Minimum spec

[John Kingscott]

What do you think the min spec for XP Pro is - if one wanted to run a few
games on it.

 

[Tony Talmage]

Here is what MS has listed as the requirements to run WinXPPro:

a.. PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233
MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel
Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible
processor recommended
a.. 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum
supported; may limit performance and some features)
a.. 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*
a.. Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor
a.. CD-ROM or DVD drive
a.. Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

As for the games, you'll need to check their individual specs to see if your
computer is able to properly support them.

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
http://www.graphiced.com
(888) 354-6600

 

[John Kingscott]

Cheers... but, for example I have the athlon 1600+, and yes it runs XP
fine... but does it run 98 better? Take Flight Sim - the specs for it are
laughably low but we all know it need t least double the power to run it
properly.

 

[Malke]

Here is what MS has listed as the requirements to run WinXPPro:

a.. PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended;
233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel
Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible
processor recommended
a.. 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum
supported; may limit performance and some features)
a.. 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*
a.. Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and
monitor a.. CD-ROM or DVD drive
a.. Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

As for the games, you'll need to check their individual specs to see
if your computer is able to properly support them.

Of course, if you try and run XP on the machine described above, you
won't be a happy camper. For modern games (Counterstrike, Warcraft III,
etc.) you're going to want at least a 2Ghz processor, min. 256MB RAM
(with 512MB being better), nice fast (7200 rpm) big hard drive, decent
CD-ROM drive (anything you buy new is OK), and a good video card with
at least 64MB of RAM on it minimum.

HTH,

Malke

 

[John Kingscott]

Or to put it another way - with a 1600+ would I be better off with 98?!

 

[Gary Tait]

What do you think the min spec for XP Pro is - if one wanted to run a few
games on it.

The published spec is 300 Mhz, 128 MB ram. For games, depending on the
complexity, at least double that.

 

[Tony Talmage]

I'm not sure (I upgraded processor when I switched OSes), but I would think
'98 would run more efficiently on the 1600+ than XP, just due to the fact
that XP has more going on (firewall for example). It's been my experience
that NTFS (if that's what you're running XP in) is slightly slower than
FAT32, but maybe that's just been my various hardware configurations. You
will probably have less compatibility issues with Win98 as legacy true-DOS
games could be run as well as many newer games.

I suppose what could be done is install WinXP and Win98 dual-boot, try the
games on both operating systems, see which one is quicker with your setup,
format, and clean-install the appropriate OS.

I hope you can find meaning in all this rambling. Coffee has not been made
yet today.

--
Tony Talmage
Web Developer
Graphic Education Corporation
http://www.graphiced.com
(888) 354-6600

 

[Steve Nielsen]

You might consider using Windows 2000. It is way more stable than Win98
but less "bloated" than XP.

Steve

Or to put it another way - with a 1600+ would I be better off with 98?!

 

[Alex Nichol]

Or to put it another way - with a 1600+ would I be better off with 98?!

For running things like games - where the system is doing very little
else while the game runs - then the CPU power needed is much the same in
either. You might even find a graphic card gets better drivers for XP,
provided it is a reasonably up to date one. The important thing is RAM
size, where XP does use rather more. And most important with either is
to turn off unnecessary background programs loading at boot time