Operating System

[[AK]Leonidas]

You techies probably all know this, but I don't keep up with operating systems much:

What's the difference between Windows ME and Windows 2000, and which one do I want for a gaming machine?

[R23]

maybe this will help a little,

first me is good in that it boots up fast, i have a gf2 card and have experienced numerous errors in q3, ut, and t2, in reference the video card, plus me has a problem seeing memory correctly, its (me) mainly designed for the people with no windows experience. 2k on the other hand, people say its not good for gaming, that 98 is still the best, but on mine i have 2kpro and it smokes in games. if you like to try 2k, the oem.microsoft.com site explains the best way to configure it for performance, with the service packs and directx and such, but i think youll find 2k way more stable in games

[[AK]The Beast]

In a nutshell, WinME is basically Windows 98 3rd Edition. Windows 2000 is Windows NT 5.0. Almost any Windows 98 hardware driver will work with Windows ME; with 2000, if your hardware is obscure, you might have to do some hunting to come up with the appropriate software. In my experience, 2000 is faster to load and far more stable, though my ME box (my gaming rig) doesn't take long to reboot at all. My 2000 machine almost never crashes, and when one program goes down, it doesn't take the system with it. I rebooted my 2000 computer on Monday for the first time in a month! But my ME box will run for days and weeks at a time as well (though I typically format the hard drive twice a year, just to clean up all the crap I install and uninstall). I'd lean towards ME, though not by much, and I'm sure Zorro (among others) would disagree with me.

Oh, and R23--check NVidia's website; make sure you're running the latest drivers for your card. A driver upgrade has a good chance of making those error messages disappear.

[Garrett]

my only problem with 2000 so far is not even its fault. tribes, when it goes, it takes my system with is, as well as Diablo 2 LOD expansion.
otherwise id never need to restart my computer. unless some stupid software tells me to do so...(man i hate that).
anyhow, i find 2000 for me reboots in under a minuit. where my system in 98 took almost 5 minuits to reboot.
thats my 2 cents.

and since i forgot to mention the first time. my findings tell me that 2000 is much better. and its relatively similar to 98 in its setup, and locations of tools, realy, you cant go wrong.

[R23]

a better site than nvidia for drivers is www.the-ctrl-alt-del.com
the detonator drivers on nvidia are ok, but this other site has really advanced the drivers catagory, i run detonator 12.90 for 2k no problems at all, just in me, and really only starting q3.

as the site listed above says...

why did you crash today?


R23
oh... also ive installed an nvidia refresh rate fix program, seems in 2k the refresh rate in games (that i play) is only at 60hrz, even though specified other wise in cp. i can run all my games at 75-85hrz no problem.

though most of my knowledge on this is trial and error, on my part. what works for me most likely wont work for others. lol