Exploring Windows 8.1 Pro on My Old Sandy Bridge i7

Performance Insights: Faster Than Windows 11

The last few weeks were about exploring Windows 8.1 Pro. My goal was to see if I could get my good old Sandy Bridge i7 fully engaged with the Sabertooth Z77 motherboard. After some time, I installed all the drivers after much trial and error. Upon initial installation, I noticed that the operating system runs faster than Windows 11.

Lucid Virtu Universal MVP and iGPU Experimentation

Yes, I know, Windows is super old, but it runs so nicely with my old computer. Also, I got to toy around with Lucid GPU to CPU (iGPU), but I wasn’t sure if it had any impact because I’m running an RTX 3060 Ti OC. I accomplished a modest overclock of 4.6 using Liquid Metal thermo solution.

Successful Software Installations: Obsidian and Git 

More recently, I became fascinated with Obsidian, Git, Open Broadcaster, OpenDeck, and Stream Deck. I wanted to see if it was possible to install all of them successfully on Windows 8.1 Pro. The challenge was finding the correct version that allows the installer to do its job. Obsidian was locked at 1.1.16, but worked nicely with most of my plugins. Surprisingly, the release is from 2023. I was impressed that the team supported Windows 8.1 for so long. Meanwhile, GIT installed perfectly without any tweaks.

Overcoming Challenges with OBS and Stream Deck

Moving to OBS and Stream Deck, I faced many issues. Especially getting them to talk to each other. OBS has a script that allows me to connect via sockets. However, BarRaider’s OBS Tools don’t work on version 27. What’s worse, using the hotkey trick with OBS is not effective because the program has to be in focus.

Creating a Python Script to Manage Scenes

I ended up going to Gemini AI and asking it to write me a Python script to communicate with the sockets. The goal was to switch scenes. I created two batch files with commands that called my Python script. It took a while, but I successfully got the OpenDeck to use “Run Command”, engaging OBS.

C:\Program Files\obs-studio\data\obs-plugins\frontend-tools\scripts\obs_controller.py

Navigating Elgato Stream Deck Version Limitations

Meanwhile, OBS and Elgato Stream Deck software are locked to an older version and require me to extract the files from the installer and manually copy them. I used a GitHub repository called ElgatoLegacy. Afterwards, I had to copy over a few DLLs, and boom, the program runs with its default programs. However, installing plugins isn’t easy. Since the Elgato community moved to the online marketplace, it no longer supports my old version.

Thriving with Old Hardware

Eventually, I got both Stream Deck, OpenDeck, and OBS working. I was so thrilled that I could fully engage my old hardware and live stream or record while using my favorite tools. Feel free to reach out to me if you have any thoughts or ideas.