A little help

Well, last night I had a hard drive burn up on me, and unfortunately it was my c: drive. So I am in the process of obtaining a replacement to install tonight. Since I have to do a clean install of my OS, I am seriously considering upgrading (it would be an upgrade, right?) to WIN2K. If I don't upgrade, I will be using WIN98 (non-SE). I'm about 98% certain that all software that I have and use will continue to operate without a problem. My main concern right now is hardware compatability, especially my Voodoo3 2000 video card and my Act Labs RS wheel and shifter (connected via USB). If it helps, the rest of the system is a PIII-450 on an ABIT Bsomething-6 mobo, 3COM network card, old Soundblaster sound card (16 PnP). I'll be tracking down web-sites and updated drivers today, but I wanted to go ahead and post this to see if anyone has any warnings, advice, etc., that may help me out. Thanks in advance for any comments. Jeff Causey FrogDog Racing Owner - FrogDog Racing Server, http://home.triad.rr.com/causey/frogdog/ JCausey_FD, Bellstar Racing Series, Outlaw Division, http://www.bellstarracing.com/ JCausey_FD, Assistant Director - Flashpoint Racing Series, On-line Division, http://flashpoint-online.homepage.com/ JCausey_FD, SNARL Truck Series, http://members.home.net/rlprice10/snarl/Page_1x.html

On Wed 12 Jul 2000 02:53:20pm, Jeff Causey wrote:

Quoted text (7 lines)

>Well, last night I had a hard drive burn up on me, and unfortunately >it was my c: drive. So I am in the process of obtaining a >replacement to install tonight. Since I have to do a clean install >of my OS, I am seriously considering upgrading (it would be an >upgrade, right?) to WIN2K. If I don't upgrade, I will be using >WIN98 (non-SE). I'm about 98% certain that all software that I have >and use will continue to operate without a problem.

<snip> I don't know a great deal about this, but I get the impression that Win2K, being the sequel to NT4, is not the way to go for gaming. I doubt its DirectX support is quite as bad as NT4, but I also doubt it's anywhere near as good as Win98. Maybe some hardware guru is around... -- David. (GPLRank handicap: +19.68) "After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll, really." (Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh)

If you use your PC primarily for entertainment, gaming, web etc then I do not recommend upgrading to Win2000. Win2000 is not an upgrade for Win98, it is a replacement. Win2000 is WinNT 5.0. You'd be surprised how many drivers, programs etc do not work with Win2000 (my $$##!! DSL drivers for one) Wait for Microsoft to release Windows ME (Millenium Edition) This OS is optimized for gaming and multimedia. I have Win98 SE, Linux, WinNT 4.0 and Win2000 on my machine at home and there is not one single game that runs better under Win2000. Win2000 should be your choice if you use your machine for business or to host a web site. Otherwise, you're better off with Win98 SE for now. Cheers, ...Colin

Everyone is going to have their own opinion on this, here's mine... MS has comitted to keeping W2K current with DirectX. W2K and the Win9x line will, until the death of Win9x, be equivalent in this respect. W2K is a fully 32-bit true multitasking OS. In short, it's powerful. *Every* multimedia app and game *I* have runs faster and smoother in W2K. There are two common reasons why people experience the opposite: 1) W2K needs RAM, 128 MB is the absolute minimum for good performance 2) Some manufacturers (especially video card) are slow in getting good drivers released. My ATi Rage Fury has awesome W2K drivers. They're beta and they perform better than the mature Win98 drivers. Yes, W2K is not a "gaming" OS but as an overall "power user" OS it's great. FYI, I run the following games in W2K: GPL (D3D patch - works much better than in W98) Sports Car GT F1 2000 Half-Life Alpha Centauri Homeworld NFS: Porsche Unlimited The bad news is many older games won't work. If they expect to address the sound card directly or use non-standard components you may be in for trouble. I have a chess game that won't run simply because it tries to use a older/customized version of comctl32.dll. David Buttery wrote in message <[email hidden]>... > >I don't know a great deal about this, but I get the impression that >Win2K, being the sequel to NT4, is not the way to go for gaming. I >doubt its DirectX support is quite as bad as NT4, but I also doubt it's >anywhere near as good as Win98. Maybe some hardware guru is around... >

"Jeff Causey" wrote: > Since I have to do a clean install of my OS, I am seriously > considering upgrading (it would be an upgrade, right?) to WIN2K. If Idon't > upgrade, I will be using WIN98 (non-SE). I'm not expert here... but i beleive GPL and Win2K is a 'no-no'. Ed_

There are beta drivers for Win2000 for the Force RS and they use only your USB port. That being said, if things were running okay in Win98, I'd stick to it. You will, without a doubt, run into some program you use that won't work with Win2000. Also, don't worry about SE. I have the upgrade and full versions. I had it installed for a short time and pulled it off. Many computers won't even shut down properly with SE. I guess the MS programmers never turn their machines off. (Yes I know, there is a patch or hack that can force SE to shut down.) From what I heard, some of the MS guys were calling SE, Sucker Edition. I was putting it on the computers I build for others for a while, but I don't even do that anymore. (all you guys with SE that are happy with it, I'm glad for you, but please don't tell me about it) -- Slot www.slottweak.com Tweaks & Reviews "Jeff Causey" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:8khta1$lbg$[email hidden]... > Well, last night I had a hard drive burn up on me, and unfortunately it was > my c: drive. So I am in the process of obtaining a replacement to install > tonight. Since I have to do a clean install of my OS, I am seriously > considering upgrading (it would be an upgrade, right?) to WIN2K. If I don't > upgrade, I will be using WIN98 (non-SE). I'm about 98% certain that all > software that I have and use will continue to operate without a problem. My > main concern right now is hardware compatability, especially my Voodoo3 2000 > video card and my Act Labs RS wheel and shifter (connected via USB). If it > helps, the rest of the system is a PIII-450 on an ABIT Bsomething-6 mobo, > 3COM network card, old Soundblaster sound card (16 PnP). I'll be tracking > down web-sites and updated drivers today, but I wanted to go ahead and post > this to see if anyone has any warnings, advice, etc., that may help me out. > > Thanks in advance for any comments. > > Jeff Causey > FrogDog Racing > Owner - FrogDog Racing Server, http://home.triad.rr.com/causey/frogdog/ > JCausey_FD, Bellstar Racing Series, Outlaw Division, > http://www.bellstarracing.com/ > JCausey_FD, Assistant Director - Flashpoint Racing Series, On-line Division, > http://flashpoint-online.homepage.com/ > JCausey_FD, SNARL Truck Series, > http://members.home.net/rlprice10/snarl/Page_1x.html > > >

Maybe the best way to go here is to use a dual boot with W98 and W2K, and try both for a while. I devoted 1.5 g to a W2K partition, and I found that some things run better, very few worse, and quite a few don't run at all. First Person Shooters do run better, IMHO, but I can't vouch for race sims since my wheel has no W2K drivers.

Try the generic wheel driver that's built in (or maybe you have). You can also do "design" a custom wheel. No drivers for my wheel either but the default works fine except for a few buttons that don't work. No biggie, I just asssigned functions to other (working) buttons on the wheel. -- "nixx" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:396f73a3.14728355@news-server... > but I > can't vouch for race sims since my wheel has no W2K drivers.