Windows XP Professional x64 Edition -- thoughts and experiences

[krick]

After having a bad experience trying to use Windows 7 with an arcade monitor, I've settled on using XP x64 for my MAME cabinet after the emphatic recommendations of a few helpful people on BYOAC.  So far, I haven't run into any major issues and I'm glad I took their advice.

Here's the hardware I'm using:

ASUS P5KPL-CM mATX motherboard
Intel Pentium E5200 (Core2Duo Wolfdale) 2.5GHz (overclocked to 3.5GHz)
OCZ OCZ2F10664GK DDR2 PC2-8500 1066MHz 4GB Dual Channel memory (2x2GB)
Intel X25-V 40GB SATA Solid-State Drive (boot drive)
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB SATA Hard Drive (data drive)
ArcadeVGA 3000 PCIe video card
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI sound card
Hantarex Polo 25 standard resolution arcade monitor (15KHz)


Using nLite, I slipstreamed the driver for my Atheros onboard Ethernet adapter into the XP x64 CD along with "5eraph's Windows XP x64 post-SP2 Update Pack".  When I was initially doing test installs with an un-updated XP x64 SP2 disc, there were over 99 windows updates needed, which takes a LOOOOOONG time.  5eraph's update pack eliminates that.

I downloaded the x64 driver for the XtremeGamer card from the Creative Support site.

I downloaded the Windows XP x64 driver for the ArcadeVGA 3000 from the Ultimarc driver page because it was not present on my Ultimarc CD.


Here's my install order (from memory) for the hardware that I have...

Note that I did the setup on a PC monitor and only switched to the arcade monitor at the end after installing the ArcadeVGA drivers in the last step.

1) Partition and format SSD boot drive using a Vista recovery disc.  This is necessary proper partition alignment for performance reasons.  XP does not align SSD partitions properly.
2) Install XP x64 using slipstreamed disc (remember to not delete the partition created in step 1)
3) Install updated chipset drivers.  I used the CD that came with the motherboard.
4) Install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2.  This is REQUIRED for the ArcadeVGA driver install as well as some other software I'm using.
5) Install DirectX End-User Runtime... Web Installer or Full Download.  I used the web installer.
6) Install XtremeGamer driver
7) Install Intel SSD Toolbox.  XP doesn't support TRIM natively, so this is the only way to do it.
8) Now is a good time to do the rest of your setup and install things as desired... run Windows update, install Microsoft Security Essentials (anti-virus) if you so choose.  Tweak windows to your liking. Etc...
9) Install the ArcadeVGA drivers.  On my system, once I install the drivers and reboot, it switches the primary port to the arcade monitor port.  So it's helpful to have your computer near the arcade monitor.  You'll need it to see the last part of the driver install where the tri-sync utility runs after rebooting.

After I was completely done installing windows, updates, drivers, etc... I had only used about 7GB of space on my SSD.  My Windows 7 install was over 20GB, so this is a huge improvement in that area.

Initially, I was worried that I would have trouble finding XP x64 drivers for my hardware, but that was not the case at all.  It appears that XP x64 has benefited from the popularity of x64 versions of Vista and Windows 7 in the driver department.  I imagine that really new hardware might be a problem, but for older hardware (my motherboard is a socket 775 model from late 2008), it doesn't seem to be a problem.

Anyway, so far, I'm completely impressed.

My next task is to start tweaking it for use in my cabinet.  Things on my todo list...

1) shut down unnecessary services to reduce boot time
2) get rid of the startup/shutdown splash screens
3) miscellaneous performance tweaking

Any suggestions?

[headkaze]

I would never install the drivers from the CD that comes with the motherboard. They are often outdated. Always go to the motherboard manufacturer's website and download the latest drivers for your board. I also do the BIOS and all the other drivers including inf, audio, video, LAN etc.

I believe you're right about the Windows Driver SDK supporting universal drivers for XP/Vista/7 x64 so now developers can make a single driver to work across all systems. So yeah the issue of drivers will only be a problem with old hardware pre-64 bit. XP 64 should serve you fine.

Oh and don't forget a defrag of your HDD when you're done installing everything.

[krick]

I would never install the drivers from the CD that comes with the motherboard. They are often outdated. Always go to the motherboard manufacturer's website and download the latest drivers for your board. I also do the BIOS and all the other drivers including inf, audio, video, LAN etc.

Normally, I wouldn't use any of the drivers on the CD shipped with the motherboard, but I downloaded the latest Intel chipset drivers for my board from the ASUS support site, but for some reason, they didn't install right.  I still ended up with an unknown device in Device Manager.  If I used the Intel chipset drivers from the CD, everything was cool.  I suppose that I probably could install the latest chipset drivers AFTER installing from the CD and rebooting.  It probably wouldn't hurt.

I'm not using the on-board video or on-board audio, so I didn't need to install those drivers.

My onboard LAN chip was made by Atheros.  I went directly to their site and grabbed the latest LAN drivers and slipstreamed them into my XP x64 CD image.

I already updated the BIOS before starting this whole adventure.  In fact, I not only updated the BIOS to the latest version, I also modified it to remove the splash screen, the Intel branding logo, and the "Press DEL to run Setup, Press TAB to display BIOS POST Message" text.

Oh and don't forget a defrag of your HDD when you're done installing everything.

Not with an SSD.  You should never defrag an SSD. 

[headkaze]

Defragging SSD drives can be a bit controversial. You might like to look at MS's SteadyState utility though.

Sounds to me like you've got the main areas covered as far as performance goes then. Use Mame64 and you're pretty much ready to rock.

[krick]

MAME itself seems to run fine speed-wise for everything I've tested.

I'm more concerned with improving boot/shutdown times at this point.

I need to figure out what non-essential services I can kill.

Regarding SteadyState, I think that is only for 32-bit XP systems.

[BadMouth]

I need to figure out what non-essential services I can kill.

http://www.blackviper.com/2008/06/26/black-vipers-windows-xp-pro-x64-64-bit-service-pack-2-service-configurations/

Have you tried Demul yet?
I experimented with XP64 while waiting for a hard drive replacement, but I couldn't get the newest version of Demul working in it.
(the newest version has the driving & light gun games, but isn't available in 64 bit).
I only messed with it one evening (but I did make a backup image, so I could tinker with it in the future  ).

[Gray_Area]

You can manually trim the entry/exit ends - but instantsheller (and perhaps quicksheller, which I haven't tried), is easier.

[krick]

Have you tried Demul yet?
I experimented with XP64 while waiting for a hard drive replacement, but I couldn't get the newest version of Demul working in it.
(the newest version has the driving & light gun games, but isn't available in 64 bit).
I only messed with it one evening (but I did make a backup image, so I could tinker with it in the future  ).

I've actually NEVER tried Demul.  I'll have to check it out.