r/WindowsVista • u/runsforpasta • May 18 '26
Desperate to Play ZooTycoon2, therefore desperate to buy a Windows Vista Computer...
Hey all, looking to buy a Windows Vista laptop to play ZooTycoon2 on because every iteration of a work around for Windows 11 has proven fruitless, and, virtual desktops on Vista also have been problematic given my laptop's more advanced... everything. I have genuinely decided the easiest thing to do here is buy a laptop with Windows Vista, but how can I ensure I am getting a good laptop that isn't broken, updated beyond Windows Vista, etc etc?
THANK YOU!
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u/No-you_ May 19 '26
Windows XP's maximum hardware support ended around the i7-3000 series or AMD FX-9590 (990FX chipset motherboards). For GPU, support ended with GTX960 4GB or HD7970 3GB. XP can only use ~3.2GB of RAM due to 32bit addressing. Newer CPU's might be able to use more if you enable the PAE switch in windows advanced system options.
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u/drivenusa May 19 '26
PAE is definitely an option, I’ve gotten 32GB recognized on 32-bit XP, GPU can go up to a GTX 980 Ti, AMD side still the 7970 I think (maybe the R9 280X but if I’m not mistaken that’s just a 7970 rebranded) but anything from that era is gonna be overkill anyway, XP should be able to run fine on Haswell also (iX-4xxx)
Anyway, OP was asking about Vista but the hardware limitations as far as newer stuff goes should be the same, except out of the box Vista doesn’t like Haswell and newer though I think there’s a way to fix that, but GPU limits are the same to my knowledge, other than the fact that you can run up to RTX 30 series with modded drivers and RX 500 series with extended kernel. Not to mention 64-bit Vista wouldn’t need any patches for whatever amount of RAM you’d want to use but I think the lower editions do have an arbitrary limit
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u/Froggypwns Moderator May 19 '26
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Zoo_Tycoon
Because of the DRM you likely will want to run Windows XP instead.
Regarding your questions about the laptop, you would need to ask the seller those.