The online racing simulator
Best Windows XP System? CPU slows the Graphic Card down
I want create a new Windows XP Platform for LFS and some other games which not run in Win10. I got a Radeon HD 6870, but this run not good on my Windows 10 Systems. No smooth graphics. I guess the CPU or the Mainboard slowing the Graphic card down. I used this Card on AMD Athlon II X4 640, AM3, (4x 3,0 GHz) and AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ - ADO3800IAA5CU Socket AM2 and this graphics card need 150 Watt but bring not much more speed than my mobile A6-6310. This is just a waste of power without any performance. I searching for a Year 2008 High End System which is not to expensive for creating a Win XP Machine.
#2 - lucaf
Maybe you did not find correct drivers for Win10?
What's ur RAM memory? Its important for system.
I used the newest drivers from the AMD Website. But also the Google earth is not smooth.... Windows 10 provide the best driver already via windows update, but i installed anyway the driver from the amd website. I guess this have to do with the ASRock Mainboard. Mainboards and CPU slowing the Graphics Card down.

Ram i used Corsair 2x 4GB DIMM DDR3-1600 (CMX4GX3M1A1600C9 XMS)
#5 - Racon
I learned the hard way not to let XP manage your virtual memory/page file way back when (apparently it'll spend every chance it gets messing around with it). If you haven't already, turn it off if 8Gb is enough for the things you do, or else set it to 20Gb (2.5 x actual) and disallow windows changing the size. Huge difference for me, it was an AMD chip on an ASUS board IIRC. YMMV!

Edit: ...and if you haven't come across TinyXP, have a look at that too. I think it was before my LFS time, but it was good for all the things I did when I was using it.
Sorry, but the Win XP isn't installed yet, this is planned and i searching for a good Mainboard and CPU for the best support of the Radeon HD 6870. The Radeon 6870 have i only in Win 10 tested. I do always removing the virtual memory completely and since win 10 need virtual ram for superfetch i have a ramdrive for the virtual ram.

For my Win XP machine i need a High End Mainboard and CPU from the Year 2008. Know somebody such Hardware?
Are you having this “slowdown” only recently, was the performance fine the year before?

If so I believe the slowdown is caused by the “Meltdown & Spectre vulnerability” updates from Microsoft, which can slow your system down by 5% to 30%.

There are ways to disable the meltdown & spectre protection so you can get your performance back.

But I don’t recommend you doing that if you’re using your PC for “online banking” or anything that is data sensitive.

To disable Meltdown / Spectre Protection, download InSpectre

https://www.grc.com/inspectre.htm

Download it > right click on it > run as administrator > Click on Disable Meltdown/Spectre Protection Button > Exit > Reboot the PC > run InSpectre again > check to see if Both “System is Meltdown/Spectre protected: NO”

Info about Meltdown and Spectre -
https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/7p7vzi/can_someone_explain_what_are_the_meltdown_and/
What fps are you getting in LFS & what screen resolution are you playing at?
Trying to work out if youre CPU or GPU bound.

It seems like a terrible time buying new or pre-owned PC hardware at the moment.


Hardware –
AMD CPU’s is only affected by spectre; Intel CPU’s is affected by both meltdown & spectre.

Intel & AMD is currently facing lawsuits. As of now June 2018 there is no CPU on the market that is immune to both meltdown & spectre without some performance penalties.

I have a feeling that in the next few years, there will be a lot of companies upgrading their PC’s, to get away from the vulnerable & slowed CPU’s, which could mean there will be a lot of second-hand computer parts on the market.

DRAM is currently 3 times their normal price at the moment; Samsung, Micron & Hynix is getting sued for “fixing prices”.

GPU is expensive at the moment because of crypto-currency mining & from the high DRAM cost, but the price has fallen back a little since the crypto market has crash.

CPU AMD – Avoid the older AMD CPU’s; they have very poor single core performance which is important for gaming. The current “2017 Ryzen” line-up is very good though, but you will need new “DDR4 memory”, which costs as much as a new CPU at the moment.

CPU Intel – Core i5 (mainstream) or Core i7 (performance) line-up, Quad-Core from the “Sandy Bridge” generation or newer, make sure the CPU runs on the DDR3 RAM that you currently have.

Sandy Bridge (32nm) - 2011
Ivy Bridge (22nm) - 2012
Haswell (22nm) - 2013
Broadwell (only support “low voltage” DDR3 so avoid this CPU generation)
Skylake (only support “low voltage” DDR3 so avoid this CPU generation)
Kaby Lake (only support “low voltage” DDR3 so avoid this CPU generation)

i5 -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_microprocessors
i7 –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors


Motherboard – Something that has “solid capacitors”

AS Rock, Asus are good motherboard brands, Gigabyte great in the past not sure about now, avoid MSI; from what I’ve read.

Make sure the motherboard has the same “socket” as the CPU that you’re buying.

If you have a decent Power Supply Unit & case cooling, maybe you should try overlocking your current CPU? remember its the high voltage and temperature that kills, not the clock rate.
I had win 10 briefly installed to see what it was all about, LFS worked normal. I do not remember doing anything special..
Might be better to look into what your problem is?

Those hardware all seems good enough to run LFS or google earth. Does the card already have extra power-connector and is it connected?

2008 was already towards the very end of windows xp.
Radeon 6000 series was after xp, google says in 2010.

Anyway, I would just google "high end cpu 2008" and similiar.
How much can those parts possibly still cost...

Realistically the limitation will be what you can find used on ebay, because no shop will be selling 10 years old hardware.
Or complete system: https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/amd-phenom-ii-x4-955-4x3-2-ghz-6gb-geforce-gtx-280-500gb-windows/885545438-228-5665
"some other games which not run in Win10"

Which games work on XP but not 10?
Quote from BeNoM :
Which games work on XP but not 10?

CRC2005 for example, i was going to play this for fun Smile, watching the tracks, cars physics.

The ASRock N68-GS3 UCC AM3 Mainboard slows this graphic card 6870 maybe down. I bought it in 2016 and have never smooth graphics in google earth and not in lfs. Smooth graphics mean 100 fps that 50 fps vsync run without errors. But maybe the Power device of this Computer is bad, i should test it again with a good power device. And sure, i connected the Power Connectors of the Graphic card. This Radeon 6870 works not for Accelerated H.264 Video Rendering, therefore i made a newer Graphic Adapter in this AM3 Mainboard.

I guess this have all nothing to do with meltdown and spectre i installed the Item 2016, and the security updates for meltdown and spectre came 2018. When i make a Win XP machine, doesn't matter.

But now i plugged this card in a AM2 Mainboard and this slows the Graphic Card definitely down.

Quote from Gutholz :Or complete system: https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/amd-phenom-ii-x4-955-4x3-2-ghz-6gb-geforce-gtx-280-500gb-windows/885545438-228-5665

This looks good. Smile
1. Have you tried testing without using “ramdrive” & just use virtual memory set at 4GB to 8GB?

2. Have you checked your HDD SATA or IDE cables; a slightly broken SATA cable can really slow your system down.

https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/3f5y41/inexplicable_slow_performance_check_your_sata/

Hardware wise your Athlon II x4 640 & HD 6870 is certainly powerful enough for LFS; I’m on a Core 2 duo @3.2Ghz_3GB-DDR2 RAM_HD7850 & I get 215fps in blackwood @ 1920x1080 60hz resolution; on an empty starting grid, in-car view.

If it was a faulty hardware (CPU, GPU, motherboard, RAM) I think you would be getting system crashes or blue screen of death.

Therefore I believe your slowdown is from BIOS settings, drivers, software or thermal throttling.

__Speccy – useful program, tells you what’s inside you PC; hardware, drivers, BIOS version, temps etc.
https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

__ASRock support page to download motherboard drivers & BIOS
http://www.asrock.com/mb/NVIDIA/N68-GS3%20UCC/#Support

__AMD Driver page
https://support.amd.com/en-us/download

__Online Virus Scan ESET
https://www.eset.com/us/home/online-scanner/
Quote from matze54564 :
The ASRock N68-GS3 UCC AM3 Mainboard slows this graphic card 6870 maybe down.

how I have a feeling that your card is not ok. Either drivers are wrong or the card has a problem. Just thinking...you have tested it in several hw configurations and its always slow...
Quote from Eastslider :1. Have you tried testing without using “ramdrive” & just use virtual memory set at 4GB to 8GB?

No. Why should i get more fps when i have alot of very slow virtual memory? (My SSD drives are fast, but not so fast like Ram and the pagefile is never full in use)
Quote from Eastslider :
Have you checked your HDD SATA or IDE cables; a slightly broken SATA cable can really slow your system down.

The speed of my hdds are full speed
Quote from Eastslider :Therefore I believe your slowdown is from BIOS settings, drivers, software or thermal throttling.

I watched in CPU-Z that the 6870 was only 4x PCIe connected. Something is wrong with this mainboard.
Quote from matze54564 :CRC2005 for example, i was going to play this for fun Smile, watching the tracks, cars physics.

Works fine for me on Windows 10 Pro (1803), all I needed to do was change the name of the 'humans' folder to 'humans1'.

Any game that works on Windows XP should work on any newer Windows version, some might need a bit of tinkering or use of their GOG versions though. I have hundreds of older games installed and every single one runs fine.



1. Does CPU-Z show HD 6870 connected at 4x PCIe, on both your AM2 & AM3 motherboards?

2. Do you have a spare GPU to test, to see if your AM2 & AM3 motherboards can function at 16x PCIe?
Quote from Eastslider :1. Does CPU-Z show HD 6870 connected at 4x PCIe, on both your AM2 & AM3 motherboards?

No this is only on the AM3 Motherboard. On the AM2 Motherboard it is X16 connected. In both i use a PCIe USB 3.0 Controller. Maybe the HD 6870 was in the AM3 Mainboard X8 connected, i can't remember precise enough. I have there a Radeon RX 550 and this one is x8 connected and google earth run very bad with this. Just the H.264 Video Play Acceleration works good with this item.

The HD6870 is now on the AM2 Mainboard (with a good power supply installed and i made yesterday some testing. ON Single Player with AA on and full LOD and buffered frames on the AS Historic Grid i get 170 fps. But in Multiplayer it can be under 100 fps and this cause errors when using 50 fps vsync. (i turn the vsync just for testing off) I guess when the grid full should you have min 200 fps to be sure that you get absolute smooth motions when vsync on. without vsync you never get 100% smooth motions.
Quote from BeNoM :Works fine for me on Windows 10 Pro (1803), all I needed to do was change the name of the 'humans' folder to 'humans1'.

No, see my attached image, the copy protection of the DVD preventing the start of the game. It say it can only run in win 95 and xp..... Maybe you just used the demo version, this works, i know.
Attached images
Zwischenablage01.png
Quote from BeNoM :which they offer for free on their website

This website is down. They do not wanna make it freeware i guess. But we should not talking about this here.
1. Have you tried running HD 6870 or RX 550 on the AM3 motherboard, “without” the PCIe USB 3.0 Controller connected?

Other than that & resetting your BIOS settings, it looks like your AM3 PCIe x16 slot could be faulty. Shrug

2. You don’t need to use Vsync if you’re not getting any screen tearing like this, just limit your fps to 100; also using Vsync creates input lag.



For better FPS try the following options in LFS.
1. Graphics > Car and helmet Skins > compressed & Dynamic reflections on cars = 0 or 1
2. Misc > Multiplayer speedup option > Yes > choose a distance you want distant cars to not be drawn. (this option can sometimes create stutter)
3. Dynamic LOD reduction = 1.0
Attached images
LFS settings.jpg
Quote from matze54564 :This website is down. They do not wanna make it freeware i guess. But we should not talking about this here.

Not sure why it's not working for you, but the link works fine for me - the game is officially freeware and probably abandonware so it's perfectly fine to talk about. Anyways, now you have the means to play - have fun Smile
Quote from Eastslider :You don’t need to use Vsync if you’re not getting any screen tearing like this, just limit your fps to 100; also using Vsync creates input lag.

0,04 or 0,04 s delay and without buffered frames maybe 0,01 s delay are absolutely irrelevant. For 100 fps you should have a 100 Hz Monitor, all other configurations are not 100% optimal.
Quote from matze54564 :0,04 or 0,04 s delay and without buffered frames maybe 0,01 s delay are absolutely irrelevant. For 100 fps you should have a 100 Hz Monitor, all other configurations are not 100% optimal.

Going slightly off-topic but have you ever tried playing LFS without using Vsync?

With Vsync @ 60fps my steering inputs feel very sluggish, making counter-steering more difficult.
Things might be different on a 144 Hz monitor, or through AMD Free-Sync or NVidia G-sync.

If you cap your FPS at your monitor's refresh rate, a drop of one or two frames will cause noticeable stutter. What’s why you add +20 to +40 fps to your refresh rate; this way, you will have some 20-40 buffer frames per second that can make up for potential frame loss.
Quote from Eastslider :With Vsync @ 60fps

LFS works not properly with 60 fps because the physics engine calculating 100 fps and you need min 120 fps without vsync is the second reason for failure. Therefore you never get smooth graphics with 60 fps Vsync. You should buy a monitor which are ready for 50 fps and using some tweaks for windows to get this 50 fps also really. AMD Free-Sync looks nice, i dreaming a long time from a Freesync. But all devices have screens which have a 60 Hz input, also the Cellphones.
Forcing 50Hz for AMD Cards works with Custom Resolution Utility (CRU) This creating newentries in the registry that the 50 Hz mode be available in screen setup of windows. But with the expensive gaming cards from AMD give it no such problems, when the drivers installed are always 50 Hz in the Windows settings available. For Gaming we don't need cheap Graphic Cards, maybe nobody have this problem.
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