WinMe VS. WinXP

[R2D2]

I have a P4 - 1.7Ghz, 512 RDRAM computer, and I use it intensively for video processing (DVD2SVCD, mainly, and other more easy stuff). Initially, I clean installed WinXP on it, but, due to the video hardware I have - DxR3, from Creative, and Dazzle DVC2 -, I was forced to re-format & go back to WinMe. This was, mainly, because DxR3 was behaving bad -probably, the driver was not too good, even the one from Sigma Design, maybe, also, because of WinXP. From then, on, my machine worked fine, the only setback is that it is not very speedy, meaning that my top speed for a CCE encode does not go beyond 0.8

Recently, WinXP came up with SP1, and people around say that this is a major improvement. Since I know that my FAT32 & WinME is not the winning combination compared to WinXP & NTFS, I am planning to migrate to WinXP - still, the drivers may behave bad, since October 2001 they are still Beta.

My questions is for those who migrated from WinME & FTA32 to WinXP & NTFS: what was the gain is speed - if any- after this change, and what might be the pro's & con's for such move.

Thanks.

[Fox Mulder]

Please don't triplepost.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34773
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34774
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34775

Please read forum rules:
"1a) Use the search function before posting. Chances are your question has already been answered."
"8) No cross posting. Post your message to the appropriate forum and nowhere else or it will be locked or deleted without warning."

IMHO SP1 is NOT a major improvement, my DXR3 worked perfectly while I had installed WinXP(I use W2K now, it is a more mature OS) and the gain will be more on the stability than in the speed side.

[R2D2]

@foxmulder

Sorry for triple posting, but I was not sure which forum this situation belongs to, and where is more likely to get a knoledgeable response. As u may see, my post deals with hardware & OS, and I am interested in the impact towards capturing & SVCD encoding performance. Hence, the triple question...If my explanation above is not enough satisfactory, please delete the wrong posts (which ones would they be, BTW?). Anyway, I appologise for inconvenience.

As far rule the rule 1a is concerned, believe me that:
- I read first a lot, b4 posting
- the search string, in my case, is very unlikely to provide a decent set of results, since I should search in 3-4-5 forums, and winME, winXP & performance are pretty commonly used in posts. In fact, I did 6 different searches, containing my topic in different combinations, with no apparent success.

Last, but not least, thanks for your subject related advise. Just curious: which drivers & player r u using, Creative's, Sigma Design's? Maybe Eugene's player?

[sundance]

@foxmulder,
did you encounter any problems with DVD related software while using WinXP?
I'm also just about to upgrade my OS from Win98SE to W2K or XP but I can remember vaguely that there was some utilities that don't run on XP.

[sarahjh69]

I tried winXP for about 3 months on all 4 of my pcs.
Basically, it was garbage for anything to do with
dvd and cd writing. It was also not very good for ripping
dvds as it could not handle DMA properly. (the pioneer a03/a04, dvr104 has a known problem with winXP and DMA).
I have now removed it from all my pcs that read from dvd
or write to dvd/cd.
Strangely enough doing files transfers on IRC using xdcc
is a lot faster with winXP.......and my internet pc is now
the only one to use winXP!!!!!!!!!!!
(ps encoding times for divx with winXP and winME are about the same)
NTFS has no benefits for home users, its mainly for fileservers, if
you put it on a home pc, you will lose upto 10% of your disk space and it can run your HD 50% slower than fat32!!!

[jbod666]

Have a dual boot system with ME and XP. XP is the most worthless OS that I have ever used. The SP1 update caused nothing but trouble with entire system. ME and a AMD 950mhz have been very reliable and working without any problems. I do alot of capture work and have been able to capture up to 200,000 frames without 1 drop. With XP on the other hand (because there is so much garbage it requires to run in background) it drops frames at a rate of 2-5 percent.

[Mac Sidewinder]

NTFS has no benefits for home users, its mainly for fileservers

I disagree - I routinely transfer my dv from my digital video camera to create svcd and its alot easier to create 1 file that is 13db long than it is to make 4 files that are 3 to 4 gb long and have to fileserve them into cce (especially for editing them. So for me, ntfs is a must.

Mac

[sundance]

I've to confirm what Mac says.
I definitely don't want to use Win98 on my new system any longer. It's not only because it's more stable - files bigger than 4GB (DVD image file e.g.) are very common here.
My only choice was W2K or WinXP but I think I'll opt for W2K here...

[Fox Mulder]

Hey R2D2, I'm not a moderator so I won't delete nothing.
I was just a reminder of the rules, people tend to overlook them, but they are necesary to keep things from becoming a mess.;)

I was using the Creative beta drivers for Win2K in XP, I think.
But now I'm back to Win98SE/Win2K. IMHO XP has to many ugly issues.

[Gambit]

I was using WinME, but got so frustrated with the stability that i finally switched to WinXP and I never looked back.

[Zhnujm]

i dont see any disadvantages in winxp. not for burning not for capturing not for anything (maybe some old games... ;) )
i would never go back to win9x/me again.

[DrKnish]

There's one issue in Windows 98 that not many people might know about. If you use a processor faster than 2.1 GHZ you WILL have a problem booting Win 98. You will receive an error in NDIS and the OS will not boot!