OS Comparison: On Which Operating System Do Games Run Best?

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.

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Hardware
ProcessorIntel Pentium 4 2,2 GHz (100 MHz)
Memory2 x 256 MB, PC 266, CL2
Graphic CardsATI Radeon 9700 PRONVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti Ti 4600
MotherboardASUS P4T-E
Drivers & Software
Graphics DriverNVIDIA - v. 30.82ATI - v. 02.3
DirectX Version8.1
OSWindows MEWindows 2000 Professional SP3Windows XP ProfessionalWindows XP Professional SP1
Benchmarks & Settings
AquanoxRetail Version v1.17
Max PayneRetail Version v1.05Benchmark using 'Shooting Alex'
Unreal Tournament2003 DemoDemo v1.1Standard Benchmark
Quake III ArenaRetail Version 1.17Benchmark using 'Q3DEMO1'
3D Mark 2001 SEPro 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.