PcBytes wrote on 2024-04-29, 19:23:
SP2 is the lowest I would downgrade to
I agree.
While I haven't experienced any crashes with any games on one of my systems with a "super-updated" SP0 (basically all updates prior to just rolling over to SP1), there's a lot of improvements and compatibility issues resolved in SP2, so that's why I also don't suggest to go any lower. And for anyone building a high(er)-end XP machine, I highly recommend going with SP3. In particular, some of the very late XP era (early Windows 7 era) hardware has drivers that may not work properly on anything pre-SP2... and some might have issues with anything pre-SP3.
dionb wrote on 2024-04-29, 14:09:
Overkill for 2003, but OP's talking of running XP SP3, and those SPs seriously bloated the OS. I'd say 2GB is absolute minimum for a decent experience on XP SP3, and even there I'd prefer more. Better alternative: don't install the SPs, particularly not SP2 and 3.
Not really.
I think modern computers have really skewed some people's minds about how much RAM an XP system (be it SP1, SP2, or SP3) needs.
There's actually hardly a difference between SP0, SP1, and SP2 in that regard. Most of my SP2 builds boot at 90 to 150 MB of RAM on the desktop. It really just depends on the hardware I'm using (mainly has to do with drivers, especially the GPU.) Only SP3 needs a bit more RAM... but it will still comfortably run with 512 MB of RAM on most systems, at least for software from that age (i.e. mid 2000's). Of course if you want to game, especially mid 2000's games, 1 GB is highly recommended. And if stretching beyond that to the extent of early Windows 7 era games (i.e. Mirror's Edge, COD MW/MW2, and anything with the updated Source engine like HL2 EP2 / Portal 2 / BMS), only then you'd need to go beyond 1 GB of RAM. But beyond 2 GB, it's usually a waste, unless you're running a high-end XP system with Intel i-series or equivalent CPU and hardware to match. Heck, I'm browsing the internet with an XP machine sometimes, (with a modern retro browser like Mypal), and most of the time I have a hard time going over 1 GB of RAM.
dionb wrote on 2024-04-29, 14:09:... but since XP's way out of support and utterly insecure if accessible unprotected from internet
Well, *any* OS is quite insecure when connected to the internet unprotected... but then, who does that anyways?? What I'm talking about is running a system directly connected to an outgoing internet connection (e.g. cable modem hooked straight to the computer) without an external firewall of some sort. Most routers have pretty decent firewall and obfuscate the internal network well enough that even outdated OSes like XP will actually be decently protected. That said, I still don't recommend going below SP2. In fact, official SP2 release has some known security holes that can get it compromised online rather quickly. To get around that, there are a few updates needed for SP2. So the minimum is SP2XP2 + a few select updates that patch these security holes.
Kruton 9000 wrote on 2024-04-29, 22:26:
In my memory, Windows XP was very buggy up until service pack 2. I wouldn’t even say that it was more stable than fully patched Windows 98, even despite the NT architecture.
Well, you do also need to consider that there was a lot of shitty hardware back then too (think: cheap POS PSUs, motherboards and GPUs with crap caps, and etc.), which could be the reason why.
All of my vanilla XP and SP0 builds were rock-stable software-wise. I did have lots of problems with one SP0 build in particular... and the issue turned out to be a hardware problem: bad caps in the power supply. It was causing all sorts of "random" software problems. Once I got the PSU replaced, the system became rock-steady like the others. In fact, I still have that system with its original install still running today. I stopped using it as a main computer around 2007-2008, and since then it's been mostly sitting around, used for the occasional old game only.