Shponglefan wrote on 2024-09-27, 13:31:

When building any system, there is always going to be a trade off between period correctness and performance. You'll have to decide what is more important to you.

And the point worth restating (even though it has been made multiple times in this thread) - certainly in the 1995-2007 time period, period correctness basically does not guarantee good performance and in fact almost guarantees underwhelming performance. A 2003 game will perform much better, especially by modern standards, on 2006-7 hardware than on 2003 hardware, even high-end 2003 hardware.

As an aside, it's funny how well this extends to longer time periods. It occurred to me a few months ago to install the Steam edition of Rise of Nations (one of my favourite all-time games) on a laptop with Intel "Iris Xe" on-processor graphics (this is on an 11th gen mobile i7). Now, I guess the original Rise of Nations is a 2003 game, but like many older dudes around here, I am a total skeptic of Intel graphics (which I would consider barely acceptable for elderly aunts needing computers for web browsing)... and yet I was very pleasantly surprised at how nicely my 2003 game ran at the native 1920x1080 resolution on this laptop. So... yeah, at high resolutions, an Iris Xe outperforms the ATI 9800 Pro I would have been playing Rise of Nations on back in the day. Moore's Law at work.

swaaye wrote on 2024-09-27, 18:43:

A bigger concern might be that games from prior to ~2006 are not designed with multi-processor systems in mind and you can run into bugs, performance issues and even crashes. With problem games this can be solved by configuring the game's executable with core affinity for a single core, using a program like imagecfg. Games don't start to really benefit from multiple CPUs until after 2006. This was mostly instigated by the arrival of the XBox 360 and PS3 which have multiple very slow CPU cores.

Question - how many of those games don't run happily/happier on 98SE than on XP anyways?

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-27, 20:43:

Question - how many of those games don't run happily/happier on 98SE than on XP anyways?

I'm not sure how related that might be. Old games may be fine with more than one core being present. One example is KOTOR. That's not really a game that I would run on 98.

I usually go to Win98 only for old hardware that can't run on 2K/XP or the OS is just too heavy for it. I wouldn't run 2K on a Pentium 2 for example.

There's also been some cases of games for XP in the XP era that are so overzealously copyprotected enough that even having a newer XP (i.e. SP2) breaks them. *cough*JoWooD*cough*

I remember Athlon XP and Pentium4 like performance monsters. I thought P4 gave good PC performance in 2005. It's hard to believe P4 3.2 ghz is not enough for games from its period at maximum settings.

E8400 and E8500 is there a big difference in gaming performance? And C2D will be enough for WinXp era games? Geforce 750 ti graphics card is ok?
I had an old laptop i3 350m. Do you know the answer whether the processor in the laptop was more powerful than E8500?

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-28, 05:08:

I remember Athlon XP and Pentium4 like performance monsters. I thought P4 gave good PC performance in 2005.

Yes, they had great performance in 2005 because there was nothing faster in 2005, but in 2006 CPUs were starting at almost 2x that performance.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-28, 05:08:

It's hard to believe P4 3.2 ghz is not enough for games from its period at maximum settings.

FEAR will be full of dips down to 30fps

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-28, 05:08:

E8400 and E8500 is there a big difference in gaming performance?

you are asking about difference between $8 vs $10 CPU (ebay free shipping), typing the question burned more energy than $2 😀 Both will be great.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-28, 05:08:

I had an old laptop i3 350m. Do you know the answer whether the processor in the laptop was more powerful than E8500?

no, Nehalem/Westmere, first i processors, were bad. Hot and not much faster than Core2.
3GHz Core 2 is more than perfect for XP.
Next up would be something like $19 socket 1150 Xeon E3 1231V3/1270V3 + 8-16GB ddr3 + Win7-10, that CPU is good enough to play all the way to current games (obviously not maxed).

In general getting the CPU is not the problem, those are cheap and plentiful. Its the motherboards you need to worry about. Cheapest course of action is tracking down older computer going into recycling, no matter if P4 Core2 or 1155/1150 socket as long as it has solid motherboard (Intel chipset, PCIE slots), and building your retro rig around that.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-28, 05:08:

I remember Athlon XP and Pentium4 like performance monsters. I thought P4 gave good PC performance in 2005. It's hard to believe P4 3.2 ghz is not enough for games from its period at maximum settings.

E8400 and E8500 is there a big difference in gaming performance? And C2D will be enough for WinXp era games? Geforce 750 ti graphics card is ok?

Calling an Athlon XP a "performance monster" in 2005 while doubting the ability of C2D E8400/E8500 and GTX 750 Ti to run WinXP games? You serious? 🙄

In 2005, the fastest P4 in 2005 were 90 nm "Prescott" series, while AMD already started phasing out Athlon XP and switching their focus on Athlon 64 (the very first "ClawHammer" Athlon 64 was announced in September 2003); AMD started 90 nm lithography by the end of 2004 as well. By June 2005, the release date of GTA: San Andreas on PC, one could buy either a P4 3.8 GHz or an Athlon 64 X2 4800+; either one was much faster than the fastest Athlon XP (130 nm "Barton" with single core and thread).

But C2D E8400/E8500 were released in 2008 with 45 nm lithography.

PassMark and similar comparison tools are available over the web. Was it seeing GTA: San Andreas running under GT 710 that left a long-lasting bad taste in your mouth?

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-27, 13:21:

I watched the gameplay of San Andreas with C2D E8400 and C2Q Q9400 and I am disappointed.

I have seen San Andreas below 30 fps on the above-mentioned CPUs with a GT 710 graphics card at 1280x960 settings, with AA disabled and the highest draw distance settings and the highest visual fx quality settings.

As others have pointed out: GT 710 was way too weak for gaming, especially under "highest draw distance settings and the highest visual fx quality settings."

Ok guys, you convinced me to choose C2D. I know Quad is better option for WinVista, W7 and 10, but my target is WinXp.

Possibly I buy I5 2400.

I've have a problem with choose motherboard. There are a lot motherboards LGA1155 and LGA775 but I don't know what to look for when choosing.

Do what many had done before... Go all in with i7-3770K, Z77 motherboard and Geforce GTX770 up to 980Ti 😉

This might be helpful:
Ultimate Windows XP Build (Intel i7-3770k / GTX 980Ti / 24" Asus ProArt display / X-Fi Titanium)

I had an 1156 board turn up recently, and a Geforce 560 I didn't know what to do with, so along with an i3-540 with the knob turned up to 11 or if I can score the i7-750 listing locally, I might throw that all together as a not all that optimised XP thing, but the whole lot will have cost me very little.

On the Core 2 front, I have a micro ATX Dell G45M03 motherboard. It was free. I felt like exploring the Socket 771 to 775 modding so ordered a Xeon X5470. I always wanted a 12MB Yorktown XE. A little sticker remaps the 771 pins to 775. It is speedy. The desktop system BIOS doesn't quite understand the CPU so advanced C states need to be disabled or it runs extremely slow. C1E still works and all instruction sets are enabled. WIndows 10 works fine on it. I haven't used it since I got it working, probably years ago now. It was a fun project though.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-30, 15:22:

Ok guys, you convinced me to choose C2D. I know Quad is better option for WinVista, W7 and 10, but my target is WinXp.

Possibly I buy I5 2400.

I've have a problem with choose motherboard. There are a lot motherboards LGA1155 and LGA775 but I don't know what to look for when choosing.

Like me your only interested in the earlier half of WinXP, GTA SA been one of my more demanding games.
CPU and Motherboard won't make much difference, any 775 / 1155 based system will be plenty fast (unless you go real budget)
GPU is where you want to spend a bit more so you have some power in reserve to enable the higher graphics settings. I've using GTX 590's which handles GTA with no problems.
Also worth getting a Creative card for EAX. SoundBlaster X-FI and below support XP. If you're on a tight budget even the "fake" cards that don't have hardware acceleration would be ok as you have system resources to spare

I found these motherboards

for LGA775 (E8400) P5G41T-M LX3

for Socket 1155(i5 2400) GA-H61M-S1 or ATX Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V

there are ok ?

Kocyk wrote on 2024-10-01, 09:22:

for LGA775 (E8400) P5G41T-M LX3

I have this board, ran XP on it with 7900GS for a long while. Two others are also fine.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-10-01, 09:22:

I found these motherboards […]
Show full quote

I found these motherboards

for LGA775 (E8400) P5G41T-M LX3

for Socket 1155(i5 2400) GA-H61M-S1 or ATX Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V

there are ok ?

Those are low-end chipsets...

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-02, 01:48:

Those are low-end chipsets...

Not when compared to 965. What exactly are you missing? and how much will scoring top of the line board cost?

VivienM wrote on 2024-10-02, 01:48:

Kocyk wrote on 2024-10-01, 09:22:

I found these motherboards […]
Show full quote

I found these motherboards

for LGA775 (E8400) P5G41T-M LX3

for Socket 1155(i5 2400) GA-H61M-S1 or ATX Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V

there are ok ?

Those are low-end chipsets...

B75 wasn't low-end but middle-class. GA-B75M-D3V is also a candidate on my 1155 to-buy list if I can acquire one with a good price. And if the price is low enough then every chipset is a good chipset. 😜My P5G41T-M LX + Q8300 still serves as a backup unit for my parents, although I plan to replace it with a spare MSI H110M PRO-VH + i3-7100 in near future.

BTW Gigabyte just updated BIOSes of many motherboards of Intel 60 to 100 series chipsets for PKfail Vulnerability less than two months ago.

I didn't know motherboards could be high and low end. Does lowend motherboard is bottleneck for cpu? Does easier is buy cheap good motherboards for L775 or socket 1155?

My first computer was a Compaq Deskpro 286 with CGA graphics and 12" amber mono display. In 1996. 😵

Kocyk wrote on 2024-10-02, 09:57:

I didn't know motherboards could be high and low end. Does lowend motherboard is bottleneck for cpu? Does easier is buy cheap good motherboards for L775 or socket 1155?

Look at the spec sheet of the chipset/motherboard. The higher end chipsets will often have more stuff - more SATA ports, faster memory support, more other things, etc.