[geeks] value of PIII PC servers

[Phil Stracchino]

Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> I use Windows primarily to play games, and it ticks me off how games are
> being released XP only, when there is no reason for it.  Everything a
> game needs is available in Win2k.
> 
> WinXP *IS* about 99% Win2k, having been released just a year later, and
> all of the changes could be patched into Win2k.
> 
> It's just a way of creating arbitrary reasons to upgrade.

The important part about releasing XP wasn't technical improvements; it
was the activation feature.

> The latest marketing information from Microsoft says that games will be
> a lot faster under Windows Vista.

I've actually considered installing XP on my own personal game machine,
for one and only one reason:  To get the 64-bit kernel.  Not that I have
any games that need 64-bit, but when I built it, an Athlon64 made sense,
but I've since learned that a 32-bit Windows kernel on Athlon64 hardware
is actually slightly slower than a regular Athlon of the same clock
speed running the same 32-bit kernel would be.  The 64-bit kernel on
Athlon64 is supposedly significantly faster.

I've also wondered whether it might get around the problem of being
unable to use many games except using a No-CD patch (and unable to use
any game at all for which no No-CD patch exists) because the copy
protection mistakenly thinks the machine, which has SATA disk and PATA
DVD writer, has no optical drive installed at all.


(Don't even get me started on the festering LeadTek piece of shit I
purchased under the mistaken belief that it was a usable and stable
video card for any game more graphically demanding than, say, Minesweeper.)


-- 
 Phil Stracchino                     Landline: 603-886-3518
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net         Mobile: 603-216-7037
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater