Gaming at 700MHz

[EEMeltonIV 0]

Hey, folks, I have a general question for you...

 

I've been running Win2K Pro. on a 300MHz PII the last coupla weeks and, understandably, most of my games don't run as well (in terms of speed -- jerky frames 'n' whatnot) as they did under Win98/Win98SE.

Heavens permitting, my new Dimension XPS T700 will arrive tomorrow afternoon. I'm wondering if any of y'all are plugging away with a similarly system and whether you can tell me if the beefed up processing power compensates for Win2K's resource hogging -- in other words, will my gameplay be silky smooth with m' new Dell if I install Win2K on it.

Thanks.

 

EDIT:

Forgot to mention, my list o' games, so to speak...X-wing Alliance, the Jedi Knight/MotS, Force Commander (when it comes out)...detecting a pattern here? ;-)

 

[This message has been edited by EEMeltonIV (edited 27 February 2000).]

[YuppieScum 0]

What you don't mention is memory size and video card (and driver)...

 

These are at least as important as CPU speed.

 

 

 

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SuperMicro P6DBS (dual UW-SCSI) BIOS 2.2, 2*Celery 300a @ 450Mhz, 384MB PC100 RAM

SCSI-A=4.3Gb+9Gb, SCSI-B=Tosh32x CD-ROM, Yamaha4416 CD-RW, Iomega ZIP100, IDE1=4.3Gb

IBM EtherJet 10/100 NIC PCI + Nortel ADSL "modem"

Matrox G400 DH 32Mb AGP + Quantum3D Voodoo2 SLI PCI (CL TNT1 AGP on a shelf)

SoundBlaster Live PCI (not Value)

Win2K build 2195 Retail (not 120-day eval)

[sheared 0]

EEMeltonIV - You purchase games like I do! Gotta get those SW games! I'm looking forward to Force Commander and Obi-Wan, but unfortunately, I'm trodding along on a PPro 200. It'll have to do until Fall or so.

 

I would imagine that, if they are compatible with W2K, all those games will run like a dream on W2K. Obviously hardware compatibility will play a role for the first few months, but I would guess that by mid-Summer or so, you won't have a component on your BRAND NEW system that doesn't have a fairly stable driver.

 

I'm jealous!

[EEMeltonIV 0]

Yeah, hehe, no kiddin. Oops :-)

 

128MB 100MHz RAM

32MB Diamond Viper 770D NVIDIA AGP Ultra

[Seldzar 0]

I'd say the majority of your problem is the crappy Nvidia drivers. Having more ram would help as well. But the faster cpu will help.

 

My games run super smooth in win2k but thats just cause the voodoo3 drivers are a tad better than nvidias at the moment.

 

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§E£DZÅR

http://www.win2knews.com

[Awaxx 0]

Iwould say the sames thing as Seldzar : nVidia drivers are not so great (I run under TNT2) butwill be the only limitation in your system. But be aware that it's the only limitation: Win2k is faster and better than Win98 for many things (disk access, memory management, ...) so with Win2k your box will go faster and faster while drivers will get better. Win98 is faster for some gamesand equal for other but Iwill NEVER switchback to this old crapcos Win2k is much better (stability and memory managment: cracshed only 10 times since I installed RC2 in October, and I cames from old TNT drivers).

 

Just try Win2k and you'll never quit .

Awx

[EEMeltonIV 0]

Thanks, folks, I really 'preciate the input. Now, here's a followup 'bout the video setup:

 

I threw a Voodoo3 2000 PCI into my current computer. It has half the video memory and uses the slower PCI bus -- but, considering the disdainful comments 'bout the NVIDIA setup, would anyone recommend I use the 3Dfx board?

[EM 0]

Having used both a Voodoo3 2000AGP and a Diamond Viper 770 with the retail version of Win2k, I currently use the Voodoo3. My reasons are better drivers since the TNT2 drivers require me to disable my dnet client before running any games using D3D. Granted the Voodoo3 drivers don't support SMP yet but I could only get about 4 frames better in Quake3 with the SMP enabled TNT2 Drivers.

 

Ed

[jmiller 0]

I have a Tyan Tiger 100 Dual MB,Running two PIII 600e's, 256RAM PC100, A PCI TNT2 32M Ultra, 10GB IBM 7200RPM IDE HD,(and yes guy's they do make a PCI verion of the TNT2)I have ran this system stable @ 100,112,133 FSB that = 600, 672, 798 MHZ(W2K see it as 800MHZ) but to get to the question all the games I have played works great yes a few do have a little frame dropping but by far worth it for what you gain .... True memory managment True multi tasking .... I have had every Office 2000 program open working in access Outlook running (memory hog) IE5 cranking away...(WOW you'd think I was promoting MS or something)I actually don't like some of the BIZ practices but they do have a great OS in 2K. And lets not forget about being able to kill a NON-Responding program with 2K it's a snap and you keep going.. With Win9X you restart your computer by pushing the reset button. But that is my view on things and everyone has one. The last thing I do want to say is SMP(Multi Prosessor)is the best way to go if you want Windows 2000 to shine under all conditions.

 

Regards

Jim

[EEMeltonIV 0]

Thanks, all, for your input. Computer arrived Monday and I finally got Win2K setup and enough stuff moved over to have time to fire up a few games. Both XWA (which I heard runs incredibly slow on Win2K) ran like a charm, and I've been busting up those dirty Feds in the new Klingon Academy demo. As before, all your insight was appreciated. Cheerio!

[kermster 0]

you got xwa to work?

 

Quote:

Originally posted by EEMeltonIV:

Thanks, all, for your input. Computer arrived Monday and I finally got Win2K setup and enough stuff moved over to have time to fire up a few games. Both XWA (which I heard runs incredibly slow on Win2K) ran like a charm, and I've been busting up those dirty Feds in the new Klingon Academy demo. As before, all your insight was appreciated. Cheerio!

[EEMeltonIV 0]

Yeah, it installed without a hitch and plays great.

[Syncope 0]

Theory has it that you own a system that could actually run Trespasser.