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Would it make much of a difference in games if one were to install Win2k instead of XP? For example, if I had a 1.8 GHz P4, would it suck in XP and pwn in 2k?

No, not really.

I've found every step up a performance increase in games. Win2k was by far much better then Win98se and WinXP has been better then Win2k.

I don't think I'd ever have been able to play some of the games I have on this machine had I not upgraded to XP. New harddrive helped, but the OS was the main improvement. (PIII 1.0ghz 512MB RAM)

Besides, 2K doesn't offer anything different other then perhaps more secure networking capabilities or more advanced administration features for user accounts. XP to me even seems more stable as an OS then Win2k, not that I've had very many problems with either one but XP tends to be slightly more user friendly then Win2k was IMO.

Not to mention XP has a little bit more eyecandy to it, which I was getting tired of the same old thing from MS operating systems as far as appearance after 8 years (even though thats a small issue).

meh, the decisions up to you. I don't think anyone here is going to tell you that Win2k is going to give you a noticeable amount of improvement over XP in games though, because it just isn't a game friendly OS.

Yeah, I think back in the day benchmarks used to be like 1% or something better for Win2k over XP, but something like that could probably be rectified by disabling themes or something.

XP also has drivers and system files that take advantage of Pentium 4 CPU's, the only drawback is that only XP Pro has these files and drivers.

Ace, 2K has the same features to use HT cores.

XP is faster than 2K in games, but not by much. And XP is a far superior OS to 2K.

Mobius wrote:Ace, 2K has the same features to use HT cores.

Nope -- XP and 2k3 are the only M$ OS supporting HT. Won't work w/ 2k.

TY grendel...........Mobius STFU AGAIN!!

Realistically XP is not much more then a service pack to 2k, most of the code in the back is the same.

Performance difference is negligable, but XP just blows out 2k feature wise. Plus XP SP2 is going to help out security a lot, so there really is no good reason to stay with 2k unless you're pressed for memory or something.

W2k NT5.0
XP NT5.1
2k3 NT5.2

and there you have it

Xciter wrote:

Nope -- XP and 2k3 are the only M$ OS supporting HT. Won't work w/ 2k.

Well... your right and wrong at the same time.

Win2k does work with HT... it just doesn't know the difference between a logical and a physical processor where as WinXP and Win2K3 does. It some (most) cases this can slow your system down if you use HT on Win2K. The CPU is fighting for two processors when there is only one there.

Tried it -- BS all over the place. Could get it to work (sort of) but performance was pretty bad -- HT is just not two CPU's... Official M$ statement is "use XP or 2k3", that's what I did in the end. I'm just trying to spare ppl the experience

Yeah, it helps some things, hurts others.

heh I didn't really want to get 2k because XP is way better. What's Win2k3â??Windows Server 2003?