found an old PC what OS for retro gaming

enigma27 · 27 Dec 2018 at 12:23

Hi All.

Dug out an old PC from the in-laws house and thought i would turn it into a retro PC of some kind.

Athlon 4400+ Dual core CPU
3gig of ram
320 HDD

Either a Geforce 760 256mb or i have a 7600 2gig geforce

Just wondering what the best OS would be to use on this machine?

JRS · 27 Dec 2018 at 13:15

Think I'd be tempted to throw Win7 32bit on there. Unless you want to go seriously retro, in which case bang Windows 2000 SP4 (the mildly less irritating brother of XP) on it

almoststew1990 · 27 Dec 2018 at 13:59

Either Windows XP or windows 7, and only 32bit.

Windows XP technically has better compatibility with older games but not by much. Especially for EAX etc sound processing but you don't have a pci/e sound card I assume.

Windows 7 is more usable for normal computing too as it is better at browsing the Web.

Not sure about those graphics cards, I assume you got the vram amounts the wrong way around. The 7600 is not fast enough, the 760 should be perfect for this kind of pc. I have a gtx645 because it does not require any external power and is single slot which is a bonus, but it is plenty powerful for games up to 2011/2.

enigma27 · 27 Dec 2018 at 14:18

almoststew1990 said:
Either Windows XP or windows 7, and only 32bit.

Windows XP technically has better compatibility with older games but not by much. Especially for EAX etc sound processing but you don't have a pci/e sound card I assume.

Windows 7 is more usable for normal computing too as it is better at browsing the Web.

Not sure about those graphics cards, I assume you got the vram amounts the wrong way around. The 7600 is not fast enough, the 760 should be perfect for this kind of pc. I have a gtx645 because it does not require any external power and is single slot which is a bonus, but it is plenty powerful for games up to 2011/2.

its actually an Asus 670 2gig

I also have a SB fatality sound card in the machine

Tee Hee Johnson · 28 Dec 2018 at 09:40

Probably Windows XP.

Duke · 28 Dec 2018 at 10:05

Windows 7 came out when that CPU was ending production, so XP would have been used at the time & so would probably pick that. It feels more retro too

enigma27 · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:02

put windows 7 on for testing and its still quite a nippy little machine.

Flibster · 28 Dec 2018 at 13:10

Go with XP. 32bit version too.

LewisRaz · 28 Dec 2018 at 14:00

dual cores are retro? I feel old

I would go with XP for that tho. Most games that work on 7 will work on modern pcs. Games for xp and lower will have a higher chance on XP.