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]

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.

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

[Lilwolf]

put it this way... 2k sucks for games.... all games...

I have a 850mhz machine at the office with similar stuff as my 1ghz machine at home... 2k at the office, 98 at home.

I have to change parameters to get the classics to run full speed.  No special options at all.

I would guess I'm getting 1/3 the fps here as at home.

Also, it doesn't run a ton of games in general.  

remember, 2k is a business machine, not a game machines.


BUT!!!

XP is built on the 2k core, but they spend a crap load of time getting it to run MUCH faster for gaming!  Still not as fast a 98 (because it's protected memory and such) but MUCH better then 2k.  

If you are going to run games 100% of the time... go 98
If you want stablitity and a good development system... go XP

if you only want a good development system... 2k or XP...

[Howard_Casto]

What lilwolf said.  

Remember emulators are games too, they are just very processor intensive as well due to the translation of code.  Also something worth noting is 98 has very poor 2d hardware acceleration and xp does.  That's why daphne runs so much smoother on xp.  Also mame will run smoother, but as lilwolf said if your machine isn't beefy enough it will run slower too.    

And for the record I know xp is costly, but it's worth the upgrade.  With the exception of windows 3.11 I found it to be the ONLY windows operating system I I felt I was getting my money's worth.  If you think there's no diff between 2k and xp think again... I find a new feature every day and I'm a M$ freak.  

[SirPoonga]

I'm a M$ freak.  

That's true, he's Bill's whipping boy.

Anyway, I just upgraded to XP, it is much better than win2k.  It boots really fast too.  There are some annoyances, but that;s microsoft.  (Is there a way to get rid of the messenger icon in the task bar, I don't use messenger!)

There are issues with XP and 2k with games compared to 98.  98 is MUCH better at games.  Many of the games I installed on XP when I first ran them said there maybe in compatibility issues.  But they still work.

[Minwah]

Maybe I should stick with '98 then.  All I'll be using it for is games afterall...

Thanks again

[Howard_Casto]

Is there a way to get rid of the messenger icon in the task bar, I don't use messenger!

LoL ........ If you can't figure that one out there's no hope for ya.  

[Lilwolf]

Is there a way to get rid of the messenger icon in the task bar, I don't use messenger!

LoL ........ If you can't figure that one out there's no hope for ya.  

There is a real way... not just the grab and minimize... theres a way to fully remove it...

how do I know?  Well at a job I used to work at, we would !@# with each others machines when they would be gone on vacation (give them something to look forward to coming home too).

one of the best jobs we did (on our boss) is take a screenshot of the desktop, set it up as a background, remove all the links, permently removed the bottom.  

very effective for annoyiing people... after a few hours he had to come to us to find out how to undo it all... sigh... he wasn't any fun...

Its one of the options... I don't remember what... but with 98 (or 95) it was configurable without the registry.

[Jakobud]

Wow I'm suprised to see so many people anti 2K in here.  I am running 2K on my cabinet and it's great.  No problems whatsoever.  The problem(s) with 98 is the way it handles processes.  It stores too much extra clutter and crap under the hood even after you have stopped or killed processes.  It wants to cache everything.  That's why 98 slows down so much of over time. 2000 handles processes MUCH better than 98.

Yes, I think that Win2K is no good for modern games, but I am primary speaking about 3D accelerated games.  Mame runs excellently on my computer, and I don't have to deal with the headache of 98 crashes.  No negatives here for me.

As for XP, well I have never eXPerienced it fortunately.  I'm not one of the suckers who succums to purchasing Micro$oft's newest OS just because it looks prettier.  I hear XP runs solidly, but I HATE resource hogs as we all know XP is.  And anyone here that reads slashdot.org or theregister.co.uk regularly knows that XP is the most insecure M$ OS yet.  At least it doesn't crash all the time like ME.  I would love to see how many people here who work in a professional office environment (with a real IT dept) actually have XP running at their office.  You know it's all NT and 2000 machines.  This is because of better security, better stability, and better process handling procedures.

I can't wait till this states vs. M$ trial is over so M$ is forced to make an operating system without all their extra, bloated, useless crap integrated in.  

If you are running a slower system (<800 MHz) I would not recommend running XP simply because of resource hogging.  I would definately recommend 2000 of 98 for you, because of all the things I mentioned above, UNLESS you are planning on running the newest PC games on it also (which you probably won't be with a 800 MHz machine).  

If you have a fast (+2GHz) system I suppose resource hogging would not be a concern and I guess XP would be good if you like the colors and don't mind the insecurities.

my 2 cents.

jakobud

[Minwah]

I'm still not 100% sure.

Win98 works great for what I use.  BUT it crashes a lot.  I'm gonna be using my cab for hours on end so restarting every hour or two would be a real pi$$er.

Win2k seems to crash less, but I haven't used it for serious gaming, so I'm relying on other peoples experience in terms of performance.

WinXP:  I don't have it, and don't particularly agree with buying it  My mum has in installed, and I tried it but I can't even find anything.  And the colors/schemes blow.  It seems quite slow 2, maybe that's her P3 tho (1.1gig mind).  I don't need the multi-media improvements XP can offer.

I'll be using a quick machine.  Hopefully the top Athlon XP.

I think I'm going to use '98.  Then try it for a while.  I'll have no crap on it so it may be OK.  If it sucks then maybe I'll try 2000.

[Jakobud]

Minwah, if you are only planning on doing only Mame on this OS and not doing modern 3d accelerated games, I would seriously go with 2000.  Read all the stuff I said above of the terrible caching that 98 does.  That's why it crashes so much and slows down so bad over time.

Your 98 has been crashing multiple times per day?? I have had 2000 running on my arcade cabinet for a month and it has never crashed once...

Jakobud

[Howard_Casto]

Is there a way to get rid of the messenger icon in the task bar, I don't use messenger!

LoL ........ If you can't figure that one out there's no hope for ya.  

There is a real way... not just the grab and minimize... theres a way to fully remove it...

how do I know?  Well at a job I used to work at, we would !@# with each others machines when they would be gone on vacation (give them something to look forward to coming home too).

one of the best jobs we did (on our boss) is take a screenshot of the desktop, set it up as a background, remove all the links, permently removed the bottom.  

very effective for annoyiing people... after a few hours he had to come to us to find out how to undo it all... sigh... he wasn't any fun...

Its one of the options... I don't remember what... but with 98 (or 95) it was configurable without the registry.

Im assuming you use outlook express.  That's your culprit.... rename the messenger folder to something else and it gone, no errors or nothing.  One question, if you don't use messager then why don't you just uninstall it?