best os for gaming?

[magneto125]

I was just wondering whats the best windows os to use for gaming? I'm about to put together a gaming pc and i wanted the best performance. Any input would be appreciated!!!!!

 

[Jumpem]

I really like XP Pro.

 

[Mavrick007]

I think one of the best combos is to do a dual boot with Win98SE and WinXP Pro. That way your older games will work fast and your newer stuff will go well with XP.

 

[RedRooster]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
I really like XP Pro.

Me too.
I used to dualboot, but eventually found that everything that could run in 98SE could just as well run in XP. So I canned 98SE altogether.
With the superior memory management of XP, I'd say it's easily as good as 98SE for all out performance, and the stability is an added benefit.
Unless you're playing Red Baron 1(which would probably run in XP compatibility mode anyways), there really shouldn't be a reason to use 98SE anymore, I would think.

 

[TheWart]

XP Pro all the way

 

[stockjock]

I think I will be different and say..Win 3.1


Just kidding...I too have to go with Win XP Pro

 

[Mem]

I`ve both 98 PC and XP PC,anyway gaming wise I now stay on WinXP PRO ,just thought I would be different with the reply .

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Mavrick007
I think one of the best combos is to do a dual boot with Win98SE and WinXP Pro. That way your older games will work fast and your newer stuff will go well with XP.

I'd second this, though my second boot is currently Win2000 and used only for work (Visual C++ mostly). I keep reading about people trying to get something old to run properly in XP, and adding a 98SE boot will only use an extra 1.5 GB of disk space. Format your D: partition etc. as FAT32 and you can share them between the OSs.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Jumpem
I really like XP Pro.

Is there ANY difference between XP Pro and XP Home for gaming?



The only advantage of Win98SE over XP Pro for gaming is that you can get by with less RAM . . . and a few more compatible older games . . .

I have 98SE/XP in a dual boot (and Win2K on the notebook . . . I don't recommend Win2K for gaming . . . but for everything else).

 

[beansbaxter]

Definitely, by far, its XP Pro!!! Hands down, no question, bar none. Of course, make sure your hardware drivers are running the most current version, exspecially the video card.

 

[holycow]

another vote for xp pro.

 

[NEVERwinter]

I'm dual-booting w98SE and XP pro... and i notice that some games runs slower on XP so I play it on 98SE

 

[BurnItDwn]

Win98se or win2k (i dont really care for XP so thats why im not mentioning it)

 

[epsilon]

Watch out. XP is a pig. Read Anands own article about it if you don't believe me. Want stability without the 30-40% processor downgrade ? Run Win2k, regarded by many to be the best MS has done so far. It is just as good for gaming and better than XP at pretty much everything else (except for being slow and pretty).

 

[DT4K]

It is just as good for gaming and better than XP at pretty much everything else (except for being slow and pretty).

I disagree. 2000 was MS's best OS, but has compatibility issues with many games.

2000 is great for stability. 98 is great for compatibility. XP is great for both.
Half of my games(Win 98 era) would not work properly in win2K. Some wouldn't even install with NTFS.
I had frequent crashes with win98.

All of my games have worked flawlessly in XP and I have not had a single hang or crash since I installed it a month ago. Some games occasionally crash, but XP just gives you an error message and you can start the game up again.

XP does require more power than the others, but you can minimize that by turning off some of the eye candy and unneccessary services. Look around on the web for guides on tweaking XP to get better performance.

 

[DT4K]

I'm not sure what all XP Pro has that the Home edition doesn't. I've got XP Pro. But for gaming it shouldn't matter which one you get. Find out what the differences are and if you are willing to pay the extra.

 

[tweakmm]

Win2k all the way. XP is 2k with a candy coating

 

[Chooco]

i use XP because it was cheaper than 2k at the time lol. XP Home is pretty good, i love it because it's fast and it's more compatible with stuff made for Win98 than Win98 is. i have several examples
-Download Accelerator Plus has errors on my Win98 box, it cannot use the thing where all downloadable files are highlighted in yellow but my XP box has no problem with this
-my Half-Life game crashes when i try to make a non dedicated server on Win98, XP has no problems at all
-Win98 says it has memory allocation errors then kicks me out of Half-Life and very often Internet Explorer, XP doesn't give me that BS
-on Win98 you absolutely MUST restart the computer at the end of the day or turn it off but the XP box i'm on right now has been running a game server for the past week and i play the game on the same computer yet it has not lagged from not restarting.

people say 2k is more powerful than XP but i wouldn't know because i never tried 2k

 

[epsilon]

Originally posted by: Shanti

It is just as good for gaming and better than XP at pretty much everything else (except for being slow and pretty).

I disagree. 2000 was MS's best OS, but has compatibility issues with many games.

2000 is great for stability. 98 is great for compatibility. XP is great for both.
Half of my games(Win 98 era) would not work properly in win2K. Some wouldn't even install with NTFS.
I had frequent crashes with win98.


XP does require more power than the others, but you can minimize that by turning off some of the eye candy and unneccessary services. Look around on the web for guides on tweaking XP to get better performance.

XP also uses NTFS. It doesn't sound like the NTFS aspect of Win2k was a problem.
From my understanding, (I would have to check to make sure) even in un-pretty mode XP loses out to Win2k in performance albeit not as much.

I'm suprised to hear of game incompatabilities with Win2k. It's been around a while and should have had these things worked out. What specific games did you have trouble with ?

 

[oLLie]

Funny people are recommending XP, I was always under the impression that for strictly gaming, 98SE was the way to go.

 

[Chooco]

nah, Win98 is too unstable. mine crashes an average of 1.5 times per day and has lots of memory leaks, running Kazaa drains 60% of the available resources. i have 384mb of PC100 ram in that computer.

 

[aznmist]

Originally posted by: epsilon
Watch out. XP is a pig. Read Anands own article about it if you don't believe me. Want stability without the 30-40% processor downgrade ? Run Win2k, regarded by many to be the best MS has done so far. It is just as good for gaming and better than XP at pretty much everything else (except for being slow and pretty).

another vote from me..
i've upgraded from 2k to XP atleast 3 times..thinking that I would like it. But I have also downgraded 3 times back to win2k. Win2k is basically Win XP minus some compatability..it's also a bit faster w/o the fancy bells and whistles that XP has.

 

[leezard]

i will go for win98se......................XP pro is not a bad one too..........

 

[Athlex]

Can anyone else give more specifics about the problems with Win2K compatibility?
I'm running Win2k on both of my "main" computers and have had no problems running any games. The only exceptions are some pre-windows DOS games and Red Alert 1. All of my partitions are also NTFS, which hasn't caused any problems. Boot disks are trickier, but I haven't needed one yet.

 

[magneto125]

Thanks for the replys. I currently use xp pro and i like it. The only trouble i had so far was tryin to play oni. Other then that its been flawless. I thought about doin a dual boot to see if i could get oni to work and to play older games if needed.