# Windows 2000 or Windows XP for Retro Gaming?



## Saiyan Lusitano (Dec 31, 2018)

I installed Windows XP SP3 Pro on a Dell GX280 that I have and it runs smoothly but when I tried to play Screamer Rally and Hot Chix n' Gear Stix and it just wouldn't work at all either (I attempted to make it compatible with 98 and 2000 but nothing).

I thought about installing Windows 2000 but then, there may be older games somewhat newer that may not run on 2000 but would on XP. The idea of having to have two OS'es installed is kind of a deal-breaker as I'd want to use only one for everything but I dunno. :-/

What are my options?

P.S. Wouldn't want to use a VirtualBox so yeah, I take it my options are pretty tight. I guess my option might really be to have Windows XP and Windows 2000 both installed but I can't be bothered to do that then.

Thanks.


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## grossaffe (Dec 31, 2018)

Dunno about the second game, but it looks like the first one should run in Dosbox.

A Linux machine with Dosbox, Wine, and ScummVm might be able to cover your bases for retro games.


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## Pleng (Jan 1, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> P.S. Wouldn't want to use a VirtualBox so yeah, I take it my options are pretty tight. I guess my option might really be to have Windows XP and Windows 2000 both installed but I can't be bothered to do that then



Do you have any particular reason for dismissing Virtual Box?


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## Arecaidian Fox (Jan 1, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> I installed Windows XP SP3 Pro on a Dell GX280 that I have and it runs smoothly but when I tried to play Screamer Rally and Hot Chix n' Gear Stix and it just wouldn't work at all either (I attempted to make it compatible with 98 and 2000 but nothing).
> 
> I thought about installing Windows 2000 but then, there may be older games somewhat newer that may not run on 2000 but would on XP. The idea of having to have two OS'es installed is kind of a deal-breaker as I'd want to use only one for everything but I dunno. :-/
> 
> ...


You COULD have your OS drive in a hotswap bay, and just shut down and swap the drives when you wanted to change OSes. I did this for a while when I needed a Win7 OS, but didn't want to/couldn't dual boot.

Small edit, but the bay would mostly be for the convenience of changing the drives. You wouldn't actually be hotswapping, since the PC would be off.


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## The Catboy (Jan 1, 2019)

Personally, I say test both of them when it comes to getting the best results. At this point in time, the most you can waste is your time. Although I also suggest trying out a couple of Linux distros here and there.


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## Saiyan Lusitano (Jan 3, 2019)

Pleng said:


> Do you have any particular reason for dismissing Virtual Box?


I prefer to use the real thing than via a virtual machine.



Arecaidian Fox said:


> You COULD have your OS drive in a hotswap bay, and just shut down and swap the drives when you wanted to change OSes. I did this for a while when I needed a Win7 OS, but didn't want to/couldn't dual boot.
> 
> Small edit, but the bay would mostly be for the convenience of changing the drives. You wouldn't actually be hotswapping, since the PC would be off.



Suppose that's an option too.



Lilith Valentine said:


> Personally, I say test both of them when it comes to getting the best results. At this point in time, the most you can waste is your time. Although I also suggest trying out a couple of Linux distros here and there.



It's a shame that Windows XP isn't the Windows operating system I expected it to be, the one that would play all old Windows' games but it doesn't. I don't mind using a Linux distro but tend to favor Windows as it's the OS I've been using for years.

I'll give Windows 2000 a try. Hopefully I won't have to go lower than that, 98 would feel really old but also nostalgic and I still remember 98 had some cool built-in games such as a rocket ship I used to play as a kid.


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## Arecaidian Fox (Jan 3, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> Suppose that's an option too.


Would you be willing to take a suggestion as to what hotswap bay to get?


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## FAST6191 (Jan 3, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> I prefer to use the real thing than via a virtual machine.


While I struggle with the emulation vs hardware thing in consoles and ultimately tend to find emulation superior for a whole load of reasons here you can plug whatever keyboard you like it, whatever mouse you like, you will be running raw code on a processor (most virtual machines of the PC architecture have been pass through for over a decade a this point), if CRT is your thing then you have that too (VGA is not quite dead yet, not to mention you can probably still find a late stage CRT TV with DVI in). Sound cards can be a tiny bit more fun but they are recreated better than any of us likely had at the time ( http://macgateway.com/featured-articles/sound-card-history/ , maybe you were one with an actual sound blaster though and not a "compatible" one, though modern takes/recreations of that do exist). Gameport stuff if you still have that can be a tiny bit tricky but conversion things exist to pipe it through USB, not to mention things in all the right form factors exist otherwise.

Buy a small noisy fan and some ageing plastics if you want the noise and old fire retardant smell.

As for 2000 vs XP.
2000 was never a mainstream OS. It was a workstation affair, possibly the last of the NT line depending upon how you want to look at it. Its support for various flavours of directX from later was not good, and at the same time its support for DOS was not as good as the older stuff (which itself had a fair few quirks).


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## BORTZ (Jan 3, 2019)

I think some games will run better on XP and other better on 2000 or older. I _think _that XP vs 2000 (and older) are two different code bases, so things dont work exactly how you might want on a newer OS. But I am no expert.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 3, 2019)

XP was generally seen as the merging of the 9?/ME codebase and the NT codebase, and by the time SP2 rolled around it was pretty sweet (as I am doubtless preaching to the choir at this point I will leave it there). How much of each made it into the final product is a debate for the ages but that is the story.

Nobody really ever gamed on 2000 for reasons of quality -- driver support was not great (it is also new enough and obscure enough that some hardware devs might not have supported it, or went bust before then) and it is not like it was all that much faster or more stable. At the same time it was different enough from 95/98 or *dry heaving* ME that more legacy gaming stuff is not served terribly well either, especially not really legacy stuff from actual DOS. Some people were lumped with work machines or legacy hardware and tried to get it working anyway but that is not really the same as trying to find something which straddles worlds.
When Vista was new and being awful some people jumped on the server equivalent and went there as that allowed a nice enough OS/UI and gaming niceness (XP being limited to direct 9.0c and DX10 kind of having something to it for some games), as well as some network perks if you fancied playing hacker.

I can absolutely see merit in someone having a swish 98 machine and an XP machine for legacy gaming purposes -- XP can usually be slapped and cajoled into supporting older DOS stuff but an actual 98 setup might be easier still, to say nothing of possibly still being able to play well with 3dfx or S3 graphics if you fancy that.


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## Deleted_413010 (Jan 3, 2019)

Saiyan Lusitano said:


> I prefer to use the real thing than via a virtual machine



I do agree with you on that subject. However some things have to be done in VMs. And machines do run better in VMs since your on newer hardware.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 3, 2019)

TheTechWiz25 said:


> And machines do run better in VMs since your on newer hardware.



Leaving aside the suspect options for 3dfx and such in virtualbox these days the single core performance of a tippy top P4 still beats out the single core performance of some of the corei stuff, and quite a bit of core2 era stuff, and is still quite competitive on a lot of things there.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (p4s on that top out at 917 score wise)


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## Deleted_413010 (Jan 3, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> Leaving aside the suspect options for 3dfx and such in virtualbox these days the single core performance of a tippy top P4 still beats out the single core performance of some of the corei stuff, and quite a bit of core2 era stuff, and is still quite competitive on a lot of things there.
> https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (p4s on that top out at 917 score wise)



Well i was thinking of buying a laptop with Windows 98 SE or any older OS that has Wifi support. Or building my own Windows 98 SE gaming computer.


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