X:BTF / X:T -- playing on period hardware / OSes

[aristos_achaion]

Since I'm both a fan of the X series (who only got into it around X3:R) and a retro computer enthusiast, I thought it might be fun to mess around with X:BTF on a late 90s / early 2000s system. I already had the game on Steam, but I figured that probably wouldn't work without Steam, so I also picked it up on GOG while it's on sale, figuring that would be DRM-free and easy to get running. However, the GOG website lists some insane system requirements for it (Windows 7 and a Pentium 4?!). So, I was curious...has anyone else gotten any of the modern versions of X:BTF running on older hardware, and if so what specs / OS were you using?

The hardware I have for this project would've been crazy high end for the time (it's an old IBM dual P2 workstation), but it is period, and I'm also trying to figure out what OS I should put on it (98 would only use one of the processors, not that games at the time supported multithreading, NT and 2000 weren't exactly known for gaming support, and XP would be pushing the "period" thing a little bit).

Old X:BTF CDs aren't crazy expensive on eBay, so that's an option, but obviously it'd be optimal to use one of the digital copies I've already bought.

[N8M4R3]

Maybe that are the minimum requirements to playing it on the GoG platform, id don't know. I have not used a gog yet. There are no modern versions of the game that require such higher specifications. Steam as example lists the following minimum requirements:

Operating system: Windows 95 or higher
Processor: Pentium II 200 MHz
Memory: 32 MB RAM
Graphics: 4 MB DirectX-compatible graphics card
DirectX®: DirectX 7.0 or higher
Hard drive: 360 MB free space
Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card
-> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2840 ... _Frontier/