First of all, apologies if this has been discused before...

I'm a computer musician, and here's my dilemma:

Windows 98 SE or Windows XP?

The most important thing for me is performance. I built my system for performance, since I have to run several programs and plugins and once, and the audio processing is quite CPU intensive.

I built it by hand last summer, here are the specs:

1400 Mhz Athlon Thunderbird
512 MB

Since I had no experience on win XP OS, I decided to install windows 98SE, and left it to bare bones, removing IE 4, and I removed and tweaked all useless stuff to achieve the best performance.

It's been running nice, but lately, and as I work on more and more complex songs, I'm running short of CPU!

Recently I started to think: Win98 SE is and old OS, and maybe it's not the more suitable for the new systems! Maybe XP will be able to squeze the CPU and allow me to achieve a better performance with my system!

I'm not concerned about stability. I'm a CONTROL-S guy, so I could live if the system hangs occasionally (as it's the case with WIN98).

Is XP performance any greater than Windows 98 Se on new systems?

Please help me with my dilemma! ;)

Personally I would be looking at a Linux build for making music, but I'm sure all your programs are windows orientated.
(I say linux for the Less intense CPU nature, and it's not a RAM hog)

Windows XP is ALOT more taxing on hardware than 98 SE.

I had a system built last fall. 1.4GHZ AMD 256MB DDR, 32MB Geoforce 2 GTS, but mostly for games. From what other said win98se was the way to go, as XP takes up a lot of resources. I use 98se at home and work, pretty reliable for me.

Thanks for all oyur replies...

I think I'll keep windows 98SE for a while... since the system is working very well as it is (and most probably the only way I could improve performance is with a faster CPU!).

Thanx again. :)

given the choices, I'd choose Windows 2000

Windows XP has been known to actually slow down and limit the power of your machine. If performance is what you need, you not going to get it with XP. Go with 98 or 2000.

Yeah, I have to agree. XP slows down the computers I use all the time...all be it that they are campus computers, they run on 1.5 GHz P4 processors, and start to lag whenever I try to multitask with more than TWO (2) programs...Personally, I won't invest in XP when I get a computer...hopefully I'll still be able to get Win2000...or something better by then...

Win ME.....

Originally posted by Clarentavious
Windows XP is ALOT more taxing on hardware than 98 SE.

Exactly. WinXP is a big resource hog. I used XP for awhile and then I deleted it. Win98 SE is still the most stable version of windows out there.

Actually, 2000 and XP are more stable than 98 SE (they are better about handling DMA, or Direct Memory Access, and do not leak memory). 2000 puts slightly a more hamper on your system, while a machine needed to run XP with many current proggies is ridiculous.

ive go two boxes an xp box and a win 2000pro box with linux face win xp is a hog and defalut its got tons of security holes. the 2000 and xp kernal is more stable than 98 i go with 2000

Could you repeat that?

go with 2000 its better

XP is trash. I don't even know where microsoft came up with the name XP - maybe their marketing department thought people would think XP stood for expert or something??? It is all of their 2002 version of products (FrontPage, MS Office, etc...).

It is very taxing on your system, full of security holes, loaded with spyware; it sucks.

98 isn't very stable. It doesn't pay good attention to programs in the background, so minimizing and stacking things up isn't very advisable (though I could generally run with Messenger, Zonealarm, and a game without it crashing too often; just don't expect to be able to load an anti-virus proggie, vid card tweaker, and a few other things on top of that, if they are having any activity, there might be a decent chance of the blue screen of death).

It leaks memory. In fact it is not good about memory in general; no default limit on vcache, and your SWAP file bounces around like crazy.

Also, your boot sector on your harddrive can get corrupted quite easily (though the FAT32 file system in and of itself it ok).

It has a mini MS-DOS mode it actively starts up with, that is its 16-it orgins, mainly what is responsible for the memory leaks.

However 98 does have a few advantages over 2000. It detects refresh rates from your video card adapter and monitor, allowing for the highest rate possible, rather than 2000 coming with built in limits not to the maximum. Plus you can set your refresh rate per resolution and color palette, and games will use your desktop setting.

There is not all of the logging and uneeded networking components in 98, so it is less taxing on your system than 2000 (though not ridiculous like XP, it is not an issue to worry about as long as you have a relatively modern computer).

Up to you, I can deal with 98 SE, but I am currenly using 2000. For the love of money, do NOT get Windows 2000 service pack 3, it is loaded with microsoft's spyware and some other features included in XP. Plus it changed my CD-ROM settings (my burner drive, which is my slave, not master, went from UDMA to PIO mode, limiting it to 20x speed, on CLV). Service pack 1 for 2000 Professional is ok, but do not get service pack 3. I don't know about 2.

2000 Pro is a good choice.

I use XP pro and have run it up against 2000 and I have to say all in all I like XP Better.
I don't have to most up to date system but I've never had any problems. I can run as many programs at the same time as I want with no lag thats noticable to me.

I do have 2 CPU's though
Dually 933's

It plays games much more stably than 2000. Esp older ones.

as far as using up resources....any one here can search the web and find out how to turn off services that you don't need.

and security issues......ALL operating systems have security holes. Yes MS has more than the others but the only reason we know about them is because more people use Windows than anything else so the crackers and virus writers are praying on whats avail to try and break.