It’s been just over seven years since Microsoft officially ended support for Windows XP.\u00a0 Most people have moved on to Vista, 7, 8, and 10 since long before then.\u00a0 Hell, crazy people like me have even moved over to Linux, and there are those Mac people too.\u00a0 That’s not even to mention the amount of time and stuff done on phones and tablets now.<\/p>\n
But there are still a lot of old Windows XP computers out there, and there are industrious people looking to sell them.\u00a0 I bring this up because with the chip shortage going on right now, it may be a little hard to get the PC you want.<\/p>\n
If you take a look at ebay, and search for something like “windows xp desktop computer”, you can see a decent offering of PCs to buy that will emulate every 8-bit and 16-bit console and computer you could want.\u00a0 Some of these are even powerful enough to handle the 32-bit consoles and the 64-bit ones too.<\/p>\n
I personally bought a used HP Z200 workstation a few years ago, and paid only a couple hundred bucks for it.\u00a0 Those things sold for thousands of dollars new, and were pretty damn powerful office computers when they came out.\u00a0 I popped an old graphics card in mine, and it’s currently the most powerful XP computer I’ve ever owned.<\/p>\n
But even a basic Dell Optiplex with integrated graphics will run dozens of emulators.\u00a0 I know because I’ve set a few up for friends after getting them used and discarded off a company I worked for.<\/p>\n
So if you need a spare gaming PC and just want to play some SNES or Genesis, then you can pick a PC up cheap from a seller on ebay, or another online seller.\u00a0 You can get a spare gaming PC for the kids too this way.<\/p>\n
There are, however, some caveats.<\/p>\n
First of these is finding a controller.\u00a0 Searching for game controllers that still support Windows XP on Amazon lists plenty of results, but whether or not these controllers actually do support XP is another issue.\u00a0 Moreover, the older emulators you will need to use support “DirectInput” and not “Xinput”.\u00a0 Finding suitable controllers that use DirectInput is essential.<\/p>\n
You can also buy used controllers, but that’s another crapshoot.\u00a0 I personally have enough Logitech Dual Action controllers – which I recommend acquiring – but these are discontinued, and any you find online may not be in the best condition.<\/p>\n
UPDATE: The Logitech F310 gamepads work with Windows XP right out of the box, as long as they are switched to Direct Input Mode.<\/p>\n
UPDATE: I can now report that game controllers from 8BitDo<\/a> that have a “Direct Input” mode will work perfectly in Windows XP.\u00a0 They can thus be configured in any of these older emulators without a hitch.<\/p>\n The second concern is the display.\u00a0 If you’re getting a laptop, then you’ll be using that display.\u00a0 But if you’re getting a desktop PC, then you should try to seek out a monitor with a 4:3 aspect ratio.\u00a0 And making things more difficult is that there are 5:4 aspect ratio monitors being sold as 4:3 aspect ratio monitors.<\/p>\n The reason why it’s better to get the right monitor is that most of the older emulators from the Windows XP days don’t support maintaining that correct 4:3 aspect ratio.\u00a0 If you try to play them on a widescreen monitor, they will look stretched out and incorrect.<\/p>\n And lastly, if you’re going to use old-ass emulators on an old-ass operating system, you shouldn’t expect every game to work properly, or even at all.\u00a0 If you need to have a bug-free or up-to-date emulation experience, than this isn’t the way to do it.<\/p>\n But if you’re covered as far as controllers and a monitor are concerned, and you have an old Windows XP computer, then you can start loading that computer up with emulators.<\/p>\n Oh, and don’t connect that thing to the internet.\u00a0 There’s no need.<\/p>\n For the links to these emulators, I’ll direct you to the indefatigable Zophar’s Domain<\/a> and the Emulation General Wiki<\/a>.\u00a0 Check Zophar’s Domain first for older emulators.\u00a0 If you can’t find it there, DuckDuckGo should do you right.\u00a0 These are what still tend to work on Windows XP.\u00a0 Version numbers listed here are what I run on my Windows XP machines.<\/p>\n Atari 2600<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Z26, version 3.02<\/p>\n Odyssey\u00b2<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n O2EM, with the O2EM launcher<\/p>\n Intellivision<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Nostalgia<\/p>\n ColecoVision<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ColEm, version 3.4<\/p>\n Arcadia 2001<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n WinArcadia, version 17.6<\/p>\n Vectrex<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ParaJVE (requires Java)<\/p>\n Atari 5200<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Altirra 32-bit version 2.70 (or Atari800Win PLus)<\/p>\n Sega SG-1000<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n TwoMbit version (or MEKA version .073)<\/p>\n Nintendo Entertainment System<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Nestopia version 1.40<\/p>\n Sega Master System<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n TwoMbit version (or MEKA version .073)<\/p>\n Atari 7800<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n BupSystem version 0.9.6.3<\/p>\n TurboGrafx 16<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n MagicEngine or Turbo Engine<\/p>\n Sega Genesis<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Kega Fusion<\/p>\n TurboGrafx CD<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n MagicEngine (requires virtual disc-mounting software) or Turbo Engine<\/p>\n Game Boy<\/strong><\/p>\n BGB version 1.4.1<\/p>\n Atari Lynx<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Handy<\/p>\n Neo Geo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Neo-RAGEx<\/p>\n Sega Game Gear<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n TwoMbit version (or MEKA version .073)<\/p>\n Super Nintendo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n ZMZ (Snes9X 1.53 with the ZSNES interface lol) or Snes9X 1.53.<\/p>\n Sega CD<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Kega Fusion or Gens<\/p>\n Atari Jaguar<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Project Tempest<\/p>\n Sega 32X<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Kega Fusion<\/p>\n Sega Saturn<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SSF (requires virtual disc-mounting software)<\/p>\n PlayStation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n NO$PSX, ePSXe, or pSX<\/p>\n Virtual Boy<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n VBjin (and a pair of anaglyph 3D glasses)<\/p>\n Nintendo 64<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Project64 version 1.6<\/p>\n Game Boy Color<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n BGB version 1.4.1<\/p>\n Neo Geo Pocket<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n NeoPop or NeoGPC<\/p>\n Bandai WonderSwan<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Oswan<\/p>\n Game Boy Advance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n NO$GBA version 2.7b<\/p>\n Game Cube<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Dolphin up to around version 3.5-2263<\/p>\n Nintendo DS<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n DeSmuME version 0.9.11<\/p>\n Sony PSP<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n PPSSPP version 1.8.0<\/p>\n (Update to add old versions of Game Cube, Nintendo DS, and PSP emulators.)<\/p>\n That should theoretically keep you busy for the rest of your life, if you have the games and the interest to play them all.\u00a0 And if you want to emulate some arcade games in Windows XP, then you can look for MAME version .078.\u00a0 There are plenty of 8-bit and 16-bit computer emulators that work great on such an old OS as Windows XP too.\u00a0 You can emulate the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit, Amiga, and others if you dig deep and do some searching.<\/p>\n So remember that 2nd “R” in the three “R”s – re-use<\/em>.\u00a0 Get that old Windows XP computer back up and running to play some classic video games.\u00a0 Or get someone else’s old XP computer to do it!\u00a0 Save it from the landfill today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been just over seven years since Microsoft officially ended support for Windows XP.\u00a0 Most people have moved on to Vista, 7, 8, and 10 since long before then.\u00a0 Hell, crazy people like me have even moved over to Linux, and there are those Mac people too.\u00a0 That’s not even to mention the amount of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,474,38,26],"tags":[475,156],"class_list":["post-10281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-video-game-consoles","category-video-games","category-windows","tag-emulation","tag-emulators"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10281"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12786,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10281\/revisions\/12786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gratuitousscience.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}