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Win98 or Win2k?
Minwah:
I run Windows 98 at the moment, and it is OK apart from crashing fairly regularly.
For use in a cabinet, would Windows 2000 be recommended? It will be used for nothing but emulators (Windows based). (I realise I can't use a separate mouse device for each player, but I only have 1 trackball & 1 spinner anyway).
I use Windows 2000 at work and it doesn't seem to crash, which is a bonus :)
Any advise would be great!
PS I definately don't want XP ;)
Howard_Casto:
Why wouldn't you use xp?... It has nearly the exact same kernel as 200 but the added bonus of having 2d hardware acceleration on the desktop, much better multimedia handleing (very good for daphne) and better gaming support.
Honestly I would reccomend 98 over 2000. 2000 was the nt version of the lame-o os threw to the public before xp was ready. It's kind of like the nt version of windows Me! (Well not nearly that bad but you get the idea.) The main difference between 2000 and xp is xp was designed for the end user and 2000 was designed for the office. In other words xp is better for gaming even though it sometimes requires slightly more resources than 2000.
I ran 2000 at work and xp at home. The two machines had similar resources and I would play the same games and run the same emulators on each (yeah I know, I shouldn't be doing that at work but oh well :) ) For really really high end games the 2000 box would beat out the xp box by the sheer amount of free resources. However, on mid to low level games the xp machine would always out perform the 2000 one. The xp machine would get the same (or slightly higher) framerate as the 200 box, but things would be rendered smoother and there were less graphical glitches. (tearing, ect) Also multimedia was a no contest... videos in 2000 were rather cumbersome (for lack of a better description) on 2000 as they are in win 9x os'es. The xp machine was smooth as slik however.
Just my opinion, you'll figure it out on your own eventually. ;) Honestly though, 2000 will be much more stable than 98 but at the cost of having far worse gaming support. Xp is the best of both worlds at the minimal cost of requiring more system resources. Of course if your building a mame cab then you can turn off the themes and that cuts the required resources down by about 40%
SNAAAKE:
YOU DONT USE XP BECAUSE GAMES STILL LOOK BLOCKY EVEN IN ARCADE MONITOR WITH SCANLINES.vga onces.i use 98(GAMES LOOK ALL SMOOTH).it never ever crased.otherwise xp is great..but the mame being all blocky kills it.this problem is very weird but my monitor wont display correctly on xp.top of that you cant go below 800x600 on xp.unless you installed xp in a monitor which is atleast 640x480.then you can use xp on vga arcade with 640x480.who knows what this is about.i am still confused.
Howard_Casto:
--- Quote from: SNAAAKE on July 15, 2002, 05:21:25 pm ---
YOU DONT USE XP BECAUSE GAMES STILL LOOK BLOCKY EVEN IN ARCADE MONITOR WITH SCANLINES.vga onces.i use 98(GAMES LOOK ALL SMOOTH).it never ever crased.otherwise xp is great..but the mame being all blocky kills it.this problem is very weird but my monitor wont display correctly on xp.top of that you cant go below 800x600 on xp.unless you installed xp in a monitor which is atleast 640x480.then you can use xp on vga arcade with 640x480.who knows what this is about.i am still confused.
--- End quote ---
ok your a bit mis-informed so i'll go over this for you. The blockiness has nothing to do with xp but rather your video card drivers and your opengl/directx settings. It might be your cards manufacturer's fault but you might wnat to check the settings first. Also mame is supposed to look blocky as these are very low res games. Your are supposed to view them on an arcade monitor remember. For the record though, I assure you that if you use the proper mame filter you can achive that smooth look your going for, as I've done it on a few xp boxes with vga monitors.
Your not alone in the misconception that xp won't support any res under 800*600, but it's simply that, a misconception. You can go into the advanced settings of your video card and in the adaptor tab click on display all modes... notice it goes all the way down to 640*480. :) I know what your thinking "but many arcade monitors have a far lower resolution." That's true but you can set it lower with any display tweaking program that supports a manual display change.(Power strip is a good one.) The truth is xp just hides the lower resolutions as windows doesn't look good in those modes for normal use. The modes still work and are available to you, but they aren't selectable in the list as they used to be. As a matter of fact my front end has the code to do this built in and it takes about all of 4 lines to set it up. I can actually make a stand alone if anyone needs it. I've set my display down to as little as 320*240 in 8 bit color in xp before. (For testing purposes of course.)
I hope that helps with your confusion a little, I know I was confused when I first started messing with xp display settings too.
So as you can see those two things aren't really an issue they just require a tad more setup than it takes in 9x.
Minwah:
'2000 will be much more stable than 98 but at the cost of having far worse gaming support' - What exactly do you mean by 'worse gaming support'? If I use nothing but emulators, will this be a problem (or just with new high-spec games)?
As for XP, are the 'themes' the way it looks? I kindof prefer the look of the 'older' Windows :) I had a feeling you'd suggest XP - I guess the main downside of this for me is that I don't own it :)
Thanks for your advise