VOGONS


Reply 40 of 71, by feipoa

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Back in the mid-late 90's, I personally used Windows 95, then jumped to NT4, then to W2K, then to XP Pro. When I bought my dual PII-400, it came with NT4, which was particular to get setup, but ran very fast. It lacked USB support though, so within a month of W2K coming out, I bought it and installed it. I didn't care for the reduced GUI speed, so went back to NT4 for another few years. I eventually upgraded to W2K around 2004 when support for NT4 was really lacking. I kept going on W2K until 2010 or so, when support ceased. I upgraded to dual PIII-850 on the same motherboard and reluctantly upgraded to XP Pro. Boy was the slow-down ever noticeable. Far worse than the slow-down from NT4 to W2K. Now a dual PIII-850 is not that far off from your target system of 1000 MHz, so, based on my experience, I would have chosen W2K. W2K was one of MS's forgotten OS's because of how short of a glory life it had until XP came out. I used W2K until the bitter end and found it more reliable than NT4 or XP Pro.I have ultimately used each OS for about the same number of years.

The user pointed out that he was having issues with a VIA board and specific expansion cards. Isn't this a common issue among VIA chipsets? I personally don't like using VIA unless it is the 266T or the MVP3 with only 3DFX in the AGP slot. I had a dual CuMine Apolo Pro 133 with 1.1 GHz CPUs. I ran it for years along side my dual PIII-850. Both systems ran the same software, but boy oh boy was the my dual Apollo Pro system a lot less stable in comparison.

It was already mentioned that XP Pro can be slimmed down, so I won't bother commenting further. However, I still prefer W2K. Isn't W2K the last supported OS for 3dfx?

One other possibility that you might want to consider to put this debate to rest - how abut a quad boot system? Spacious hard drives are cheap these days. Nobody is paying $400 for a 2 gig drive anymore. On my boxed systems (K6-III, PIII, Tualaton, VIA Nehemiah, etc, etc...), I set them up with Win98SE, WinNT4, W2K, and XP Pro. On sometimes substitute W2K for Win2003 on non-AGP dual Tualatin build. You can readup on the particularities on setting up a quad boot environment with just the Windows boot loader here, The Ultimate Multi-Boot Windows Benching Machine

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 41 of 71, by slivercr

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feipoa wrote:
Back in the mid-late 90's, I personally used Windows 95, then jumped to NT4, then to W2K, then to XP Pro. When I bought my dual […]
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Back in the mid-late 90's, I personally used Windows 95, then jumped to NT4, then to W2K, then to XP Pro. When I bought my dual PII-400, it came with NT4, which was particular to get setup, but ran very fast. It lacked USB support though, so within a month of W2K coming out, I bought it and installed it. I didn't care for the reduced GUI speed, so went back to NT4 for another few years. I eventually upgraded to W2K around 2004 when support for NT4 was really lacking. I kept going on W2K until 2010 or so, when support ceased. I upgraded to dual PIII-850 on the same motherboard and reluctantly upgraded to XP Pro. Boy was the slow-down ever noticeable. Far worse than the slow-down from NT4 to W2K. Now a dual PIII-850 is not that far off from your target system of 1000 MHz, so, based on my experience, I would have chosen W2K. W2K was one of MS's forgotten OS's because of how short of a glory life it had until XP came out. I used W2K until the bitter end and found it more reliable than NT4 or XP Pro.I have ultimately used each OS for about the same number of years.

The user pointed out that he was having issues with a VIA board and specific expansion cards. Isn't this a common issue among VIA chipsets? I personally don't like using VIA unless it is the 266T or the MVP3 with only 3DFX in the AGP slot. I had a dual CuMine Apolo Pro 133 with 1.1 GHz CPUs. I ran it for years along side my dual PIII-850. Both systems ran the same software, but boy oh boy was the my dual Apollo Pro system a lot less stable in comparison.

It was already mentioned that XP Pro can be slimmed down, so I won't bother commenting further. However, I still prefer W2K. Isn't W2K the last supported OS for 3dfx?

One other possibility that you might want to consider to put this debate to rest - how abut a quad boot system? Spacious hard drives are cheap these days. Nobody is paying $400 for a 2 gig drive anymore. On my boxed systems (K6-III, PIII, Tualaton, VIA Nehemiah, etc, etc...), I set them up with Win98SE, WinNT4, W2K, and XP Pro. On sometimes substitute W2K for Win2003 on non-AGP dual Tualatin build. You can readup on the particularities on setting up a quad boot environment with just the Windows boot loader here, The Ultimate Multi-Boot Windows Benching Machine

+1 on the multi-boot recommendation.

Regarding your experiences with NT4/2000/XP: how much RAM / which video card were you using? And what do you mean with GUI slow-downs? Overall sluggishness or something? Recent experience with systems similar to what the OP proposed tells me they are plenty for either 2000 or XP.

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Reply 42 of 71, by feipoa

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I ordered my dual PII-400 with 128 MB, which was a lot for 1998. It is difficult for the present to understand what actually using a system was like at the time. If you didn't use said system everyday back in the day, you can only estimate what it would have been like.

I was using a Permedia 2, AGP 2x. 440BX system.

In comparison to NT4, yes, W2K was more sluggish: longer boot time, even after you login; slower GUI response, like when dropping down menus; opening programs was slower. It is sorta like when you are used to driving a sports card everyday, you get used the acceleration. You then sell your sports card and buy a used VW bus. That was sorta my first response when I installed W2K in early 2000. W2K was OK with the dual PIII-850's though. I eventually had to upgarde to XP Pro and a similar "OMG this is slow" came over me. If you have nothing from the past to compare it to, then it might not seem slow to you at all, e.g. you've never driven a sports car. I still have that system with XP Pro SP3 installed. I got used to the speed, but did notice a slow down with SP3 compared to SP2. It currently has 1 GB registered/buffered/ECC CL2 RAM running its native Ultra2-LVD SCSI. It is difficult to crash that system. I think it now has a GF3 in it. Like you, I run a GF4 in my dual Tualatin 1.5, a Ti4400 though. I think its overkill anyway, so...

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 43 of 71, by shamino

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NT4 has the simpler Win95 GUI, which is definitely faster than the Win98 GUI that was used in Win2k/ unthemed-XP.
I prefer NT4 for older systems for that reason, such as on a couple of Pentium laptops that I've had. But the limitations of NT4 usually deterred me from using it on anything P2 or newer. Only exception was a work computer that ran NT4 with a Celeron 400.

NT4 can end up with the slower GUI if the user installs an optional update feature of IE4+, and doing so quickly reveals the difference in how those GUIs perform.

Reply 44 of 71, by slivercr

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feipoa wrote:

I ordered my dual PII-400 with 128 MB, which was a lot for 1998. It is difficult for the present to understand what actually using a system was like at the time. If you didn't use said system everyday back in the day, you can only estimate what it would have been like.

I was using a Permedia 2, AGP 2x. 440BX system.

In comparison to NT4, yes, W2K was more sluggish: longer boot time, even after you login; slower GUI response, like when dropping down menus; opening programs was slower. It is sorta like when you are used to driving a sports card everyday, you get used the acceleration. You then sell your sports card and buy a used VW bus. That was sorta my first response when I installed W2K in early 2000. W2K was OK with the dual PIII-850's though. I eventually had to upgarde to XP Pro and a similar "OMG this is slow" came over me. If you have nothing from the past to compare it to, then it might not seem slow to you at all, e.g. you've never driven a sports car. I still have that system with XP Pro SP3 installed. I got used to the speed, but did notice a slow down with SP3 compared to SP2. It currently has 1 GB registered/buffered/ECC CL2 RAM running its native Ultra2-LVD SCSI. It is difficult to crash that system. I think it now has a GF3 in it. Like you, I run a GF4 in my dual Tualatin 1.5, a Ti4400 though. I think its overkill anyway, so...

Yeah, 128 MB was a lot for 1998. I remember my PC, a 200 MMX, having 16 or 32 MB at that time. Of course, I was a high-school student so I didn't have the resources to buy dual CPU setups back then, though I would lust over them: even after upgrading to a 300a a year later I would drool for the BP6.

I don't understand what you mean by "It is difficult for the present to understand what actually using a system was like at the time", or even why it would be relevant to the discussion. In any case, yeah, newer OSs have greater overhead, and I believe you when you say you experienced all these things as you upgraded your machine. And I'll take the sports car vs. VW bus analogy, and me never driving a sports car or whatever. I deserve it for not making myself clear and asking the wrong question.

I guess what I was / am trying to get at was more like: do you experience abnormal sluggishness when using 2000 or XP SP3 in a maxed out system like the one from the OP? Yeah, NT4 will run faster than 2000, which will run faster than XP. But that doesn't mean XP runs bad on the computer.

In any case, I think OP should try all of them and make an informed decision.

Outrigger: an ongoing adventure with the OR840
QuForce FX 5800: turn your Quadro into a GeForce

Reply 46 of 71, by ODwilly

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In my experience XP SP3 with ALL the updates is a slow pig on anything not a dual core or "modern" single. Think lga775 P4 or Athlon64. 2gb of memory is great for a "snappy" experience and a fast IDE or average SATA drive really help there as well. 1gb really pushes it and results in far to much swapping to the hard drive.

In comparison w2k sp4 runs acceptably well on a 233mmx Thinkpad 770 with 256mb of RAM and a 1.8 ide laptop drive.

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Reply 47 of 71, by emosun

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ODwilly wrote:

In my experience XP SP3 with ALL the updates is a slow pig on anything not a dual core or "modern" single. Think lga775 P4 or Athlon64. 2gb of memory is great for a "snappy" experience and a fast IDE or average SATA drive really help there as well. 1gb really pushes it and results in far to much swapping to the hard drive.

In comparison w2k sp4 runs acceptably well on a 233mmx Thinkpad 770 with 256mb of RAM and a 1.8 ide laptop drive.

I suppose it depends how much optimization you're willing to do in xp. If you optimize it then it'll run just as well as any other os.

I recently ran an old 233mhz pentium 2 system with 98 and xp and during video playback and game benchmarks , both oses yielded basically the same performance in applications.

Reply 48 of 71, by feipoa

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shamino wrote:

NT4 can end up with the slower GUI if the user installs an optional update feature of IE4+, and doing so quickly reveals the difference in how those GUIs perform.

Isn't that the truth. For this reason, when I install NT4 on fast 486 systems, I do not install IE4's web interface feature, or whatever its called. However, it can be a little irritating when you try to minimise a window because you cannot click the item's taskbar tab to minimise the program.

Plan your life wisely, you'll be dead before you know it.

Reply 49 of 71, by slivercr

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emosun wrote:

Wow this thread turned into cancer real quick.

It was bound to happen. Which systems to use XP on is a topic mostly argued with opinions and experiences, no one offers hard data to back up their claims—I am also guilty of this. I wonder if there's a set of benchmarks we could ALL agree on that would ratify a machine as "usable with XP".

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QuForce FX 5800: turn your Quadro into a GeForce

Reply 50 of 71, by dr_st

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XP (pre-SP2 or maybe even pre-SP3) is not heavier than 2K. That's largely a myth. Many people just didn't realize or didn't bother to realize that you can turn off all the eye candy (including the Luna theme) and then it's just like 2K, only with better compatibility, and some more useful features.

With all the service packs, especially SP3, yes, it got heavier. But that's also what allowed it to be more compatible with modern software and more secure.

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Reply 51 of 71, by Standard Def Steve

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FWIW, I run XP SP3 on a single PIII-S @ 1575 with 2 gigs of DDR and a relatively modern 250GB IDE hard drive. XP smokes on that thang! It boots up a hell of a lot quicker than Windows 10 on a Core i7 with a mechanical HDD. The GUI also feels more responsive.

The one time I experimented with Windows 2000 on that PIII, it didn't really strike me as being much faster than XP. In short, both versions ran absolutely fine on it. I think the OP made the right choice with XP.

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Reply 52 of 71, by dr_st

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Standard Def Steve wrote:

FWIW, I run XP SP3 on a single PIII-S @ 1575 with 2 gigs of DDR and a relatively modern 250GB IDE hard drive. XP smokes on that thang! It boots up a hell of a lot quicker than Windows 10 on a Core i7 with a mechanical HDD. The GUI also feels more responsive.

I have seen similar things (XP booting blazing fast on some low-end PIII desktop) before as well. I conjecture that it has something to do with the fact that the system is very simple, has few peripherals, and older hardware is fundamentally simpler than newer hardware, requiring less complex driver / OS init flows.

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Reply 53 of 71, by Warlord

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Vanilla XP is less bloat true, also unstable. XP was notoriously unstable until SP2 while Service packs made the OS more stable it also added more bloat. The same has been true with every Microsoft OS including 2000 vanilla is unstable service packs added stability and security. Patches fix bugs. Every new OS MS released got more bloated and required more powerful hardware to run, comparisons such as windows 98 boots faster on a P2 than Windows 7 boots on a Core I7.

Most the arguments in this thread are made way out of context and are speculative at best mainly because the OP is so vague in details. Just blanket statement which is going to be better, without context in regard of what programs will be installed, what OS optimizations are preformed. Exact specs of the system running this software. Without that specification it's easy to take some personal experience to use as judgment that may or may not apply to the OP. Given my in depth knowledge Id be willing to argue every single point based on info if it was available but its not

That is why I said 2000 is better, because I never used any of those speculations and only made the argument based on what we know. I still believe based on what we know I am right. If the OP wanted to include all of the details about his system and software etc I could change my opinion possibly on the grounds that caveats such as optimizations were performed, which we also don't know if the OP is even technical or knowledgeable enough to do. . But I am not going to invent and create magic scenarios to justify some opinion like other people have when we do not know if those even apply to the situation. Like XP is more secure. Intelligent people would also say thats like comparing a black pot and a kettle and security also restsw with best practices of the person controlling the computer and the human being is the most dangerous part of that And like OP never said he would be online banking on this PC lmao.

Here is the situation, Running ancient hardware, to play ancient games that's it, anything else is pure speculation and has nothing to do with the question at all. Thats why I said 2k is better tyvm.

Reply 54 of 71, by dr_st

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Warlord wrote:

Every new OS MS released got more bloated and required more powerful hardware to run, comparisons such as windows 98 boots faster on a P2 than Windows 7 boots on a Core I7.

It's not just 'bloat'. New OS actually do more stuff. More stuff that's useful to the user in many cases. Plus, hardware gets not only more powerful, but also more complex, requiring more stuff to be done to keep things stable and smooth (see above remark on how fast XP boots on PIII). As long as the thing that's most affected is just the boot time, it's rather meaningless. PCs are not designed to require frequent reboots.

Warlord wrote:

Just blanket statement which is going to be better, without context in regard of what programs will be installed, what OS optimizations are preformed. Exact specs of the system running this software.

Most of the time, such level of detail is not essential. It serves no point except to instigate ad nauseam arguments with no practical value.

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Reply 55 of 71, by Warlord

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dr_st wrote:

It's not just 'bloat'. New OS actually do more stuff. More stuff that's useful to the user in many cases. Plus, hardware gets not only more powerful, but also more complex, requiring more stuff to be done to keep things stable and smooth (see above remark on how fast XP boots on PIII). As long as the thing that's most affected is just the boot time, it's rather meaningless. PCs are not designed to require frequent reboots.

Thats right it's bloat in addition to MS bundling software like internet explorer and creating anti trade practices to put companies like netscape out of business. "That more useful to users in many cases and does more stuff" ahem I can site so many instances of this like bundling media player and EU anti trust lawsuit. Most cases nothing is added that somone didnt already invent and can already be installed like the Snap feature of windows 8. Ahem Nvida already did this and there was already another universal 3rd party program that did this. The instances that a user can do somthin new and useful on a newer version of windows that they couldn't do before is very very low. Unless you are talking about MS Paint which Microsoft is removing from windows 10. Or MS themselfs killing APi support to force users to upgrade to run a newer version of office to make more money. GG

dr_st wrote:

Most of the time, such level of detail is not essential. It serves no point except to instigate ad nauseam arguments with no practical value.

on the contrary in the absense of such information ad nauseam arguments with no practical value are posted. I see plenty of evidence of that here.

Reply 56 of 71, by Standard Def Steve

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Warlord wrote:

Vanilla XP is less bloat true, also unstable. XP was notoriously unstable until SP2 while Service packs made the OS more stable it also added more bloat. The same has been true with every Microsoft OS including 2000 vanilla is unstable service packs added stability and security. Patches fix bugs. Every new OS MS released got more bloated and required more powerful hardware to run, comparisons such as windows 98 boots faster on a P2 than Windows 7 boots on a Core I7.

Most the arguments in this thread are made way out of context and are speculative at best mainly because the OP is so vague in details. Just blanket statement which is going to be better, without context in regard of what programs will be installed, what OS optimizations are preformed. Exact specs of the system running this software. Without that specification it's easy to take some personal experience to use as judgment that may or may not apply to the OP. Given my in depth knowledge Id be willing to argue every single point based on info if it was available but its not

That is why I said 2000 is better, because I never used any of those speculations and only made the argument based on what we know. I still believe based on what we know I am right. If the OP wanted to include all of the details about his system and software etc I could change my opinion possibly on the grounds that caveats such as optimizations were performed, which we also don't know if the OP is even technical or knowledgeable enough to do. . But I am not going to invent and create magic scenarios to justify some opinion like other people have when we do not know if those even apply to the situation. Like XP is more secure. Intelligent people would also say thats like comparing a black pot and a kettle and security also restsw with best practices of the person controlling the computer and the human being is the most dangerous part of that And like OP never said he would be online banking on this PC lmao.

I didn't have to do anything special to get SP3 to run well on my PIII-S. I simply installed the OS, updates and drivers, disabled System Restore, and switched to the classic theme (personal preference). Not only is boot time incredibly quick (right up there with Win98, actually) but the performance in games and benchmarks is just as speedy. For example, the Q3A timedemo hits 208 fps under XP and "only" 205 under 98SE.

There's no need to doubt XP on a PIII, even with SP3. If you've got enough RAM--and the OP does--it'll feel just as snappy as 2000 and provide far better application compatibility.

Warlord wrote:

Here is the situation, Running ancient hardware, to play ancient games that's it, anything else is pure speculation and has nothing to do with the question at all. Thats why I said 2k is better tyvm.

From what I've seen, XP is just as friendly to old games as 2000, if not slightly more so. Win98SE would be even better, but it would also put that 2nd CPU and most of the RAM to waste. A 98SE+XP dual-booter would be ideal, but the OP probably has a life and just wants a working system with minimal hassle, and XP Just Works.

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Reply 57 of 71, by feipoa

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Can't Win98SE use up to 1 GB of RAM? I recall reading in this thread 512 MB was the limit. With my multi-boot Tualatin system w/3GB, I had to tell Win98SE not to use more than 1 GB; it wouldn't run at all otherwise. Or is the range of RAM from 512 to 1 GB not utilised well and this is why you say 512 MB is the limit?

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Reply 58 of 71, by luckybob

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512 is the soft limit. iirc the kernel can't really use anything beyond that. past 1gb things tend to get progressively worse.

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

Reply 59 of 71, by rick6

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Warlord wrote:

Most the arguments in this thread are made way out of context and are speculative at best mainly because the OP is so vague in details. Just blanket statement which is going to be better, without context in regard of what programs will be installed, what OS optimizations are preformed. Exact specs of the system running this software.

Sorry if i came a bit empty in my intentions but i said what i meant with this system in the first thread, mostly for games between 1998 and 2003. Some Glide, some newer ones in Direct3D and probably OpenGL.

As for the system specs i guess i stated them mostly in the thread's title. The motherboard is a GA-6VXDC7 and what i might have missed is the soundcard which will be a SoundBlaster Live! CT4670. I've also mentioned that i'm using a SSD as the boot drive for Windows XP. I understand i might be missing something else but please point out what it is.

I'm going with dual boot between Windows XP and Windows 98. Seems to be the better deal for me. I'm only dealing with the ram limit issue of Windows 98 right now, googling a bit.

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