Win 7 compatibility of 8800GTS

I'm about to install Win 7 on an old machine running XP.

According to Foxconn there is no driver for my 8800GTS320. I was all set to buy a new, modern card.

Yet, I ran something called the Windows 7 Compatibility Advisor program from Microsoft, and it said the device IS compatible !

I'm scratching my head here.

Do they mean simply install the same old XP driver ? Surely not ? Or could there be some Win 7 driver out there that Foxconn hasn't bothered to provide, but which if taken from another manufacturer's website it might be perfectly fine - and indeed, needed, for Win 7.

 

Just get your drivers from: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

32bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/72571/en-us

64bit:
http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/72572/en-us


That's what we all do.

 

Okay, thanks.

When you search for drivers on a website you get the impression you have to be really exact with the model number to reflect the exact build, ram, speeds, etc.

But from this I would take it as confirmation of my background curiosity that in fact, video card ranges typically use the same driver to cover many sub models within the one basic type.

Is this what you are implying applies and that those drivers from the nvidea source will cover a plethora of 8800 cards ?

 

It's mainly the chip on the card that matters with drivers. Your 8800GTS uses the same chip as every other 8800GTS which is either G80 or G92-400. ( I think those are the two chip names anyway)

Kind of like a cpu and a mainboard.

 

G80.

So that's the key then, to check for reference to G80, if given. Yes ?

And if not specified, just take the driver anyway if the 8800GTS is in the list.

 

The driver package nvidia pumps out covers a wide range of cards and it'll pick up on your chip and set things accordingly. Like I said, it's pretty standard to just grab the drivers from nvidia themselves over the manufacture of the card. The card manufactures just offer the drivers (which are basically just the same things found on nvidia's site) because they have to offer some support for their products.

You're always better getting it straight from nvidia. And if you have any issues with drivers you can get support on the nvidia forums here:
https://forums.geforce.com/index.php

 

That link could come in useful if I hit on problems with the 7 install.

Thanks.

One other thing. Do you think there is merit in limiting myself to the 32 bit version ?

In a way I'd like 64 but I'm thinking, with old motherboard, processor, programmes etc, I wouldn't really stand to benefit from the faster computing of 64, would I ?

If there are possibly compatibility issues with 64, I would be happy enough to limit to 32. When I get my next machine I could enjoy the benefits of 64.

Or should I press ahead with 64 now and not worry ? It would be nice to get the full 4 gb of ram recognised instead of 2.8-ish as it is with 32, and possibly get more ram as well.

What do you think ? Safer with 32 for XP era games ?

 

Not sure why you want to put 7 on an older machine as it probably only be a hindrance if anything but yea stick with the 64 bit even xp had 64 bit so there will be many benefits as I am sure your aware of and technically speaking now a days two game on the pc its looking like more and more developers seem 2 require 64 bit anyhow. And like Veeshush said unless otherwise noted by Nvidia themselves any and all drivers current and future will support your card until Nvidia drops support. O and if you plan on getting a new card stick with a mid range gtx 700 series verses top end for your older rig it will help, and best of luck to ya.

 

To explain about my old machine ......

I kept it going as I have a big list of unplayed games from the era and I'd like to get organised enough to get back into it.

Just around the corner is the end of support for XP and therefore, increasingly over time, machines using XP online will be vulnerable. Thus I should change to Windows 7 now.

The question then becomes, can I do it on my existing machine
or would issues rule that out. If I spent a grand on a new box, it would kind of be a waste as in gaming terms it would only be those XP/Vista era games, plus online stuff. The hardware on my existing machine is good enough for most of my game stock and only a few would have to be played at reduced settings.

This is why, at least an attempt should be made to put Win 7 on it rather than have a new machine. It's not a very common situation I'll admit.

 

I dunno man, I have even older machines running that are 10+ years old that I keep (along with my main system). I think Win7 64bit will run fine for you. Of course there's Linux options too, but I still rely on Windows on my main rig for stuff myself. Only downside to a 64bit OS is that ancient 16bit stuff doesn't work (like Win98 and older). 32bit stuff works fine. And a TON of people are using Win7 64bit so you'll probably find guides to get older 32bit games running- if even needed.

Hell I think Win7 may even take better advantage of your current hardware even- many people have run it with similar specs.

Yeah, it's a good move. I personally think the day after support ends for XP attacks will be rampant cause people are stockpiling exploits for such a day.

 

And a problem with buying a grands worth of new box today but only to play yesterdays games for now, is that when I'm ready to fast forward interest to more current games, the "new" machine will be lagged behind. I'd rather wait until I'm ready to join the current era ( and if I have the time to ! ) then buy an expensive machine of it's time. Then I'd have no qualms about spending a couple of grand on a new box, plus peripherals. Win 9, recent games, high spec to play them.

 

Yeah I know that mindset. I'm in the same boat a bit. I'm still pumping the DDR2 ram and only plan on upgrading till the DDR4 mainboards come out. But to some extent, the best games I've played don't really need beefy system requirements. I'd even say that if I had your system I'd get a new card down the road even.

Basically, I enjoy working on older systems as much as high end newer stuff.

 

men my 880gtx work perfect with the win7, u need to get tee driver like veeshnut said!

 

Windows Xp is a directx9 OS the 8800gts is a directx10 graphics it will work on any windows OS from XP to windows 8 you just need to download latest GeForce driver for which ever OS your going to use.

 

Just use win 7. With enough time, you can easily strip down 7 to be just as light as XP.

 

Without Aero, 7 is not as good as XP at vsync in video playback and some 2D games, though.

 

A E6600 and 8800GTS is perfectly capable of running Windows 7. I'm assuming you are installing Windows 7 on the machine in your signature.

There are some LGA775 motherboards on Ebay that do have DDR3 support.

With some cheap DDR3 memory and a new motherboard you can use your system a few more years.

Motherboard:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Gigabyte-GA...381723146?pt=Motherboards&hash=item3f2f9c780a

RAM:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-W...6551816?pt=US_Memory_RAM_&hash=item1c3ca55288


I would say it make sense to upgrade an old but reasonable system. The RAM can always be reused.


If some of the old games you are planing to run uses starforce you might need an updated starforce.

http://www.star-force.com/support/users/windows7/

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If you need USB 3.0 functionality there are some USB 3.0 PCIe 1x cards on the market. Sure the throughput might be a little limited but it should be faster than USB 2.o

 

since windows 7 has dx10.1 API that means you need dx10.1 or dx11 card if you want to have gpu accelerated aero or else all effects will be processed on cpu and DDR3 ram won't give much improvement because cpu doesn't have integrated ddr3 controller only good thing if thinking about overclocking ddr3 will add more room

 

i ran windows 7 x64 on my old 680i / e6600 / 8800gts system since the win7 betas up till the board died towards the end of 2012.

It ran like a charm with no problems. Once I got used to win7, which didnt take long (it helped that I was reinstalling a new beta like every week or two so I learned how to get it back to the way I liked it quickly), I perferred it over XP and soon after got rid of my tri boot setup (xp x86 / vista x64 / win7 x64) and went with just 7 x64


if i recall my specs were something like:

evga 680i
e6600 @ 3.6ghz
2x2gb mushkin & 2x1gb crucial DDR2
evga 8800gts 640mb
thermaltake tp 750w
x-fi fatality pro

 

Nvidia supports Windows 7 and 8 even on the Geforce 6 series.
Your 8800GTS has official support for Windows 8.1.

Nvidia is good when it comes to supporting older cards.