OS Comparison: On Which Operating System Do Games Run Best?
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Test System
For our test platform, we chose a Pentium 4 system of the higher performance class. The drivers for the graphics cards are the latest versions available. Unfortunately, NVIDIA's Release 40 Beta Driver is currently only available for Windows XP and 2000, so for comparisons with ME, this was not included. Instead, we used the latest final driver version 30.82. ATI's Radeon was used with the newest Catalyst release v02.3.
| Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Pentium 4 2,2 GHz (100 MHz) |
| Memory | 2 x 256 MB, PC 266, CL2 |
| Graphic Cards | ATI Radeon 9700 PRONVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti Ti 4600 |
| Motherboard | ASUS P4T-E |
| Drivers & Software | |
| Graphics Driver | NVIDIA - v. 30.82ATI - v. 02.3 |
| DirectX Version | 8.1 |
| OS | Windows MEWindows 2000 Professional SP3Windows XP ProfessionalWindows XP Professional SP1 |
| Benchmarks & Settings | |
| Aquanox | Retail Version v1.17 |
| Max Payne | Retail Version v1.05Benchmark using 'Shooting Alex' |
| Unreal Tournament2003 Demo | Demo v1.1Standard Benchmark |
| Quake III Arena | Retail Version 1.17Benchmark using 'Q3DEMO1' |
| 3D Mark 2001 SE | Pro Version, Build 330 |
Benchmarks
Aquanox
Under Windows ME, Aquanox runs marginally faster with the NVIDIA card. With the Radeon card, there's hardly any difference.
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