It's true. Win ME is just a stay of execution for Win 98. Only produced because hardware manufacturers were not making the necessary progress for Win 2k to be the final everything OS. MS didn't plan on releasing it. I just hope MS puts their foot down this time and does not cave by releasing yet another DOS OS. THC is right about the long run. The only improvements that come to mind between Win98 and Win98SE are, internet connection sharing, IE5 and WDM driver support. Do you know why they put WDM in there? Because It's what 2k uses. It's the MS way of saying, "We see you are not taking us seriuosly so we will give you an OS you can make drivers for to get you accustomed to Win 2k". Just think.... Septemeber 14 Win ME comes out. Then no more DOS. All of the sudden no more annual Win9x update version. Next thing you know Whistler is on the scene. Then we'll be using NT til we're dead. Yeah! Unless the government screws it up and I convert to Linux.

Yeah Im wating for the major game makers to start switching to linux...linux is a great server OS, but lacks a lot of the things that NT has such as driver support. Plus linux is free wuhoo!! Not to mention choice of GUIs. Linux is a great OS I just hope that support for it starts growing faster.

ok, I admit.. linux is very flexible,
maybe TOO flexible, takes a lot of time.
o well, who knows what the future will bring
 
butt, w2k is a step in the good direction.
when i think back to my w98 time i think...
Why haven't I throw that piece of crap trough the window??
 
seeya

You're right. I think Windows 2000 is the best operating system around (for workstations and desktops at least). This doesn't meen that it's good enough
Anyway, I just get angry when I see that big manufacturers like HP and Creative take so long to make win2k compatible drivers for their hardware. They had plenty of time, win2k has been under development for a couple of years...
Windows 2000 is the OS of the (near) future. Not Win9x, we don't want that crap! I really hope for Microsoft and for everybody that there won't be a Windows ME "sequel"... we got enough **** around. Why don't they work on removing bugs in Win98 instead of developing other crappy OS?
That's all, I'll wait for the new (and really working) Creative drivers and many others... I guess my computer peripherials will be fully supported and somewhat working not before October. Well, I'm going on vacation ;-)
Cheers
Seba

ok, NEW TOPIC!
 
Why are people replacing there Geforce Cards with Voodoo 5 cards?
 
Have I missed something?

Yes, the Liveware! Windows 2000 support sucks. I don't even use Windows 2000 anymore, just for this reason.
 
Yes, Creative has had plenty of time to come up with something.
 
But, the fact is all we can do is wait and complain.
 
Ronin
Normally I couldn't care less what other people have in their computer compared to mine. But since you listed your setup AND because of your comment at the end about "putting our tongue back in our mouth" I gotta tell you that you ain't all that. As far as I'm concerned you've got a pretty sorry setup and my tongue never left my mouth.
 
Have a nice day!
 
Ben
 
[This message has been edited by Ben (edited 24 June 2000).]

Firstly, who thinks that the news that creative are only late because they were waiting for certification is a load of bollocks?
 
And secondly, Ben, Ronin... really? do we need to judging each other on the size of our processors? - i mean, if we are gonna do such a thing, shouldn't we at least do it right, and all just slap our penis' out on the table?

Hey Ben,
 
First off I could care less if you think my system sucks. So what should I change out to make it better? Whatever advise you can give would be great.
 
...
 
------------------
My System:
 
Dual Intel 850's
Tyan Thunder 2400 MB
256 Megs Ram
Adaptec 39160 Ultra 160
1 - 18 Gig Cheetah - U160
2 - 18 Gig Cheetah U2W
SB Live Platinum
Plextor 12/4/32 - Burner
Plextor 40x UW CD-Rom
10x Sony DVD Drive
Hurcules Geforce 2 64meg
Viewsonic PF815 22" Monitor
 
[This message has been edited by Ronin (edited 24 June 2000).]

Dude, I try and talk some sh!t and you don't even get that?
 
I'm having a pecker race with an unarmed person. LOL!
 
[This message has been edited by Ben (edited 24 June 2000).]

Uhh yea...
 
Anyways, so I hear Creative still hasnt released Liveware 3.0 for Windows2000?
 
Oh, and on the whole win2k/not-a-gaming-platform issue, I think thats garbage for several reasons:
 
Historically speaking, when Windos95 came out, all people did was ***** that their games wouldnt run in a dos window (DOS4GW anyone?) After enough development, look where we have gone.
 
Given a decent system, win2k is capable of running almost any game that currently runs on win95. It's all in the drivers, people.
 
Considering that WinME is nothing more than Win98SE with all the current patches, updates, and drivers, coupled with a Win2k interface.. its still based on an outdated and error-prone kernel.
 
Lastly, with the superior memory handling, SMP, stability, security, network performance, and no-reboot policy, game developers would be insane to ignore what is becoming a very popular OS.
 
Remember folks, it isnt rocket science to make a game work in Win2k if it doesnt already. We arent talking about a complete rewrite of code. Hell if its a DirectX game it has native support for gods sake! If our hardware manufacturers would get off their asses and pump out working drivers, all this arguement-counterarguement crap would go away because everything would work.
 
And whatever uninformed moron who claimed that WHQL driver certification is useless, you can take your head out of your ass now. WHQL is the only driver release delay I will tolerate, because it ensures that: the driver will absolutely perform as promised (none of this beta driver nvidia crap "5.22 gave me .038 less FPS whaa." **** nvidia and their guinea-pig beta "leak" public testing.. get a ****ing QA dept already and do your damn jobs.), it will work 100% smoothly with the OS, and I wont have to reboot. I cant think of anything more worth waiting for than perfect drivers.
 
That's all for this rant. Flames can be directed to that brick wall over there.

I will flame only one thing....
 
The "leaked" (I still have theoris over this one) detonators are not for WHQL. They are for internal beta testing. I hate it when people diss Nvidia for their internal drivers. Diss them for their official ones, okay?

My proof that Win2k is (should be) supported as a gaming OS is in the fact that one of the Microsoft "critical updates" was designed to fix problems with various software programs, and nearly every one of them happened to be games! If Microsoft really doesn't want anyone playing games on Win2k, I seriously doubt they would take the time to put out an update to fix them.
 
Now, if only we could get the hardware manufacturers to realize this and update their drivers......Asus seems to be rather lax in timely releases of their video card drivers. When nearly every other major GeForce manufacturer has released drivers based on the 5.x line, Asus just now released a new driver based on 3.82! That sounds vaguely like the Creative Labs support so far.............

I would perfer leaked beta drivers to this incesant waiting! Where Creative's concerned, there's nothing else to try, nothing you can do, s**t happens - live with it. They completely messed up their DVD decoder drivers when they release Win2k drivers simply because they had no way to real world test them. So now, they're all messed up and we have to wait another 6 months for another beta driver that won't be fully tested either. I fully expect that the Live! drivers are going to be the exact same way. Creative is making us all suffer just to give us more drivers to mess up our systems because they had no one to test them during their development.
Some of you guys said that you got back to the default Win2k drivers. I'd really like to know how. Sure I can remove all the drivers manually, but the sound probs that I have in UT won't go away. I get the same problem if I'm playing an MP3 in Winamp and do something with D3D. Really bad crackles. I didn't have any probs when I originally installed Win2k, just after the LiveWare install.

Nvidia "leaks" drivers way too much to be considered an accident. It's simply a lousy excuse to let the public test their drivers and not have to offer any tech support for them. How about being a little more careful with your "internal drivers." It's an industry joke how often Nvidia leaks drivers.

I agree with most of you:
 
1) Nvidia's driver "leaks" are not accidental, but extremely deliberate. What company wouldnt jump at the chance to increase its driver beta testing by 5000% and simply sitting back and reading the gripes people leave on message boards. And, like the lemmings we are, we completely accept this as "normal" development and roll over. I have no gripes with nvidia's final drivers; why would I, hundreds of thousands of consumers have already tested them for nvidia.
 
2) Microsoft's infamous "game patch" for win2k is another example, I agree, of why the OS is aptly suited to run games. The patch contains minor code changes people, it doesnt contain any insane amount of new stuff; merely a tweak ehre or there, remember win2k stores some registry entries in different places than win9x. As much as they (Microsoft) deny it, they know full well that any Microsoft OS is going to a) be extremely popular, and people will want to run all applications on it, games and apps alike. People ran games on NT. Even Blizzard (makers of Diablo I and II, among others) made their games specifically NT-compatible. If it werent for the lack of a current DirectX on NT, Nt could have just as easily been a gaming platform as win9x... with the exception that it would require a more robust system.
 
 
We now have the security, stability, and performance of NT coupled with the hardware support (or fourthcoming support), experience, ease-of-use, and increasing popularity, of Win9x. Does that sound like a system that should be ignored by *any* respectable game developer?
 
I can only imagine what Whistler promises.

Quote:Originally posted by SpongeMaster:
...Time and time again, this whole argument regarding win2k's status as a business product comes up, and time and time again it bugs the living hell out of me"

Get over it, MS themselves will tell you it is intended for business users, just as its predecessor WinNT was. If it wasn't, WinME wouldn't exist.

You can use a Lamboghini as an offroad vehicle if you want to, doesn't mean you are right or are using the product as the company originally intended.

You make a valid point SpongeHo. However, what if the Lamborghini Corporation offered their Year 2000 Edition Automobile with Giantic Monster Truck Tires (with Direct X printed on them), and mudflaps (perhaps saying OpenGL?) as part of their top features of this new car.

Wouldn't these features lead you to believe that the Lamborghini Corporation wanted you to drive on-road, as well off-road. It makes you wonder...

I am sorry if I am being to subtle for some off you out there, I am saying DirectX (and OpenGL kept in) was put into Windows 2000 for gaming.

BTW, SpongeMaggot, I play games on Windows 2000. I also browse the internet (something businesses must do), use Microsoft Word (something businesses must do), read E-mail (something many businesses must do), and also I also listen to MP3s and watch DVDs. Something businesses must obviously must do because Microsoft included Windows Media Player to play MP3s, and DVDPlayer (dvdplay.exe in the winnt\system32\ directory!)

Plain and simple SpongeBob, it's called multitasking. Using all available resources to do anything. Live with it, and shut up.


[This message has been edited by Brain Stew (edited 05 July 2000).]

Mondain, you used the word 'uninformed' to describe someone on the net. Oh, and you are INFORMED? not one person online truly is. Heck, not even that character at creative seems to know whats going on within his own company. And I'll add that you seem a tad naive. Liveware 2 drivers for windows 2000 were WHQL certified. And only a pod would state that those drivers were nicely coded. SO when (un)creative release liveware 3 they will most likely still contain flaws. And once again we will be here asking for the next version of deadware.

The current DirectX implementation in win2k is simply a mass beta test for whistler. Way back when, win2000 was supposed to be the merging of 9x and nt. Then NT 5 was delayed about 10 years, and had to be turned into win2000. Now what we end up with is a hackneyed implementation of DirectX squeezed into NT5. The "real" NT based gaming OS will be Whistler, which will be was win2000 was supposed to be.
 
OpenGL is not in WinNT for gaming, the API just happens to be used by some game companies. OpenGL has been in NT since day one for professional applications. I don't know too many people that were playing 3D games in NT 3.1.
 
Your name calling is childish to say the least Brian. How you expect anyone to take you seriously with junk like that in your post is beyond me.
 
[This message has been edited by SpongeMaster (edited 05 July 2000).]

This whole thing is so funny,
 
No matter what MS does, no matter what OS they release we will have these stupid arguments about the same things over and over again. If *****in about stuff is what gets everyone through there day and if *****in is what you think is going to change the software industry then keep dreaming.
 
Because no matter what you do and what say MS will not change there buisness practices to suit us gamers.
 
Be happy with W2K for what it is, or just go back to 98 because at least you can run all your games.
 
...

Have you guys any idea how tough it is to convert an entire platform? This move-consumers-to-the-NT-kernel isn't done over night you know.
 
Moving all applications and all games and all hardware to a completely new system requires a total re-write of everything. Back in the days of win95, that is. Since then, developers have gotten their chance to make sure the applications they make can work on NT.
 
But NT didn't support the crucial game API (directX) so game developers that needed those could not get their games working on NT. So far we only got applications working on both the NT platform and the 9x platform.
 
Now NT have gotten DirectX 7.0, USB, power management Plug and PLay etc etc. Manufactorers have done well with their hardware so far and NT is ready to let developers get their games working on it.
 
Right now, this day, I can burn a CD while I play mp3s with winamp and playing quake3 online with smoooth FPS. Ok, so I have a dual p3-450 and 256 MB ram and a geforce2 but the very fact this is possible with beta drivers and beta DirectX 7.0 base proves what incredible win2k ALREADY is, and a pointer to what Whistler will become.