What is good about this OS?

[Ali 0]

Well no offence, but in this site most people are NT and WIN 2K fan. (I currently have win 2k installed on my computer, so i'm kinda in this too!) so this is just a personal question after one and a half weeks of experiencing win 2k: What's the big deal about this buggy, and graphic killing OS except the network ability? ;(

 

 

 

 

(by the way i need that network thingee, otherwise i vote 98 SE for home users, not even ME)

[ValkyerieK7 0]

It's not all that buggy ..be sure to update yourself through critical updates and service packs.. then make sure dma is enabled for all possible devices..make sure you have a good BIOS revision. Well there is NTFS, memory management robustness, pure 32 bit stability. NTFS has been known to more of a tough guy's file system, very resilient to fragmentation and file corruption. It is also very secure. Win2k has better memory management compared to any 9x OS because the way it handles it is different. That means you cna multitask very fruitfully ...no resource meter looking over your shoulder. Teh memory mangement of 2k is more efficient at getting back memory from closed applications.

Here's how I see it though. In the view of a man running win98SE, his system will be built around the best hardware available. win9x just has hands down compatibility no questioning that. So a person can put a radeon in his or her system without suffering bad frame rates.

In the win2k world, everything is built around the Hardware compatibility list. People look for stuff that is compatible w/ the OS. So win2k in a sense is rather picky about hardware and drivers. Tahts' why there seemst o be a good # of 2k users running an nvidia based graphics card. Because of Nvidia's appealing windows 2000 support.

[clutch 1]

What he said, plus I haven't rebooted this workstation in 25days, 15hours, and change. And I run SMS Console, Visual Interdev, Adobe GoLive! 5, Flash 5, McAfee 4.5, SQL 2000 console and query manager, Quake 3, diskeeper 6, and a bunch of other stuff. Even with optimum tweaking in Win98SE, I could only get about a week of reliable uptime from it (for gaming though, it was a daily reboot).

 

[Ge0ph 0]

What I like about Windows 2000 is it is extremely stable, has really good memory management and it runs all the programs I need to run. If you like eye candy it has better implementation for this. For example, the programs form Stardock work much better in W2k then Win9x and all features work in W2k but not in Win9x. This is because Win9x does not have the api’s or memory management to handle some of the stuff there programs do.

 

Windows 2000 is the most stable windows to date.

Windows 2000 has efficient memory management.

Windows 2000 has a lot of security features.

Windows 2000 runs dual processors.

Windows 2000 is just better then Win9x.

 

I don’t know how you can say “this buggy, and graphic killing OS “, that describers Win9x to a tee.

 

Windows 9x is very buggy.

Windows 9x will only allocate x amount of memory to the gui no matter how much memory you have.

 

I am wondering what issues you are having with W2k that makes you say it’s buggy?

[clutch 1]

Oh, and just so you know, here's a nifty utility for showing your local uptime and that of remote machines:

 

http://www.mundegren.com/

[Brian Frank 0]

Oh, as far as your graphics, ATI doesn't produce that great of drivers to begin with, and they're even worse under Win2k. Hell, you have better drivers from 3dfx, which is no more!

Also, Creative seems to not want or be able to produce Live!ware that works well for quite a few Win2k users.

 

Look, if you think Win2k is a buggy OS, I wouldn't touch WinME then.

[Ge0ph 0]

I have no problems with my ATI Radeon, but I don't play games on that box. The 2D part seems to be better then nVidia cards and that's why my workstation has a ATI instead of nVidia. My other main box has a Gforce2 for games but still running W2k.

[clutch 1]

I would think that the ATI has better 2D and DVD (actually, just about any "movie" type playback) as well. But ATI's main weakness is OpenGL support. It always has been, and I hope that it's corrected some point soon. They offer too many great features in their cards just to have them hampered by poor OpenGL implementation.

[Ali 0]

Well yes. i didn't originaly but the ATI graphic card for games. i bought it for it's 2D and video capturing features. But it is very disappointing that now that i'm using win 2k it is not supported. it is not even that good in playing mulimedia files (ex: .avi files, on 98 i didn't have any problems except running out of physical memory if it was too large, but in Win 2K i need a codec software to playback the same video files.) now these are the things that make me wonder IS WIN 2K WORTH KEEPING! although i can't use win 98 anymore because i have a LAN at home that wasn't working too well with win 98.

 

 

 

Now what is the solution for my problem? my system is partially useless for me now.

[ValkyerieK7 0]

I would say add another stick of memory and look at matrox solutions. Matrox is another 2D giant

[Brian Frank 0]

If you aren't for gaming, yeah, Matrox would be a better thing for you. If you want to stick with ATI, get the Radeon AIW 32 or Radeon 64 VIVO.

So that's the card that ATI couldn't make Win2k drivers for.

Yes, Win2k is worth it. Of course, there's nothing that can be done for bad hardware support in an OS.

Yeah, I'll second the more RAM. 128 is the least you want if you're running Win2k. If you plan on going to XP, Home or Pro, more will be required for adequate function. Go at least to 256, but the more, the better.

I'd also check to make sure you've got the latest drivers for that motherboard.

[EddiE314 0]

yea, gotta get another video card, ATI's cards are great but driver support is going the way of Creative Labs. I suggest you get a Matrox or NVidia based card, i know you're all p1ssed off because one thing that doesn't work in win2k, when i first started using Win2k in Dec 1999 my DVD decoder card, that was made by Creative Labs, had no drivers at all, not even for NT4! It pissed me off as well, i had to dual boot Win2k and win98se just so i could watch a dvd with hardware decoding. 256MB ram is a good suggestion from Brian, i suggest more for WinXP though. Sorry no one can help man.

[BladeRunner 0]

When it comes to 2D nothing can touch Matrox for quality etc.

If you can source one, try and get a Matrox G400MAX - this was actually discontinued a while back but perfect second hand.

Other than that the new G550 would be an excellent choice.

Matrox have some very sound Win2k drivers - Matrox actually released specific drivers for Win2k Beta, so they have been working at them for quite a while now.

[Toby 0]

After have read all the downtalk on ATI, I just have to say that I got *NO* problems of any kind with my RadeonVIVO64.

 

I have not made any benchmarks but the speed in the games that I play (UT, Max Payne, Serious Sam) are just fine...As long as it looks good with no slowdowns it's fine for me.

 

And the imagequality when watching movies is great too.

No compaints from me, just wanted to show you a happy ATI-owner

 

Note: I hade a ASUS GF2MX before but wanted to do some videoediting, thats why I bought the card...

 

 

Edit: Ali, what drivers are you using?

 

/Toby

[Ali 0]

th driver version for ATI ALL IN WONDER 128 PRO is 5.13.01.192 which is the latest one.

i have also tried 5.13.01.3225 which is not much better! i'm giving up. i can't do all my work with my computer now. it works great for networking (which i had the most problems with win 98 se) but now i can't even watch my videos. my monitor gives me that crappy "refresh rate lower than recommended..." thingee, even when i put the refresh rate to be 100Hz at 1280X1024! well shoud i get a third computer? ;(

[Brian Frank 0]

No. Get a different video card. You can get a GF2MX/MX400/200 based card for as cheap as $70--at least around town, and probably cheaper online. I'm telling you, ATI sucks with their drivers and it's killing their video cards.

Another good contender is the Kyro II--it's cheap and kicks the GF2MX's arse.

Bottom line: ditch that ATI, as ATI's Win2k drivers have left me wondering on how much power they're capping their cards with.

My Voodoo 3 ran better in Win2k and Beta 2 of XP than my friends Radeon does under 98--and 3dfx ain't with us!