How is 2000 vs 98 in gamin?

[BlackEvoVii]

Does anyone know if Windows 2000 Pro is a good gaming OS? I currently run off of 98 and from what im studying on 2000 it seems as if this could be microsofts most "stable" os? Any ideas or opinions or known facts that can help me decide to switch to this OS...thanks for the help.

 

[Davetoo]

If you're only interest is gaming, I'd skip 2K and go on to XP Pro. It's built on the 2K kernal and will be supported more in the future than 2K (and 2K drivers *should* work for an XP system).

 

[cdogg]

If gaming is a concern, go with XP or stick with 98. There's no reason to go to 2000 instead of XP when it comes to gaming. As a matter of fact, it could hurt you in the longrun for reasons stated above.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[pangolin]

Just to let you hear another sound too: I use win2k and I am a hardcore gamer and never have any problems due to win2k.
Okay, maybe for 2 or 3 old games I have to reboot to win98 (need for speed porsche unleashed is the only one that comes to mind) but win2k suits my purposes perfectly.
It also supports all the hardware (I use mostly gaminghardware from Logitech).
I wouldn't know it winXP would be any better, because I just have no reason to try it out.

 

[MisterHibs]

Hi

I am an avid QuakeIII player (a.k.a. 'crappy Pinger') and I converted across from Win 2K from Windows 98 about a year ago.

In retrospect I wish I had not. The gaming is a bit slower although it is more stable.

This may not be due to the OS change though but it could be due to the changing of 98 drivers to Win2K Drivers to all your peripherals e.g. Monitor, modem, graphics card. Any one these may impact (for good or bad) on your gaming speed and stability.

As for XP my personal opinion is do not touch it with a barge pole until all the bugs are sorted out. Unless you consider yourself as a bit of an expert in diagnosis of problems. If window 98 is working OK then stick with it , Win 2K probably won't give you performance gains (may be the contrary!) although the sytem is likely to be as least as stable as 98, if not better.

XP could be better than both 98 and Win 2K but expect problems and have help at hand, like this forum.

Misterhibs

 

[rblue]

The main drawback to Win2k in gaming is is support for audio. For some sound cards, it will not support 3D sound in DOS mode. They are mainly older cards, 2-3 years old so it shouldn't be too much of a worry.

Direct X support is excellent.

For those experiencing slower performance while gaming, keep in mind that Win2k runs WAY more processes in the background than Win98. You've got to have more horsepower to get the same performance because of the overhead.

If this is an issue, try disabling some of the application processes that start at boot time that are unnecessary like RealPlayer, Winamp, EZCD Creator, etc. These apps will start a little slower, but your performance will increase since those apps won't be using resources.

On the hardware side, check your AGP aperature size setting in the BIOS. I recommend 32MB. Most AGP cards perform best with this setting. In some cases, a larger aperature setting DECREASES performance.

 

[4378]

2k or windows 2000 (pro in my case) is a great gaming OS.
Some people may have problems with it but the problems about there SYSTEM is as usually an upgrade problem, Down- load SP3 to the 2000 and also the drivers for the graphcard and u should be playing like H_LL...Remember always that if you dont have the correct drivers for the graphics and the latest updates for the OS then you mae find some problems in this OS, otherwise NOT.
Happy Gaming

 

[cdogg]

The question isn't whether 2000 is adequate for gaming. The real concern is whether to pick 2000 or XP when upgrading from 98. I see no reason not to use XP over 2000, since both will tax your hardware about the same.

Remember, XP is an NT operating system too, version 5.1 while 2000 is version 5.0. Also, a lot of bugs for DirectX were hammered out of 2000 in the release of XP.

If you're an avid gamer, you'd notice that all major gaming sites and magazines are using XP in their benchmarks and test systems. There's a reason for that!


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[braddds]

I concur with pangolin, however I run the winxp pro and the same issue with 'need for speed' exist there also!

Just my 2 cents worth! Cheers

All responses are appreciated!

 

[ticki]

from my experiences running winME, xp and win98se. i saw win98 was running the best for gaming now im running winME. but still i dont think its really the os that really really matters, because when i turn off non essential msconfig startup items i notice an increase in performance. win98se has very few startup items compared to xp, xp has many little resource hogging programs running in background and they do take they re toll while gaming. so my opinion is to have a os with only essential startup programs wether it would be win9x,winME, or xp. programs such as real player, winamp, messengers, burner software, p2p download managers, and especially adware or spyware. i have spy bot search and destroy along with tweakui also a batch file cleaner to keep my os clean.

 

[dementg]

I'm kind of anti-XP just because the whole activation thing seems like a real pain. I change components around often enough I just don't want to deal with it. XP doesn't offer much that 2k can't do, although I've gotten the impression XP is somewhat faster with games. This might just be because XP is a consumer OS so more effort was put into optimizing video drivers for it.

Back when I switched from 98 to 2k, I found that the 3dmark scores were something like 10% slower, that was on a Geforce2 MX. If you play games much, want the best possible speed, and don't mind putting up with the flimsiness of win9x, then I think the best arrangement would be a dual boot. Use 98 for games, 2000 for everything else. If you do it carefully, you could get the drive letter of your Games drive mapped the same under both OS. Use FAT for the games, NTFS for stuff you don't need under 98. Install each game under both OS, so as to get the registry and such set up properly for both Windows installs.

Of course, dual booting is a hassle too. Assuming XP is as fast as 98, then XP would make that unnecessary even for the speed obsessed.