Minimal XP installation

I am in the process of starting to build a dedicated gaming rig.

A while back I thought there was a thread here regarding a minimal XP installation. This system will only ever see GW. I plan to keep my other computer for internet usage, office suite, etc and tie them together via a KVM.

Does anyone have suggestions or links that I can research to fiind out exactly what will work for me?

I have yet to build the machine, however I have 4 XP licenses and only 2 are being used. Until the world embraces Vista I prefer to stay with XP.

hmm .. can you clarify ?what will work for me?

as in:
How the KVM would work for me..
What kinda hardware i need..
What kinda XP installation and software i would need
ect

I guess the root question pertains to what is the minimum XP components and services that would be required to run GW on hardware as listed below:

Quad core processor
2GB Ram
Nvidia 8800 video card (possibly dual)
DVD R/RW
Raid configured HD's (Considering Raid 0)
NIC (Not wireless)
XFi audio card

I want to eliminate as much "microfat" as possible. Remember that this system hasn't been built yet. I am just in the planning phase. The goal is to cut as much fat from XP as possible. For example why would I need Fax support when I would never use it on this machine?

I know there are several stripped version of XP ( illegal ) out there, specifically for gamers...Search for TinyXP.

That system is really overkill for guild wars
Only recommendation i can offer on that is:

Make sure that you have a Raid controller (Microsoft XP doesn't like software raid setups).
And instead of Raid 0, if you have the money, consider going for raid 5. You will need a minimum of 3 hdd's(unlike 2 for raid 0) but atleast you will have some redundancy and a nice speed increase.

Thanks Yan..

L33T...
I am under the impression that Raid 0 has the fastest drive access speed. Am I right? Redundancy and backup isn't that important since I am planning on just playing on this machine. Even with onboard Raid on the MB you would suggest a PCI Raid controller? This is my first Raid endeavor.

If the machine I am thinking about is overkill for GW, what would you suggest? I have the coin to go for top speed and eye candy, however extreme speed at high cost just for the sake of having the cutting edge is a waste. Value and speed works fine for me.

If you are part of the working class why not .. I myself is looking into buying another 2 3870's so i can add another 4 screens to my collection.

The MB controller is fine. I'm running one that came with my MB as well. If you dont have that though you can do a software RAID. Lets just say it gets tricky when trying to run Windows XP on top of a software RAID. In other words if you motherboard supports Raid dont worry about it.

In my practical experiance with Raid Arrays on Home PC's and Servers. Ive found that they are under much more strain than just running a normal Hdd without raid. Because of this they do tend to fail more often than the normal 1 hdd machine. With Raid 5 you get the speed increase (a bit less, but still allot more than just 1 hdd) and you get the redundancy of 1 hdd. Meaning that if a hdd decides to give up, you wouldn't lose ALL your data like in a Raid 0 setup. You will still retail all your data. You pc will still be able boot and you'll be able to play your games(the systems will be a bit slower due to it having to compensate for the lost drive) but this way you can replace your drive without losing valuble gw time :P. Not to mention the great performance increase.

If you decide to run raid 0 on 2(Minimum requirement for raid 0) 80 Gb hdd's you will lose 1 drives space for the performance gain. Meaning you'll have 80Gb of space. If you have 3(Minimum requirement for raid 5) 80Gb hdd's in Raid 5 you will lose 1 drives free space. Meaning you will have 160Gb space and redundancy.

A little off-topic but I believe normal XP with GW wouldn't perform any more or less than a stripped version. With your system stats, you could probably run GW on Windows 3.11 with max settings and top FPS.

All good iinformation. The biggest reason behind thinking about a Raid system and utilizing a "TinyXP" type OS, was specifically to reduce as much computer induced lag. GW is bad enough without XP and hardware adding to it.

It appears from what I am hearing is that both of these are unnecessary. I just hate how Microsuxor's forces all this extra crap at us.

Don't forget to slipstream SATA drivers into your XP install otherwise it won't recognize the SATA HDDs. Unless you don't need it with the RAID controller? I'm not sure :[

you'll be able to run just about anything you can throw at that rig, with all the 'stock' processes running in either Xp OR Vista.

ctrl+alt+delete = xp....kill unwanted processes
ctrl+shift+escape = vista...Kill Kill Kill

My Computer >>>Manage>>>Services and Applications(>>services/vista). Kill>Kill>Kill

google tweak Xp, you'll be surprised.

you wont need a "tiny" install of XP to reduce lag and help playtime, the reason people use things like Tiny Xp is because they don't have/don't want the full size of a complete windows xp install. (which is around 2 gigs). Besides the fact, some people tend to have alot of problems, or get irritated because a feature they want or sometimes need has been removed to save those few extra megabytes. My suggestion would be to go with a retail copy of XP home/pro, run GameXp to disable unneeded services and windows settings for optimization, and enjoy.

As for your lag problem, a 2003 tech machine can handle GW at maximum with no lag, I and about a million other people have problems with lag in GW specifically because of our isps being worthless, or having a terrible connection to GW servers.

I wont comment on raid as theres a fanclub for each. (with/without)

TEB,

Thanks, that is exactly the kind of info I was hoping for. I will give GameXP a look.




Just checked out GameXP, has anyone tried this recently. It appears there are multiple issues. The Forum doesnt work and the archived forum has numerous complaints about minor bugs. The dates are 2004 however.

why pay for a proggie when you can do everything that said proggie can do yourself?

I've considered game xp until l i found that it acauly reduces performance overall XD

This takes al little more end user work but I have always used this person's guide. Broken down and tells you what every service does. And gives you a from the start install guide to optimize.

Black Viper website

I have used the program numerous times to simplify the process of manually applying tweaks, theres a full list of the changes made here:
http://www.theorica.net/GameXPHelp.htm

All it does it make some of the most common changes that you will probably find in nearly every system optimization guide.

The pay version (dunno why) doesnt provide any benefit over the free one.
And the program is still updated, or at least more recently than 2004

proof?

Black viper seems to be the "best" resource I have found so far. I guess it is time to learn, learn, learn. Actually, this seems easy, I just didn't want to reinvent the wheel if there was already a compiled answer.

Thanks for all the responses.

since it's gonna run at startup of windows to manage tasks, it's going to be running in the background, unless you kill the process. in the end, you'll be manually ctrl/alt/delete>>>end process.

pkodyssey, you have an admirable hatred of microsoft bloat. Respect++.

I would recommend you looked into nLite, which allows you to tailor an XP CD/DVD to your exact needs. I've used many times with much success. I've not come across BlackViper guies before, but it does look like you could use both together, at the install level. (The obvious advantage that you only need to do the setup once, then can build as many pcs as you like with the same disc, or whipe and reinstall the one with very little hastle).

RAID is another kettle of fish altogether. I would not recommend it in your situation. If you're that fussed about performance get a small raptor drive to run your games off; will be better performance than raid 0. And yeah, Raid 0 would be the most applicable in your case; no much need for parity. Raid 1 is awesome for reads, but need an os that supports the read requests properly. No idea if xp does.

GL with your setup.