best gaming OS

There is nothing wrong in what I said, Shanti  
You've just figured it whole wrong way ...

I didn't mean games compltely independent from the OS.
Game quality obviously depends on OS's ability to manage HW resources. However no software would help your hardware weakness, because the most important thing for quality gaming is kick ass HW (and DSL connection).
99% of modern OS's programmed to make the good (sure not the best) use of hardware resources, some handle memory alocation better then others, some support more CPU's or RAM ...
but in generaly OS is only the tool to communicate between game (or any oher application) and hardware.

p.s. I'm never taking guesses since never affraid to say I don't know sth and nobody knows everything, you know ...

Cheerz
Thanks for taking care of quality of our rapping

[vee_ess]

I beg to differ chef, the win2k kernel ( which xp is based off of) kicks the crap outa the DOS kernel in perf. It is on par with linux. and it is stable. now that i have xp myself, i see it kicks the crap outa ME and 98 for games. Everything else is just a given since win2k was designed for business.

so IMHO, xp is by far the best OS for gamin only because win2k isn't compatible with very many games.

Actually I've had similar but not as drastic experinces with every install.  In general I see at least twice the boot time for 2000.  XP loads very fast but ya'll forget one critical point,IT TRACKS EVERY INSTALL YOU DO.  I don't like that.  Windows Product Activation my ass.  When a good hack comes out for that and the first good service pack comes out we'll talk.  Sorry but I don't like doint Microsoft's beta testing for them.  

[Omega]

Savage: A 2x greater load time is probably about right, but you said it was 4x greater in your first post about it. Also, Windows XP Professional does not require product activation. Waiting for a service pack might be understandable, but they have addressed many issues in hotfixes.

It was 4x in one configuration.  Almost brand Dell's with 128m of ram and 1.4 ghz processors.  Other times I've seen 2x, I just know that it loads slower.  Also I was pretty sure the XP Pro install I just did said somethin' about Product Activation.  I hope your right and it doesn't but I still don't like Microsoft's sticky fingers with all the spyware.  Did you know that Windows Media Player does track what DVD's you watch and sends that info back to Microsoft.  If you want me to dig up the article I can try.  I just like to run what I can trust ain't watchin' me.  98 I know how to remove most of what I see as privacy invasion.  It just seems a lot harder on XP.  I don't like anyone to know what I'm doin' unless I know they know.  Know what I Mean??

[vee_ess]

yeah, know what you mean. after all, ms collects more information than anyone else.

that is what gov'ts are for, dont you think?

http://www6.tomshardware.com/consumer/20020930/

This ofcourse IMHO only applies to newer systems. I still recommend 98se for PRE 1 gig machines (yes .. 1 GIG).

XP is very resource intensive and requires a powerhouse to reap the gaming performance other than just stability. Newer hardware is also built w/ XP in mind. <<Good luck finding solid XP compatibility with some older peripherals>>

so .. in short:

new system .. go with Windows XP

older system - Win98se

(WinME sux unless tweaked right ... disable system restore)

This discussion sounds familiar, like the discussion of October 29. Well, somebody posted sumthin like what is the best OS, 2K or XP?

My opinion, XP so far is the best OS for games.

Hmm why cant anyone develop an OS purely dedicated for games?

[Uranium-235]

They did, but I believe it's propritery software integrated into XBOX.