Which OS for Games?

Daftboy

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All,

I'm debating over my system as to what OS I should have installed for playing my games.

I am currently running Windows 2000, but have thought on many an occassion to revert back to Windows XP.:mad:

I hate the XP layout and always found it temperamental, but people assure me this is the better OS for games.:confused:

Is there any proven way I can check that my OS could be causing speed problems with my games?:confused:

I need your help :D to decide what OS I should be running.

System is as follows:
Asus A7N8X Deluxe MB
AMD 2800+
1024MB 3200 RAM
128MB 5600 Gforce
80GB HDD
etc, etc:boring:
 
Windows XP is a lot better for games than 2000.
What you have to remember 2000 was designed as a business OS, not a home OS.

You can make Windows XP look just like 2000:
Display properties -> Appearance -> Windows and Buttons and select Windows Classic Style
 
Hi MickeyB,

Thanks for the info, but I already knew how to do the changes.

Have you tested the 2 OS's via benchmark's for comparrison?

Regarding XP, I suppose the next question is would the games run better on XP Home or XP Pro?

I know main difference between XP Home and Pro is that Pro has additional client functions, but is there any speed difference?

I will put XP on tongight after benchmarking 2000 and let you all know the results.
 
I can't write in terms of comparative benchmarks between OSs. Unless a P2-350/W98:Athlon 2500+/XP Pro comparison is required. In which case... VROOOOOOOM! :clap:

Hmm, that was just anecdotal, wasn't it?

The most helpful thing that I can say is that in the week since I built this new system, I haven't encountered any performance issues. That's on new and old games - and with a lesser spec in terms of processor and video card. Hee hee, 'lesser' - it's still about ten times faster than my old box! :eek: :rotfl:

Daftboy, have you tried running 'dxdiag', to see if there any problems with the Direct X side of things?

Aside from that, you could check on preferred driver revisions and check the settings for your video card - just in case you're trying to push it a little too hard :smashin: Trying varying combinations of resolution, anti-aliasing (the real frame-rate reducer on my relatively bandwidth-limited card) and anisotropic filtering may find something that you're happy with - and make it look better, in the process :)

'Playing' with the sound and video acceleration sliders has been known to help some people, too. Though I'm not sure how much that applies these days...

Hope you get sorted!
 
Originally posted by Daftboy
Hi MickeyB,

Thanks for the info, but I already knew how to do the changes.

Have you tested the 2 OS's via benchmark's for comparrison?

Regarding XP, I suppose the next question is would the games run better on XP Home or XP Pro?

I know main difference between XP Home and Pro is that Pro has additional client functions, but is there any speed difference?

I will put XP on tongight after benchmarking 2000 and let you all know the results.

I benchmarked 95/98/ME/2000 and XP a year or so ago when I was testing out drivers for an old gf3 500.
The results were similar for 95/98 and XP with 2000 and ME lagging behind - ME only slightly - 2000 terribly.
I found about a 10 to 20% drop in performance with 2000.
This was not broad and fully balanced test as it was only a single machine with a single gfx card and one set of drivers - but it bore out what I estimated from experience on different os machines of similar spec.
So performance wise it was a toss up between 98 and XP really ..... with XP winning on other additional factors ie
- 98 becomming less supported
- XP being far more stable
- XP having better security ( yes you could make quite a few jokes about this, but XP is 'more' secure than 98 ).
If you still have a old pc with a slow processor and low amounts of system ram - then 98 might be a better option in terms of general computer use.
If you have a reasonable PC with at least 256MB ram ( 512 to 1Gb would be better ) then XP is the best choice. Graphics cards usually take the brunt of the performance requirements in modern gameing - but in general system use XP can be a drain on old computer resources.
Its not an exponential drain - XP only struggles up to a certain cpu and ram requirement - machines spec'd higher than that don't loose any extra performance - so a 2 similar machines with say athlon 2000xp and 512ram will run more or less equivelent benchmarks for gameing and system operation in both XP and 98.

( just noticed yopur machine spec in your sig ...... that should fly with XP compared to 2000 - if set up right I would have expected a jump of 10% )
 
Looks like XP all the way then.......Thanks for the info.
 
afaik - no performance difference between home and pro editions.
I have Pro running but I beleive that the only difference is the additional services that pro has ie acting as a server.
 
Cheers mate, I thought that was the only differnce between the 2.

Just called the Mrs up to tell her the wonderful news that I'm going to be upstairs all night.....Only with the computer though.
 
Well, when I got home last night I popped my Win XP into my computer and upgraded my OS

I went downstairs and had to fix the washing machine as the Mrs had lost a couple of socks and the water wasn't pumping out:mad:

Thought I'd see how the PC was before I started the washer and 32mins to go installing network. Nice one I thought:smashin:

Did the washer and an hour or so laster, went back upstairs and it told me 32 mins to go installing network:rolleyes:

To cut a long story short :boring: I had to disable all onboard sound and lan on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe to get it to work, but then horror struck:eek: , all of my apps were missing from Windows. After many reboots trying to get the thing on, I must have pressed the wrong button and done a full install.

So, from 5.30pm to 2.30am, I was re-installing the PC.

Then, to top it all the kids woke at 2.30am wanting to play:mad: , so I went to bed and kicked up the Mrs:D

Anyway, the OS seems to be quicker, going away on holiday tonight, so when I return. I will let you know if it runs any quicker. First one to try has got to be FarCry.
 
You should be please once you get it up and running you will not encounter those nasty crashes you had with earlier versions the worst it ever seems to do is revert back to the desktop.
 
Again, anecdotal evidence, but I run a Win2K machine and a WinXP machine at work. (not for games, so not a completely fair comparison) And the 2000 machine is much more stable than the XP machine. Personally, I consider Win2K the last good OS from Microsoft. It's what I use for games and I've had minimal problems. Even if the performance is a touch under XP, I'll take that hit if it means that when an app crashes, it doesn't bring down my entire system. (as happens to me on XP too often)

Again, anecdotally, a friend of mine is a freelance computer support guy and he swears that running XP on a Mac in emulation is more stable than running XP on its own.
 
There's an old joke about Windows and Mac's.

"Whats the quickest computer for Windows?"
"A Mac"

It's true, I've seen the evidence, but I hate Macs.
The only thing they have going for them is the style, the spec, the software,ooohhhhhhhhhhh baby.

Still, the wife won't let me have one, so I'll have to stcik with the PC.

I'll let you know the results on Wednesday week.
 
Originally posted by Azrikam
Again, anecdotal evidence, but I run a Win2K machine and a WinXP machine at work. (not for games, so not a completely fair comparison) And the 2000 machine is much more stable than the XP machine. Personally, I consider Win2K the last good OS from Microsoft.
By saying the last good OS from MS was Win2K so are you including 95 and 98 in with that? As I had my fair few nasty crashes on them system and reboots. Where as XP seem to be like toppling a Pyramid over, the worst I have had is an error massage and have been able to continue with a minimum of fuss. Gone are those days of the dreaded blue screen.
 
Originally posted by Azrikam
Again, anecdotal evidence, but I run a Win2K machine and a WinXP machine at work. (not for games, so not a completely fair comparison) And the 2000 machine is much more stable than the XP machine. Personally, I consider Win2K the last good OS from Microsoft. It's what I use for games and I've had minimal problems. Even if the performance is a touch under XP, I'll take that hit if it means that when an app crashes, it doesn't bring down my entire system. (as happens to me on XP too often)

Again, anecdotally, a friend of mine is a freelance computer support guy and he swears that running XP on a Mac in emulation is more stable than running XP on its own.

I sugguest you get some better system administrators - as its pretty obvious you have some machine issues.
When you have instabilty issues with XP its down to either the hardware - the drivers you are using - or the fact you have some software that isn't updated.
If you are using software that has problems with XP then i sugguest getting it sorted - because as time ticks on win 2000 will be less and less supported in terms of 3 party vendors and microsoft itself.
 
Originally posted by eviljohn2
I stand by Win98. Plus it just about has legacy support which is what I'm really interested in :smashin:

which is great until it stops getting supported .... which it will.
It won't be that long before Direct X , media players etc don't cater for ME, 98 and 95 - nor graphics card companies support drivers for them - It might not be tomorrow, but its comming - it doesn't pay software and hardware vendors to continue to have to develope multiple hardware and software sets for decreasing numbers of users.
Microsoft are pushing to get everyone to its latest products - that means pushing hardware and software vendors to do the same - thats business.

They expect to have no motherboard manufacturers producing AGP products in 2 years time - PCI express will be the push - I'd expect the possibilty of not having support for some products and software for ME, 98 and 95 by that time
 
XP rocks! sometimes get a program that crashes and comes up with the send error report thing but that's it - Win98 used to crash for fun
 
Originally posted by Azrikam

Again, anecdotally, a friend of mine is a freelance computer support guy and he swears that running XP on a Mac in emulation is more stable than running XP on its own.

Thats just patently ridiculous - there is no way that XP would be 'more' stable running on an emulator:

quick explination - at the bottom of the stack you have hardware
mac and pc hardware are for all intents and purposes are as likely to run perfectly fine for years constant uptime as each other.
example - just look on the web at some of the linux operating system boxes .... they have been running apache web server constantly without faults ..... and linux boxes are in the majority the very same pc's that you would install windows on should the mood take you.

Then its up to the operating system - a correctly installed system thats patched and maintained correctly should run perfectly fine and without errors be it mac os or windows XP. I can leave my windows XP on for weeks at a time and not expect to see a crash.
..... but regardless of how well they stay up, because software and programming is envolved there are always errors regardless of which OS.

In the case of the mac - it has to now run emulation software ontop of its OS - its never going to be 100% stable - no software is. The more code the more possible problems - and trying to emultate a pc and deal with system calls and hooks is not an easy things to keep stable - as you can't account for every piece of software run against it.

.... then ontop of the emulator you have to have XP itself - and the software you wish to run on that XP.
You should be able to work out for yourself from the above why haveing a straight operating system tied directly to native hardware is always going to be more stable than having to run software ontop of software along with it ontop of non native hardware. The possibilty of errors increase exponentially the more layers of software you add.

Theres always the possibilty of someone trying to throw in the excuse of pc's having differing hardware - but as long as the correct drivers are installed this is pretty much a redundant issue <- see linux box uptime for examples of this.

Originally posted by Daftboy
There's an old joke about Windows and Mac's.

"Whats the quickest computer for Windows?"
"A Mac"

It's true, I've seen the evidence, but I hate Macs.

Simply not true - I sugguest re checking what you read or heard - no mac can emulate windows quicker than a dedicated native box
..... and also emulators can't fully replace a windows box for the simple reason that they can't run all the software - they emulate reasonably well now adays, but there are plenty of software titles that cause majour compatablity issues - like ones expecting to talk to specific graphics hardware.

comparison of Power Mac G5 vs Amd Athlon 64

^ thats not even the fastest Amd Athlon processor available and neither is it mac's trying to run Windows software on an emulator - thats native software for both operatings systems.
 

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