best OS for avi playback .....

[cptpuget]

any difference between w98, w2k, wxp for playing back avi files on monitor and tv out? would one offer smoother playback over another?

BX slot 1 mobo (msi6163)

392mb sdram

celeron 600 @ 900

g400 32 mb DH ... oc with mgatweak


i'm running w98se and considering updating to wxp if there is any advantage to be gained.

thanks

[Brian Ellis]

I'm not sure that XP would even run on your machine, would it? W2k probably would. If "smoothness" is your only criterion, then there will probably be no difference. The big advantage of W2k is NTSC file systems, with no practical file size limitations.

[Zao]

NTSC file system, can I save PAL video on that one or do I have to convert it?

[az]

Zao, that makes no difference. NTSC just lets you habe files up to two Terabytes in sizes, opposed to FAT32, where files cannot be larger than 4 GB.

AZ

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry, lapsus keyboardii: of course, I meant NTFS

[az]

ARGH, and of course, we all did the same...

AZ

[Sciascia]

I am running PAL32 on an older machine...

Sorry, this thread just made me laugh a little bit.

[az]

AZ

[seether]

probably an insignificant consideration, but win98 is retarded when it comes to memory management compared to 2k/xp.

In my personal experience of doing any av work on 98, some background task would always kick in forcing HDD access for a memory swap or whatever during extended video playback causing an occasional studder. But the last time I did anything besides gaming on 98 was back in the EDO/pc66 RAM and PIO/ata16 hdd days, so I don't know if disk interruptions would still be a concern now, but worth noting for your celeron.

[Ray Austin]

Re: best OS for avi playback .....

Originally posted by cptpuget

celeron 600 @ 900

You're doing this on a celery? Ouch that's gotta hurt.

IMHO, it really doesn't matter, however like someone already said XP likely wouldn't run on your machine.

If it can be done at all on your machine... it will be important for you to have fast drives, using one other than the system drive for the avi's... it might be possible.

Also make sure no background programs are running... you will need all the horsepower you can muster out of that poor ole cpu!

About the best thing you got going for you is the BX board, those were known for being a very good chipset.

If you have the fast drives and the OS is tweaked for video and no background programs running and the video is still choppy or sluggish, your CPU is the culprit.

Good luck.

[cptpuget]

it runs pretty nice, actually. divx supposedly doesn't require that much in the way of resources AFAIK. and those little celerys o/c really well. before that i had a 300@450 ... no prob.

i actually only get stuttering on certain files ... and only occasionally. the system is fairly well tweaked, tho.

maybe you could recommend a nice mobo to start my upgrade with.

[Nowhere]

winXP imho would be also ok. It worked ok on my duron 600...

[Sciascia]

Yes, WinXP will be ok, I just built a Celery700 for my little brother. Of course it was an older machine (found a used MB on EBAY and throught it together) and wil be little more than an internet/email appliance, but I was surprised at the "zippiness" it had. The bigest thing is that the ram and with any video editing, the hard drive subsystem. If you can do the stuff with in WIn98 with your HW though WinXP should work just fine.

[landrover]

As far as I see it, your question is not about editing video, just about playing back AVI-files. If it's just that, stick with Win98SE. It's superior to ME or W2K, multimedia wise. For playback alone, XP isn't worth the investment.
Should you wanna edit video, XP is definately worth considering, as it's very stable. And I don't see why XP wouldn't run on your system. Especially because you have a rock solid chipset. I still wouldn't trade in my 440BX for the world!