For PC gamers in 2001, was it better to switch to Windows XP or stick with 9x/DOS?

For PC gamers in 2001, was it better to switch to Windows XP or stick with 9x/DOS?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I was still on Windows 2000 at that time. Back then, it was a concern that we had to phone in and be online to activate XP. I still preferred how 2000 remembered the positioning of files in every directory than how it was handled in XP, but eventually with support for 2000 drying up, I did have to move onto XP which wasn't that bad. The stability of 2000 and XP were great. It may be better to stick with 9x/DOS if the hardware was better suited for that like old Pentiums/earlier.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You inspired me to reunite my Windows XP discs with the box for the first time since 2003.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        forgot image

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        forgot image

        That is beautiful. I'm envious since I could never afford the real thing. I always got the OEM versions to save on the price. As mentioned in 2001, I was still on Win2k on this hardware, but I was willing to pay the $10 entry fee to get into the XP preview program which I didn't use, but helped a friend out with a malfunctioning PC. XP's stability was a lifesaver at the time.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Better to stick with whatever until Service Pack 1 (2002) at least.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I remember that around spring of 2001 my neighbor gave me a XP CD (pirated and hacked preview of course) and I installed it just out of curiosity. It blew my fricking mind, with actual music after installation and all the drivers installed automatically. It also was ridiculously stable compared to my Win98, you could shut down programs with task manager and it didn't crash the system! My copy of 98 was so bad (especially paired with my zero knowledge of computers back then and a lack of internet) and I reinstalled it so many times, that I still - after 23 years! - remember it's serial: J3QQ4-H7H2V-2HCH4-M3HK8-6M8VW. XP was rock-solid and the only thing I was unhappy about was problems with Mechwarrior 3. But it was solvable with dualboot for some time.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      That’s crazy that you remember that. I still remember an obscure 12 digit password from an game I haven’t played in 20 years as well as an old debit card number from 15 years ago, I still use both as master passwords. It’s weird the random stuff your brain chooses to retain.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >J3QQ4-H7H2V-2HCH4-M3HK8-6M8VW
      hehe, nothin' personnel kid

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        DO NOT STEAL

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          lol you shouldn't have lowered your guard in dangerous Ganker. now you victim of amoninous

          never forget
          legion

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    We did both. Have a computer with more recent stuff.

    Keep the old 486 with DOS in the basement. Perfect for a comfy Nesticle emulator setup.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Sounds awesome. We would play Nesticle in computer class instead of learning Word. Blew my mind that my whole childhood was readily available. Went back and beat so many games on that and Zsnes and whatever the Genesis one was.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >not using a better emulator by the XP era
      The frick, man, even LoopyNES was better if you were stuck with DOS. You should have gotten with it and started using FCEU, DOSbox, JNES, Nestopia, anything but fricking Nesticle as the years went by.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Nesticle was the only thing running on the 486, the point was to use that when the other computer was taken. I had other emus on the XP machine

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    i was still with 98se but later on reluctantly switched to XP because some games needed it.
    if i knew back then about the workarounds i would have stuck with it a bit longer.
    but i wasn't very good with english so these solutions were a bit off-limits...

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I've been using Windows ME until like 2003 because some of my fav DOS games didn't work with XP. Around that time new games which required 2000/XP appeared so I had to switch.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In terms of actual daily use, 2000 was easily the best version of Windows ever released.
    If you wanted to play anything DOS or 16 bit, 9x or ME was "better".
    ME got shat on a lot, but really it was just because people don't understand how to install correct drivers for shit. I never had any problems with it I didn't also have on 98.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >For PC gamers in 2001, was it better to switch to Windows XP or stick with 9x/DOS?

    In 2001... Windows 9x. In 2004-2005 Windows XP.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Trash DOS support sucked
    Then I found out about Doom's source ports

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    if you want to play DOS games then stick with 9x but if youre just gonna play 9x games then stick with XP

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I stuck with Windows 98 until 2005, that's when Fable TLC released and it needed WinXP to run. I was blown away by how much more stable and easy everything was. XP was an amazing OS.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I had both 98 and XP on my desktop throughout the 00s.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I stuck out with XP Service Pack 1 because my job at the time required me to support OS/2. When I found out that 9x functionality was also gutted, I just kept using SP1 until I was forced to upgrade.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Oh, fun fact: 32-bit versions of Windows 10 can run DOS Applications natively because long mode doesn't exist. x86 specs does not allow 16-bit operations in long mode.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Thank you actual anon, this is actually a good fact.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    98SE if you wanted to game, 2000 if you wanted a stable OS.

    XP was not good until SP2 minimum (circa 2004 I think?). I had to reinstall that shit every month because it kept going broke. I still have my backups.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    XP was the last truly good OS from Microsoft.
    Never run into anybody who had bad things to say about it. Unlike ME and Vista.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It was pretty meh at launch. It was less stable than 2000, and driver support was kind of spotty. It was alright by the time SP1 rolled around, but SP2 made it God-tier. Pretty insane how long they kept supporting it, too.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I used win2k during the early 2000s, had much better performance over xp

    before that it was 98SE

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    2001? 9x for sure
    I was dual booting 98SE & XP and I got better frame rates for the same game/same hardware on 98SE
    the nvidia drivers for NT needed a few more years before they caught up to the 9x drivers. I don't know how it was for ATI or the other manufacturers

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Smart gamers were using Windows 2000 in 2001. I used 2000 until 2006. It was really easy to pirate, stable, and it did everything XP did until around the time I stopped using it.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    2001?
    If I had a time machine I would've gone back and time and told my younger self to wait for at least half a year to upgrade from Me or dual boot because of how many of my games suddenly stopped working after installing XP. I would've also told my younger self to start backing my stuff up soon, too because my hard drive was going to eat shit in a couple of months and take everything with it.
    2003 was a better time to move to XP IMHO. By then some games were better optimized for it, like Battlefield 1942 (which LOVES oodles of RAM and isn't as crash-prone under XP compared to 9x/Me).

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Until DOSbox came around and matured in the mid 00s you were pretty much nuking DOS compatibility with XP and had to make a decision to keep an older machine or stay with 9x. XP could run 9x games pretty well, though.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >dual boot
    The problem is, any machine that could run XP and 00s well would often not have ISA/true SB compatibility or have CPUs too fast for many titles, and any machine that's a good fit for DOS sucks with 00s games. You need some unicorn-ass machine to truly excel at both.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Isn't this a problem with PCs in general though? If you want perfect compatibility you're forced to have multiple machines. Beyond just XP and 98SE options you'll probably want a 486 running Windows 3.1. I can't think of a single hardware/OS setup that will cover everything from, say 1987 to 2004 without having to make some sacrifices here and there.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In 2001? No, not at all.
    Windows XP used far more system resources than 98, and 95/98 were still seeing widespread support.
    It wasn't like today, where Microsoft actively fricks you through mandatory updates for not upgrading. So people had no incentive switch over yet.
    Even Far Cry, released in 2004, supported 95/98. But that was the tail end of support.

    It wasn't until later that year, when titles like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 outright lacked support for anything older than Win 2000, that people really had the incentive to change over. And by that point, modern components had come down in price quite a bit so upgrading specifically for XP was viable.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Even Far Cry, released in 2004, supported 95/98
      i think you're mistaken by joining 95 and 98 together. latest directx supported in 95 is said to be 8.1a, while on 98 it's 9.0c (and somehow windows me is given 2 additional ears of support over 98se?)
      http://falconfly.3dfx.pl/directx.htm

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    XP SP2 was 2003 so you had to wait for a good version used 98 til XP SP 2 was reviewed good.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      SP2 came out in 2004

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    pretty sure I moved to Win XP only in 2003
    and it had nothing to do with games (Morrowind worked just fine on Win98)

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