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Maven
Premium Member
join:2002-03-12
Canada

Maven

Premium Member

Best Operating System for Gaming

What is everyone's favorite gaming OS ?

I'll start this off. I've tried Windows 98SE, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows ME on my current computer. (In that order) So far, believe it or not, Windows ME has giving me the best performance for gaming. Windows 98SE did not handle my IRQs well so I had sounds lag issues, Windows XP took a lot of memory and Windows 2000 was a tad slower than Windows ME. It is to be expected, Windows 2000 is not a hardcore gamer's OS of choice in my opinion. It is aimed at buisness users.

I'll admit Windows ME has it's problems as an OS, but after tweaking and fixing it it turns out to be the best for gaming. There are also other reasons why I prefer it over the other OSs but I won't get into that here.

f a T a L z$
Premium Member
join:2002-04-27
Lincoln Park, NJ

f a T a L z$

Premium Member

win xp prof, best reliablity for my computer in my opinion, for my other computers i use win me, which have a lot of stablity problems in running cs, and win 98 crashes alot on my other computer...

detonation$
Downward Spiral
Premium Member
join:2002-08-19
Greenwich, CT

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Either XP Home or Professional would be the best for gaming because it supports the latest and frequent updating.

tklown
join:2000-09-17
Sayreville, NJ

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WinME is my favorite. I have used 95 (and before, but I won't bother with that ), 98SE, XP Home, and WinME. I use the Litestep shell and I get good performance considering I'm use a 550 p3, 448 ram, and MSI GeForce3

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

WinME = Windows Mistake Edition.

That having been said, WinXP Professional or Win2K Professional. 9X/ME's memory management sucks these days, among other things...
[text was edited by author 2002-09-01 08:37:09]
FusorFodder
join:2002-02-28
Frederick, MD

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I thought it meant Windows Malevolently Evil. For current games I'd go with win2k. WinME just had so many other problems that despite liking the backwards compatiblitly with older games, it was too frustrating using that OS as a whole. I find win2k does very well with the games that I play, and have no issues with it at all. I'd reccommend perhaps dual booting into win98 if you want to go old school, but for the love of god stay away from ME. All current games will work fine in 2k, and it's extremely more reliable than ME. Plus it's been out for a bit so more of the kinks have been worked out which is what keeps me from backing XP at this time. Aside from outright compatibility, O/S should not make a terribly large difference gaming-wise. I've used 95, 98, me, 2k & xp, heck, I've used 3.1 and 2.0, and DOS 2.2 (rogue is the shiznit) I've always been essentially just doing gaming, and I'd have to say, 2k and dos are my favorites. ^^

z28kindaguy
Premium Member
join:2002-02-18
Brooklyn, MD

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What is Litestep shell?
said by tklown:
WinME is my favorite. I have used 95 (and before, but I won't bother with that ), 98SE, XP Home, and WinME. I use the Litestep shell and I get good performance considering I'm use a 550 p3, 448 ram, and MSI GeForce3


Maven
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join:2002-03-12
Canada

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said by PsiAngel:
WinME = Windows Mistake Edition.
Yeah, we all heard that line before...

Windows ME is working out well for me so far. I might be imagining this, but Warcraft III seems to run smoother on WinME than Win2000. It hardly suprises me, Win2000 is not aimed at home users.

As for it being the "Mistake Edition", I disagree. I admit it has it's problem, but nothing that can't be fixed/tweaked. I'm liking it better than Win2000. Win2000 seems too heavy for what I do. No point in having all these high-tech security features. It only slows things down.

I believe Microsoft should have switched the names of Win2000 and WinME. Win2000 sounds like an 98 upgrade. ME sounds unique.

tklown
join:2000-09-17
Sayreville, NJ

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»www.litestep.com

Techie2000
In Vertigo
Premium Member
join:2001-12-05

Techie2000

Premium Member

said by tklown:
»www.litestep.com
Psst. That's not an OS, its a shell

I personally use WindowsXP Home and like it best for gaming .

Leif3
Force Me
join:2002-04-25

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I've tried them all. WinME was my OS of choice for gaming until it crapped out on me. Win2K is now, hands down, my favorite OS for gaming.

I know I probably sacrifice slight performance gains, but you can't beat the reliability and ease of use. I don't like that XP still has compatibility issues and has large memory requirements so I stick with Win2K.

tklown
join:2000-09-17
Sayreville, NJ

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I know, I was just telling someone else the link for the shell I use with Windows

Maven
Premium Member
join:2002-03-12
Canada

Maven

Premium Member

What the hell... Windows ME's memory management is crap ! I can't play an MP3 and Warcraft III at the same time without it crashing on me. Can't even CTRL+ALT+DEL my way out of it.

Heck just playing an MP3 and minimizing the window causes the playback to lag for a few seconds.

I tried to tweak it... But I guess tweaking Windows ME is like trying to tweak a rock... After applying the tweaks found on numerous sites Warcraft III would not even start.

Oh well, I'll stop insisting. Windows 2000 is the Operating System for me obviously.

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

Wait-a-second, in your previous post you were praising WinME. Had a change of heart?

Oh, I dare you to go over 512MB of memory with WinME. See how it likes it.

Joedevil
1337
join:2001-02-02
Mamaroneck, NY

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Windows 2000 owns all

Maven
Premium Member
join:2002-03-12
Canada

Maven

Premium Member

Yes, but I'm convinced I can make Windows ME a good gaming OS damn it ! Are there any tweaks so that Windows ME will handle memory better like Windows 2000 does ?

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

Uh, no. WinME still runs on the Win9x kernel which cannot handle memory over 512MB. The Win9x kernel also allows applications to directly access hardware components, which often results in system stability issues. The only thing I can suggest to make the Win9x kernel operate as close to Win2K does is to look up a tweak called "ConservativeSwapUsage" or something like that.

Maven
Premium Member
join:2002-03-12
Canada

Maven

Premium Member

512MB Ram being the limit is currently not an issue since I have 256MB. Are you saying that tweak you posted would fix those memory management issues ?

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

No, it wouldn't. It would just make Win9x not use the swap file until it ate up all your physical memory first, as most good operating systems do.

Edit: There's no "tweak" or "simple fix" that can make Win9x/ME properly handle more than 512MB of memory. It's a limitation of the kernel itself. The only way to really fix it would be to get a better operating system.

Maven
Premium Member
join:2002-03-12
Canada

Maven

Premium Member

I don't mind the 512 MB Ram limit. I have 256MB.

Shipon
Roflcopter
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join:2001-12-05
Anaheim, CA

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said by NoNameReq:
What the hell... Windows ME's memory management is crap ! I can't play an MP3 and Warcraft III at the same time without it crashing on me. Can't even CTRL+ALT+DEL my way out of it.

Win98's is worse. I can't even run WINAMP without the computer freezing on me. It's a wonder how I am able to keep this piece of junk up for more than an hour at a time.

Heck just playing an MP3 and minimizing the window causes the playback to lag for a few seconds.

I tried to tweak it... But I guess tweaking Windows ME is like trying to tweak a rock... After applying the tweaks found on numerous sites Warcraft III would not even start.

Oh well, I'll stop insisting. Windows 2000 is the Operating System for me obviously.
I've heard that WinXP Pro is the best for gaming. Is this or isn't this true?
Shipon

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said by MetalMorph:
No, it wouldn't. It would just make Win9x not use the swap file until it ate up all your physical memory first, as most good operating systems do.

Edit: There's no "tweak" or "simple fix" that can make Win9x/ME properly handle more than 512MB of memory. It's a limitation of the kernel itself. The only way to really fix it would be to get a better operating system.
--
"Communism is like Spandex. Good idea, but then real people started using it. Things got real ugly from there."

[text was edited by author 2002-09-02 02:25:43]

If that's true, then how much RAM can WinXP handle?

Because when I find out, I'll try to max it out... See if Windows can hog 5 GB or more...

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

Mikeydude750: Well over 512MB. WinXP is based on the same kernel that Win2K is based off of, and I once ran it with 1.6GB of memory without problems.

arden625
join:2001-07-10
Haledon, NJ

arden625

Member

1.6GB of RAM? Geebuz! Why would you even need that much RAM?

tklown
join:2000-09-17
Sayreville, NJ

tklown

Member

For a server

Shipon
Roflcopter
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join:2001-12-05
Anaheim, CA

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Click for full size
said by Arden625:
1.6GB of RAM? Geebuz! Why would you even need that much RAM?
When you want Windows to actually run fast =P

EDIT: How's this for irony? I got this fortune after posting this original message.

Pyrion
Liquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Spirit Lake, ID

Pyrion

Member

Mikeydude750: Oh it runs fine with 512MB. I'm thinking of buying another 512MB to put my current system up to 1GB just for the sheer heck of it.