Operating System

[jimclarke]

Which O/S provides the best performance for running M$FS (FS98 and up)?  I have XP SP2 right now but would I be better off with something else...?

Thanks,

Jim

[ATI_7500]

XP SP1.

[Tchkinjiu]

XP SP1.

boo, i have xp sp2, and it runs just fine. Plus it added the virus protection because I have AMD 3000? or higher. Anyhoo, you can see some of my pics in freeware and payware, and it runs beautifully

[the_autopilot]

SP2 hands down.

It offers a bunch of fixes you can't do without (or at least i can't)

[compyelc4]

May I ask another question in this regard?

I am currently running an overclocked AMD Athlon 64 3200+, 512DDR, MSI K8T NEO, overclocked MSI FX5500 Vid w/ 256M on Win ME, DX9c.

FS9 has never been more stable with great FR's. Of course I just dumped an AMD Athlon 900mhz and Win98!

Will WinXP really give me a significant FS9 performance increase over WinME. I've heard that WinME is pure crap, but I have not found that to be the case.  At this point, I don't know whether to spring for WinXP upgrade at $99, the WinXP full-install at $139 or just wait for Win64 and blow a much bigger wad!!

Thanks

[ATI_7500]

Microsoft should be sued for the creation of Win ME, but that's a different topic.
You should definately switch to XP, since it's more modern and its hardware support is better.

[_526th_Fireman]

compyelc4, I wouldn't upgrade, I would do a full-clean install of XP. I had heard many problems when people went the upgrade route. Too many mixed and unmatched files between the two systems.

Don't bother with 64bit right now. IT is still going to be several years, if not more before that whole system, games, peripherals, drivers etc. are all up to snuff for a 64 bit system.

512 MB of RAM is the bare minimum for XP in my opinion. More RAM would be a definate plus. With FS9, todays and tomarrow's games, 1 MB is minimum as far as I am concerned.

Then there are tons of tweaks you can perform for XP to really make her zing. Love mine, and I had ME. ME was always stable for me, no problems at all. Might have been a security issue, but XP didn't solve that either.

XP is worth installing, trust me.

[sonic]

XP sp2 to me anyway My machine runs better with sp2 for some reason.

[Scottler]

SP1....I found that SP2 gives me redundant protections and slows me down.  Not worth it to me.