I think that 1gb of ram is the absolute minimum for Windows XP SP3 if you consider running games such as Far cry, Doom 3, Half life 2

But it has nothing to do with XP SP3. You'll need that amount for comfortable play even on Win 2000 SP4.

Is there any reason to run XP over Windows 2000 at all? Why suffer the XP memory hog when you can just go 2000+SP4? I personally stuck with 2000 PRO SP4 all the way until I upgraded to an Athlon XP 2500+ in 2004, and I never had any issues. I've been considering this lately. DirectX compatibility is the same, and I doubt Windows 2000 lacks any driver support that XP has specifically?

XP memory hog

When you have 384 Mb or less - sure, XP RAM usage can be considered quite high. But with 512 Mb or more? Nah. At this point any difference in their RAM usage is just pocket change.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2020-09-25, 13:19:

XP memory hog

When you have 384 Mb or less - sure, XP RAM usage can be considered quite high. But with 512 Mb or more? Nah. At this point any difference in their RAM usage is just pocket change.

I suppose.. But for systems with 128/256 and maybe even 512MB RAM Windows 2000 can add a lot of software compatibility for a reasonable resource tax.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-25, 12:43:

Is there any reason to run XP over Windows 2000 at all? Why suffer the XP memory hog when you can just go 2000+SP4?

It's possible that some late-era (2008 and above) WinXP games, programs and drivers expect SP3. I have no concrete examples of this, just going from memory, so I could be wrong.

For comparison, SP4 for Win2000 came out in 2003, with an additional update roll up in 2005. The OS itself had extended support until 2010.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-25, 12:43:

Is there any reason to run XP over Windows 2000 at all? Why suffer the XP memory hog when you can just go 2000+SP4?

Better browser selection that works on modern websites.

I had an nice XP build, but it didn’t get any use. Two DOS builds, Win98, and my modern rig covers any game I want.

There's hardware that you can only run with full features on earlier OS's. EAX and other sound cards, joysticks, wheels, other game controller software. Also a fair amount of old driver level software is incompatible with x64 era execution prevention and driver signature schemes.

I had a HP very mini PIII machine with 512MB and XP works good.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-25, 12:43:

Is there any reason to run XP over Windows 2000 at all? Why suffer the XP memory hog when you can just go 2000+SP4?

Security problems? Then again, XP would also have unpatched security problems at this point and they might even be more likely to be targeted than something exclusive to 2000 that was left unpatched.

ETA: It would be nice if some day someone could do a thorough comparison as to whether WinFLP stacks up agains XP SP3 or 2K SP4.