Vista or XP?

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 11:16 am

mbetea wrote:I don't know about that. I distinctly remember Win2000 when it was released running a heck of a lot better than NT4 on the same machine. Which at the time was dual p3 450's with 512mb of ram. Win2000 served me quite well up until a few years ago I started using an LCD display. For me, I would get massive headaches trying to read a lot of text under Win2000 on an LCD. Cleartype was the only thing that got me to switch to XP.

I'd wager some of that improvement was due to Windows 2000's kernel improved handling of multi-processor systems over NT4.

-D

beady · Post by **beady** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 4:54 am

You can also turn windows server 2003 into a workstation if xp/vista isn't stable enough for you, you can even play wow on it.

mbetea · Post by **mbetea** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:18 am

derekva wrote:
mbetea wrote:I don't know about that. I distinctly remember Win2000 when it was released running a heck of a lot better than NT4 on the same machine. Which at the time was dual p3 450's with 512mb of ram. Win2000 served me quite well up until a few years ago I started using an LCD display. For me, I would get massive headaches trying to read a lot of text under Win2000 on an LCD. Cleartype was the only thing that got me to switch to XP.
I'd wager some of that improvement was due to Windows 2000's kernel improved handling of multi-processor systems over NT4.

-D

True. But at the time, NT4 was the Windows OS for multi-cpu support. My thing is Win2000 added better functionality for tasks over NT4, I can't say the same thing going from Win2000 to XP. I just don't see a reason to keep inflating software only because there is hardware out that allows it.

Now I apologize if I'm in the wrong here, but for example. What does .Net framework really add to the end user experience? Matrox started using it for the video card drivers with their "P" series some years back and I see ATI uses it too. What does it do other other take up 30-40mb of ram? I don't believe nVidia uses .Net, yet I can't tell what ATI's drivers have/can do that nVidia's can't. Which is why for any boxes with an ATI card I only load the display driver.

Teh Lurv · Post by **Teh Lurv** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 10:02 am

tehfire wrote:I'm sure most of you were around when XP first came out...

512MB memory in order to run smoothly?
Games run faster in Windows 98
x application no longer runs
My computer was faster in 98
The fact that hardware requirements keep on going up is a conspiracy from Microsoft and the hardware companies...

...IIRC XP was a great step forward from the Windows 9x experience

QFT

I remember I was in college when XP was released and I read and heard the same exact discussions going on in this thread. Before SP 1, XP wasn't as stable as a tuned 98SE box, drivers were an issue, game benchmarks suffered, and there were security concerns that gave XP inital bad press.

I have no doubt then Windows 7 is released in 2012 or later (no way MS is going to make a 2010 release date) the same discussion will come around again.