Why Dont People like Win2000 for Games?

[damocles]

People keep telling that Win2000 isnt a Gamers O/S
I have missed this whole debate. Is it a hardware/Driver thing?
I really want a system that is more stable than 98 and i can handle a small amount of slowdown because i am getting a much faster PC.
Games i currently Play are UT, AOE 2, Diablo 2 and Warcrafft Bnet-Anyone know if these all work?
Also i want to go to 374mb RAM, so i want an OS that can Utilise it

 

[Vicken]

Some D3D games won't work in D3D. I had some games run, but crash when you try to change the resolution. I don't know if this a video card driver problem or Win2k itself. Also, many drivers don't exist for Win2k.

 

[Marine]

Damocles,
I wrote earlier that I run some of the most demanding sims available without problems, including force feedback support. The OS seems capable of acting on any valid input that is supported by DirectX 7 or higher so long as the hardware drivers (it is sensitive to video and AGP drivers) are current. Nothing I have thrown at it which is supported has been rejected. I'm running both Falcon 4.0 as well as NFS Porche Unlimited while this box is open - without problems.

 

[Oda]

When I had Win2k Q3 frame rates took a 15fps hit. Just my $0.02

 

[brewty]

win2k isn't a gamers o/s because it wasn't designed to be one. it's designed for business use, not home use, hence it's lack for gaming support (although quite a few games do run in win2k). there's a web page that has game compatibility in winnt/2k, but i can't remember the url...

 

[Erasmus-X]

http://www.ntcompatible.com

 

[holden j caufield]

nt kernel does not allow direct access to hardware. Things must go through the Hardware Abstraction Layer to the executive which runs in kernel mode. Thus less crashes but I'd say there is a performance hit also. Also people may run it on NTFS and NTFS has a bit more overhead so you get docked twice in this sense. win98 is superior for games unless you run quake 3 and your win2k machine has dual processors

 

[kyoshozx]

I'm running win2k and yes it's extremely stable, but that doesn't mean your game will be extremely stable. I'm sure you hate to reboot when win98 crashes, but when your game crashes in win2k it's just as frustrating. Even though your OS is more stable your game software still have a chance of crashing, and most games are not certified to run on win2k. I've only played q3 and deus ex on win2k. Q3 is totally stable on win2k, but thats not I can say about Deus ex, not only does it close on me all of the sudden, I've experienced my first blue screen death in win2k.

Oh btw ODA, which graphics card did you use in win2k that you took a 15fps hit? If it was from nvidia there new drivers gave a pretty decent boost in performance i'm sure it's still not up to win98 but it's something I can live with.

 

[CyberSax]

I like Windows 2K. The performance hit must be negligible because I haven't noticed it. And the small glitches that occur in games are tolerable. Small price to pay for the added benefits that you get.

 

[Maverick]

Just to add something here. If you're using a Voodoo2 with another video card (not many of us are), don't install Win2k. You'll be able to play in OpenGL, but not in Direct 3D. The Hardware Abstraction Layer prevents pass through video cards from working. I think this also applies to those DVD Decoder cards. The worst part of it is, pass through video will NEVER work on win2k. Its not a driver or support issue, its just the way the operating system is designed. So it will never be fixed in any future releases. So if you have a DVD Decoder card or a voodoo2, avoid using Win2k.

 

[kyoshozx]

Shiva I have a DVD decoder with a video by pass cable and it works in win2k. The DVD player I have is creative labs 5x and the decoder is dxr2 and it works exactly like how it works in win98. I jsut downloaded the driver from creative labs and it works perfectly never had a problem with it. SO the pass thru cable does work in win2k, well at least with some hardware, like my dvd decoder

 

[Sunner]

Same here.