feel like this is a fairly important thing to bring up when discussing this topic, because most people that want to play "Windows XP games" may just as well play them on a newer PC with some patches and DS3D-wrappers before trying to use a small computer that may be incapable of providing that same experience.

If you aren't concerned about 3D sound support and just want to run games that work best in XP, then yes, these machines will still be highly useful and space-efficient, of course. 😀

I installed XP on the computer I showed in this thread out of curiosity and because I wondered if it would really be so interesting XP on a computer that would not belong to the XP era, but I do not see the real utility beyond curiosity.
I don't have windows XP on any computer more modern than 939 or 478, because XP is only useful for gaming and little else while Win 7 can still be used on a daily basis without complicating life too much. Then the driver and hardware support of Win 7 seems to me greater than that of XP, in Win 7 32 works almost any software that works in XP and for Win7 32 there is driver support for much more modern hardware, sixth generation for example. And graphics cards much more modern than those supported by XP. For me the key is the 32 bits, in Win 7 32 bits you can run 16 bits applications and 16 bits installers work without problem.
On the computer I showed in this thread I already installed Win 7 32 and I think I already mentioned that the K620 performs better on Win7 32 than on XP.
It is true that there are some things that do not work, but almost all of them have a solution, even the famous Starforce anti-copy that has an update for the old versions. I have even used the 16-bit version of Winzip 6 on Win 7 32, the same one I installed on Win 3.11 on a 386sx to transfer data with dikettes.

The main advantage I find in Win7 32 is that it is still a useful OS for day to day use without the need to waste time looking for solutions for simple things like surfing the internet correctly. It is true that the web browsers that support Win7 no longer have official updates but I have not come across web pages that do not work in Firefox 115 for example.
At my desk I have a computer with a floppy drive and a DVD/RW drive which is very useful to find for example the driver of a sound card for the 386sx I have and put it on a floppy disk comfortably as for so many years. Or the BIOS update for any motherboard, as it has been done for so long.

That is to say, I am not a big fan of XP because for me it has the problem that in its beginnings it was overlapped by Win9x and at the end of its era it was overlapped by Win7, that is to say, the games released between 1999 and 2002 run perfectly in Win9x and XP, between 2002 and 2006 everything can be used in XP and Win7 32 and then from 2006 everything can be used in Win7.

I see it this way, and that's why XP only fits me in a small range of years. But of course there are specific cases in which it will be more comfortable to use XP, although I have not found any for my needs.
I have nothing against XP nor against any other Microsoft OS, each one had its time with more or less success and usefulness.

As I have already said I am not interested in playing games in resolutions not usual at the time and things like that, I like to play games as most of the people who did not have money to buy a top of the range computer would have done, hopefully we had a computer with a little high specifications capable of running the games at an adequate resolution with high details.
The 3D sound issue doesn't matter to me personally, I've never worried about it, maybe I just don't have a good ear.

But a very small computer capable of running without problems games of which I have very good memories has been very interesting for me because it is something I had never done before.
I liked to see Oblivion running at its best on such a small computer because it is a game that I have a special appreciation for. But Oblivion runs perfectly on Win 7 32 and as I said, the K620 has better performance on Win 7 32 so I think it's better to use Win7 for this case.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-20, 05:06:

I had been thinking about putting together some Ivy Bridge and Haswell Optiplex SFF systems for XP gaming, and they would certainly do the job with a K620 or K1200 installed, but they have no PCI slots, which would make it quite a bit tougher (and more expensive) to get hardware 3D audio.

You can use PCIe-PCI adapter with external box.

Hoping wrote on 2024-08-20, 10:49:

while Win 7 can still be used on a daily basis without complicating life too much

Well, not anymore. Wifi? Nope. Your internet provider has IPv6? Big nope.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-08-20, 11:48:

Well, not anymore. Wifi? Nope. Your internet provider has IPv6? Big nope.

This is off the topic of this thread I think.
I only use the WIFI network to surf the internet, for which Wifi-N is more than enough for me and although I don't use it more than as a bridge, my ISP's Router supports Wifi-N and AC, it also supports both IPV4 and IPV6 so it wouldn't be a problem, I use a laptop with OpenWRT, I have a Gigabit internet line, for things that need it there is the LAN network.
In my opinion, the biggest compatibility problems come from non-updated Windows 7 installations, many pirated, and from the Home and Starter versions that have not received any major updates for years.
Also, a few years ago, many people complained about not being able to access many web sites from Win7 because they were using pirated or outdated versions because they were missing the updated root certificates, something that never happened in the original PRO version.
Just out of curiosity, what problem has Win 7 with IPV6? the last time I tested IPV6 in Win7 it worked without problems. And what is the problem with Wifi? Now I have the Wifi connected without problems on a Win7 64 pro.
Maybe the hardware I use is in general very old according to some people's standards.
I haven't had problems with Wifi on XP either, although I didn't use it much because surfing the internet on XP is quite complicated nowadays and to access my NAS I use only Ethernet.

Just out of curiosity, what problem has Win 7 with IPV6? the last time I tested IPV6 in Win7 it worked without problems. And what is the problem with Wifi? Now I have the Wifi connected without problems on a Win7 64 pro.

You're serious now? Both recently were discovered to have a vulnerability on all NT 6.x systems (Vista-11) which require zero interaction from the user, i.e. it's very dangerous to expose Windows 7 to the internet via Wifi or IPv6 network (ISP level) now. And there won't be any patches to plug these security holes.

So apparently it targets standard windoze wifi driver nwifi.sys, so hilariously, 9x systems that needed proprietary manufacturer provided wifi drivers and settings agents might not be affected... also might be possible that some that force installed their own crap on winXP might be avoiding it too, but they'll be old "b" maybe early "g" cards.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-08-20, 11:48:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-20, 05:06:

I had been thinking about putting together some Ivy Bridge and Haswell Optiplex SFF systems for XP gaming, and they would certainly do the job with a K620 or K1200 installed, but they have no PCI slots, which would make it quite a bit tougher (and more expensive) to get hardware 3D audio.

You can use PCIe-PCI adapter with external box.

That seems like a pretty big stretch since we're talking about small computers. I don't think most people who want a compact XP gaming PC are going to be okay spending a bunch more money to have another box dangling outside the computer just for a sound card... not to mention, sound cards can already be finicky without using interface adapters and bridge chips.

In that case Optiplex 780 SFF seems to be like a sweet spot.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2024-08-21, 05:18:

In that case Optiplex 780 SFF seems to be like a sweet spot.

Yes, I think if you absolutely need a smaller system to run Windows XP and want hardware 3D sound, something like an Optiplex 780 + X-Fi XtremeGamer (with low profile bracket) + whatever GPU will work in that system would probably be a decent setup.

It looks like the Optiplex 980 is another option with a PCI slot and uses the LGA1366 LGA1156 platform for newer CPUs, but they seem far less common than the 780 and 990. It's too bad, because these use a more BTX-like form factor with the slots oriented in the opposite direction (compared to the 990 and later). This would allow far more breathing room for a GPU, especially when combined with a sound card.

The 960 looks like basically the same layout as the 980, except it uses an LGA775 board, so that is another option.

EDIT: Or... you could add a few inches to the system in all directions and get a 990, 9010 or 9020 MT with plenty of room for everything, including full height PCI sound cards and PCI-E graphics cards. Get the computer for almost nothing (possibly free), grab a Quadro K2200 for $30 and an X-Fi XtremeMusic\Gamer for almost nothing and you now have a massively powerful XP machine that still isn't that large. 🤷

I guess it really just comes down to how desperately someone needs to save space, how much performance they want and what sound card they want to use.

I just picked up last week an Optiplex 7010 SFF that is a little bit smaller than the 780. But it only has 2 PCI-e and I don't know if there is any Sound Blaster that would fit and has XP drivers. Considering moving over the ASUS Xonar DGX from my daily driver, it supposed to have EAX support.

The 980 SFF seems to be the same size and indeed seems to be a nice one.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-21, 05:43:

It looks like the Optiplex 980 is another option with a PCI slot and uses the LGA1366 platform for newer CPUs

LGA 1156.

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-21, 05:43:

EDIT: Or... you could add a few inches to the system in all directions and get a 990, 9010 or 9020 MT with plenty of room for everything, including full height PCI sound cards and PCI-E graphics cards. Get the computer for almost nothing (possibly free), grab a Quadro K2200 for $30 and an X-Fi XtremeMusic\Gamer for almost nothing and you now have a massively powerful XP machine that still isn't that large. 🤷

I guess it really just comes down to how desperately someone needs to save space, how much performance they want and what sound card they want to use.

Indeed, if we add computer cases that can use full height expansion cards, almost all limits are over, because in those cases you can use MATX/ITX motherboards without problems, with standard power supplies, so you don't have to look for anything special. But it would no longer be “the smallest computer that can run Windows XP” and the graphics card would no longer be a headache, the K2200 seems to be full height only, and it would not be the most powerful option in that size and power consumption either for XP, I think.
There are probably quite small computer cases that meet that criteria, but I never paid much attention to them because I either care about the smallness of the case or I don't care.

Optiplex 980 also has a bigger option that allows to install one full height PCIe and one full height PCI card with an L-shaped riser. Although it's practically a normal microATX slim case by measurements, which is not small.

Hoping wrote on 2024-08-21, 11:09:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2024-08-21, 05:43:

EDIT: Or... you could add a few inches to the system in all directions and get a 990, 9010 or 9020 MT with plenty of room for everything, including full height PCI sound cards and PCI-E graphics cards. Get the computer for almost nothing (possibly free), grab a Quadro K2200 for $30 and an X-Fi XtremeMusic\Gamer for almost nothing and you now have a massively powerful XP machine that still isn't that large. 🤷

I guess it really just comes down to how desperately someone needs to save space, how much performance they want and what sound card they want to use.

Indeed, if we add computer cases that can use full height expansion cards, almost all limits are over, because in those cases you can use MATX/ITX motherboards without problems, with standard power supplies, so you don't have to look for anything special. But it would no longer be “the smallest computer that can run Windows XP” and the graphics card would no longer be a headache, the K2200 seems to be full height only, and it would not be the most powerful option in that size and power consumption either for XP, I think.
There are probably quite small computer cases that meet that criteria, but I never paid much attention to them because I either care about the smallness of the case or I don't care.

Yeah, I was just mentioning the use of small towers because the concept of a retro gaming PC running XP covers a pretty huge range of machines and capabilities. I think some people get hung up on the size of a computer without considering whether the small size is actually benefiting them much in comparison to the comprises they have to make for such a small PC. Some genuinely need or genuinely enjoy small computers, and that is totally fine, it's just important to have all of the tradeoffs documented for people who are interested in something like this.

Just looking purely at size and not considering performance, if someone wants a tiny computer that runs Windows XP, it is possible to get a thin client or netbook that satisfies that requirement very easily, so there really isn't much to talk about there if size is the only criteria. Taking performance into account however, we had been talking about computers with the highest performance and utility for their size (and cost) for a while, in which case an SFF desktop like the Optiplex 990, 9010 and 9020 is hard to beat when coupled with a decent GPU. There really isn't much debate there either, honestly. Those machines will perform exceptionally well for their size, with few compromises... but because of this, I thought it was worth mentioning that the one fairly significant compromise they do have is the sound card selection (which is one of the few things that makes XP gaming actually different from Vista\7\10).

So, the next smallest XP-compatible system with as few compromises as possible would be either a fully custom built Micro-ATX system or a micro-tower sized workstation like an Optiplex or even a Lenovo Thinkcentre (the M72e are small, nice, low cost machines).

I guess I'm thinking of it more like: "What's the smallest windows XP computer that will ______." And the blank is filled in based on what someone wants the machine to do and how much they want to spend.

Also, I mentioned the K2200 because they are very cheap and common, perform close to the 750 Ti (same basic card with different clocks and twice the memory), and will fit in most of the micro towers without having to worry about card length. 😀

The Dell Tiny, Lenovo Micro or HP Mini PCs would be the smallest PCs that can run XP but they dont have external video.
The SFF PCs from the above manufacturers would be the smallest PCs that can have a decent video card such as the low profile GTX 750Ti.
An HP T730 is a decent half way between the two, its about twice the size of the 1L PCs but still small and can have addin video, but it is very limited in that video because of the power and space.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-08-22, 15:14:

The SFF PCs from the above manufacturers would be the smallest PCs that can have a decent video card such as the low profile GTX 750Ti.

Most old SFFs are hardly any better than T730 in that department. Only a single slot card will fit, with questionable ventilation and sometimes 40W limit on top of it for PCIe 16x slot. So 750 Ti is a stretch. But that's the next smallest thing to have hardware 3D sound.