Re: [WWOT] XP??? (xp vs. 2k)

["Allyn" <amalventano1@home.com>]

Dont take this wrong, but have you actually run xp yourself? I dont mean for
5 minutes, i mean full time.

    I dunno what to tell you, from my standpoint (not office benchmark
numbers), its faster, and also got rid of alot of annoying problems. These
are all things i have experienced first hand, some are documented in my own
personal bug list, and have been submitted (by me) to microsoft via bug
reports to the ms beta test newsgroup, not read from anywhere else:

First, the general stuff:
- Boot time on mine is less than 10 seconds with xp, where it was >1 minute
with 2k.
- Compressing divx movies occurs at the same speed it did with 2k. This is a
true demonstration of raw thread processing ability.
- From a ui 'feel', it just feels like its running faster. Windows appear
faster, etc. Might be just me, but who knows.

Now for some bugs with 2k:
- Windows 2000 had problems with its ntvdm implementation. This would lead
to waiting 3-4 minutes for a 16 bit installshield to initialize in some
cases (something that should take a second or 2). XP doesnt do this. (this
happened to me on 2 seperate clean installs of 2k-sp2). This bug is
recognized and it was determined that it was beyond the scope of a service
pack for win2k.
- 2k had problems with severe hard drive thrashing upon boot after a crash
that corrupted the swap file, this meant 2k had to rebuild it after boot.
This would cause a 1-2 minute lag (after boot) before the os was usable
(explorer wouldnt open until it was done). This also doesnt happen in xp.
(this happened on my system as well as to a friend of mine). I got no
response on this one, may be fixed in sp3.
- 2k had a problem where it would 'forget' which hardware configuration was
correct if you used the 'use last known good configuration'. This would put
it in a loop where it would boot with one set of registry settings, but save
them to an alternate set upon shutdown. This meant that until you could
'snap it out of it', any windows settings that were altered simply went away
the next time you booted. (this happened to me on 2 seperate clean installs
of 2k-sp2). This is supposed to be fixed in sp3.

Now for the really annoying things that put a thorn in my side:
- Windows 2000 had severe problems with driver support:
-- First example being a diamond modem: i emailed diamond asking when
drivers for win2k will come out, all i got back was 'our modem is a home
product, and windows 2000 support will not be recognized by us'.
-- Second is an even better example: it only took creative labs 2-3 months
to release drivers for windows 2000, and only 1 year or so before those
drivers were updated to ones that worked properly. The early drivers didnt
even support the game oriented surround features of the card. This very
thing is the reason i no longer use a sound blaster live.
-- Third: This applies to many other manufacturers who have 'blown off'
making windows 2000 drivers. Now they must, as they have no choice. XP is
coming on most new pcs. If these hardware guys are to stay affloat, they
must finally support drivers for the 2000/xp kernel.
- Win2k also had severe problems with game support. Now granted that many
games would run under 2k, some didnt work properly, and some others werent
supported under 2k even if they did work. The fact that new pcs are coming
with xp will force these jokers to support the kernel as well.

XP may be slower in some office-benchmark, but i'll gladly exchange the
fixes/improvements done with windows xp for microsoft word taking %13 longer
to put the word "The" on my screen.

Sorry for all the typing, that was 2+ years of pent-up win2k frustration :P.
Al

Allyn Malventano, ETC(SS), USN
87 Rieger GTO Scirocco 16v (daily driver, 170k, rocco #6) running - for now
87 Jetta 8v Wolfsburg 2dr (daily driver, 260k, 0 rattles, original clutch,
driveshafts, wheels :)


----- Original Message -----
From: "L. M. Lloyd" <ubik@austin.rr.com>
To: <scirocco-l@scirocco.org>
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 1:59 PM
Subject: RE: [WWOT] XP???


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> This is getting extremely off topic, but now you are talking about
> DirectX integration with a particular video card in XP, not the speed
> of one OS Vs. another OS! I assure you, NT2K SP2 and XP are using the
> same core. If the XP DirectX video card driver for your particular
> video card gives higher frame rates than the NT2K driver, then good
> for you, but that could be an issue of just not having updated you
> NT2K driver to the latest version, or any number of reasons. That is
> why games are not usually used as an across the board benchmark of
> the OS. If you want to test the speed of one OS Vs. another OS, you
> should look at processor and memory intensive tasks that do not
> utilize additional acceleration hardware, something like a large
> database query. Comparing game FPS has too many variables, including
> DirectX version, video card, sound card, version of the game itself,
> and of course the condition of your registry as it regards all of
> these things. I can tell you three registry keys in NT2K that are not
> set by default that will increase performance of an Nvidia card by
> 20%. If those keys are set by default in XP, then that would make XP
> yield higher FPS without changing a single line of core code.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> The goal is to overcome the deliberate nature of the process.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> > [mailto:owner-scirocco-l@scirocco.org]On Behalf Of Allyn
> > Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 12:21 PM
> > To: scirocco-l@scirocco.org
> > Subject: Re: [WWOT] XP???
> >
> >
> > Note: they didnt play any games in that benchmark. I got higher fps
> > in the switch.
> > Al
> >
>
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