XP64 on DDR4 - Is it Doable?

[Jody Thornton]

Yes I will stop hijacking the topic TrevMUN so I do apologize to you.

However, jaclaz's reaction and position of my my interests and concerns about updates and support is completely unacceptable. There are many others that care about topic as I do, and just because you don't share it to the same level, you don't have to be so disparaging. Don't ever call me a whiner. My text never conveyed any such tone.

Back on topic TrevMUN; I wouldn't "think" that there would be chipset drivers for XP x64 for a DDR4 capable board (especially a year from now.) Mind you, there might be an example where you "could" use an x64 driver for 2003 if it's ever released. But I'm guessing.

For chipset experts, would there still not be a boost in speed from the faster RAM even if there were not chipset drivers explicitly made for the board?

Edited March 26, 2014 by JodyThornton

[Flasche]

Please, jaclaz, I'd rather not have my topic frozen on account of whether or not Server 2003 updates can be incorporated into XP64. JodyThornton's topic on XP64 update compatibiltiy's right next to mine on the topic list, the conversation could just be moved there ...

I'm more concerned at this point about whether or not there will be DDR4-capable motherboards/chipsets with XP64-friendly drivers come next year, or whether I should just upgrade to DDR3 right now.

This may sound stupid, but this is a proven method to help someone decide. First search around the internet for the latest Mobo's with XPsp2 support, that also supports DDR4 or 3. Grab a piece of paper and write down all the possible pros and cons of upgrading. Then look at you list then decide if the pro's out way the cons. This is a proven tactic to decision making.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Flasche

[bphlpt]

@TrevMUN, since, to my knowledge, there are no "DDR4 drivers" for any version of Windows today, I don't know how we can guess what those "drivers" will be like when the motherboards eventually arrive that need them. But as was implied above, I really don't think you will see specific "DDR4 drivers" at all, but rather you will see chipset drivers that happen to support DDR4. ie I can't remember ever seeing standalone DDR2 or DDR3 drivers, but I could be wrong. And I don't see the mainstream motherboard or chipset mfgs producing a chipset driver that supports XP64, unfortunately. Whether one could be modified to support XP64 like BlackWingCat has done for some drivers for Win2K also remains to be seen.

Cheers and Regards

[TrevMUN]

Hrm ... actually, thinking about it (and this is going to reveal just how ignorant I am when it comes to deep tech like this), is it really necessary to have chipset/motherboard drivers for the OS in order to enjoy the benefits of a motherboard with DDR4?

I honestly hadn't given this a whole lot of thought until I looked at some of the discussions for Windows 2000 and other OSes, as far as what it takes to get them to run on modern machines.

If there won't be any DDR4-friendly motherboard/chipset drivers available for XP64, but XP64 can still run just fine on those systems and will only miss out on some added performance by not having those drivers installed, it'll still be worth it to upgrade the rig's guts in my eyes.

[dencorso]

YMMV. IMO it's preferable to have a board for which I do have all the necessary drivers (including, if needed, UNIATA and/or unofficial drivers), than a newer board lacking them. Then again, modifying existing x64 2003 .INFs for XP x64 should be a trivial exercise in most cases. This is just my 2¢, of course.

[jaclaz]

@Tremun, sorry, didn't mean to suggest to "freeze" your thread , only the speculations about what will happen to XP64 once the infamous April 8 will arrive.

More in the sense of "whatever will be, will be, the future is not ours to see" than anything else.

Back to topic, about chipset drivers, there are IMHO two points to consider:

1) is the chipset compatible with existing (not specific drivers)?

2) even if yes, how good will those non-specific drivers affect performance?

If the answer to #1 is no, then you won't be able to even boot on that machine (or have stability issues, possibly even worse ).

If the answer to #1 is yes, will the "legacy" (stupid definition, but is what is used - wrongly - in the industry) mode have a serious/noticeable performance drop?

It is impossible to say right now.

To give you an example, let's take an old OS and SATA drives.

Notwithstanding what you may find here and there, when SATA came out (SATA I) the performances of a "new" disk drive on a machine with BIOS set in IDE compatibility mode was not in any noticeable way worse than that of the same machine with BIOS set in SATA mode and the "proper" SATA driver (and for that matter not even noticeably better than a comparable ATA 133/ATAPI 6 IDE disk).

But, with faster disks, SATA II (and NCQ) the difference with IDE becomes more noticeable.

jaclaz

Edited March 27, 2014 by jaclaz

[TrevMUN]

Hm ... Alright. I guess I'll wait and see what comes of it, though my only concern is that motherboards/CPUs which might still work just fine with XP64 right now will become unavailable next year. Newegg and TigerDirect don't keep stuff around for long, I've noticed.

YMMV. IMO it's preferable to have a board for which I do have all the necessary drivers (including, if needed, UNIATA and/or unofficial drivers), than a newer board lacking them. Then again, modifying existing x64 2003 .INFs for XP x64 should be a trivial exercise in most cases. This is just my 2¢, of course.

Is there a guide concerning this on MSFN somewhere? Converting drivers meant for x64 2003 to XP x64? This is all new, uncharted territory for me.

[jaclaz]

However, jaclaz's reaction and position of my my interests and concerns about updates and support is completely unacceptable. There are many others that care about topic as I do, and just because you don't share it to the same level, you don't have to be so disparaging. Don't ever call me a whiner. My text never conveyed any such tone.

I was just joking, hence the emoticons.

However, if you took this as offensive in any way, I apologize to you , as it wasn't meant as such .

I will gladly reword the sentence as :

I mean, at the time Jody Thornton started panicking/whining manifesting concern about the end of support of XP 64 bit the deadline was far in the future, but now it is just a couple of weeks away.

jaclaz

[bphlpt]

Is there a guide concerning this on MSFN somewhere? Converting drivers meant for x64 2003 to XP x64? This is all new, uncharted territory for me.

You can look here - http://www.ryanvm.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9162 But a better definition is that it describes how to enable hotfixes that should be able to be installed on XP64, but were artificially blocked to only allow installation on Win2K3 for whatever reason, even though XP64 and Win2K3 share the same code base.

Cheers and Regards

[Guest]

That's less about drivers and more about Microsoft's update packages, bphlpt.

[bphlpt]

Sorry. You're right of course.

I've got a heck of an ear infection and am on all kinds of pain meds is my only excuse.

Thanks for straightening me out.

Cheers and Regards

[dencorso]

That's less about drivers and more about Microsoft's update packages, bphlpt.

But, at the end of the day, it all boils dow to modifying .INFs, regardless of whether it'll then be update.exe or some other installer module that will end up interpreting them. And, yes, it'll break checksums and cause the need to dump security .CATs, all the same, too, at least in some cases.

Sorry. You're right of course.

I've got a heck of an ear infection and am on all kinds of pain meds is my only excuse.

Thanks for straightening me out.

It's OK, bphlpt, It's OK! You did capture my meaning all right!

And no, I don't recall any more-specific posts describing how to do it, specifically for drivers, across the various sites this knid of info is usually spread (I mean at least here, at RyanVM's, at wincert, and at reboot.pro), although it's the underlying technique behind things like Maximus-Decim NUSB and some unnoficial nVidia drivers, as well as update packs and the like.

And receive my best wishes for your prompt recovery, too!

Ear infections are horribly painful experiences,,, may you get well fast!

[Guest]

But, at the end of the day, it all boils dow to modifying .INFs, regardless of whether it'll then be update.exe or some other installer module that will end up interpreting them. And, yes, it'll break checksums and cause the need to dump security .CATs, all the same, too, at least in some cases.

I won't derail the argument you're making; but for clarity, the hex edit described obviates the need to modify the INF... so the CAT files aren't dumped. Nothing changes except update.exe.

And now we return you to your regularly scheduled program...

Edited March 29, 2014 by 5eraph

[AnX]

Windows XP will support DDR4 without any mods/drivers. Windows 2000 and 98 do DDR3 without drivers just fine.

Edited April 7, 2014 by AnX

[oldskool]

It supports it fine if your chipset mobo drivers will instal on x64bit. If your chipset drivers don't instal of mobo is not support if makes no differnce if it can or it cant. the whole point is better performance and if u are running driverless becasue board wont instal your performance wont be better than a ddr3 board that works.