Opinions on Win-XP and General Gaming

[LanFeaR 0]

Until recently I ran a duel-boot setup between Win-ME and Win-XP purely because Rixio's CD-Copier didn't recognise blank CD's on WinXP and the first supported version of Nero killed off my DVD and CD-RW drives from the Device Manager List. Therefore I used Win-ME for CD-Burning and Games whilst using XP for everything else. The latest Nero solved the CD probs I had so I tried running games on it.

 

Since Quake3 Arenas Single player is really no diff to the Multiplayer it wasn't much of a test so I used ST-Elite Force and SW-Jedi Outcast, both in single player to compare against performance in Win-ME.

 

Both Games run beautifully smooth in Win-ME with High Detail but in XP it's not quite as smooth. It gets totally useless when there are multiple BOTS on screen.

 

I use all the latest drivers in WinXP and also in WinME systemwide (expect for the WinME nvidia driver which are 12.90 cos the newer drivers fron 23.11 upwards stop ME from booting).

 

I prefer to use the "latest and greatest" O.S and would prefer to use only one O.S rather than Dualboot but now have very little choice.

 

My Concern is that with XP here, it's not going to be long before the 9x code is not supported as well as it has been. Will gaming performance be enhanced in XP to match or better 9x?

 

Also, all the best 3dmark scores seem to only come from 9x based systems.

 

Your Views please ppl

[Admiral LSD 0]

Umm... Let's think about this for a moment.

 

Crash City vs. Losing a handful of 3DMarks and a few fps

 

I know which I'd choose.

[CmdKewin 0]

Losing a handful of 3DMarks and a few fps

[Jerry Atrik 0]

there must be sunthin wrong with your setup.

i get 50-100% performance improvement on everygame and app.

been running xp since it was still in development and always use nero which never gave me any problems.

maybe there are some setup parameters that could be changed?

maybe it's the athlon? one guy here at work uses one and has a few problems on xp but the guy with the p4 doesnt.

 

______________________________

supermicro p4dc6+

p4 xeon 2.2ghz (2)

512 rdram

seagate X15 (2)on adaptec 2005S raid

leadtek geforce4 ti4400

[DosFreak 2]

You shouldn't notice ANY huge performance difference IN GAMING. Going from 9x to NT. There may be some noticeable increases such as smoother gameplay and a few fps here or there but any huge differences come from updated drivers or from people who do not tweak their system installing a new OS that finally takes advantage of their OS's capabilities (whereas if you installed the latest 9x drivers then you'd see your performance).

 

Yes, 9x code will be phased out. If you look at the MS page 9x support will be gone from them ver soon. When that happens new games from companies will probably have support for 9x for 1-2 years but after that. Buh Bye 9x! See ya! Wouldn't wanna beya! :p

[whoisit 0]

Eventually all game developers will design games with XP in mind so support will only get better. It's just a matter of time before the Win 9x OSes get ditched.

[ConQueso 0]

Windows 9x has an edge over XP--when it comes to mouse control, and a handful of games that refuse to run in XP. Other than that XP takes the cake.

 

Why did M$ have to mess with the mouse input anyway?

[Admiral LSD 0]

Actually I was under the impression that 9x actually had worse mouse control than NT. 95 and 98 (dunno about ME don't really care) locked the PS/2 mouse input at 40Hz. You either needed a PS/2 rate changer or a USB mouse to increase it.

[ConQueso 0]

Rate fixes are easy. What isn't easy is having a quarter-second (or more) delay between when you move the mouse, and when the game recognizes it. Or lack (from what I've read) of being able to truly eliminate all mouse acceleration.

 

Hopefully this is an issue that will be looked into by game developers and maybe even M$ themselves.

[Admiral LSD 0]

You know what, in all the time I've been using NT, I've never noticed that problem...

 

Maybe because the reported solution is to turn vsync on and I never turn it off...

[Jerry Atrik 0]

that mouse thing is a new one on me.

i had the problem on win9x when i used the logitec mouseware.

 

but now i manually install the drivers without the mouseware and the problem has gone away