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[Jake Grey]

I'm not actually running XP on this machine; even 2000 Pro struggled back when I was stuck with 256mb of RAM. The processor's a respectable 1.4GHz, but I'm stuck with the onboard sound and graphics chips, two dead USB ports and a seven year-old motherboard.
I need hardly add that if I had £300 to spend on a new system (which is probably optimistic even for a home build) I'd have replaced this old wreck a long time ago, but I'm stuck with it until I find some form of employment that pays better than helping out on my sister's market stall.

[dosraider]

Give it time, things only can get better, as they say.

BTW, that ol'wreck sounds as a perfect W98SE/W2K dualboot compy to me, and the dead USB can easily be solved with a PCI USB addon card with 2 or even 4 USBs on it, price: some 10€ here, even less secondhand.

[Jake Grey]

I've got a USB hub for it, and I'll probably install 98SE and put it into semi-retirement as a DOS games rig once I've got a new one up and running; I was originally hoping to salvage the casing, but the front ports are knackered (it looks like someone stood on a flash drive or something that was sticking out of them), and the machine's general condition is so bad I can't even put it on Freecycle. It wasn't put together too brilliantly either; the previous owner somehow succeeded in installing the motherboard -a small form factor one, despite it being a full-size casing- the wrong way up, so all the power cables are stretched to near-breaking point, and the casing's airflow isn't all it could be.

[hailbringer]

lol make a woman happy
dude
im going in to grd 10
lolz ;p
and i would have a girlfriend if i was more outgoing
im more the person who sits neer the back and only answers questions when asked directly
and besides
i am asking out a girl soon
and y am i explaining this????!!?

and can i run dosbox with my xp????

[The Fifth Horseman]

A beginner's guide to DOSBox, chapter 1.0: "wTf iS DOSBox aNd dOeS iT rUn oN wInXp ???"

wtf IS dos bOX AND DOES IT WORK ON wIN xp??? (DA MOVIE)

[Miles]

Originally Posted by Jake Grey

There are certain exceptions to this, notably Free Enterprise or Descent. Dosbox also needs significant system resources; it was so flaky on my machine before I brought it up to 512MB of RAM that I was stuck with either VDMSound or a Windows patch before I could play anything.

Psh. DOSBox runs fine for me on 256MB (laptop) and 320MB (desktop) of RAM, on XP and 98.

[dosraider]

Depends of:
What's running on the background ?
What kind of game you try to run.
Sound (music) or not.

It's pretty clear that a silent txt game doesn't demand as much ressources as Quake in 800x600 ......

[_r.u.s.s.]

yeah, for example, when i run fullscreen dosbox along with winamp it lags horribly for no apparent reason. but i can run harder stuff in background. maybe it's that "always on top" button gives winamp higher priority (but it's minimized?), i dunno

[bobson]

_r.u.s.s. - Winamp has priority settings in Preferences ->general preferences -> on the right lower corner. Try changing that one

[_r.u.s.s.]

dunno, still lags=)