XP 32bit or 64bit to best run older PC games

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Vesqwi

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 9, 2011
Messages
352
Hi there.
I'm on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit for my everyday uses, but find older games (yea I like older games) like Dungeon Siege 1 to be laggy which is not because of a hardware weakness (i run BF3 pretty well)

So I though installing XP as a secondary OS might be a good try since most of these games have to be played in "XP compatibility mode" to run on my current windows 7 OS.
So let me know first if im correct or wrong with this. If positive, I'd like to know if I should install a 32 or 64bit version of XP considering that this OS will be used for the sole purpose of playing older games (2000-2005)

Laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A660-042 (i7 quad core , Geforce 350m, 8gb ram)
Compatibility and performance are priority here.

Thanks
 
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32Bit version def. It will have no issues running your games. Stay away from 64bit XP, it is a dog. It does not have the native WOW32 HAL built in to allow games to run like they do on Vista/7/8 64bit.
 
First, have you tried using another virtualization solution like VMware Player or VirtualBox? I've tried using the 'XP mode' downloaded from Microsoft and found it severely lacking when it came to performance in games (especially older 3D games), but either aforementioned tool should be able to convert the XP mode VHD into its respectable format. Both tools support DirectX functions up to version 9.0 IIRC.

If those don't work for you then don't even bother with XP x64 edition, especially if you're installing an OS for the sole purpose of playing older games. It's just not worth the trouble especially if compatibility is one of your top priorities.
 
GushpinBob said:
First, have you tried using another virtualization solution like VMware Player or VirtualBox
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Thanks. Will go with XP 32bit as expected.

Actually I do have a Vrtualbox with a virtual Window XP guest machine installed, I just always run it windowed when I need it and have never used it for gaming so far.
Wouldn't game run better on a real XP installed on a new raw partition, than on a virtual XP using virtualbox even in full screen ?


Thanks guys
 
yeh 32 xp even if you are using a lot of ram, it just will not allocate it(3gb addressable is what they say assuming a 1gb video card, and the OS using what it uses, for me 4gb ram and a 512mb/1gb gpu at the time I was left with a constant 2.8-3.4gb addressable memory which is plenty) 32 bit XCP had far less issues then 64bit had.
 
32 bit XP will run a lot of older games very well. Don't worry about the memory stuff ^ because older games don't use nearly enough memory or GPU memory to worry about it (because no one had more than 4GB of ram when they launched anyways).
 
true enough, 2gb is usually more then enough for XP, whereas vista/7/8 needs 4gb at minimum for best performance.
 
I dual boot windows xp 32bit and windows 7 ultimate.


1 Midi is screw over in windows 7 they changed out audio works in windows 7

2 EAX can run not emulated in windows xp

3 since most game suportted windows NT or windows 2000 they will work on windows xp it is based off some of those code so it works.

if you are running windows xp 32bit on the cpu you are running a full real 32bit OS so games work better. if you run a 64os the CPU "fakes "the 32bit, they do not change to 64 or 32bit like that .

I have 64gb ram and only 4gb shows up on windows xp though and only 2tb harddrives work correct that is why I have a set of 2tb drive I change over too with the hotswap bay.,


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2UDX7NLodc

games that do not work in windows 7 work just fine 99% of the time when I change over to windows xp


Only really old windows 95 games are the only games that do not work on windows XP most of the time and windows xp has a better windows 95 mode anyway.
 
do not forget about advanced format, this can pose headaches for XP and prior.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2107204

Audio being screwy is or could be due to the HAL layer being stripped, as for the EAX running native of course that is a good thing, however XP also had mucho issues of its own, and most of them were crashing of HAL, wonder why its emulated now(can be fixed on the fly?)
 
1.-There's no such thing as "fake 32 bit".
2.-Not many games supported Windows 2000 much less Windows NT. Heck lots of games wouldn't even install if they detected Windows 2000.
3.- I used XP x64 for years before moving to Windows 7 64. the only thing that gave me trouble in games were 16 bit installers.


It does not have the native WOW32 HAL built in to allow games to run like they do on Vista/7/8 64bit.
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This guy has no clue what he is talking about. I'm not even going to try to refute this....

If you don't want to mess with 16 bit installers, just go XP32bit.

BTW what kind of games are you trying to run? I've been playing lots of retro games circa 2000~2005 in Windows 8 64 with no issues
 
once the CPU boots into 64bit mode from an OS it does not change back to or run it at the same time in 32bit it does not happen the OS has a system level kernal at 64 bit and then emulate 32bit code calls so it is running in fake 32bit through the 64bit OS. the CPU is still running everything 64bit.

it's called the WOW64 emulator on windows so yes it is as fake virtual machine code as the NES that is running in the emulator on the OS.


If you want to read more into that you can here.


http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-windows7-vista64-support-32bit-applications.htm


this does not always work correct as you can see by any other emulator where things do not work the same as a real machine.

If you want real 32bit you boot the cpu into 32bit with a 32bit OS and it will stay there 64bit x86 cpus still have the support. the 32bit os handles 16bit and 8bit the same way but most games run fine in 32bit since windows 95 or so unless they are games older than windows 95.



EAX on my soundblaster xifi is emulated by a program driver called alchmey and that is because of the changes in windows 7 they removed what eax used to get to the hardware in direct X it works alright, but not as good as the real windows xp drivers. DirectSound3D is gone it is like a video card having direct 3d removed the drivers don't work. windows 7 and up have a new sound code.



http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx

Oh and also windows 7 and up "emulates direct x9 and lower" and that causes problems sometimes it does not run the same way it did in xp, it was replaced by direct x10 /11
 
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Ran all the games in xp x64 for years. All steam games worked. Only games that didn't work are the games that didn't work for xp x32 (mainly dx10 or dx11 games).
 
Stoly said:
1.
BTW what kind of games are you trying to run? I've been playing lots of retro games circa 2000~2005 in Windows 8 64 with no issues
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Currently trying to run Dungeon Siege 1. On my current OS when I set the game at normal or at the highest resolution the game support (1024x768) it's very laggy. I have to set it to 640x480 to run it flawless.

Cube said:
it's called the WOW64 emulator on windows so yes it is as fake virtual machine code as the NES that is running in the emulator on the OS.

Oh and also windows 7 and up "emulates direct x9 and lower" and that causes problems sometimes it does not run the same way it did in xp, it was replaced by direct x10 /11
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That's a lot of emulation imho... I guess running those on a real XP OS would be a better way to run these old game..
 
If it's old games then stick with XP 32bit. You will have fewer worries.

Disregard what you have read about Windows NT, NT did not support games at all.

Some really old games use 16bit installers which will not run in X64.

XP x86 all the way
 
therat said:
If it's old games then stick with XP 32bit. You will have fewer worries.

Disregard what you have read about Windows NT, NT did not support games at all.

Some really old games use 16bit installers which will not run in X64.

XP x86 all the way
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Glad to hear.. I'll try
 
Cube said:
once the CPU boots into 64bit mode from an OS it does not change back to or run it at the same time in 32bit it does not happen the OS has a system level kernal at 64 bit and then emulate 32bit code calls so it is running in fake 32bit through the 64bit OS. the CPU is still running everything 64bit.

it's called the WOW64 emulator on windows so yes it is as fake virtual machine code as the NES that is running in the emulator on the OS.


If you want to read more into that you can here.


http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-windows7-vista64-support-32bit-applications.htm
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NES emulator has to intercept machine code instructions and convert them on the fly from whatever NES used (MIPS if i recall) to x86. This dramatically slows performance.

A cpu running in x86-64 long mode recognizes all of the same instructions from x86-32 mode, so no opcodes have to be changed. The only thing that needs to be changed is calls to windows, which now have to be translated from windows 32bit calls to windows 64bit calls. For most applications there is negligible performance penalty.

I wouldn't say it's the same thing as the NES emulator.

Either way, for old games I'd still recommend windows xp 32 or windows 98se (if you have a lot of dos games) because of OS compatibility reasons and not because of performance reasons.

edit: NES did NOT use mips. My bad. Doesn't change the rest of my post.
 
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64-bit XP is an oddball that's based on Server 2003. That can create its own set of problems since some software won't install if it detects a "server OS" (not common, but it has happened to me).
 
SockMan! said:
64-bit XP is an oddball that's based on Server 2003. That can create its own set of problems since some software won't install if it detects a "server OS" (not common, but it has happened to me).
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Thanks man.
Thanks everyone actually. very helpful posts
 
hardforummarc said:
Wich means ?! (good or worthless to run oldies on XP 32 instead of 7 64 ?)
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It means there should be no noticeable performance advantage for running windows xp 32 instead of windows 7 64 for older games, since the hardware handles the instructions natively anyways.

However, for operating system compatibility reasons, you may want to go with an older operating system (depending on the game) to save yourself the headache of trying to make older games run on a new OS.
 
Stoly said:
1.-There's no such thing as "fake 32 bit".
2.-Not many games supported Windows 2000 much less Windows NT. Heck lots of games wouldn't even install if they detected Windows 2000.
3.- I used XP x64 for years before moving to Windows 7 64. the only thing that gave me trouble in games were 16 bit installers.


This guy has no clue what he is talking about. I'm not even going to try to refute this....

If you don't want to mess with 16 bit installers, just go XP32bit.

BTW what kind of games are you trying to run? I've been playing lots of retro games circa 2000~2005 in Windows 8 64 with no issues
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Never had that issue of games not installing overall. for the pesky ones you could tell Win 2K to be [insert older version of windows here]. Had issues early on with ATi drivers but once Windws 2K got a little popular, that issue was mute.
 
This thread has a lot of contradictions.. each saying the complete opposite of the others.. This is a total Waist of time-thread conversion.
Thanks for sharing your though guys. But please when you make a statements and the subject is not a matter of opinion but actual facts, make SURE it's true and verified. This will avoid a lot of confusion and disinformation.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Never had that issue of games not installing overall. for the pesky ones you could tell Win 2K to be [insert older version of windows here]. Had issues early on with ATi drivers but once Windws 2K got a little popular, that issue was mute.
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There have been many games that were so poorly coded that if they couldn't detect the OS you were on, they refused install. I.e. any OS newer than release date is going to fail install.

Borderline criminal stupidity - but it's there.
 
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