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Got me an Athlon XP 2500, ATI R9800 Pro 128, and 512 Mb of RAM for gaming. :

My "natural" choice of operating system is Win ME on account of compatibility ( yes, I also like many old games too ) and because Win XP is a memory hog nearly doubling the memory requirements, or so I've been told.

But I remember reading that, -was it Win 98 or ME or both ?- there was a problem handling RAM over 256.

Does anyone know about it so I can install without qualms ?.


Thanks !

tell me your not gonna install winME. Please just tell me your not going to...

Honestly, winXP is gonna be the much better choice. Sure it does use more memory. But its not gonna crash all the time, and its compatible with more hardware out of the box. You can still run most older games in a compatibility mode that it has.

But I remember reading that, -was it Win 98 or ME or both ?- there was a problem handling RAM over 256.

windows 98 anything over 256 is a total waste !

Neither Win98 or ME have a problem with that much memory per se, but anything over 128Mb on a Win9x OS is pretty much wasted unless you're using Photoshop.

Win9x DOES have a problem with using memory over 256Mb on some mobos (you'll take a performance hit because these mobos don't cache memory over 256Mb properly) but you won't have that problem on any mobo made in the last 2 - 3 years.

Although you'll hear a lot of folks complain about ME, I would recommend ME over 98 at this point since it usually handles driver installs better and 98 is not longer supported by Microsoft.

However if you have a CPU faster than 600Mhz and are planning on installing that much memory anyway, I would strongly recommend WinXP or Win2K instead.

I recommend moving to WinXP. In my opinion WinME is an overbloated Win98 crash fest.

Well let's settle something here. I was no fan of WinME when it was released because it was a rip-off at the time. $100 for something that was AT BEST a minor upgrade to Win98. However there's nothing wrong with WinME anymore (if you need a Win9x OS).

ME had it's fair share of problems with drivers in the early days because Microsoft failed to coordinate with hardware vendors properly and in some cases it took 6 - 8 months for proper ME drivers to be released (Microsoft learned their lesson after that and XP driver updates were ready to go when XP was released.

Driver issues were 90% of the stability problems that ME gets a bad rap for. Most manufacturers were just using older 98 drivers - claiming they were WinME compliant - which were not stable under WinME. This is no longer an issue - driver support is likely to be better for ME than 98 now.

ME does carry a performance hit versus 98. This performance hit was a big issue at the time for gamers (remember this was when 98 was THE gaming OS) but processors are A LOT faster now and it's no longer an issue.

I repair a LOT of computers, and have to maintain a lot of older Win9X systems for clients running software that won't work under XP or 2K. I don't have any problem with ME and would recommend installing it before 98 for the following reasons:

- ME recognizes far more devices with native MS drivers than 98 does
- ME supports advanced PnP
- ME supports removable media card readers WITHOUT having to install a driver
- ME supports firewire and DV without having to install an update
- ME has a more robust driver model
- ME has better self-repair facilities than 98 (ME was the testbed for a lot of features that were put in XP like System Restore and driver roll-back).
- As I mentioned previously 98 is no longer supported by MS so you won't be able to get any security updates for it anymore. ME will continue to be supported for a while longer.

All that said, WinME is NOT a good OS for a power user or a serious gamer. It's the OS I'd install on my wife's computer if I didn't want to pay for WinXP, but I wouldn't want it on my own system.

HOWEVER Cobosdan mentioned in his post that he plays old games (I assume these are games that don't run properly under 2K or XP?). If that's the case then he doesn't have much of a choice, although I'd personally consider installing a dual-boot setup (WinXP and WinME) instead of ME by itself. Boot into ME for your old games and XP for everything else. This is easily done - install ME first then install XP and instead of upgrading ME, select the option for a seperate install of XP in a different location (ideally you want to put it in a seperate partition).

Hehe, you guys sure bash Win98. I still have it installed, and it's gone through 3 mobo changes not counting all the other hardware like video cards, cpu's, and hard drives. It's my original installation I did over 3 years ago. I still use it because it still works believe it or not. I probably get only one crash per month (no IE crashes). It's current setup is a P3 1GHz cpu with 512 megs of ram. I even have the dreaded Deathstar from IBM. It's over 2 years old.

IMHO, if you want to play the old games, then a dual boot like FP suggested is the best way to go. I still would not use winME though.

But I remember reading that, -was it Win 98 or ME or both ?- there was a problem handling RAM over 256.

Win9x (95, 98, and Me) all puke with more than 512 MB. IIRC they let the file system cache gobble up all of the virtual memory addresses, which leads to "Out of Memory" errors.

My "natural" choice of operating system is Win ME on account of compatibility ( yes, I also like many old games too ) and because Win XP is a memory hog nearly doubling the memory requirements, or so I've been told.

If you MUST use Win9x for anything, dual boot XP and 98SE. WinXP may have a higher base memory requirement, but it's not really much worse when you consider how badly Win9x leaks memory. Plus, you don't have to deal with leaky 16-bit resource heaps any longer.

IME, WinXP is no more a memory hog than Win2k. Both OSes, on a clean install with all drivers loaded come in at about 68 MB.

Win9x DOES have a problem with using memory over 256Mb on some mobos (you'll take a performance hit because these mobos don't cache memory over 256Mb properly)

That'll happen regardless of OS.

ME has a more robust driver model

If you're referring to WDM, 98SE also supports this.

Hehe, you guys sure bash Win98.

It deserves bashing.

Damn FP, well stated. I thought I was the only one who didn't think ME was a total pos. I do like xp better though.

I used ME with 512 for quite awhile, it worked fine.

Wow, I'm still slightly confused, but definitely awed.

Thanks FP and all others for your advice, so far it seems like double boot is the best solution.

in the topic of memory

im building a new ftp\game server\(and what ever else i want it to do) later today. i have a copy of Windows .NET Server that i got from a friend (and yes it a legil copy). the server is goin to have a gig of memory

my question is would that os be better than xp pro

me

I would only use .NET Server (actually it's officially Server 2003 now) if you want to learn server administration. Otherwise use 2000 Pro or XP Pro. It's simpler to administer if you don't want the hassles.

You will run into some compatibility issues - especially with games - on Server 2003. Not everything that runs in XP will run in 2003.

I'm running a 2003 Standard Server at home but it's for file sharing/tape backup/dedicated CD burning station and print server only. I don't host games on it. I was using 2000 Pro but I setup 2003 Server instead just to learn it.

You're also way better off using a 3rd party FTP server than Microsoft's security hole riddled IIS services.

thanx

me

I have winME on two computers of my children with 512mb of ram in each.

I kept these in for driver hardware reasons and they've been solid for 2 years.

I have no problems with ME, unlike all the bashers out there but XP is a much more useable OS now, as ME was over 98 in its day.

I would choose XP over ME now unless you have those compatibility problems for sw and hw.