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Resolved Question

Windows XP on Modern Laptop for gaming - Read careful

by Sep 30, 2012 1:24PM PDT

Hi Guys,

Okay so im a big fan of Battlefield 2142. I spent several years playing it on a pentium 4 machine until that machine finally packed in on me. It resulted in me not playing the game for around 3 years now.

Anyway last night i grabbed my dad's Dell Inspiron 15R running Windows 7 (64 bit) with 4GB's of ram, Core i3 and Intel HD 3000 Integrated Graphics. I installed Battlefield 2142 onto the machine, updated the patches for the game and pushed the graphics to the max. It played absolutely perfectly in single player mode.

So i decided to hit up multiplayer mode, normally to do this in the past i had to run punkbuster, otherwise the servers would boot you immediately for potentially cheating. I installed it, updated it etc but it refuses to run on the machine which means i can't play on any of the ranked 2142 servers. I've crawled the net but none of the methods i've found have worked.

With that in mind im after a new laptop. Im going to pick up a cheap second hand Core i3 machine (something like my dad's inspiron on ebay) The problem is can i install Windows XP onto the laptop?

From what i've read up on XP doesn't support sata drivers during installation (yet my p4 machine had 3.5" sata drives and worked every time i formatted?) Apparently if you go into the machine's BIOS you need to swap Sata to IDE for XP to install onto modern Core i3+ Machines.

Do all modern day motherboards support this option in the Bios (switching the drive from sata to ide)?

How likely is it going to be to find supported drivers for XP?

Does anyone know of a Laptop that has a Core i3 processor with 4gb's of ram and an Intel HD 3000 GPU that supports XP?

Discussion is locked

rcanpolat has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer
3 Posts
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Best Answer

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No.
by Forum moderator Sep 30, 2012 1:39PM PDT

1. Do all modern day motherboards support this option in the Bios (switching the drive from sata to ide)?

No.

2. How likely is it going to be to find supported drivers for XP?

Still pretty good. But do not buy until you check out the model under consideration.

3. Does anyone know of a Laptop that has a Core i3 processor with 4gb's of ram and an Intel HD 3000 GPU that supports XP?

No. Or more specifically there are too many in my corner of the world. You didn't reveal much but let's be clear you have to do your research.
Bob

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thanks
by rcanpolat Sep 30, 2012 2:48PM PDT

Thanks Bob

Its going to be tedious though.. with so many makes and models on the market finding the right board inside a laptop that will support xp along with additional components like wifi, ethernet controller and the basic drivers for the hd3000 is going to be pretty dam hard

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Should not be that tedious.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Sep 30, 2012 3:37PM PDT

You find a model you like then check it out. If it pans out, you buy it.

For me that would be maybe 5 or less models.
Bob

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