small windows xp/vista box

[plk4]

Hello, im new to the forum but I have few questions.

Where would be the best place to start out? I was thinking of getting a used prebuilt and upgrade it from there.

Problem is I cant think of any low profile sff gpus or computers I could rebuilding in. Thank you for any help!

My main target is to be able to play games from 2000-2010

 

[jtd871]

I would run a Vista or XP VM on a modern rig. Unless you want to play DOS games, for that you can use DOSBox and a DOSBox frontend. It's surprising how many older Windows titles will work with compatibility settings. The easiest (especially if you have your old games on CDs or floppies) thing to do might be to rebuy your games from a service like GOG or Steam if available as they should have the compatibility software sorted.

 

[plk4]

I would run a Vista or XP VM on a modern rig. Unless you want to play DOS games, for that you can use DOSBox and a DOSBox frontend. It's surprising how many older Windows titles will work with compatibility settings. The easiest (especially if you have your old games on CDs or floppies) thing to do might be to rebuy your games from a service like GOG or Steam if available as they should have the compatibility software sorted.

I have a huge collection of games from that era and not every one of those works or is available on gog. Thats why I wanna build a pc dedicated to it. I tried every solution out there that involves modern computers and there is still few games that just dont work.

 

[jtd871]

Then buy a legal copy of XP and/or Vista and see if your games run in a VM. If that doesn't work then maybe see if you can set up multiple boot.

 

[plk4]

Then buy a legal copy of XP and/or Vista and see if your games run in a VM. If that doesn't work then maybe see if you can set up multiple boot.

I own both. I have my old licenses, vms dont have proper directx support. Multi boot is pointless on main rig when drivers for my hardware arent available for those old operating systems. Hence why I wanna build a separate box and why I initially asked about it

 

[rfarmer]

You might try the Dell Optiplex 755, tons of them on ebay for cheap. They came with either Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad, dual slot low profile graphic card. It's a pretty small case and old enough that you could run XP on it.

Dell still has drivers available for both XP and Vista.

 

[plk4]

You might try the Dell Optiplex 755, tons of them on ebay for cheap. They came with either Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad, dual slot low profile graphic card. It's a pretty small case and old enough that you could run XP on it.

Dell still has drivers available for both XP and Vista.

thank you thats exactly what i was looking for, is the whole line called optilex? I was thinking of trying to get very first gen of i5s in that kind of package. My biggest problem is with finding a gpu thatd fit it that still has driver support on xp. After 7 they basically dropped

 

[rfarmer]

Dell made Optiplex for years, lot of different version numbers. You might have to do some searching around. They sold tons of them so there are a lot still around. If not ebay you can probably find one locally.

Here is one on Amazon with an i5.

 

[plk4]

yeah those would be perfect, thank you very much. Any similar lines I should keep a look for ?

 

[rfarmer]

Truthfully I just happened to see one of those on Craigslist and thought it might work for you. There are probably HP models along similar lines. Here is a Dell OptiPlex 960 on ebay that has the first generation i5, I checked and Dell has drivers for XP through Win 7.

 

[TheHig]

Nvidia had full Xp driver support up to Maxwell. So 900 series and lower GPUs are the go to for dedicated WinXp gaming boxes.

I imagine a low profile Gtx 750/ti would do just fine for an Optiplex game box. Especially in older titles. Just keep it off the internet as Xp is horrific for online security at this point.

I built a WinXp box for arcade emulation and old school gaming for a friend using an Athlon x2 and salvage parts. Its fun and cheap as hell.

 

[rfarmer]

Nvidia had full Xp driver support up to Maxwell. So 900 series and lower GPUs are the go to for dedicated WinXp gaming boxes.

I imagine a low profile Gtx 750/ti would do just fine for an Optiplex game box. Especially in older titles. Just keep it off the internet as Xp is horrific for online security at this point.

I built a WinXp box for arcade emulation and old school gaming for a friend using an Athlon x2 and salvage parts. Its fun and cheap as hell.

I was just checking on that, too bad low profile 950 are so rare. You are right a 750 Ti would work really well.

 

[plk4]

Truthfully I just happened to see one of those on Craigslist and thought it might work for you. There are probably HP models along similar lines. Here is a Dell OptiPlex 960 on ebay that has the first generation i5, I checked and Dell has drivers for XP through Win 7.

this one is ideal, will dig around more to see what i can find.

Nvidia had full Xp driver support up to Maxwell. So 900 series and lower GPUs are the go to for dedicated WinXp gaming boxes.

I imagine a low profile Gtx 750/ti would do just fine for an Optiplex game box. Especially in older titles. Just keep it off the internet as Xp is horrific for online security at this point.

I built a WinXp box for arcade emulation and old school gaming for a friend using an Athlon x2 and salvage parts. Its fun and cheap as hell.

I completely forgot about that, I have to do more research on it. 950 would be ideal, I have too much ram laying about so that with enough ddr3 could probably pull newer emulators as well. Anything on amd side that could work? I know 5000 series still had xp support and 6000 was mostly the same in terms of drivers. I remember seeing a 6850 that was small form factor but that would be slower than the 750ti

 

[TheHig]

Running Xp 32bit for old school gaming maxes at 3.5gb of system ram anyway. Unless you are dual booting other OS 4gb in 2x2 dual channel is all you will need.

 

[plk4]

there is a version of xp thats 64 bit, im planning to have vista and xp on it for the few games from 2007-2009 that use dx10