Windows 98SE Stability Test

[Countach69]

Windows 98SE Stability Test.

Instead of arguing with people claiming Windows 98SE is an unstable Operating System, i decided to set the record straight by recording a not so typical gaming session with it. Basically, it consists of me playing 6, almost 7, different games simultaneously and alt-tabbing out of them while doing basic computer work. All of this on a supposedly unstable operating system...Windows 98SE. A mix of old (1998-Dethkarz) and new (2005-Need for speed: Most wanted) games were used.

My intentions were not for people to revert back to 98SE but to make the critics realize that this OS is a viable option for a lot of people. So, if you feel bored and have the bandwidth, you can download this 5 part sefl-extracting .RAR file. Mind you, this is not exciting stuff, but it proves once and for all that if your computer hardware, drivers and applications are stable, Windows 98SE will be also.

Replace the hxxp below to http

hxxp://www.rapidsharing.com/07c00c9dae71323df624eb5c3665c861

hxxp://www.rapidsharing.com/3dd4a6550e64ef6abf1a63c69b00f576

hxxp://www.rapidsharing.com/9342fa283b803bf3c1e72b3143e6348f

hxxp://www.rapidsharing.com/74e1a8b89ab7a265132de5f7ece0736a

hxxp://www.rapidsharing.com/c65daaed0855a5dceb500449fd7612d0

Computer specifications:

-Intel D865 PerlX motherboard

-Celeron 340 2.93Ghz

-1 Gig of RAM

-ATI Radeon 9600XT 128 Megs

-Analog Device Soundmax audio

-K-world capture card

File information:

-Format : MPEG 1 - no special codecs are necessary

-Resolution : 352 x 240

-Quality : average

-Length : about 45 minutes

-Size : 470 megs

1-The file was captured in VHS format and converted to MPEG 1.

2-Games like Doom 3 and Need for speed: Most wanted needed replacing the string GlobalMemoryStatusEx to GlobalMemoryStatus to work in windows 98SE.

3-The capture file was not edited in any way.

4-There were no TSR running in the background (anti-virus, instant messaging, firewall etc.)

5-Some win.ini tweaks were used like MinFileCache/MaxFileCache etc.

6-No Microsoft updates of Windows 98SE were installed.

Chronology:

Starting/playing : Need For speed: Most wanted Demo

Alt-tab to : Desktop

Starting/playing : Flatout

Alt-tab to : Desktop

Starting/playing : Bloodrayne 2

Alt-tab to : Desktop

Starting/playing : Dethkarz

Alt-Tab to : Need for speed: Most wanted Demo

Alt-tab to : Desktop

Starting : Hamrick Vuescan

Starting : Firefox

-browsing and downloading files (via USB Wi-Fi connection)

Alt-Tab to : Flatout

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Alt-Tab to : Bloodrayne 2

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

-finishing scanning

-displaying scan in Irfanview and Foxit

-browsing and downloading files

Starting/playing : Painkiller: Battle out of hell

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Starting/playing : Doom 3

Quitting : Doom 3 (not able to alt-tab out of Doom 3)

Continuing : browsing and downloading files

Starting/playing : The suffering

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Alt-Tab to : Need For speed: Most wanted Demo

-lack of memory

-constant paging to hard disk

Quitting : Need For speed: Most wanted Demo

Alt-Tab to : Painkiller: Battle out of hell

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Alt-Tab to : Bloodrayne 2

-lack of memory

-constant paging to hard disk

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Alt-Tab to : Dethkarz

Alt-Tab to : Desktop

Alt-Tab to : Flatout

-lack of memory

-constant paging to hard disk

Quitting : Flatout

Alt-Tab to : Painkiller: Battle out of hell

Quitting : Painkiller: Battle out of hell

Alt-Tab to : The suffering

Quitting : The suffering

Quitting : Firefox

Alt-Tab to : Bloodrayne 2

Quitting : Bloodrayne 2

Writting message with Wordpad

Closing computer

[MDGx]

Impressive + very nice job.

Q:

Did you install DirectX 9.0c or another older version?

[LLXX]

Good to see more than one user having no difficulties with maximum resource consumption on 98se

Here's the result of opening up 17 IEs each containing graphics-intensive pages, 1 Word XP, and 1 Photoshop 7 with a huge image:

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/4946/0res9wg.gif

The system remained perfectly usable and responsive throughout. Closing everything brought resources free back up to 87%.

Edited May 9, 2006 by LLXX

[Countach69]

In response to MDGx

The latest version of DirectX was installed, that is 9.0c

Countach

[Andromeda43]

As long as you've got enough ram and HD space,

you can work the snot out of 98/SE and it won't puke.

I ran it for years till I needed to upgrade to XP.

I found several tweaks that could add as much as 30%

to its efficiency. The infamous "memory leak" was

probably the only drawback.

And a little program like "MemTurbo" could easily take

care of that.

That was a God-Send to people who had to leave their

PC's on 24x7 to run a network, receive faxes, etc.

I've got ten PC's that will actually run and every one of them

is running 98/SE with the Unofficial Service Pack 2, except this one.

That service pack, incorporates most of the tweaks that I used to

do by hand. A great time savings.

Andromeda43