Xp -- will it increase performance

[untermenschen 0]

can anyone give me a definite answer as to whether Xp pro will improve Ofp performance

i am thinking about upgrading from Win98se to XP pro and want to know - if xp alone can improve the game

i have a P3 933

256mb sd ram

32mb shared tnt2 aladdin

i saw ofp on a friends comp - an athlon 1.4.ghz with xp pro and geforce2, and my jaw hit the desk - it was so unbelievably amazing - i never though ofp could be SO awesome looking - after it i was pained to return to my comparably lacklustre-looking version

i know i cant get the graphics his geforce can get but can Xp improve the game at all

i actually have an extra 256mb sd ram sitting off in an anti static bag - i had it in my comp but it was causing all my games to crash in someway - it was either bad ram or was simply a fact of Win98se being so shithouse in its management of any ram above 256

actually - does anyone have a clue on how to get win98se to better manage more ram?

[ALDEGA 0]

WinXP will not increase your performance. XP is an NT version of Windows, which generally more resource demanding than Win9x.

btw, do you get any "BSOD"s (blue screens) when using that other memory module? If so it's probably damaged (no way to repair it). I have WinME & WinXP (dualboot) and my 384 megs work fine under boths OS's.

[Mister Frag 0]

Windows XP uses different priorities for the network code than Windows 98 and ME, and the XP network code is also far more robust. Network code will thus enjoy a performance boost under XP, but the OS is also somewhat more resource-hungry.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

As a matter of fact, After upgrading from Me to Xp home edtion, i notice my score dropped from 2400 to 2170.

[Mister Frag 0]

That's a synthetic benchmark, so it doesn't necessarily reflect real-life or in-game performance.

Keep in mind that your CPU didn't get slower, and neither did your memory when you installed Windows XP. The only thing that could make any real difference in game performance is the quality and efficiency of the video driver, and that doesn't even factor into the equation in the benchmark -- nothing is ever displayed on the screen.

(Note: It is conceivable that OFP writes to a memory device context to measure video throughput, but I don't believe that it does).

[Placebo 29]

A freshly installed copy of XP would I imagine be drastically slower than 98 because of all the additional services and suchlike that run by default, it's worth taking the time to use a Tweak XP app or going to websites that give tips on what things to turn on/off to improve performance, two of note that I use are tweakxp.com and www.blkviper.com/WinXP/ (the latter explains what all the services are and whether or not they're needed.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

I'll give it try, thanks placebo.

[Mister Frag 0]

I think people routinely blow the impact of Windows 2000's / XP's background services on performance way out of proportion.

Open up the Task Manager, go to the Processes tab, and add the CPU Time column to the display using the View menu. Then take a look at how many seconds are actually spent in the service or process you suspect (or have been told) is robbing your system of performance.

Another impact that a process or service can have on performance is through the memory footprint. However, code and data that aren't being needed can be swapped out to the page file, and should therefore also not adversely impact performance unless the system starts thrashing. If that is happening, you probably won't be able to prevent the thrashing by shutting down a few services, and should add RAM to your system instead.

Last but not least, starting up all of these processes and services will affect load time. That's probably where eliminating things will have the greatest impact.

[ale2999 0]

I dont know if u believe it, but I found that xp improves the performance (at least in the preference benchmark) in xp is 1702 and in 98 its 1680

P3 1.1

512 megs of ram

geforce4 mx 420

[ALDEGA 0]

You can always disable certain services.

Eg, if you don't have a scanner or camera, you can disable the windows image acquisition service. If you don't have a printer then you can disable printspooler. etc etc You'll save some cpu cycles, and quite some memory. I've tweaked it alot and the system is now running smoother, without losing any functionality.

[untermenschen 0]

thanks guys for all the feedback

i think it is clear that i should just try and save up for an overall upgrade of the motherboard processor, ram and video card

i think i will go for a p4 1.6 ghz at least, ddr ram instead of SD ram, and a geforce 2 of some sort -- hopefully by the time i save up it will be probably a bit cheaper

this whole shared memory thing bugs me

once again cheers all for your feedback

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

I think, i should also get more ram dont you think?256MB ram, which i dont think is enough, and it hit ctrl-alt-del and it shows it is using 203 MB of ram.In the PF Usage. Im thinking about getting anthor 256 MB ram, and i only have 1 slot available left, the other 2 slots each have 1, 128MB of ram, so ill boost it to 512MB, or maybe ill get 128 more to make it 326MB.What should i do?Thanks.

[Long 1]

@u-menschen

Usually i would give you some hints, but yout nick is shit.

LONG

[ALDEGA 0]

Care to explain, long?

[Guest]

Moving to OT