WinXP DirectX 8.1 GPU Options?

[SALEEN961]

I've been tossing around the idea of building a Windows XP retro gaming PC to play a couple of games my wife and I remember playing as kids and while selecting most of the components seems fairly straight forward I'm a bit unsure of what GPU I should use. The primary game we want to play recommends a 32MB or greater DirectX 8.1 GPU and lists GeForce4/3/2/256 Nividia cards as compatible, and Radeon 9000/8500/7500/7200/7000 cards as compatible.

 

I'd like to use a PCI or PCIe GPU and skip the really old AGP stuff so I can have more modern motherboard and CPU but I'm not sure how new I can go before I'll run into some sort of compatibility issue. Assuming the card I pick has WinXP drivers would I have any issues running a GPU designed for DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 when playing a DirectX 8.1 game?

 

 

[PlayStation 2]

Not in particular, no.

Just look for something that can actually run on Windows XP. Pretty fucking overkill but something like the 750 Ti and the 7850 will work on XP, to give you an idea on how new you can go.

Although, be wary of how new you can go, as some games may require tweaking to run on newer cards.

[Pasi123]

If I remember correctly Geforce GTX 2xx series was the best one for DirectX 8. On newer cards you might have some problems with some games.

[NelizMastr]

11 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

If I remember correctly Geforce GTX 2xx series was the best one for DirectX 8.

The GT200 series was DX10, DirectX 8 is from the year 2000 in case you were wondering

 

6 hours ago, SALEEN961 said:

I'd like to use a PCI or PCIe GPU and skip the really old AGP stuff so I can have more modern motherboard and CPU but I'm not sure how new I can go before I'll run into some sort of compatibility issue. Assuming the card I pick has WinXP drivers would I have any issues running a GPU designed for DirectX 9 or DirectX 10 when playing a DirectX 8.1 game?

PCI is older than AGP, and has literally no bandwidth for a graphics card beyond the 2D cards of the 90's. Doesn't really matter that much how new you can go, just see what you can find for cheap. It would seem you'd be fine with something as simple as a 6600GT and a Pentium 4/ Athlon 64. DX versions are backwards compatible, although optimization is gone with newer cards than say 2005 for DX8.

[Pasi123]

Just now, NelizMastr said:

The GT200 series was DX10, DirectX 8 is from the year 2000 in case you were wondering

I know that.

 

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=47815&sid=e5e6d45f564e15829f5bb8ec1e9e0397

[NelizMastr]

4 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

I know that.

 

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=47815&sid=e5e6d45f564e15829f5bb8ec1e9e0397

There's nobody there saying the GTX200 is the best series for DX8, though. Only that it's possibly the best card for XP era games period.

[Pasi123]

9 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

There's nobody there saying the GTX200 is the best series for DX8, though. Only that it's possibly the best card for XP era games period.

Maybe it's not the best one if you want to play only DX8 games and nothing newer. In that case probably some GeForce 6000 series card would be better, anything older than that would be AGP only.

[NelizMastr]

5 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

Maybe it's not the best one if you want to play only DX8 games and nothing newer. In that case probably some GeForce 6000 series card would be better, anything older than that would be AGP only.

Yep. I suggested the 6600 specifically because it's dirt cheap and fits the performance requirement. For $20 a pop, you could even get a 8800GT which would be killer too.

[SALEEN961]

8 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

The GT200 series was DX10, DirectX 8 is from the year 2000 in case you were wondering

 

PCI is older than AGP, and has literally no bandwidth for a graphics card beyond the 2D cards of the 90's. Doesn't really matter that much how new you can go, just see what you can find for cheap. It would seem you'd be fine with something as simple as a 6600GT and a Pentium 4/ Athlon 64. DX versions are backwards compatible, although optimization is gone with newer cards than say 2005 for DX8.

I'll be honest I've never seen an AGP slot in person so I just assumed it was older lol.

There are some pretty good deals on Core 2 Duo/Quad setups on ebay, so this will probably be a socket 775 build.

 

I'll keep an eye out for some deals on the 6000 series cards like the 6600GT, I wasn't sure if this would be too new to play nicely with DX8.1 titles. I didn't really get into PC gaming until everything was DX9.

[NelizMastr]

11 hours ago, SALEEN961 said:

I'll keep an eye out for some deals on the 6000 series cards like the 6600GT, I wasn't sure if this would be too new to play nicely with DX8.1 titles. I didn't really get into PC gaming until everything was DX9.

Should be fine. Like I said, DirectX is backwards compatible, and if you don't use the very latest drivers, optimization should be there. The best DX8 cards can cost a pretty penny anyway, like the Geforce 4 Ti 4800.

[SALEEN961]

Well I just had a HD 4670 and a GTX 650TI given to me for free so even though they are much newer than what I was looking for and probably aren't the best cards to run DX8.1 games on I think I'll give them both a try. They were free because they were pulled from dead systems, are packed for of dust, and it's not currently known if they work or not, but for a small investment of my time I'm willing to try my luck.

[grss1982]

7 hours ago, SALEEN961 said:

Well I just had a HD 4670 and a GTX 650TI given to me for free so even though they are much newer than what I was looking for and probably aren't the best cards to run DX8.1 games on I think I'll give them both a try. They were free because they were pulled from dead systems, are packed for of dust, and it's not currently known if they work or not, but for a small investment of my time I'm willing to try my luck.

Radeon R7 240 in a retro gaming machine: 

 

 

So either of those cards should be okay with the retro gaming you plan.

 

Also some YT channel above, AMD is favored over Nvidia:

 

 

[SALEEN961]

On 9/16/2018 at 7:35 AM, grss1982 said:

Radeon R7 240 in a retro gaming machine: 

 

So either of those cards should be okay with the retro gaming you plan.

 

Also some YT channel above, AMD is favored over Nvidia:

 

Thank you for posting those videos, I found a lot if the info in them very interesting.