Old-ass CPU advice

[aisle9]

This morning, I stumbled across a man selling a motherboard for $2.50. It's a thing of beauty: an ASUS A8N-E. Socket 939, four DIMM slots, SATA (!) ports, and a handful of PCI-E slots. Awesome for getting a retro gaming build together capable of 16-bit old school stuff but...oh...wait...it's got an Athlon 64 X2 3800+. Not, you know, a true 32-bit processor, like the Pentium 4 in my current retro gaming rig.

 

In real terms, if I load 32-bit XP onto this thing, which is tremendously more powerful and versatile in every other way than the Micro ATX Socket 478 board on my current rig, how much am I really losing in terms of compatibility? If anything? The draw of PCI-E cards and up to 4GB of lightning-quick PC3200 DDR is overpowering the desire to stay on a true 32-bit/AGP setup.

 

Oh, and the A8N-E doesn't have any capacitors that are about to pop like a week-old zit.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

I mean you're still losing compatibility since it isn't an actual 32 bit CPU. Sure, it might be able to do a bit more stuff, but so can current rigs. 

 

Again, not an expert in this topic but I think the reason why there are so many incompatibilities with current gen hardware is simply a non-32 bit architecture.

[Tabs]

You're losing nothing. When it runs a 32-bit OS, it has all the capability of any other processor running a 32-bit OS.

 

The 64-bit extensions - which intel eventually started licensing from AMD to create their own x86-64 compatibility - are active only when the cpu is running in 64-bit mode. It is basically a super powerful Athlon XP when running in 32-bit mode.

[aisle9]

10 minutes ago, Tabs said:

You're losing nothing. When it runs a 32-bit OS, it has all the capability of any other processor running a 32-bit OS.

 

The 64-bit extensions - which intel eventually started licensing from AMD to create their own x86-64 compatibility - are active only when the cpu is running in 64-bit mode. It is basically a super powerful Athlon XP when running in 32-bit mode.

Interesting, so the 32-bit limitation is based upon the OS, not the CPU? Forgive my relative stupidity here. For all the many things I have been able to grasp, understanding 32/64-bit compatibility remains ever so slightly out of reach.

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Interesting, so the 32-bit limitation is based upon the OS, not the CPU? Forgive my relative stupidity here. For all the many things I have been able to grasp, understanding 32/64-bit continuity remains ever so slightly out of reach.

Strictly, no - but in practice, yes.

 

The reason the x32 and x64 handoff was as smooth as it was - people have no idea nowadays if they are running 32 or 64 bit code - is because the instructions are purely a mode within the processor set at boot depending on the OS that is running.

 

If the CPU boots in 64-bit mode, it can swap to 32-bit mode to run 32-bit programs with zero difference in performance or functionality compared to equal 32-bit only processors. However, this mode change is "one level" only - a 64-bit CPU cannot swap into 16-bit mode from a 64-bit OS. This applies to all AMD64-derived architectures, including all modern intel 64-bit cpu's - pure 64-bit architectures like the itanium require emulation instead of hardware translation to run 32-bit applications.

[emosun]

yeah 64 bit cpu's run 32 bit os just fine. 

[aisle9]

12 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Strictly, no - but in practice, yes.

 

The reason the x32 and x64 handoff was as smooth as it was - people have no idea nowadays if they are running 32 or 64 bit code - is because the instructions are purely a mode within the processor set at boot depending on the OS that is running.

 

If the CPU boots in 64-bit mode, it can swap to 32-bit mode to run 32-bit programs with zero difference in performance or functionality compared to equal 32-bit only processors. However, this mode change is "one level" only - a 64-bit CPU cannot swap into 16-bit mode from a 64-bit OS. This applies to all AMD64-derived architectures, including all modern intel 64-bit cpu's - pure 64-bit architectures like the itanium require emulation instead of hardware translation to run 32-bit applications.

So this Athlon 64 X2 can run anything 32-bit without problems, but if I want to go way back to the days of 16-bit games (and I do), I would need an emulator which would sort of defeat the purpose, right?

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

So this Athlon 64 X2 can run anything 32-bit without problems, but if I want to go way back to the days of 16-bit games (and I do), I would need an emulator which would sort of defeat the purpose, right?

 

No, just run a 32-bit OS. A 32-bit windows OS can run 16-bit programs natively without you having to emulate anything. Like I said - one "level" is fine - a 32-bit OS can run 16-bit software natively, but a 64-bit OS needs emulation to be able to run 16-bit software (since it can only downlevel to 32bit natively).

[aisle9]

6 minutes ago, Tabs said:

 

No, just run a 32-bit OS. A 32-bit windows OS can run 16-bit programs natively without you having to emulate anything. Like I said - one "level" is fine - a 32-bit OS can run 16-bit software natively, but a 64-bit OS needs emulation to be able to run 16-bit software (since it can only downlevel to 32bit natively).

Thank you so much, that's the final piece I needed. The incompatibility doesn't lie with the CPU, it lies with the OS. A 64-bit OS can't run 16-bit software, but an i7-8700K can run the original 16-bit Windows version of SimAnt if you're running 32-bit Windows 10 on the i7 for some reason. If that's a true statement, then 8/16/32/64-bit compatibility finally makes sense, and I am totally keeping this new motherboard.

 

Because who doesn't want to play Comanche 3 on a 750 Ti?

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

Thank you so much, that's the final piece I needed. The incompatibility doesn't lie with the CPU, it lies with the OS. A 64-bit OS can't run 16-bit software, but an i7-8700K can run the original 16-bit Windows version of SimAnt if you're running 32-bit Windows 10 on the i7 for some reason. If that's a true statement, then 8/16/32/64-bit compatibility finally makes sense, and I am totally keeping this new motherboard.

 

Because who doesn't want to play Comanche 3 on a 750 Ti?

Yes, you definitely can - but remember to bear in mind potential incompatibilities between Windows 10 and whatever software you're running. I was speaking in more general terms - 32-bit Windows operating systems can run 16-bit software no problem - but if there are specific components your software expects that Windows 10 doesn't make available by default you may either have some work to do to get it up to scratch, or you may need to run an older operating system to get that kind of functionality.

 

The good news is that the hardware you want to buy will not be an issue - but if you want everything to run the way you expect - especially on Windows 10 - you may have to do a lot of software side work.

[aisle9]

3 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Yes, you definitely can - but remember to bear in mind potential incompatibilities between Windows 10 and whatever software you're running. I was speaking in more general terms - 32-bit Windows operating systems can run 16-bit software no problem - but if there are specific components your software expects that Windows 10 doesn't make available by default you may either have some work to do to get it up to scratch, or you may need to run an older operating system to get that kind of functionality.

 

The good news is that the hardware you want to buy will not be an issue - but if you want everything to run the way you expect - especially on Windows 10 - you may have to do a lot of software side work.

Oh, no, that was purely a hypothetical to make sure I got it. I just finished installing XP 32-bit. Use as a retro gaming tower would be the worst imaginable reason for buying an 8700K.

 

Well, that and CS:GO.

[Tabs]

4 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Yeah, Oh, no, that was purely a hypothetical to make sure I got it. I just finished installing XP 32-bit. Use as a retro gaming tower would be the worst imaginable reason for buying an 8700K.

 

Well, that and CS:GO.

Yeah, I was hoping that was the case. XP on that system is perfect, but remember to keep it offline as much as you can since it hasn't been given any real support (for obvious reasons) in recent years. As an offline retro gaming machine, running the latest version of XP on it would make it an amazing build.