98 or XP

[KStone1013]

Some people say that Windows 98 delivers better performance for hardcore gamers, who only want to play games and don't care about stability.  Any insight into this?  I know that XP is 1,000 times more stable, the service pack helps a lot, and that 98 has huge memory leak problems.  And what about Windows 2000 Pro??

Tomshardware.com dicussed this issue once, but they used Windows ME! Windows ME was horrible, and the terrible OS was proven to dramatically decrease gaming frames per second.

[dcsun]

I've found 98SE to be just fine for games.  The problem with 2000/XP is both drivers support and application support.

[Bubba]

I heard too that XP is not the best for hard core gamers, but that does not mean it is junk either,, I use WinMe which may not not be much better than 98, I sometimes think Me, crashes harder and more often than 98, but if you use Windows, you are going to crash/lockup,  a reboot usually gets things back in line, just use your pc as a toy, and not a tool and you can't get too upset.

[query]

The biggest problem with Windows98 is that is goes end-of-life in June, 2003 - no more support from Microsoft.  That may not mean as much to individual users as to corporate users - but it also means you'll begin to see unicode software released that will not run on 95/98

* query - i.e., you'll have to decide whether you want to keep an old OS and old apps, or move to a new OS that supports new applications.

There are already applications being released that have no support for DOS-based OSes - and there will be many more in the future.

[pat]

Since the release of SP1 for XP, every windows 9.x based game I have works just fine in XP. I even have got some old dos games to work, but cannot get the sound to work correctly.
I think the best solution if you want to keep the old and add the new is a dual boot set up using the 9x OS of choice with XP.
With XP it is really easy to set up a dual boot system.

Providing your hardware will support XP that is.

[Eric M.]

I'd say 98 for compatibility, but I've only ran into one game I can't play on XP, so XP for stability. I've got games that crash to the desktop in the middle of the game every once and a while, and yet those running 2k or XP have never once had it crash (I'm running 98.)

I can't wait until I get XP :)

[-=LiquiD=-]

XP is going to give you a much better, more stable platform, so long as you can do your updates. Keeping this in mind, a pirated version of Windows XP will not allow you to do any updates, there for your Windows will not be as stable as it could be.

Windows XP has better suppot for high end computers, as well as better resource management.

[John]

LiquiD, welcome to Poasters Forums. We have a lot of very talented people here who help anyone who asks. Of course we consider this a family oriented forum.  Come back any time or stay and just browse.

[cowofsteel]

I just recently switched from 98SE to XP Pro (my dad had an upgrade he didn't want) and I have installed 20 or so games and have had no problems.  I have some old games too, the orginal C&C up to C&C Generals all work.  Madden 98 through 03 work too.  What I'm trying to say is that, i dont think the comptapality issue is as big as ppl try to make it seem.

[Allie-Baba]

I agree with all comments above especially when it comes to reliability, etc. With respect to compatability you also have the  forced "run in" mode that XP supports. I've never actually had to use it though myself.

I think thought what the original poaster was looking for was an idea of the relative merits with respect to performance. That's a bit harder - especially to do apples to apples, frame rates, etc. I know that I've seen some articles on this in the past and I think in general 98SE won out slightly.

THNX
BRAD

[Chandler]

Windows XP is a better performer all-round now that drivers have matured.

I keep a Windows 98 partition just for the odd thing that doesn't work nicely on Windows XP, but XP is my preferred operating system.  We are beginning to see totally 32-bit NT-only programs and games now which refuse to run on 9x.

[interplays53]

YOU ALL NEED TO GET XP. LOL Xp is the best OS to come out of Microsoft in a long time and well its going to be here for a while well until the new OS come out in about 2 or 3 year and it will just give mac people more things to ***** about.