Best OS for gaming?

pball68

Distinguished
Jun 23, 2002
45
0
18,530
I am getting a gaming computer and I want to know what OS is best for gaming performance? I have a 2.4 GHz, Geforce 4 Ti4400, and 512MB PC1066. How good is 98 SE?
 
Win98SE is great for gaming and its faster than Win2K, I'm running a dual boot setup with identical hardrives and there is a definite difference between the speed of the two operating systems. Stay away from WinME period its the Operating system Microsoft should have never put on the market, and WinXP Microsofts new miracle spychild, unfortunately may be the best option about two years from now, after they get all the bugs out of it. Solid and fast game performance, old and new games, Win98SE is the way to go.

Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.
 

slickstaa

Distinguished
Apr 7, 2002
406
0
18,780
yes. The increased stability will be well worth it. If you want to use 98se to its full extent, you will need to tweak the crap out of it. (Not saying this is bad, i still run a 98 system, but xp will most likely suit your situation better.)

<font color=blue> If it ain't broke, don't fix it...tweak it.</font color=blue>
 

starvinmarvin

Distinguished
Jun 17, 2002
90
1
18,665
One other consideration for you. Have you noticed that the latest drivers for your Ti4400 graphics card are only for Win XP or Win 2000 ? Not for older operating systems. So, driver development looks like it's leaning more and more towards Win XP.

Regards
 

Eilonar

Distinguished
Oct 2, 2002
4
0
18,510
One thing I noted in the review done on this site regarding the best OS for gaming is that Win98SE was not even compared.

98SE performance-wise is the best OS for gaming on a single-CPU system, period. ME has too much junk, 2K and XP have too much overhead (they are, after all, workstation/server operating systems, fully multitasking and multithreaded, with a lot of extra things running in the background).

If you run a dual processor system, you can run your game on one CPU and everything else on the other, and then XP is a beaut.

A little work configuring your 98SE system will go a long way as well, for instance cut out as much of the junk you don't need as possible.

If you run ICQ, Kazaa, or anything like that, configure them to never load until you explicitly call for them, so they don't tie up CPU cycles and RAM.

Antivirus is a necessary evil and should be on every system. My personal preference is Symantec Norton Antivirus, but any good package will do.

A good firewall is also a must if you care about your system's security, and your best bet for performance is a hardware solution, either a computer dedicated to providing your home network with internet service or a router will serve equally well. If you can spare the CPU/RAM overhead any of the popular software firewalls will do, for example ZoneAlarm, BlackICE Defender, or Norton's.

If you intend on upgrading to more than 512MB RAM, you don't have much choice, because there is a problem with a good number of games, Win98SE, and more than 512MB. In such a case, your best bet is XP, if you want to take advantage of all that memory in games, and what else uses so much RAM on a home computer?

Paul


I am me, me I am, I've never had green eggs and ham
 

Eilonar

Distinguished
Oct 2, 2002
4
0
18,510
Perhaps you should look a bit closer, as both an XP and a 9X driver were released on exactly the same day, August 7th 2002.

98 is not dead, and will not be as long as there are buyers purchasing new video cards who do not want to pay Microsoft's price for the XP upgrade.

Paul


I am me, me I am, I've never had green eggs and ham
 

denodan

Distinguished
Jun 8, 2001
6
0
18,510
I find it depends on your computer. At home my computer works well on Win 98 SE, but I am doing a computer Technicains course and built our own computers. Which has a 1.3 Ghz Duron processor. With wins98 se the preformance is very bad, and 2 guys on our course clocked wins98 and Win2000 and for gaming win 2000 has a 25% increase in framerates, and smoothness over win98.

Running Microsoft Train sim, and Microsoft FS 2002 using windows 98 at home on my 450 PIII runs better and smoother than my Duron1.3 Ghz computer.

When we have win 2000 running the preformance gains are massive. SO have come to the conclusion it all boils down to your computer, not the operating system your using.

Maybe older computers work fine on Win 98, and maybe even better than XP or win 2000, but I do know that using Win 98 on my Duron 1.3 Ghz processor is poor compared to my 450 PIII at home, and runs rings around my Duron. But when my Duron is running win 2000 it runs sweetly.
 

DCB

Distinguished
Aug 23, 2002
24
0
18,510
I would go for 98SE as it will play all games/software. There are some games only two years old that are not compatable with XP even with the compatability program activated. Don't worry about driver support as ME drivers work the same on 98 and they will be available for years.[re:Toms Hardware]. Also, the next Microsoft operating system will be out next year and you can then keep 98SE and "Duel Boot".
 

CALV

Distinguished
May 17, 2001
1,731
0
19,780
If you run a dual processor system, you can run your game on one CPU and everything else on the other
Providing the games support smp- most dont

and theres fixes for the 512 meg problem, otherwise I basically agree, Personally I'd stay 2k pro over any other windows, Im not a big gamer, but play the odd game, have had no performance issues at all, I get more on 3dmark 2002 with 2k than I did on 98 or xp, but admittedly this was a few driver releases later.

If they squeeze olives to get olive oil, how do they get baby oil?
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
Instability in 98SE is usually caused by crap hardware, crap applications, or crap drivers. I have no such issues in 98SE. The only "tweaking" I've done is to use RamIdle so I can leave the system up for a couple weeks without running out of RAM.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>
 

slickstaa

Distinguished
Apr 7, 2002
406
0
18,780
umm...congrats?

Im sure you could run a pretty stable web surfing machine without problems on Windows 98, as I have a secondary comp with 98. However, putting 98 through hours of gaming, cd burning, movies, etc. will bring it to its knees much faster than xp or 2000.

<font color=blue> If it ain't broke, don't fix it...tweak it.</font color=blue>
 

Crashman

Polypheme
Former Staff
I have RamIdle running, I should probably mention that. Just your typical gaming/video editing/webserving/websurfing machine.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>
 
Windows 98 may not be dead right now, but it will be. Probably sooner than later. Look at 95. Any new hardware being released will NOT support it. Eventually 98 will be the same as it is a CONSUMER operating system. Support for it will run out much sooner than support for 2000/XP Pro.

You can't even run Windows Update on 98 first edition without first upgrading your version of IE. That was the first nail in the coffin for 98.

The second will be all the new hardware/architechures on the horizon. Every new PC sold will be preloaded with either 2000 or XP Pro/Home. Windows 98 will cease to be an option. Once this happens, hardware vendors will be very slow updating drivers for 98. Why waste time writing completely different drivers for an OS that not many consumers are going to be running in a couple of years? It might suck, but majority rules in these types of situations.

Windows XP is the first consumer OS from Microsoft that I truly like. It plays all of the games I have (some are as old as 3 or 4 years ago)... and it gives me stability I have never seen before from a consumer OS.

Support for Windows 98 may go on for another year or two; perhaps 3 at the most... but that's it. One way or another you'll be forced to upgrade. You know M$ will get you one way or another.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>