My build for XP is:
First build:
Gigabyte EX58-UD5R
24 gigs of DDR3 ram, triple channel
GTX 780
Core i7 960
HDD: I dont really know, but it was from my old laptop.
Second build:
Asus P9X79 PRO
64 gigs of ram, quad channel
Same GPU
i7 3930k
Third build:
Gigabyte GA-8I865PE775-G-RH (almost broke my head searching it.)
1gb DDR ram
Dunno what cpu is this. Ill check later
Geforce 9800 gtx
Dang i really wish well to make my hands touch some old X48/38 motherboards, they are cool for XP or my hands on rare i975X.
Or hec

I used to use Nlite with the addons availalbe from other people to integrate into my Windows XP iso. I still have them all in case I ever wanted to do that but I don't use XP anymore so I don't mess with them. In case you didn't know, I think there is a patch to allow Windows XP to use more than 4 GB ram if I'm not mistaken.

Time for a trip down memory lane?

Windows XP is special for me. While it was not the first version of Windows I used, it was what I used during most of my formative years with PCs. This coincided with some of my own formative years as a person, a time when we're young, impressionable, and everything is novel to us. Factoring both of those together is sure to give me a biased view of those times.

Originally, I wasn't too interested with PCs. I was a young teenager more concerned with things like school and friends (especially as I recently moved), music, and clothes. But I was getting more involved into video games. I had an initial interest in them seeded with the NES/SNES (Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country, and Goof Troop come to mind) but it was especially with the PlayStation that I truly took an interest (Final Fantasy IX, Spyro, Resident Evil and Silent Hill come to mind, especially the first because of the stories, characters, and worlds that JRPGs offered). So the PC had a bit of a carrot on a stick appeal in that it could expand my gaming options, and there was of course the internet. Eventually the interest took hold.

Looking back at it, I had many PC configurations in that era, and many of them blended into one another so I'll just list a couple anchor points. Hardware and software were moving so much faster in those days, and I also experienced many issues and failures, both of which led to frequently changing what I was using.

Dell Dimension 4100
Pentium III 800 MHz
384 MB (133 MHz) or 512 MB (100 MHz) SDRAM - Ah, the frequency or capacity question
GeForce 4 MX 440 later to GeForce 4 Ti 4200
20 GB HDD

OptiPlex GX 270
Pentium 4 2.8 GHz
1 GB 400 MHz DDR
Radeon 9700 (?) later to GeForce 6800 GS AGP
80 GB HDD

I finally attempted my first custom PC late 2007/early 2008, which ran Windows XP for a short while before I jumped onto the beta of Windows 7, concluding my walk with Windows XP.

I may not be able to speak too objectively about Windows XP itself since nostalgia will blind me, but what I do miss is many parts of the earlier days of the internet before it became more mobile phone accommodating and before the minimal and flat design of Windows 8/10 took over. Things feel more sterile and bland, and the rise of concentrated social media on more corporate feeling platforms like Reddit, Facebook, modern YouTube, and Twitter (or whatever it's called now), not to mention things like TikTok and Discord, makes me miss the more numerous and less centralized forum communities of the 2000s. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of nice benefits that modern tech affords us so I'm not saying it was better entirely before, but it certainly was in some ways. It was a time when the internet was a place you went to and left as opposed to life being constantly attached to, and the communities that were around back then felt more "real" for lack of better words (I'm sure AI, bots, and "dead internet theory" isn't helping there).

I dont have a puirpose built XP performance rig atm, but I do have the parts.

Would likely be a Socket 939 Athlon 64 x2 4800+
On a DFI Lan-Party NF4 Ultra - nForce nvidia SLI chipset
with an nVidia GTX-295 dual GPU
and 4GB of DDR-400

OR

A Pentium 4 3.0E
On a Socket 478 Motherboard (would need to acquire, my Asus P4P-800E Deluxe bit the dust)
With an ATi HD 3850 AGP
and 4GB of DDR4 with 32 bit limitation on addressing.

Both with either RAID-0 HDD or with an early (or comparable performance to early) SSD.

I do have a period machine booted, with XP running on it, as a print server for a Dot Matrix printer I still have in service, Its a Gateway eMachine that was the family PC many years ago. its the Tripple 1 system lol.

1Ghz, 1 Core, 1 GB.

1Ghz single core AMD Sempron
1GB DDR Ram
160GB HDD
NF4 MX onboard graphics.

Not fast, not flasy, but still running all these years later. Booted 24/7 as the HDD is getting a bit tough to get working right from cold.

引用自 xSOSxHawkens：

I dont have a puirpose built XP performance rig atm, but I do have the parts.

Would likely be a Socket 939 Athlon 64 x2 4800+
On a DFI Lan-Party NF4 Ultra - nForce nvidia SLI chipset
with an nVidia GTX-295 dual GPU
and 4GB of DDR-400

OR

A Pentium 4 3.0E
On a Socket 478 Motherboard (would need to acquire, my Asus P4P-800E Deluxe bit the dust)
With an ATi HD 3850 AGP
and 4GB of DDR4 with 32 bit limitation on addressing.

Both with either RAID-0 HDD or with an early (or comparable performance to early) SSD.

I do have a period machine booted, with XP running on it, as a print server for a Dot Matrix printer I still have in service, Its a Gateway eMachine that was the family PC many years ago. its the Tripple 1 system lol.

1Ghz, 1 Core, 1 GB.

1Ghz single core AMD Sempron
1GB DDR Ram
160GB HDD
NF4 MX onboard graphics.

Not fast, not flasy, but still running all these years later. Booted 24/7 as the HDD is getting a bit tough to get working right from cold.

nForce was a cool thing, better than stock AMD chipsets, but lower OC capability.
Athlon would fit better, it kicks P4 ass, even pentium 3-s at 1.4ghz cant catch up even with 440GX/450NX chipset!
The only build that *possibly* would kick Athlons ass would be a dual socket 370 build, or dual Slot 1..

引用自 xSOSxHawkens：

Would likely be a Socket 939 Athlon 64 x2 4800+
On a DFI Lan-Party NF4 Ultra - nForce nvidia SLI chipset
with an nVidia GTX-295 dual GPU
and 4GB of DDR-400

If I was to make my own personal nostalgia/period correct configuration, that would be close to what I would consider the preferred one. It would definitely be Athlon XP or 64-based (I might even prefer the former), but that graphics card is way too powerful and new, and the RAM is way too high, but I get the appeal of maxing it out, especially if you want to open your options up to the late 2000s/early 2010s (I see that more as the Windows Vista/7 era though, even if XP was supported until 2014). What I'd be after is more of an early-mid 2000s snapshot, so I would instead go with a Radeon 9x00 or GeForce 6800. Those were pretty much the CPUs and graphics cards everyone had (and I wanted) at the time.

For a short while, I did have an Athlon XP and Radeon 9700 in-between the two configurations I listed, but it didn't last long. I think the motherboard started having issues? I liked it much better than the Pentium 4s I ended on (I had both the Northwood and Prescott 2.8 GHz/800 MHz ones, and yes the latter ran very hot).

pretty much anything that will run on xp can run on win 7-11

xp uses upto dx9.0c
it was only really dropped if you use an intel dedicated gpu
amd and nvidia gpus still support dx9.0c

Ahhh to reminiscent of slowness. Sata1
32gb hdd.

But you know what the oldest os still in demand.
Windows Xp 2024 edition.

I really see zero point in making or maintaining an xp machine for gaming, it's not like a retro console where the experience is different or unique to it, it's just a slower worse version of playing on windows 11.

引用自 Illusion of Progress：

引用自 xSOSxHawkens：

Would likely be a Socket 939 Athlon 64 x2 4800+
On a DFI Lan-Party NF4 Ultra - nForce nvidia SLI chipset
with an nVidia GTX-295 dual GPU
and 4GB of DDR-400

If I was to make my own personal nostalgia/period correct configuration, that would be close to what I would consider the preferred one. It would definitely be Athlon XP or 64-based (I might even prefer the former), but that graphics card is way too powerful and new, and the RAM is way too high, but I get the appeal of maxing it out, especially if you want to open your options up to the late 2000s/early 2010s (I see that more as the Windows Vista/7 era though, even if XP was supported until 2014). What I'd be after is more of an early-mid 2000s snapshot, so I would instead go with a Radeon 9x00 or GeForce 6800. Those were pretty much the CPUs and graphics cards everyone had (and I wanted) at the time.

For a short while, I did have an Athlon XP and Radeon 9700 in-between the two configurations I listed, but it didn't last long. I think the motherboard started having issues? I liked it much better than the Pentium 4s I ended on (I had both the Northwood and Prescott 2.8 GHz/800 MHz ones, and yes the latter ran very hot).

The RAM and GPU are still fine for an XP build. If anything, that one is a bit weak compared to the real one I rocked for the best parts of the XP era. Well one of the builds was, the other was actually the rig used:

(actual rigs used in XP era)


Early XP era ~ 2003
AMD Durron 700 @ 1Ghz
1GB SD-Ram
Soundblaster PCI
160GB HDD
GeForce4 Ti-4200 128MB AGP

Mid XP era ~ 2006 (yes, it played crysis)

Pentium 3 3.0E @ 3.9
4GB DDR-400 (32 bit limited)
Soundblaster Live
160GB PATA RAID-0
ATi HD3850 512MB AGP

Late XP Era ~ 2008 and beyond - Last rig I mainline booted XP on as its primary long term OS
(yes, it played crysis better)

Core 2 Quad Q6700 @ 3.6Ghz w/1866Mhz FSB
4GB DDR3-1333 (yes, that is not a typo, Gigabyte GA-EP-45t board with DDR3 on S775).
Sounblaster X-Fi
1TB SATA RAID-0
Radeon HD 4890


The retro rig I would build now, with a S939 64x2 and DDR1 would both be very far behind the end of XP rig. Even with the 295. The HD4890 was faster than the 295 any time SLI was not in play, and the Lan-Party is PCIe 1.0.

All around, it would be a period accurate rig for someone who build high end mid-XP life cycle (MB/CPU/RAM) and then upgraded the GPU towards end of XP era rather than upgrade the whole system.

引用自 Monk：

I really see zero point in making or maintaining an xp machine for gaming, it's not like a retro console where the experience is different or unique to it, it's just a slower worse version of playing on windows 11.

As a gaming rig it would fly, hardest part to upgrade the directx 11

引用自 Monk：

I really see zero point in making or maintaining an xp machine for gaming, it's not like a retro console where the experience is different or unique to it, it's just a slower worse version of playing on windows 11.

Allot comes down to the game and the accesories.

XP was the last era of Direct Input and such being actually, well, direct. With the driver re-design and abstraction layers added after allot of things related to sound and external feedback accessories got messed up.

For some, its worth it to use the older stuff, specially if they like to main specific games that used features no longer supported.

It might sound weird, but both the sound and the Force Feedback effects of a Y2K era flight sim, for example, will be superior using a period accurate rig with a Sidewinder and a Soundblaster than they will be compared to a large number of modern titles with a modern trustmaster or the likes.

Niche for sure though.

Can't remember the full build for XP but it was a P4 Prescott 2.8 with a ATI MSI 9800 Pro Plus with the BIOS flashed to make it a 9800 XT, but that was a DX9b card and Half Life 2 just came out so I got a 6800 GT (OC'd 50Mhz to Ultra) soon as that released to see all the DX9c FX, amazing at the time.
Probably used XP on the PC after that but can't remember tbh.

Oh and whatever the norm for RAM was I will have had double, always do, I'm the guy who had 2MB in his Amiga A500.

引用自 xSOSxHawkens：

引用自 Monk：

I really see zero point in making or maintaining an xp machine for gaming, it's not like a retro console where the experience is different or unique to it, it's just a slower worse version of playing on windows 11.

Allot comes down to the game and the accesories.

XP was the last era of Direct Input and such being actually, well, direct. With the driver re-design and abstraction layers added after allot of things related to sound and external feedback accessories got messed up.

For some, its worth it to use the older stuff, specially if they like to main specific games that used features no longer supported.

It might sound weird, but both the sound and the Force Feedback effects of a Y2K era flight sim, for example, will be superior using a period accurate rig with a Sidewinder and a Soundblaster than they will be compared to a large number of modern titles with a modern trustmaster or the likes.

Niche for sure though.

OK force feedback with a sidewinder might be the sole reason, but sound will not sound better, tech moves on also, I'm pretty sure I read you can use the sidewinder in windows 11 now and any lattency added is not noticeable by humans.

引用自 Im smoking gas：

引用自 xSOSxHawkens：

I dont have a puirpose built XP performance rig atm, but I do have the parts.

Would likely be a Socket 939 Athlon 64 x2 4800+
On a DFI Lan-Party NF4 Ultra - nForce nvidia SLI chipset
with an nVidia GTX-295 dual GPU
and 4GB of DDR-400

OR

A Pentium 4 3.0E
On a Socket 478 Motherboard (would need to acquire, my Asus P4P-800E Deluxe bit the dust)
With an ATi HD 3850 AGP
and 4GB of DDR4 with 32 bit limitation on addressing.

Both with either RAID-0 HDD or with an early (or comparable performance to early) SSD.

I do have a period machine booted, with XP running on it, as a print server for a Dot Matrix printer I still have in service, Its a Gateway eMachine that was the family PC many years ago. its the Tripple 1 system lol.

1Ghz, 1 Core, 1 GB.

1Ghz single core AMD Sempron
1GB DDR Ram
160GB HDD
NF4 MX onboard graphics.

Not fast, not flasy, but still running all these years later. Booted 24/7 as the HDD is getting a bit tough to get working right from cold.

nForce was a cool thing, better than stock AMD chipsets, but lower OC capability.
Athlon would fit better, it kicks P4 ass, even pentium 3-s at 1.4ghz cant catch up even with 440GX/450NX chipset!
The only build that *possibly* would kick Athlons ass would be a dual socket 370 build, or dual Slot 1..

While I will admit, the athlon would win, and that p4 was a failure, dont underestimate netburst.

That 3.0E @ 3.9 benchmarked out pretty close to the 1.9Ghz dual core AMD Turion I had in a laptop a few years later. Far ahead of any P3. Still slow though, thus the jump to the Core2Quad.

But for an AGP build, it did some decent work.