Win2K - Pros - Cons

[omegaRED]

Hi. Dont know if i`ve allready asked this question before, but here it goes again.

I`d like to switch from WinME to Win2K Pro. Problem is, i play a lot of games. Now, i dont how well Win2K handles games. I require the stability of Win2K, plus MentalRay doesnt work on WinME, but i dont want to sacrifice playing games for it. I considered a multi-boot, but since i often play a game, and then work in Photoshop or MAX, and then some more gaming, then some more work, it would be annoying to restart, boot WinME - 1/2 hour later restart, Win2K and so on ...

Currently installed Games:
UT
Colin McRae 2
Champ. Manager 00/01
Ground Control
Settlers 4
Been playing Mech4, Hitman, Homeworld etc. etc.

Any issues with these games and Win2k? Is gaming slower on Win2K?

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[EchoWars]

Dual boot??

[Rags]

I don't know about your hardware, but your games are fine. They all work fine in win2k. Win98 is faster than win2k, but since you are running me, I would say they are pretty close to the same depending on your video card.

Rags

[omegaRED]

Rags, my Hardware:

• Abit BE6II r1.1
  P3 500 MHz @ 560 (stock cooling)
  256MB Ram
  Maxtor 15Gig
  Vanilla G400 16Mb SGRAM
  Some cheap sound card
  56k Modem
  NECx40 CDROM
  IBM 6091 23" Industrial Monitor

Ahhh ! I almost forgot! Do the Win2K drivers have all the settings the 98/me have? Meaning HRefresh, Front porch, back porch etc. etc. I need them for my monitor to work.

Rags, sorry to bother, but could you give me the names of a couple of popular games who dont work with Win2K?

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[Rags]

The video drivers for win2k have more features than windows 98.

You have the same monitor settings and even the same dual head if you wish, but you have an extra dualhead mode that is pretty cool in serious sam.

Your hardware should work okay, I am leary of the cheap soundcard, do you know what the chipset on it is? And your modem, that can be a snag too, what kind is it? What kind of connects are you getting now with it?

I know of no current popular games that don't work. The only game that is a pain to me is NFS3, and it still works if you do a work around.

Rags

[Rags]

Here's a good site: www.ntcompatible.com

Rags

[omegaRED]

Damn! I just wrote a reply, and entered omegared in lowercase, so my username isnt recognized, and i have to start allover again ...

Anyways, Rags, thanks for the quick reply, the sound card is a Avance Logic PCI, ALS4000 chipset, i just checked their site, and they have Win2K dirvers, although they`re only 59K, but then again WinME are ~60k too.

The modem`s a Rockwell Soft56K PCI, connects usually at 46667, sometimes as high as 49333, but never lower than 43k.

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[omegaRED]

Ah yes, and UMAX Astra 2200 USB Scanner & Epson 670 Color InkJet printer.

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[Rags]

Yes on the scanner, and yes on the printer, they have a built in driver for the Epson 600 series.

Rags

[Liquid Snake]

Honestly, I have noticed very little performance difference between Win98 and Win2K, and the NTFS filesystem seems faster than FAT32 to me.

[Rags]

Actually NTFS is a bit slower than FAT32, but it's benefits outweigh the perf. loss.

Rags

[CHHAS]

Been running Win2K Pro for a few weeks now, and so far everything is great. Win2K seems to be able to utilize my 512 MB of mem a lot better than Win98

[Guru]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by CHHAS:
Win2K seems to be able to utilize my 512 MB of mem a lot better than Win98 </font>

Thats true! When runing w9x you realy need to run cacheman or some similar program if you wish to make use of your ram!

[This message has been edited by Guru (edited 13 May 2001).]

[omegaRED]

Ok, sofar all of the people who replied are for Win2K ... next question ... can i upgrade from WinME ( keep my installed progs ) or should i make a clean install? I have currently 2 partitions, one where WinME is, and the other one for my Data, Files etc. etc. Could anyone write a short procedure to installing Win2K, steps to ensure avoiding problems etc?

------------------
Seth, are you ok ?
I`m peachy, Kate. The world is my oyster.

[fds]

Keep it as clean as possible.

I'm not even sure upgrading from Me is possible.

Install it on a partition with no "Program Files" folder already there.