Windows 98SE on the lastest hardware

[Jeremy]

Nobody needs dual-core processors.

Your opinion is not fact.

[BenoitRen]

Let me make it more specific.

No HOME USER needs dual-core processors.

It's fine that they improve on things, but the mistake is to always mass-commercialise it. We just don't need that s***.

[Lunac]

Dual-core or multi-core technology to be specific, just shows how much IT world has regressed. They are simply out of ideas. There is no innovation left. Anyone remember 3DFX's Voodoo5 6000?

This card (photos above) never went retail. Only limited sample versions were produced. It has a total of 4 cores and requires an external power source. (Not internal, it needs an AC adapter. Although it could be modified to draw power from a standard PC PSU) 3DFX was going to declare bankruptcy, but they got bought out by nvidia before they could. Can you guess why things got so bad for 3DFX? I can: no innovation left. Nivida's much smaller, single core cards could run circles around the latest 3dfx offerings. (picture below)

Voodoo5 5500 did go retail (photo below). It only had two cores, but it was massive. Produced right before 3DFX went away

Don't buy into the multi-core hype. That's all it is, hype.

Edited December 3, 2006 by Lunac

[xtrm]

Well, why not buy something that is cheap and has more performance than anything else on the market? 'Cause you don't find it "innovative"? That's a VERY bad argument to be honest. And simple does not necessarily mean bad.

[Lunac]

xtrm, multi-core CPUs are not exactly cheap, at this point at least. Also, you have to remember that you would need a motherboard upgrade as well (in most cases), and if you have an older AGP platform, that means a new video card, (PCI-E most probably) which means quite probably no Windows98SE either. Which...well you get the point. Not exactly cheap.

You say: "more performance than anything else on the market", well, that is certainly debatable. More performance under what conditions? What are the real benefits? No, I believe multi-core CPUs are the iPods of the CPU world. Hyped to the MAX, that is. Overpriced, status items. No real innovation there. If I ever decide to decode the chimpanzee genome then I might consider a multi-CPU environment (notice I said multi-CPU as opposed to multi-core), or maybe a cluster based supercomputer.

(Photo below) The KLAT2 cluster supercomputer

[xtrm]

Check prices for intels new core 2 duo, it IS cheap compared to other high-end CPUs on the desktop market, and it beats these CPUs easily. If you want new hardware, you will change your board anyway in many cases, and as Petr showed above, there exist new boards with AGP slot - and some old with the same socket would just require a BIOS update. There is really no sense in your argumentation. Just check prices and benches, that's it.

[Jeremy]

Dual-core or multi-core technology to be specific, just shows how much IT world has regressed. They are simply out of ideas. There is no innovation left. Anyone remember 3DFX's Voodoo5 6000?

I think most people who p*** on new IT's (anything before 2000) just have trouble coping with how big Windows is, since you're probably some 35 year old whose been using PCs since the day they only needed such-and-such KBs of RAM to run, and with how "insecure" and "unstable" many "pioneers" seem to believe XP is. Don't get me wrong, I think needing 512MBs of RAM just to run a vanilla default OS is rediculous, but it is the way it is. With RAM drives and dual core becoming main stream soon and 1GB sticks of RAM becoming cheaper, the filesize of an OS just doesn't matter to as many people as it used to.

Not to mention all the drivers for hardware and compatibility for devices and new technologies being implemented into games, and M$ not supporting Win9x... bigger harddrives, more RAM, faster CPUs, dual core, SLI, upgradable GPUs, etc... Windows 9x is Dead.

I'm not trying to shove my opinion up anyone's a** here, I'm not saying you can't stick with what you like, but I believe someday... and sooner rather than later... it is going to catch up to you. Let's face it... times change, people change, everything changes. It's inevitable. 1995 was nearly 12 years ago. 1998 was nearly 9 years ago. Technology now changes by the month, if not every few weeks....

[E-66]

I agree with what Jeremy has said for the most part. I'm a Win9x holdover myself and have only been playing around with XP for a little over a month. It's ok, nothing great, and for me personally it offers very little beyond what my MDGx-influenced Win9x does.

I'm no computer expert, there are a lot of intelligent people around here who know far more than I probably ever will. I don't do anything with computers that generates any income for me, I'm just really interested in technical things and computers cartainly qualify on that front. I can build one from parts, partition and format hard drives, make Ghost images, and edit the registry without breaking a sweat. I don't know what kind of 'user' that makes me, or how many others like me there are around here. I guess it's just a hobby for me? (sure consumes enough of my time!)

That said, I do kind of feel like I've been living with blinders on. I feel like I'm an 'expert' as far as Win9x goes (I'm sure I'm not though), and back when Win9x systems were the norm I never ran into a single problem I couldn't solve. I'd talk to friends on the phone, or so-and-so's girlfriend's aunt, and be able to walk them through fixing whatever their problems was. But I was so involved in my Win9x world that I completely ignored XP, and now it's been out almost 6 years I guess and I'm just now getting familiar with it. That's not good even from a hobbiest's standpoint. For anyone involved in it in any career-oriented way, you just have to stay on top of things.

On the other hand, if you don't know or care about how computers work (and are completely unaware that forums like this exist where peoople happily spend hours talking about computers), and just consider having one in the house to be a necessity like a stove or refrigerator and just want to be able to click on a few icons to check your e-mail or look up something on Wikipedia, then it's unfortunate that Win9x isn't supported any longer and people are made to feel like they have to upgrade to a more current OS just to continue to perform the most basic of tasks.

[awergh]

98 isnt almost 9 years old

Windows 95: 11 Years 3 Months 9 Days Old

Windows 95a: 10 Years 11 Moths 28 Days Old

Windows 98FE: 8 Years 4 Months 8 Days Old

Windows 98SE: 7 Years 7 Months 10 Days Old

Windows ME: 6 Years 11 Months 16 Days Old

Windows XP: 5 Years 1 Month 8 Days Old

Vista (RTM): 25 Days Old

Vista (To Consumers): - 58 Days Old

Dates for 3 December 2006 (GMT+10:00)

[Jeremy]

@E-66,

I understand all that as well. However, even for the most basic person may become exploited by some flaw and have their personal info that's saved in IE's AutoComplete feature stolen. M$ wouldn't be able to help them with it since 9x is in the dust now. I'm not saying I know of a particular exploit that results in this, it was just an example.

@awergh,

You remind me of Commander Data from Star Trek - The Next Generation. Always trying to give time down to the very second. 9 years and 8 years, 4 months, 8 days... I'm not trying to get the time exactly right, I'm just pointing out that it's been a long time and it's old.

[glocK_94]

Windows 9x is Dead.

It's inevitable.

Your opinion is not a fact.

Now again... you want to say you don't like Win98. Fine, you have the right to do that but DO IT SOMEWHERE ELSE! At least do what DukeBlazingstix did and write your thoughts in a dedicated thread.

The question is Windows 98SE on the lastest hardware so if you're not trying to help, GET OUT OF HERE !!!

It's a Win98 forum where people have made their choice to stick with 98. And we don't have to justify everytime some XP fan wants to start a fight. Thanks for ruining this thread.

Edited December 3, 2006 by glocK_94

[BenoitRen]

Don't get me wrong, I think needing 512MBs of RAM just to run a vanilla default OS is rediculous, but it is the way it is.

That statement defeats your entire argument. It IS ridiculous, and we choose not to follow that.

Not to mention all the drivers for hardware and compatibility for devices and new technologies being implemented into games, and M$ not supporting Win9x... bigger harddrives, more RAM, faster CPUs, dual core, SLI, upgradable GPUs, etc... Windows 9x is Dead.

As if our older computers will stop running. We don't have to go with this.

I'm not trying to shove my opinion up anyone's a** here

You are succeeding in doing that.

I understand all that as well. However, even for the most basic person may become exploited by some flaw and have their personal info that's saved in IE's AutoComplete feature stolen. M$ wouldn't be able to help them with it since 9x is in the dust now. I'm not saying I know of a particular exploit that results in this, it was just an example.

As if that doesn't have on XP. Look, there are precautions you can take, and apply common sense. Get your computer behind a router, and activate its firewall. Run a secure browser. That's it.

[Lunac]

The issue is this: (and I have said this many times in many threads before) Windows 98SE does everything for me an NT based OS could (photo/audio/video editing, website design, gaming, word processing, web browsing, you name it) , plus Windows 98SE does some things an NT OS can't (primarily legacy DOS support and support for legacy hardware as well), and does all of it with much higher overall performance and less fuss. By fuss I mean the lack of a crappy Hardware Abstraction Layer which can be found in NT based operating systems. (2000/XP included of course)

Hardware Abstraction Layer is one of the primary reasons I stay away from NT based operating systems. I've said this before in a previous thread but, HAL was a half-assed attempt at pushing NT into the mainstream by attempting to correct the obvious lack of hardware support NT kernel had at the time. HAL was supposed to assist developers in creating device drivers much faster by writing less code and letting HAL itself deal with any portability and compatibility issues. One way HAL does this is by emulating hardware and/or hardware features that are not even there to begin with. (Which is not unusal for an OS) In theory this was a dream come true. You could write minimal code with maximum results in record time. In theory of course. Problem is, the abstraction layer in NT operating systems is seriously flawed and simply inadequate when it comes to what it was designed to do. Also, HAL depended (and still does) on the driver creator to be responsible and create a retail strength driver in the time it would take to create a alpha driver for the same device. This is many times impossible, which ends up giving the user or consumer a buggy alpha strength driver.

For basic information on what HAL is and what it does go here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/hardware-abstraction-layer

I can throw virtually any type of hardware setup at Windows 98SE and it will boot, it might not support the hardware in question, but it will boot. In Windows 2000/XP when it came to hardware upgrades I had to deal with all kinds of issues that are non-existent on Win9x platforms. Can you say Windows Stop Messages? I can! Nothing nicer than installing a new piece of hardware and then having a nice Windows Stop Message induced BSOD, courtesy of s***ty implementation of HAL. Sure, I got hardware induced BSODs on my Windows 98SE system every now and then, but not nearly as many as I did under NT based operating systems.

Another primary reason I stay away from NT based operating systems is the clownish bul*****. XP is a toy OS, Vista is even more of a toy OS. Only Vista is even more bloated and restricted, and colorful. All the hallucinogenic color themes and LEGO-like shells are a major turn off to me. When XP was released one of the first things I noticed was all the colors, almost neon in their intensity. The window bars were over sized, all the buttons were huge and illustrated, there was even an animated dog in the search window! My first thought was: how clownish! It looked like a toy OS, something for kids to play with. Then I noticed the bugs, lack of performance, and lack of software and hardware compatibility. It was a toy alright, not even a good one.

As for the multi-core CPUs, well, my single CPU along Win98SE handles everything just fine.

[xtrm]

Mine does too, but if you do not want to stand still and move with time, you have to upgrade your system from time to time. I do everything to NOT have to update to 2k/XP/(not to mention vista), but I do update my hardware from time to time - and after over 4 years, it just is about time.

[BenoitRen]

I don't understand why you would need to update your hardware when you're on Windows 98SE. There's also no law saying you should move with the times. "because everybody else does it" is never a good reason to do anything.