FAT 32 vs NTFS for games

[Dennis]

A friend running XP-Pro, is thinking about using FAT 32
on his new hard disk rather than NTFS as he has heard it
is better for games. Is there any truth to this, and
does using FAT 32 on XP-Pro cause any problems, such as
some of the tools (Scandisk or Defrag.)not working
right? TIA

Dennis

 

[Tim Slattery]

A friend running XP-Pro, is thinking about using FAT 32
on his new hard disk rather than NTFS as he has heard it
is better for games. Is there any truth to this, and
does using FAT 32 on XP-Pro cause any problems, such as
some of the tools (Scandisk or Defrag.)not working
right?

Using FAT32 won't cause any problems. Some XP security functions work
only on NTFS partitions, but it shouldn't make any difference to
applications. I know of no reason why FAT32 should be better for
games. NTFS can handle much bigger partitions, bigger files, more
files or subdirectories in a directory, etc. And it's more stable,
*much* less likely to suffer from the broken chains and crosslinked
files that the FAT systems are susceptible to.

 

[Alias]

Using FAT32 won't cause any problems. Some XP security functions work
only on NTFS partitions, but it shouldn't make any difference to
applications. I know of no reason why FAT32 should be better for
games. NTFS can handle much bigger partitions, bigger files, more
files or subdirectories in a directory, etc. And it's more stable,
*much* less likely to suffer from the broken chains and crosslinked
files that the FAT systems are susceptible to.

I hear that when it does suffer from broken chains and crosslinked files,
that it is more difficult to sort out. Also, if your data is stored on an
NTFS formatted partition, you can't burn it to a CD and then put it on a FAT
32 machine running WIN 98, for example. So, would you recommend NTFS for the
OS and programs and FAT 32 for the partition where one keeps one's data?

Thanks,

Alias

 

[Yves Leclerc]

XP can only format a 32GB partition with FAT32. Also, FAT32 may have
problems with the larger (160GB or greater) hard drives.

 

[J.C. Hornbeck [MSFT]]

All of the tools will work regardless of the underlying file system,
although some security features available with NTFS won't be available on a
FAT volume. I've never heard that FAT was better for games and I can't
imagine why it would be, but with that said, I'm an avid gamer and there's
no way I'd format any new drive with anything other than NTFS.

--
J.C. Hornbeck, MCSE
Microsoft Product Support

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[Alias]

All of the tools will work regardless of the underlying file system,
although some security features available with NTFS won't be available on a
FAT volume. I've never heard that FAT was better for games and I can't
imagine why it would be, but with that said, I'm an avid gamer and there's
no way I'd format any new drive with anything other than NTFS.

More like games won't work with XP that will with 98.

Alias

 

[Tim Slattery]

Also, if your data is stored on an
NTFS formatted partition, you can't burn it to a CD and then put it on a FAT
32 machine running WIN 98, for example.

That's insane! Once files are written to a CD it makes NO difference
whatsoever what kind of file system they used to be hosted on! If you
copy files from an NTFS partition on an XP machine to CD, then take
that CD to a Win98 machine - or a Mac, or Linux machine, or Win95 or
whatever - you will have no problem reading those files from that
disk. You then do whatever you want with them: send them someplace
over the network, save them on the local file system (FAT16, FAT32,
UFS, or whatever).

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

Also, if your data is
stored on an NTFS formatted partition, you can't burn it to a CD and
then put it on a FAT 32 machine running WIN 98, for example.

Sorry, this is not at all true.

When you write data to a CD, it gets written in the CD's native
file system, *regardless* of what file system was used on the
hard drive it was copied from. Moreover, there is no record on th
eCD of what file system it was previously stored on.

A CD burned on a a computer running Windows 98 with FAT32 is
identical to one burned on a computer running Windows XP with
NTFS. Either one can be copied back to either computer without a
problem.

 

[pjp]

The one thing you can't do with NTFS that you can do with Fat32 is boot with
a Win98SE emergency startup disk and actually access the contents of the
hard disk even if the OS is screwed.

I didn't like the "surprise" of finding out that using the XP CD to boot and
get to a command prompt, wouldn't allow me to "cd" into every folder on the
hard disk.

That means it's easy to imagine a circumstance where the OS goes south, yet
your data files etc. are still available on the hard disk but you can't get
anything that'll read the hard disk properly. Therefore you can't simply
copy the files before having to risk "restoring" the OS.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

The one thing you can't do with NTFS that you can do with Fat32 is
boot with a Win98SE emergency startup disk and actually access the
contents of the hard disk even if the OS is screwed.

But note that there is third-party software that will let you do
this, such as the freeware NTFSDOS at
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml

 

[Steve Nielsen]

FAT32 vs. NTFS isn't an issue. Software compatibility with XP is.

Steve

 

[Brian Coats]

yeah, you have to buy the pro to write. Another words you need to
buy it.

Brian

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

yeah, you have to buy the pro to write. Another words you need to
buy it.

No, I replied to what pjp said: "you can't get anything that'll
read the hard disk properly. Therefore you can't simply copy the
files before having to risk "restoring" the OS."

For that need--reading and copying files from the drive, not
writing to it--the free version will suffice.

 

[Alias]

That's insane! Once files are written to a CD it makes NO difference
whatsoever what kind of file system they used to be hosted on! If you
copy files from an NTFS partition on an XP machine to CD, then take
that CD to a Win98 machine - or a Mac, or Linux machine, or Win95 or
whatever - you will have no problem reading those files from that
disk. You then do whatever you want with them: send them someplace
over the network, save them on the local file system (FAT16, FAT32,
UFS, or whatever).

I tried to do it from a machine that had W2K and it read the CD fine and
then I took it to two machines with Win 98 and it couldn't see anything on
the CD.

Alias

 

[Jim Macklin]

CD are burned in a CD format, not FAT 32 or NTFS. The
problem is which CD format, EZCD and Nero use different
formats for drag and drop (packet writing) but all CDs
burned as "standard will read in any CD or DVD player.


|
| "Tim Slattery" <[email protected]> escribió en el mensaje
| | >
| >
| > > Also, if your data is stored on an
| > >NTFS formatted partition, you can't burn it to a CD and
then put it on a
| FAT
| > >32 machine running WIN 98, for example.
| >
| > That's insane! Once files are written to a CD it makes
NO difference
| > whatsoever what kind of file system they used to be
hosted on! If you
| > copy files from an NTFS partition on an XP machine to
CD, then take
| > that CD to a Win98 machine - or a Mac, or Linux machine,
or Win95 or
| > whatever - you will have no problem reading those files
from that
| > disk. You then do whatever you want with them: send them
someplace
| > over the network, save them on the local file system
(FAT16, FAT32,
| > UFS, or whatever).
| >
| > --
| > Tim Slattery
| > MS MVP(DTS)
| > (e-mail address removed)
|
| I tried to do it from a machine that had W2K and it read
the CD fine and
| then I took it to two machines with Win 98 and it couldn't
see anything on
| the CD.
|
| Alias
|
|

 

[georgie]

XP can only format a 32GB partition with FAT32. Also, FAT32 may have
problems with the larger (160GB or greater) hard drives.

<snip>

I didn't realize Windows XP had this limitation. I'm using a 40GB drive
with a single FAT32 partition on my Windows 98SE laptop. I checked into it
and found the following link, which details how to bypass the Windows XP
FAT32 32GB partition limit:
http://www.petri.co.il/install_windows_xp_on_large_fat32_partitions.htm

g

 

[Alias]

It was a CD RW but both computers have nero on them.

Alias

...

 

[Darrell]

I had a Graphics airplane systems program that worked fine on Win 98SE. It
wouldn't run at all on XP. So I gave up and took it off my hard drive.
Luckily I kept the CD it came on. Having read something in this newsgroup
it gave me and idea. I make a shortcut on my desktop to the file that runs
the program. Then I right clicked the shortcut, chose Properties... clicked
on the Compatibility tab and clicked a checkmark in the box before "run this
program in compatibility mode for" and chose Windows 98 / Windows ME in the
space below. Now it runs just like before.

Might be worth trying for any older games that won't run under XP.

 

[pjp]

Boot with a 98SE startup floppy, fdisk and format the drive would be my
guess (before looking at referenced page)

 

[Alex Nichol]

A friend running XP-Pro, is thinking about using FAT 32
on his new hard disk rather than NTFS as he has heard it
is better for games.

Provided the games are working through the system properly (and XP
should not allow them to do anything else, anyway), the only possible
difference would arise from FAT 32 allowing big clusters, say 32K on a
partition between 16 and 32GB. Some games (or at least so it is
claimed) run faster with big clusters. I have my doubts, provided the
disk is properly defragmented.

But if so, you should have a separate FAT 32 partition for them; it is
*not* a good idea to have big clusters on the main system's partition,
where it is grossly wasteful for all the small files, and less efficient
anyway