Is 2k faster than XP?

[RagingGecko]

Just curious. After having XP for a few months I switched to 2000 Professional and got a HUGE speed increase. FPS in games went through the roof, bootup times dropped significantly, even my 3dMark score gained over 700points and the computer hadn't even been "retweaked" yet. Is there really that much difference or did I just have XP set up horribly? I thought I had it set up good, disabled a lot of services, etc, but never even got close to the speed I've got now and I haven't even tweaked anything whatsoever. Did M$ just really screw up or was it User Error :rolleyes:

[Jon]

While I feel it's possible to get XP to run as quick as 2K, I also believe that once you achieve this it might as well have been 2K you installed in the first place.

I've used both and still go back to 2K every time. I just can't handle the sluggish interface XP brought with it.

[Oni]

2k is definately faster. As Jon said, you can make XP run as fast as 2k, but it requires a lot of tweaks and whatnot, while 2k runs nice and quick out of the box.

[Yodums]

I like 2K as well. XP I had corrupts from left to right and massive profile corruption. I had to spend 30-40mins tweaking XP whereas I don't tweak - NOTHING - with 2K. It is a stock install, haven't editted anything in the registry other than the cable tweaks which apply the keys itself to the registry so it was auto not manual.

2K is a great OS IMHO. XP has alot of options to tweak as well but tweaking it makes it use the equivilant amount of resources as it would at 2K stock install so I like 2K. Very fast, quick... I love the GUI in XP but I can live without it.

Yodums

[rogerdugans]

As the others in here have said: YES! 2K is faster.

Both use the NT5 kernel, so are basically the same os; however, WinXP adds a huge amount of extra services, applications and other "enhancements" that make a default installation much slower than a default install of Win2K.

This can be fixed by tweaking the os, but you end up doing a LOT of work to get to the same performance level 2K has out of the box. (I have seen numerous posts from people about how they love all the "tweaking options XP has that 2K does NOT have." In 2k that stuff does not exist, so it can't be tweaked- nor does it need to be :D)

[RagingGecko]

Lol. I figured as much. A friend of mine phrased it perfectly. XP has too much "fluff". A fancy GUI is wonderful but I'll take my performance over looks anyday. :cool:

[PLtNmHeLiX]

I use 2k on my old p3-450 and xp on my current one most of the time. I don't mind recommending either OS for speed for a fast comp but XP is very slow on slower setups.

[rogerdugans]

I thought of a very good example:
At work we have an AMD k62-450 running Win2K Server with 256mb of ram and an Intel PII 450 with 384mb of ram running XP Home.

Neither are tweaked (much) as they are work machines used for development and so forth.

The AMD rig boots and is ready in about a minute and a half; Intel rig takes almost 4 minutes before it can be used.

Apps load noticeably faster on the AMD pc as well.

And the reality is, the Intel is a better chip: if all other things were equal, it SHOULD be faster.

[mbentley]

i would say that if you have a pretty old computer that may have some issues with speed that if you don't play many games, windows 2k would be better than xp performance wise. 2k will run pretty much every app there is but is limited on some games... but if your computer is really running that slow, you won't really be playing a whole lot gamewise on it. (for a slow computer i am talking like anything 400 MHz and lower) i have 2k pro installed on my compaq 400 MHz and it definitely is much faster than me ever was. xp has too many stylish things, even though you can strip it down visually, i still think it runs much better... i just run the compaq as a "server" for my internet connection. it's workin great. plus 2k is rock solid stable in my opinion, especially on a clean install... that's my 2 bits...

[FuzzyNY]

I second the W2k, I tired both XP home and Pro, still going back to W2k, I can't remember when my W2k crash last time, probably more than 9 months ago,

[baqai]

if you play around with services and other things you can make your XP go faster than 2k .. i prefer XP over 2k, between XP is just a refined and modified version of 2k .. if you turn off every "bell and whistle" and beauty option of XP you will find youself a inerface of 2k :)

[Disputant]

Originally posted by Jon
While I feel it's possible to get XP to run as quick as 2K, I also believe that once you achieve this it might as well have been 2K you installed in the first place.

I've used both and still go back to 2K every time. I just can't handle the sluggish interface XP brought with it.

That sluggish interface, as you put it drove me nuts. Found a fix though in the registry, that damn menu delay is actually on purpose.

Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop

Look for a value "MenuShowDelay," it is probably set to 500. Change that to 0 or a lower value and reboot. See if your menus pop up any faster.

[triflux]

I choose xp basically because my computer is at a speed in which a difference noticed between xp and 2k is little if noticible, also I think xp is a "smarter" os and ofcourse the eyecandy is not too bad but all in all disregarding the the interface they are the two best os's windows has put out. is it linux though? oh god thats a whole story itself.