NT as a gaming platform--Any Good????

Hellrazer

Ok Ive just inheirited an ex-office PC and since it has NT installed on it I was wondering if this OS is any good for gaming or should I just put my copy of Win 98 on it.Do I need special drivers for a new graphics card,sound card etc.
Thanks.
Richie

WhiteWashMan

you need drivers for anything you install on any operating system. i used to use NT. its very stable and reliable, and personally i prefere it to 98 or 95.
win2k is the way to go though, but if you cant get it stick with NT and see how you get on.
plus, its more secure, so your mum wont see your porn

oh, and some games wont play on NT, so be careful

Hellrazer

Sorry WWM what I should have asked is"Is there specific drivers for NT or are they the same as Win 95/98?"
Do you know if UT runs on NT?

Saruman

win 9.x drivers will not run on NT and also there are many games out there with issues under NT, usually with sound etc.. i dont advise NT as a game platform... win2000 is better as a game platform than NT but i would not say its better than 98.. when 98 works it works great.. its only when it gets unstable which is easy to avoid if you know what your doing!

WhiteWashMan

Originally posted by richie18
Sorry WWM what I should have asked is"Is there specific drivers for NT or are they the same as Win 95/98?"
Do you know if UT runs on NT?

yes, there will usually be different drivers, unless specificly defined by the vendor that same drivers are for 95/98/NT.XP etc
you will have to get diferent drivers

UT runs lovely in windows.

and win2k is the best games platform.

Hellrazer

Thanks for the help lads-I think Ill put Win 98 on this thing.I only want it for a second puter and since 98 has never given me any problems Ill stick with that.
Should I do a full format/install or should I use the option to upgrade(downgrade) from NT to 98?;)

Saruman

Do a fresh install.. also see if your drive is NTFS.. if it is you will have to wipe the partitions and start from scratch anyway!

Quigs Snr

NT is no good for many games. However another person said that UT works well in windows, I can clarify that UT works a treat on the NT network in work. Oops.

po0k

Win2k pwns them all.
98 is a wet pile of pish.
If you have some stuff in the background put your game at a higher priority level (5?).
Win2k is the first half-decent OS from MS. Overshadows every other consumer one out there.

Quigs Snr

Ditto what SyxPax said with one Caveat. If you are playing newer games win2k is great, the best in fact. However, it aint great with emulators and older games.

BTBB

Service Pack 4 included a version of DirectX hance opening NT to games. It is extremly stable but sound might be delayed due to the way NT handles devices. It is extremley good for network play and according as a dedicated server due to its TCP/IP capabilites.

BTBB

Krusty_Clown

Just to follow-on from BTBB's comments, NT (without service packs) does not come with or support DirectX.

If you install NT Service Pack 3+, you will also get DirectX 3.

There was also a hacked version of DirectX5 which worked on NT.

However, most modern games that use DirectX require DirectX7 or even DirextX8, which I dont beleive you can install on NT.

So, go install your Windoze 98. Or even better, install Win2K.
IMO: The best OS at the moment..

TacT

98se is the way to go if you are really serious about your games, especially half-life and all of it's mods, mainly the old emulator's and such though.

98se does a great job and imo is still the best gaming os out there for maximum compatability and performance.

If you like you're benchmarks you will also notice that there is an odd couple of hundred 3dmarks in the difference if you're using a newer os as opposed to 98se (98 is faster). Though this doesn't hold true in terms of real world performance. I wouldn't bother slating 98se it's not as bad as people make out, for example we have 23 odd nt machines 3 98se machines and an odd 10-13 win2k machines.


two of the win2k machines went wonky while the three 98se machine's (patched with latest patches etc) have been running fine for 3yr's plus with no reformat at all.
5 of the odd 23+ NT machines went wonky since their first install.
When I say went wonky I mean that the os didn't hold it together and eventually did nothing but blue screen and force us to reformat so out of that lot which is the more stable

_CreeD_

Originally posted by tactical anni
so out of that lot which is the more stable

The ones that weren't fkd up by users/techs?

Win2k and Xp are WAY better than 98. Any dif. in actual game performance is negligible in my experience, and there's no comparison for stability.
If you've had more problems with NT/2k based workstations then I'd imagine its more down to the user/maintenance of those machines rather than OS stability (eg. At a guess your Win98 pcs are lower priority/less likely to have complex applications installed? Im basing that assumption on the age of the OS and the fact that whether ultimately right or wrong the perception is that NT/2k based OS' are better for business PCs and are usually assigned for higher priority and more stressful uses).

Samba

no creed the 98 coms do exactly the same jobs as the other machine's. The tech's installed the os and that was that, no mucking about

Saruman

Another thing is 98SE is probably running on older hardware.. new OS's tend to go with new hardware and with new hardware there are usaully more problems with drivers and chipsets etc... you could install win2k on one of the 98se machines and never have it crash and install 98se on a newer sys and it might crash more often...

Still i like 98se for games... but im getting to stage where i will use XP for games and only 98se if there are problems with a particular game and XP etc...

Mountjoy Mugger

Just curious Saruman. Did you encounter many games that gave you problems in XP?

I ask because I beta tested XP for MS and didn't really have any problems with it. That said, as soon as the betas were finished, I wiped it and use only 2k now. Not one problem at all with that.