98 Vs. 2000 and gaming issues

[Sachmho]

Right now on my current machine I have 98 SE installed. Like many others I read about, I have frequent problems of BSOD. I'm getting fairly tired of this. I WILL be building a new system fairly soon, so I thought 2000 would be a more reliable OS, as I've heard many people praising its reliability. I've also heard that 2000 isn't a game friendly OS, which is a lot of what I do. Is this true? and if so, why is it bad for games? 2000 should be more reliable, right? Thanx

 

[Derango]

Most newer games run on 2000. Basicly, 2000 dosen't let user level programs have direct access to hardware. This is a good thing. Direct access to the hardware can crash your system fast. The downside of this is that any programs that try to access hardware directly tend to crash. Older games did this because it was slightly faster than other methods.

However, I haven't had many problems with games on my 2k box. Take a look at NT Compatible for a list of games that do and do not work in 2k or XP

 

[Bglad]

2k is far more reliable. It could be argued that it was not as good a gaming platform at one time. Now however, most of the bugs have been worked out. Most software manufacturers have patches and you can find drivers for most any hardware. Often NT drivers work and most XP drivers work. Now that XP has become a consumer OS, it is easy to get almost anything to work in 2k.

With that said, if you have old hardware and software that you will be migrating and you are not ready to do it yet, use this time to do some reading about all the software and hardware you use and will be installing. Make sure it is compatible and there are drivers available. You will save yourself much time and headache when it comes to migration time.

 

[fastman]

I would concur with everything Bglad said.

 

[Sachmho]

Thanks for all the input... most stuff i'll be using (hardware wise) will be fairly new... i'm using a 1.6a chip and p4s333 mobo w/ audio, a GF3 Ti200, 7200 hdd, etc. most of my stuff won't be very old. most games i play are fairly new also, so it sounds like i'll be good. thanks

 

[Thor86]

Why don't you dual boot? Use win98 for games for max compatibility and performance, and use win2k for everything else. I don't use win98 for anything but internet and games, and have never Blue screened even after 3 motherboard/cpu transfers.

 

[m1ke101]

i have win2k pro installed on my system (which is a lot like yours, 1.6a, ti200, and 7200 rpm hd) and everything runs fine, and i play a lot of games too.