Win 2k vs. Win XP

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Wed Feb 06, 2002 5:45 pm

I'm going to upgrade my OS soon.

My question to all of you is whether you think Win 2k or Win XP is better?
My brothers both have Win 2k and swear by it. I'd heard that Win XP had some bugs. Are they basically the same thing? What's different?

Here's a website with a pretty good list of which games are compatible with Win NT/2k/XP:
http://www.ntcompatible.com/b.shtml
Also check the message board there for a guy named Dos Freak. He is more up-to-date than anyone on which games work with what, and how to get them to work with your OS.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Feb 06, 2002 5:57 pm

win XP is windows 2000 with a more colorful teletubby-like invaded desktop. also win XP has some real nice remote desktop access tools and a glaring UPnP bug but we've known about that for a while. Speaking from experience and administering all windows OS'es here in the workplace, windows 2000 is A#1.

btw VD, I really like your avatar. what program did you use to cut a piece of your namesakes artwork to resize as your avatar.

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Wed Feb 06, 2002 6:43 pm

Thanks Ned.

From reading Dos Freak's research, it appears that more games are compatible with Win2k than WinXP (even though WinXP is marketed as being more compatible!). And game compatibility is my main concern.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Feb 06, 2002 7:34 pm

I'd agree that win2k is the way to go. I think one of the intangibles with gaming compatible with winxp is that most video and sound cards needed new drivers with winxp for one reason or another. There must be several odd tweaks with different cards and games et. al. too many factors so stick with what works. There has been a lot of success with converting game compatability to win2k so stick with it.

Quark · Post by **Quark** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 7:41 am

Just one simple question:

How many users are you going to have on this computer?
The more you have, the better WinXP will be.

I'm sticking with XP just because it simplifies plenty of things. I have no icons on my desktop (faster loading times), taskbar management is much better (and those useless tray icons are hidden!), zip file support is integrated, and many other things.

It may be slightly less stable (but I can't get it to crash!); it might have a few more bugs, but it's just easier to use.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 2:55 pm

I had Win2K, but upgraded to winXP a few weeks ago. I will personally stick to it. I have not found any problems with compatibillity (and I have installed quite some games since I installed WinXP

).
However if you have a relativley old graphic/sound/whatever card you might have problems finding drivers that support WinXP (tho I had no problems with my GeForce1).
One of the biggest advantages of WinXP IMO, is it's speed. It loads almost instantly! And also there are LOTS of small things that make life easier (eg you can switch users without actually logging off and closing all programs)

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 3:26 pm

yeah, but switching users without logging off and closing programs will tie up resources inevitably leading to a slower machine.

Get a good processor, a lot of memory, a motherboard with high bus speeds: 266 MHz and up. Partition your hard drive, keep your OS and only your OS on C, install apps and keep data on other partitions/drives. Try not to install and uninstall too many programs. Defrag each partition/drive twice a week. All of these factors will lead to a speedy happy computer. The OS has something to do with it but not a lot. Put windows 98 on a machine with kickin' hardware and it will fly. win2000 and winxp suck up so many resources to run efficiently, its ridiculous.

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 4:05 pm

Win XP

I swear and live by Windows XP.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 6:49 pm

@Gaxx

so you've had no problems whatsoever with any peripherals and/or software. how about games which appears to be voodoodali's main concern.

Curious what kind of system you were running when upgrading to XP. Or, did you purchase a new system where you knew all hardware would be compatible with XP.

Moving on with games, preferably BG/IWD games in particular. Have you used old saves and old characters or was everything, if anything, done from scratch?

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 7:23 pm

Not that I think it makes much difference in the decision, but here's my specs:
800 MHZ AMD Athlon Thunderbird CPU
Asus A7V mb
128 MB SDRAM (going to upgrade that, too)
80 gig Seagate Barracuda (brand new, my Maxtor hd died last month--don't buy Maxtor or Western Digital, I've experienced the death of both--not an OS problem, but the hardware actually breaking--the Maxtor stopped being able to spin)
Soundblaster Xgamer 5.1
Geforce GTS 2 video card with 32 MB video ram (want to upgrade that one too, but video cards are expensive!)
Pioneer DVD ROM

I'm leaning towards Win 2k, simply because if I have problems, my brothers are more likely to be able to help me out.

I'm also thinking about buying a barebones computer and putting the rest together myself. I think it would be fun to do.

Nightmare · Post by **Nightmare** » Sun Feb 10, 2002 8:06 pm

Well, now that you mention it...

We upgraded to XP from Win98. At first, most things were incompatible (including our DVD drive!), but now almost everything is running fine (after @#$%&* Creative got its drives out) and much faster too. Two remaining problems:
-our MICROSOFT joystick was incompatible and Microsoft wasn't going to release a damn patch for it, so we got a new one
-our scanner (uses TWAIN drivers; XP has its own drivers for it; hence the incompatibility) still doesn't work

Also, Windows Explorer has a few bugs in it.

BUT:
-Internet is much faster
-start-up of under 1.5 minutes
-great new interface
-fast, fast, oh, did I mention FAST!?
-No problems with any games

Quitch · Post by **Quitch** » Mon Feb 11, 2002 5:56 pm

XP is the only way to go. It's 2K with knobs on, and while is not a major improvement over 2K, it does certain small features that after a while you will struggle to live without.

Having used both 2K Pro and XP Pro extensively, I have to say I have found XP to be more compatible. Problems I had under 2K with games don't occur under XP, in fact under XP I could use EAX in BG2, something I couldn't do under either Win 98 or 2K (thanks to BG2's crap hardware support).

The stability is equal, the performance of XP is probably slightly better, and will edge past 2K because 2K support from Microsoft ends in the middle of this year, and companies will obviously put more effort into pumping out drivers for the live system.

If you have less than 256MB RAM though, don't bother. Myself, if I were you, I'd buy a 512MB chip while RAM prices are so low, then you can simply switch off the page file and enjoy great performance.

In the end, it simply comes down to me saying, I've used them both, and I can assure you, XP is a winner. As time passes the driver issues become less and less, and in terms of development, XP is the future for the time being. New drivers being required were to be expected, and considering manufacturers were given everything they needed well in advance, we have to wonder what took some of them so long. I'd have been more concerned if XP actually worked with the drivers that were out at the time.

2K is going to own the work place, while XP is going to dominate the home enviroment and it *will* be what game developers think of as the "standard" OS.

Oh, and people ain't lying when they say that XP boot times beat the other Windows systems into the ground. My system boot time has halved. Note though that the shut down time is more in line with 2K than 98 (i.e. longer)

VoodooDali · Post by **VoodooDali** » Sun Feb 17, 2002 9:41 am

Thanks Quitch for your input.

I also received a reply on http://www.ntcompatible.com from Dos Freak regarding how XP and 2k compare with games.
Win2k
411 games work
32 don't

Win XP
408 games work
35 don't

So--they seem to be tied. That website is also a good resource if you're having trouble getting an older game to work with either OS. They have fixes.

If you want a list of which games work, which games need fixes and which games don't work, Dos Freak will email you an Excel spreadsheet of them. Just look for him on the message board there (he gives out his email there--but I don't think I ought to just post it here without his permission.)

Now I'm leaning toward WinXP, since the support will be better from MS (I'm buying the full version--not the upgrade), and all the games coming out will be made to work with it.