Win2k versus Win98 (not SE), which is better and why?

[pr-man 1]

system in question: Celeron 300a @464, Abit BH6 rev 1.01 and 192 megs of pc100

[Draxar 0]

It depends heavily on what you do with your computer...

Since you got 192 Mb of ram, Win2k should not make too much swap.

For regular work, internet applications win2k surpasses win98 without doubt... more stable... code is also much better implemented... IE does not crash as much...

 

However if you are a gamer... You should keep a copy of Win98 handy. Lot of games work of win2k but a lot crashes... And drivers are still immatures... So performance is ought to take a hit...

 

Hope it does help a bit...

[Yearout 0]

I would have to agree with Draxar. Win2k is very stable and you should keep Win98 for those games that do not work in Win2k.

[euankirkhope 0]

Take it like this. You can have a choice:

 

High Latency (slow) and Stable:

 

This is the NT system. By preventing direct access to hardware, dodgy codes and commands can be filtered out before hanging the system. The full 32-bit OS is in its self more efficient, and stable. And a pleasure to work with in office packages and intensive applications such as 3d rendering and the such. It has excellent opengl support, which is perfect if you only play Quake III and halflife.

 

 

Fast and 50% risk of losing everything in 5 minutes:

 

This will be Win9x. Applications such as DirectX games and real-time applications especially Sound and Midi applications (such as Cubase VST) are better off in this domain (but would rather be in BeOS ) where at least you can almost not notice the non consistant timing. But never the less its far better that the NT kernel. Where NT has a latency in the hundreds of miliseconds Win9x can work below 100ms.

 

I never do University work in Win9x its just not worth it.

 

 

As a final note I must say that I know you have used both extensively, and that you already know the answer so just make up you mind, or dual boot.

[DeadCats 0]

I've been running Win2K, and ONLY Win2K, for the past several months, ever since the last 3rd-party software vender released a patch for my work-software.

 

I've got a 333Mhz P2, 192MBytes RAM, GeForce SDR, HP8100 CD-RW, Creative 6X DVD-ROM, Creative Dxr3 DVD decoder card, yada, yada...

 

Works with everything I have. Works faster and more stable. It was necessary to apply the Hollywood Sigma beta/Creative Dxr2-Dxr3 hack to watch DVD movies.

 

It works, and works faster with the games I have, but I'm pretty selective about the games...Half-Life, HL Opposing Force, Quake3, Soldier of Fortune.

 

It even (believe it or not) runs an old GWBASIC program I use in my work. How it does that, I dunno, since the program directly accesses LPT1.

 

Anyway, I sure like it. Never going back to Win98SE or on to WinMe. My advice is to check here and other forums first for hardware and game compatibility on items you have or intend to purchase.

 

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"Being married to a programmer is like owning a cat: You talk to it but you're never really sure if it hears you, much less comprehends what you say."

[strider 0]

And the people has spoken... I've ran Windows 95 for the longest time, even during the time when Win98SE was out. However, it's probably just me or perhaps some configuration error but I seem to crash out more on 98 than 95. I've always hated the tradeoff I got when needing USB and proper DVD support.

 

But that's then. I've ran Win2000 for quite a while an am liking it thus far. It's much better than 98 in every way. It has many similar asthetic features of 98 and more.

 

They say that gamers should stick to Win9x. That's half true in some cases. What everyone should do is assess the games you have and the type of hardware you have. Some hardware don't interact well in Win2000 and some do. Some softwares don't interact well in Win2000 also, but at the same time some perform great on it.

 

You may want to take a look at the type of video card you have. I've ran a G400 on Win2000 before. Q3A and Unreal Tournament ran quite well in 1024x768@32bit but with a bit of slow-down here and there. Now, with a GeForce2 GTS 64MB handy, those games and Tribes ran fantastically well.

 

Since Win2000 is still fairly new, it's still recommended to at least take a look at the entire hardware spec of your machine before you consider Win2000. And with Windows Mill. Ed. around the corner, I'm skeptical if this'll crash even more or be actually stable for once. But that's what my spare partition is for anyways.

 

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-- Strider Hiryu

[Four and Twenty 0]

Id say wait until september and get windows me in my experience with the beta stages it is as stable and reliable as win 2k but with better gaming performance than win98se. Windows 98 sucks!