HolzemFrumFloppen Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 Greets, all: I've been running CMBB fine on my newest PC (P4,1.4) that has XP-Pro. It runs just about everything fine. However, I have two other PCs in my house (a PIII-450 and PIII-500) that are running Win98 and WinME, respectively. I'd kind of like to upgrade them (and when I say "upgrade", I mean completely re-format both drives so that it's a clean XP-installation). However, I'm concerned about whether or not they have the horsepower to deal with XP. 1st PC: ------ PIII-500 Current OS: WinME VidCard: Asus7700 GF2-GTS, 32meg RAM: 512MB SDR HD: 80 gig 2nd PC: ------- PIII-450 Current OS: Win98SE VidCard: Voodoo3 3000, 16 meg RAM: 512MB SDR HD: 40 gig I've been running CMBO on the PIII-500 (1st PC) and CMBB on my new rig. But I wouldn't mind being able to run CMBB on the PIII-500 as well (which I've already done and it runs fine, actually, especially when I use Capt. Wacky's downsampled grasses). My questions are, put simply, these: 1. Will I have a serious degradation in performance on those two PIIIs if I load XP-Pro? Will they run slower than they would on their current OS's? 2. If the answer to #1 is a general "no", then can I expect any advantage to having those two PCs upgraded to XP, especially when it comes to games (FPShooters included)? Will I be better off? NOTE: I'm not overly concerned about the compatibility issue of XP and games since I don't run many.... except CMBO/CMBB/AirbAsslt. Equally, I know better than to expect any REAL boost in game performance. I just want to know if they'll SLoooooow down. 3. My neighbor has an older (read: P3) machine with XP loaded on it and it just seems to run much more smoothly than my equivalent PIII-machines, despite routine maintenance (defragging, etc.). Can I expect similar smoothness? Thanks for any help on this stuff. I really don't mind having 3 different Windows OS's in the house, but I also wouldn't mind having them all on the "same page" either. Any and all information is welcomed. Thanks! - Holzem 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WWB Posted January 16, 2003 Share Posted January 16, 2003 2000 would do better if you can get it. Not to mention the whole XP activation scheme--you need to buy 2 more XP pro licenses to run it. Biggest variable here is RAM, which also happens to be very cheap. Give em 256mb apiece and you should not see too many issues. The stability & security of the NT kernel are worth it IMHO. WWB 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HolzemFrumFloppen Posted January 17, 2003 Author Share Posted January 17, 2003 Originally posted by wwb_99: Biggest variable here is RAM, which also happens to be very cheap. Give em 256mb apiece and you should not see too many issues.WWB: Thanks for the info. When you say "256mb", did you mean in addition to the 512mb already present? I know RAM is cheap and the more the merrier... but I'm just curious as to whether that is what you meant. If it is what you meant, do you find that 512MB of SDRAM won't be good enough to get some "ummmph" out of XP on these PIII machines? Thanks again for listening to my ramblings. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easytarget Posted January 17, 2003 Share Posted January 17, 2003 512 is sufficient i seriously doubt that xp will result in performance enhancement for either machine - but then i also wouldn't expect a slow down either - before i gave away my p3 500mhz i was running xp pro w/ 512mb just fine so is it worth the trouble? probably not - i mean if you want to do it just to do it, go for it - but typically i'd say going to the trouble of formatting a drive to install a different O/S should be done to address an issue (i.e. stability) - otherwise it's a fair amount of work w/ little upside - i'm sold on the idea that xp pro is better than either ME or 98, but if neither of them are giving you trouble, why do it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HolzemFrumFloppen Posted January 17, 2003 Author Share Posted January 17, 2003 Originally posted by easytarget: i'm sold on the idea that xp pro is better than either ME or 98, but if neither of them are giving you trouble, why do it?Easy: Yeah, good point. I seem to be sold on the idea, too, just from my exposure to -- and use of -- WinXP. Truth be told, that Win98 machine has ZERO problems with anything and rarely experiences a crash; the WinME system is a different story, although it's the one I use as a "testbed" of sorts for every piece of software I can think of. Thus, crashes are all too common on it. I'll take the above advice to heart; I have to agree with your surmise that changing an OS without having any serious stability issues raises the question of "how much time on my hands" do I really have. Guess I'll think on it; maybe it turns out that I only upgrade the WinME desktop and leave the other Win98 machine as is. Thanks again for the response! Regards, Holzem 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easytarget Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 sure thing i occasionally get the tech bug myself and start looking for reasons to mess with stuff on my system here at home invariably it follows the following pattern: 1. it's the weekend and for some reason i can't quite fathom i become convinced that there's something of a hardware or software nature that i ought to tweak (usually in the desire to make it faster) 2. i proceed to "tweak" whatever it is 3. i discover usually one or both: that it didn't speed things up after all because in the end tweaks almost never do or it broke something 4. i then spend a good bit of time working my way back to a previous "untweaked" state and swear not to do it again 5. a month or two passes, i forget the above ever happened, and repeat 1-4 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HolzemFrumFloppen Posted January 18, 2003 Author Share Posted January 18, 2003 Originally posted by easytarget: 5. a month or two passes, i forget the above ever happened, and repeat 1-4 Easy: Man... you and I have got to get into a support group for this illness. I've got the same symptoms.... First, that sense of "mission"; the brave and early wake-up on a Saturday morning; the big fdisk/format routine; the hopes and dreams of a PC tweaker climbing and climbing as the Windows Install gauge ticks closer and closer to "100%"....and then... Then the driver problems, the faulty migration of Outlook settings, the graphics card maladies... that's assuming that the actual installation even GETS to 100% without a problem.... Man I feel better. I apparently go through the same process as you do when the "tech bug" hits me, except that I'd have to add an additional step to my own process: 6. Begin asking for advice from forum members I respect and avoid/ignore any good advice I get. THEN repeat steps 1-5. Seriously... thanks for following up on this and identifying what just might be the real problem: the "Tech Bug". I think I'll just enjoy CMBB this weekend and not worry about anything else. I owe you a beer. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
easytarget Posted January 18, 2003 Share Posted January 18, 2003 drink one for me buddy! actually, come to think of it, i'll probably drink a couple myself this evening anyway, your post reminded me of something i was just on the verge of forgetting myself now we'll both enjoy CM this weekend instead of the travails of tweaking [ January 18, 2003, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: easytarget ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted January 20, 2003 Share Posted January 20, 2003 a brave effort gents, but you know you'll never pull free. upgrade to XP? well M$ completely removed the 16bit drivers embedded in the win32 kernel, which seems to have speeded up the disk i/o by about 100%. (remember when it was just a disk operating system?) also the XP install runs very smooth, boot from the CD & away you go. stability is great. i've had no crashes with that, compared to ~20 with my mandrake 9 system (linux crashes? blasphemy!) also seems to have all the drivers you'll ever need bundled. joy. however it is a large OS (~1G?), as the difference between the versions is a register flag (reportedly). as to performance issues, well if it doesn't give you the performance you need at least it gives you an excuse to upgrade. BUT i think it does run faster, however my first build was on a new machine so i can't give you a 1 - 1 comparison. i'm sure they're out there. luckly i have a company version which needs no activation. they too are out there. [ January 20, 2003, 09:24 AM: Message edited by: Other Means ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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