I know, blatant self advertising alert!

But it's a fun little video, giving you reasons why you might want to build a dedicated Windows XP retro gaming PC for awesome games such as Far Cry, F.E.A.R and many others.

I'm using Steam in my video, but have all the games from GOG as well, so don't take it the wrong way...

Link: https://youtu.be/jQDEWNs7e5M

I still use a dedicated XP PC for everyday activity :-P

RIP mine :\

Liked the video! Nice to see people still using XP. I never considered having a separate PC for retro games; always worked towards having a single do-everything PC, but I can see the benefits here!

Excellent video! I didn't know I needed one of these. But now I do... :|

How much would this machine or a similar one cost?

Pointless. For retro gaming build a PC using Win7 (directdraw incompabilities in newer Windowses after 7) and a PC with Windows 98SE for DOS and even older games. Or dualboot them. XP is overrated, Win2000 is and was better.
All those plebs who started using computers or were teenagers when XP came out are so tiring.

I don't see a reason for XP when W7 is perfect for playing many many retros ...

I don't understand the point. Ok, let's say that some games run better on XP. Oh well, you can dual-boot XP + Windows 7, so i don't see why you would buy a new PC and not use the current one.

The biggest problem regarding retro-gaming it's, most often, visuals. Modern resolutions might not be supported and using an resolution that's not native on your LCD monitor might mess up the image. So, the biggest problem there it's the monitor, not the system.

You don't necessarily find XP drivers for your new PC hardware, though. Also, some games may have graphical issues on modern GPUs, e.g. because the driver or even the hardware doesn't support some legacy feature that the game depends on.

I have (at least) two older PCs that run Windows XP, and even Windows 98SE. Their only reason for existence is to be able to play those Windows games that have problems on newer hardware, and/or newer Windows versions.

For DOS, DOSBox is enough for me. In fact I think it is better for gaming than a real MS-DOS retro-PC because you can run it at different CPU speeds easily etc. So with DOSBox you have several different MS-DOS PCs in one. Back when I had one old Pentium machine as my dedicated MS-DOS retrogaming machine, I had much better success getting my old DOS games running in DOSBox, than in that real MS-DOS PC. Go figure. At that point I decided to scrap that PC, why should I keep it around if DOSBox does a better job at running DOS games?

I have a few games that don't run passably on any of my PCs, though. For instance, King Kong. It is the retail version, and its copy protection doesn't apparently work in Windows 7 or later (maybe not even on Vista), so its target OS is Windows XP, and that's it.

However, since it is a 2005 game, I don't think my XP-running Windows PCs have enough power to run it (I haven't tried it yet, but most probably don't). So there I am, I should buy a new 2005-era Windows XP PC, in order to play that damn game. Oh well, at least I got it for free as a gift...

Gamersgate used to have that game DRM-free though and it didn't have at least the copy protection compatibility problem, but unfortunately it seems Gamersgate has pulled that game away from its catalog. Also some reviews suggested that even the GG version might have some other issues on modern PCs and/or Windowses.

Windows XP? Nah I'll keep my Win98SE :P

Nice video philscomputerlab! I too have a desktop PC with dual-boot Win98SE/WinXP. It's perfect for running older retail games from my collection and even some GOG games that give me a hard, hard, hard (3) time running on my Win 7 laptop. Microsoft seems to suck in backwards compatibility.
I now consider changing/upgrading some parts to better suit my need for effortless gaming according to your guide.
Many thanks, sir!

great idea! you rock!

ps: just one remark, please use gog instead, gog is retro the other stuff is slavery

Hmm, I wouldn't be that harsh. If you compare them to Apple or Sony, MS has done pretty good job keeping backwards compatibility alive.

Also, it is not only about Microsoft's actions either, often the backwards-incompatibility comes from new graphics hardware and drivers, not the new Windows version.

Great discussion!

Yes, a LOT of games work just fine under 7, 8, 10. Maybe I'm a bit annoyed that us as a community have to fix so many games, the forums are more a tech support area than discussing the old games.

And yes, I have a ton of games on GOG, just happened to use Steam for this video. I'll use GOG on one of my planned videos in the future :)

How about older hardware that you can get really cheaply? A modern new computer might be between $400 and $1,200, while an older machine (even spare parts hanging around in my closet) might cost you $100 and you get a fairly decent machine, so long as you don't mind it not being the fastest or having the most memory/hard drive space.