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Got Windows XP?


CaptainRAVE

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I have mixed thoughts for XP.

First,the goodies.

Windows XP is fast at startup.

Good for gaming.

No crashes and hangups.

Nice startbar.

Good Help.

Good features,i.e. user-friendly.

 

The dark side:

vulnerable for hackers.

Many Device incompatible.

A lot more I'll list later.

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Originally posted by Toa Tahu

The dark side:

vulnerable for hackers.

Many Device incompatible.

A lot more I'll list later.

 

Not as bad if you have a decent firewall and dynamic IP.

 

I'm sure the manufacturer of the hardware or Microsoft will come out with drivers on their own in the future.

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Originally posted by Eets'chula

 

Not as bad if you have a decent firewall and dynamic IP.

 

I'm sure the manufacturer of the hardware or Microsoft will come out with drivers on their own in the future.

right

you should get it Stephen, Iv not had any hardware compatibility issue, and the vulnerability can be fixed by a good firewall

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I ordered Windows XP in my new PC when it was first released. At the time I didn't know how memory intensive it was so I ordered my PC with 256 megs of ram. Guess what? Games like Return to Castle Wolfstien and the Medal of Honor demo sometimes stuttered because of hardrive accessing. If these games did not have adequate memory than neither would Jedi Outcast. I then added more memory, now 512 megs, and the stuttering is gone. You need at least this much ram to run the latest Opengl games in 32bit color at high resolutions using Windows XP. Other than being memory intensive I found XP fast, stable, and user friendly.

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Guys, I have a 64meg GeForce 3 Ti 200 in my PC. The thrashing I was observing was not from the videocard but from the hard drive. When a game cannot dump all its data into the main memory it uses the hard drive instead. This can create some stuttering from time to time because a hard drive is not nearly as fast as main memory. This stuttering only happened when I set the detail to max. My PC has a 2.0 gig CPU with the fastest PC800 memory, which was not cheap to upgrade. Boosting the memory to 512 megs solved the problem. If you get a new videocard make sure is has 64 megs of ram. The Medal of Honor readme states you need such a card to run max detail settings! Jedi Outcast will use the same game engine and could be just as demanding. Also, the Medal of Honor single player demo had the biggest Quake 3 engined level I have ever seen. So, there is hope that Jedi Outcast could have really large and open levels.

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You are almost right, outlaw...

 

The stuttering actually is caused by Windows dynamically resizing the SWAP (or Page) file on the fly.

Adding more memory will slow this down but not completely stop it.

The only way to completely stop this dynamic resizing is to set a static SWAP file size (usuallu 1.5 to 2x the amount of physical RAM installed), and set the Maximum and Minimum SWAP file sizes to this value.

 

:max:

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Im getting a new computer at the end of this month and im 100% sure itll come with Windows XP but whats this talkling about vunlerable to hackers? I dont want it if someone can hack into my computer...D: So what if I buy the computer and dont have a firewall, someone will hack my computer!! NOW IM FREAKING OUT! :p

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I'll forego the flashy OS and built-in "firewall" in favor of the extra speed I can get out of those "older" OS's (namely win2kpro and 98se). Besides, I can always use third party security software (and I do).

 

But each to his own... I did get some more ram for JK2 though.

; )

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Originally posted by Kurgan

I'll forego the flashy OS and built-in "firewall" in favor of the extra speed I can get out of those "older" OS's (namely win2kpro and 98se).

 

Yeah, when XP first came out all I read was about a 5% - 10% decrease in performance, but now, I've just been reading the opposite and that's why I have it. :D I guess if you have Win2k Pro, you already know how glorious a stable OS is, but XP is just as great and more. I'm completely pleased! (Except for getting all new drivers from the actual manufacturer instead of Microsoft's cut-rate ones.)

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Microsoft released a security patch for Windows XP a few weaks ago which I believe addresed the problem. Unless something else cropped up? I have Windows XP with Halflife and all addon packs installed. Halflife runs perfect in single player and faster in multi-player. I have many of the better PC games out there, and the only two games I could not get to work on XP was Jetfighter 4 and Slave Zero.

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Originally posted by Outlaw

I ordered Windows XP in my new PC when it was first released. At the time I didn't know how memory intensive it was so I ordered my PC with 256 megs of ram. Guess what? Games like Return to Castle Wolfstien and the Medal of Honor demo sometimes stuttered because of hardrive accessing. If these games did not have adequate memory than neither would Jedi Outcast. I then added more memory, now 512 megs, and the stuttering is gone. You need at least this much ram to run the latest Opengl games in 32bit color at high resolutions using Windows XP. Other than being memory intensive I found XP fast, stable, and user friendly.

 

Regardless of what OS you are running, I wouldn't bother trying to play any of the latest OGL games with the texture depth set to 32bpp. Drop the texture detail down to 16bpp and you'll cut your memory usage down by roughly a third.

 

Also, you have remembered to use Com_hunkmegs to allocate more memory to RtCW, I hope? If not, it is set to only use 72megs by default, so it won't make a huge amount of difference how much RAM you have installed, the game still won't take advantage of it. If you have 256Mb main memory, you can probably get away with setting Com_hunkmegs to 192 (and lower it if you start to experience instability problems).

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Again!I've been foiled!If that is so,I bet JO will be lagging!My father won't have so much bread to upgrade to 64Mb!I pretty HOPE that 32Mb is enough...I shouldn't have upgraded...I should have stayed with ME until the end...the XP was free...now it has caused our P4 system to (actually) lag!

Anyway,I notice when I play (even) with ME,when I went to the windows of Nar Shadaa just before the second fan,it (actually) lagged!Why is that so?

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Originally posted by KordKelly

The only way to completely stop this dynamic resizing is to set a static SWAP file size (usuallu 1.5 to 2x the amount of physical RAM installed), and set the Maximum and Minimum SWAP file sizes to this value.

 

Yes, I totally agree. A word of caution for those with a low level of system RAM, though...I wouldn't set the SWAP file size below 256Mb. Some applications eat that for breakfast. Mine is currently set to 1024Mb (1Gb). ;)

 

Originally posted by ed_silvergun

Also, you have remembered to use Com_hunkmegs to allocate more memory to RtCW, I hope? If not, it is set to only use 72megs by default, so it won't make a huge amount of difference how much RAM you have installed, the game still won't take advantage of it. If you have 256Mb main memory, you can probably get away with setting Com_hunkmegs to 192 (and lower it if you start to experience instability problems).

 

Would you mind telling the uninitiated how to do that? :)

 

Originally posted by Kurgan

I'll forego the flashy OS and built-in "firewall" in favor of the extra speed I can get out of those "older" OS's (namely win2kpro and 98se). Besides, I can always use third party security software (and I do).

 

Yes, I agree. I'm sticking with Win98SE at the moment...my system is pretty stable at the moment (no BSoD's for months), so if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. ;) Every new version of Windows just seems to take up an inordinate amount of space.

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Com_hunkmegs is a command line used in all (or pretty much all) Q3 engine games to allocate more system RAM to the game. In Q3 it defaults to 56mb, in newer games, such as Wolfenstein, it is often set higher (Wolf defaults to 72mb). Never put more than 3/4 of your system memory on the hunk because you need to remember to leave an overhead for your OS to use. If you do, you will start to experience instability problems, such as in-game crashes. On older and less stable OS platforms (Win95, 98 and ME - those built around a Win9x kernel) this will often crash the whole system as well. As a side note, I have yet to see my WinXP system brought down by odd behaviour from even the buggiest of beta software.

 

To set the com_hunkmegs command-line variable, fire up your Q3 engine game and bring down the console by pressing the tilde key [`] located next to the one key [1] on UK keyboards (it might be different on US or other foreign keyboards, I'm not sure). Type "com_hunkmegs". The game should respond by telling you how much RAM is currently allocated to it.

 

Now type "com_hunkmegs x" where x is the amount of RAM you wish to allocate to the game. The game will respond with "com_hunkmegs will be changed upon restarting". Quit the game and fire it up again.

 

Now, to check whether your changes worked. Pull down the console again and type "com_hunkmegs" as you did before. The game should now respond by telling you that it has allocated the value of RAM which you typed in earlier. Alternatively, it will respond with "com_hunkmegs is [original value], latched x" where x is the value you tried to change to. This means the game has failed to allocate your desired amount of memory, usually because it is in use by your OS or another application. This is particularly likely to happen if you've had the computer on for a while and been running quite a few memory-intensive programmes.

 

The solution? Reboot the entire system (cold boot preferably) and try again. If you still can't allocate the desired amount of RAM, try a more conservative setting, lowering it gradually in increments of 16mb.

 

When you've found a usable setting it's time to test it ingame. You should notice faster load times and less stuttering (particularly in large open areas or when entering a new part of a map).

 

As a footnote, I myself haven't noticed any problems with WinXP lagging on my system (1.4GHz T-Bird, 256mb RAM, GeForce2 MX). In fact, it runs altogether far moore smoothly and reliably than when I had Win98 installed.

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