Got an old PC just for 3D!

[branney]

I had Elsa 3D Revelator glasses since 2000, on Pentium III 500MHz and 32MB TNT2!

I was very disappointed when I upgraded from GeForce 6800 to 8800 around 2004, and have not been able to get 3D working since

So now I managed to put together a Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz with 256MB GeForce 7900 GS and am about to install XP

My questions are:
1) Should I install 32bit or 64bit?
2) Will it work with SP3 (I also have SP2 slipstream handy)?
3) What is latest working driver(s), and where to get?
4) Will the above all work with Mirror's Edge (the main reason to do all this)?
5) Is it likely I could get older games like that to work with Occulus Rift when that comes out?
[edit] 6) i see a lot of new games listed for Vireio Perception - can these work (minus the tracking) with my current hardware?

[cybereality]

Honestly, using an old XP rig is only really useful for OLD games. I'd say stuff that's from 2004 or below.

1) Definitely 32-bit for XP (64-bit has compatibility issues).
2) SP3 should be OK.
3) I can't remember the good driver. It was around 91.31 or something like that. Check on Guru3D.com
4) Hmm.. Mirror's Edge is relatively new. While it may technically run, I believe performance would be too slow to be comfortable.
5) Using the Rift on XP is problematic. Again, you could probably make it run somehow but it may not be playable.

[branney]

OK, so I got XP SP3 working with geforce 7900
93.81 showed medical image with no 3d effect
91.31 would not install
91.47 worked
93.71 worked

As far as Mirror's Edge is concerned, running at 1280x768 (everything defaulted to low) is playable with my tests on the training level. Not got into serious action yet.
91.47 seemed to freeze a lot in Mirror's Edge. Then I was getting blue screens just from the nVidia control panel tests.
93.71 not crashing in Mirror's Edge tests so far, however there is a (negative) convergence issue*, so I will make a new topic for that. I think the negative convergence issue was the same with 91.47 but at that stage I was just reducing the separation to try to solve the fact I could not focus, which is when it started crashing.

Further reading indicates I may have been experiencing the crashing due to not disabling 2nd core on Core2 CPU. However, I am not having any such issues with the 93.71.

* by negative convergence, I mean that things in the distance have more separation than things in the foreground, when it should clearly be the other way around

[cybereality]

Have you tried adjusting the convergence (Shift + F5 and F6)? It may just be that the default is wrong.

[Fredz]

You can try the 162.50 stereo drivers, that's the last version that was working for me on XP with a 7600 GT. You can also try the 173.68 + 162.50 combo that has been reported by some people to work with dual core processors.

You can find more info here also :
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=2610
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=585