Which OS is best for gaming / Radeon 8500

[dalin]

that pretty much sums it up...

i am currently running win2k sp2, and have been having intermitant problems with my 8500... i have heard that
win98se is a much better gaming OS...

can anyone confirm or deny that?

which OS do you all prefer... win2k or win98se?

i am looking to get the most out of my 8500, as the little that i have seen so far has blown
me away,... and i would really rather not have to swap it for that Ti500...

thanks...

 

[Tomek]

from what I've seen people who are running win2k and have the radeon 8500 have had problems with games such as HL and CS... the machine i'm using at the moment is a win2k & win98ese dual boot; i primarily use win98se for games and win2k for coding and development... if you look at the microsoft website they say that win2k is primarily for business users while win98 offers the best support for games

 

[Auric]

There is no reason to use anything but NT (W2K/XP) unless:

A) your hardware is not supported
B) the cost is too high for you including the software and necessary hardware like more memory

NT is more stable and is faster given equivalent driver competency/quality (just look at NVIDIA benchmarks). That said, ATI's drivers may be a bit behind their Win9x efforts but I would not expect the discrepancy to last long. After all Win9x is on the way out and XP is no doubt the primary focus which of course will benefit W2K users also.

So, I would definitely stick with NT and adjust the hardware accordingly rather than the OS.

 

[Ausone]

I completely agree with Auric about OS choice. Dalin, definitely go with Win2K/XP.
I too find no reason for using Win98/ME, even for gaming only, if you weigh the benefits of Win2K/XP's superior stability, memory management, security, etc. against the cost of less gaming performance with certain hardwares, which unfortunately include Radeon 8500. (If you are using a Nvidia's card, there is no such cost at all.)

As a matter of fact, I ordered Radeon 8500 at Dell on Oct.3 but cancelled it after reading about the miserable state of its 2K/XP driver. However the recent progress on the part of ATI in this regard seems to suggest that they are really committed to improve R8500's W2K/XP driver much more than they did with original Radeon. I'm now thinking about purchasing Radeon 8500 again.

To choose Win98SE over Win2K just because of R8500 is beyond my imagination. I'd rather swap Radeon for something else and stick to Win2K if Radeon's driver will not be improved. Fortunately for you, dalin, Radeon's driver is likely to be improved further, however.

 

[Tomek]

i'm just biased towards win98se because i don't have any sound in win2k (sound disappears about 10 seconds after startup)...
but, yes, i agree with Auric and Ausone in that win2k is a much better OS than win98se...

 

[S0me1X]

I have an older Radeon 32MB DDR. It performs better in 2K than in 98SE.

 

[plex24]

windows 98 SE or even ME is way to go for the games. 2000 and Xp has refresh rate of 60 hz unless U use the third party utilities. I believe 100% game will work with 98SE but only new games are compatiable with XP. The best solution is dual booting with 98SE and XP. 98SE for the oldergames and XP for the new games.

 

[KentState]

I would stick with Win2k at the very least unless you go with the dual boot option. I couldn't stand giving up all the pluses of 2k for a few fps on a couple games. Plus the drivers are being developed many for Win2k/XP which is the reason why you went with the Radeon. If you weren't looking for driver improvements then I would suggest going with a GeForce3. I've also haven't noticed any refresh rate issues in 2k with the NVidia products.