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ronch
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Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 7:52 am

Hey guys..

I'm usually into old games like Thief 1 and 2 but unfortunately these games don't run very well under Windows 10, so I'm looking to buy a CPU+board combo that'll keep letting me use Windows 7 long after my current rig, an FX-8350+990FX combo, conks out. I'm looking at the Asus Prime B450M-K and maybe a Ryzen 2600 or 2700E. In my country the 2700X is a bit too expensive so I thought these aforementioned models strike a good balance between price/perf and should be good enough to last me another 7 years. The board is cheap but it should be fine (I'm getting old and I'm past the age when I wanted the latest and greatest). Even the back of the board looks sparse, but it should be enough.. I just need the PS/2 ports and 6 USB ports is plenty. Windows 7 also isn't supported by the 3rd Gen Ryzen chips, I think, so this is one more reason I can't get a 3000-series Ryzen, and also because having a 45w or 65w CPU would be nice after the hot 125w FX I have now. Having a PS/2 port or USB ports that feed into the chipset instead of the CPU also helps me get through the Windows 7 setup process, I think. Yes I'm aware AMD officially doesn't support Windows 7 but board makers at least have Windows 7 drivers available on their AM4 product pages, so at least there's still some support, but they point out that Windows 7 support is only for 1st and 2nd Gen Ryzens. Better take heed.

What are your thoughts, guys? Am I on the right track if I wanna keep running Windows 7? I'm not intending to use this right away because my FX PC still runs fine, but there will eventually come a time when it'll bite the dust and 2nd Gen Ryzen chips will no longer be sold, at least not new.
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just brew it!
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:46 am

What makes you think the FX-8350 will bite the dust? Mine is still going strong too! :wink:
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ronch
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 8:55 am

Well maybe not now but someday...
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Redocbew
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:01 am

That all looks fine to me.

The alternative is to build whatever machine you need whenever the old one finally does shuffle off, and then set up a windows7 virtual machine for the older games. That's what I would do, but I'm not sure on the details of that if you want to use windows as the host also.
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Waco
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:21 am

Virtualizing older OSes is pretty straightforward and more than performant enough for older games.
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ronch
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:30 am

@Redocbew

Honestly haven't thought of that. Good grief. But yeah that's an option too, should I go with Windows 10 on this machine somewhere down the road. Thanks!
NEC V20 > AMD Am386DX-40 > AMD Am486DX2-66 > Intel Pentium-200 > Cyrix 6x86MX-PR233 > AMD K6-2/450 > AMD Athlon 800 > Intel Pentium 4 2.8C > AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 > AMD Phenom II X3 720 > AMD FX-8350 > RYZEN?
 
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:34 pm

Waco wrote:
Virtualizing older OSes is pretty straightforward and more than performant enough for older games.


Graphics performance in VM's with the latest video cards that have virtualization support is WAY better than it used to be!
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Tue Jun 16, 2020 9:12 pm

Also, did you try turning on Compatibility Mode and see if those games work? When it works it's like magic.
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ronch
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Wed Jun 17, 2020 12:31 am

@Flying Fox:

Yeah tried compatibility mode (Windows XP, 7, etc) but no go. In some games like Thief the screen is also too dark and the gamma adjustment bar in the game doesn't seem to be working.
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diasflacog
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:42 pm

Hi. Maybe I can help you out a little :)

I'm in a similar position. I have a "high end" gaming rig and i'm still rocking Windows 7.

First off even if AMD doesn't support Windows 7 anymore that doesn't mean that Windows 7 won't work anymore. I have a i9 9900K @4.8ghz running perfectly on windows 7 with all the latest updates. The i9 9900K officially doesn't support Windows 7 either, however you can download a third party patch that will allow windows 7 to download all of the patches. If you don't have the third party patch you will get a message that says that your hardware doesn't support windows 7 blah blah blah. The patch will allow you to update like normal.

You also don't need a PS2 port for your keyboard to install windows 7. I have an Asus Maximus X Hero mobo and what I did was download a program from Asus that basically creates an image of my Windows 7 installation disc and adds the necessary drivers that it needs for the new hardware. It will then put it on a USB Flash drive (you need a USB flash drive for this) I own a Windows 7 installation disc so this was just a matter of running the Asus program on a seperate PC inserting the Windows 7 installation disc into the DVD tray while having a USB Flash drive plugged in and just following the on screen instructions.

Once you have your Windows 7 installation fully patched and ready to go on your USB flashdrive it's only a matter of plugging that flash drive into your new PC build, going into the bios and setting your flash drive as your number 1 priority to boot from. Then the windows installation will begin like normal.

The Asus utility even adds NVMe drivers to windows 7 so if you are using a NVMe drive Windows 7 will detect it. It also adds all of your USB 3.0 3.1 drivers. So you're good there too.

My Windows 7 installation is on a Samsung 970 Pro NVMe 500gbs. Once you get windows installed You can simply just download the Samsung driver for your NVMe and you're good to go. You don't need to but I prefer to download the official driver.

Nvidia still supports windows 7 so you can easily download drivers even for the 2080ti.

I'm not sure if the 3000 series will be supported though.
 
Rickbale
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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Wed Dec 16, 2020 11:55 am

Officially, AMD does not support Ryzen CPUs on Windows 7. Given that Microsoft has essentially ended support for the OS, this is the type of response we expect from AMD – Intel has also stopped officially supporting Windows 7 on the newest platforms as well. 'Official' is a general term: some special customers may receive extended lifetime support, or drivers currently out in the ecosystem still work on the platforms. Official support refers to driver updates and perhaps security updates, but there’s nothing to stop you trying to install an OS to either system or platform.

The Main Issue: USB Support
For installing Windows 7, the issues typically revolve around USB support. When there’s a mouse/keyboard plugged in, everything else after that is typically simple to configure (installing drivers, etc). However, from the 100-series chipsets on Intel and the AM4 motherboards on AMD, this can be an issue. When the CD or USB stick is being used to install the OS, the image needs USB drivers in order to activate a mouse or keyboard to navigate the install menus. This is the primary process that fails on both platforms and acts as a barrier to installation.

General Solution: Use a PS/2 Keyboard, if the motherboard has a PS/2 port
By default, on most systems, the way to guarantee the presence of a mouse pointer or keyboard activity during installation is to hook up a PS/2 keyboard. I’ve never known an installation to fail to recognize a PS/2 peripheral, so this is often the best bet. However, PS/2 as a connectivity standard is near dead (sometimes new keyboards will offer dual connectivity, like one of my Rosewill mechanical keyboards), with fewer motherboards supporting it, and it falls to USB as a backup.

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Re: Ryzen build for Windows 7

Wed Dec 16, 2020 1:45 pm

One concern for this type of setup would be the Windows Scheduler -- it would work, but it may not assign tasks to cores efficiently. When RyZen first came out, it wasn't getting as good of performance as it should because the Scheduler was tuned for Intel chips and to a lesser extent for FX chips. It took a number of updates from AMD and Microsoft to get Windows 10 to work with it as it should.

Windows 7, of course, will not have those updates, so RyZen performance would be less on Win7 than it should be.
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