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uSeR oPiNiOn PolL
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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11. February 2003 @ 08:39 |
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What do you all think is the minimum requirments a PC should have to run XP smoothly?
Im talking minimum, not a dream machine, not what someone has who thinks everyone else should have, just an opinion of the essentials.
Thank you
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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loaded
Moderator
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12. February 2003 @ 09:25 |
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I have a 2GHz Pentium 4, with 1GB RAM and 120GB Hard Drives. XP still does not run smoothly ;-)
Must go higher.
Paul.
I'm back...
...can't you smell the fear?
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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12. February 2003 @ 10:30 |
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Interesting,
So i guess i should wait for something like a P5 3ghz processor?
Or just maybe, microsoft could actually put out a flawless OS? (ya right!!!!)
This begs the question, Is XP really better than 2000?, or is it really just 2000 with some eye candy attached?
Thoughts?
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 12. February 2003 @ 10:32
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loaded
Moderator
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12. February 2003 @ 12:09 |
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I am sorry, I was just being facetious. My old Sony works fine with XP, but imagine this:
DOS is a biscuit
Window '95 was a chocolate coated biscuit.
XP is an organic, nut free, hypoallergenic, triple chocolate chip, toffee filled biscuit.
Here is the thing : IT IS STILL A BISCUIT
What do you think? Food for thought?
Paul.
I'm back...
...can't you smell the fear?
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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13. February 2003 @ 07:27 |
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Without a doubt, an interesting perspective on the topic.
I guess in the long run, we cant complain too much about what we have to work with, I mean, what if we were still using DOS or windows 3.1?
Trying to stay on top of the computer technology market is like that episode of the flintstones where fred would strap a carrot in front of a dino just enough that it would try as much as it could to get it, but we all knew he never would.
Same thing applies here, to walk in to a retailer and buy the top end system, then try to clain you have the best, as they are unloading the newer up graded model in the back.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Keep em comin
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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I hate titles
35 product reviews
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14. February 2003 @ 01:26 |
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In my opinion, XP is a Windows 2000 added with eye-candy and draconian DRM systems that make it just more unstable and bloated than the W2k what it really is (when you reduce the amount of eye-candy and jello around the core). The version numbering itself is pretty clear: Windows 2000 == Windows NT 5.0, Windows XP == Windows NT 5.1, which is what it says in your system info when you look at it.
W2k has been the most stable Windows I've ever used, although as I've used it in production server environment as well, obviously Linux/Unix beats it hands down in stability. But it is still the best desktop platform you can get, considering the amount of software available.
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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14. February 2003 @ 08:01 |
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I am pretty inclined to agree with you.
Windows 2000 was a turning point in OS, just as windows 98 was. However, what did Win98 S.E offer?, a few add ons, ans what did Win98 ME offer?, complete chaos!!
Now granted trying to compare any of those editions to Win2k isnt fair, 2000 blows em away, but is XP just another edition?, even though its a stand alone OS?
Some say that if you have XP, dont even think twice about turning back to 2000, cause apparently XP fixes all the problems 2000 had......like what?
Im running 2000 at the office and XP at home, and I think ive had more isssues with XP, along the lines of performance.
Keep the thoughts flyin!!
Thanks
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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jcb
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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16. February 2003 @ 13:54 |
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thanks the info was very useful
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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17. February 2003 @ 06:19 |
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Glad that some idle chat could possibly solve a dilema or problem you may be having.
The Klown~
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loaded
Moderator
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2. March 2003 @ 13:04 |
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Whoever describes Windows, it seems to come down to food.
Paul.
PS : I had better not descrive here in these forums the technicalities of a Danish game called 'biscuit', as it is way off topic, and very strange/disgusting.
I'm back...
...can't you smell the fear?
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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4. March 2003 @ 07:32 |
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Well, im always up for some new interesting games or apps.....got a link to this game?
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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loaded
Moderator
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4. March 2003 @ 08:08 |
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It is not a computer based game. It involves men, alcohol and a biscuit and beyond that, I am not being drawn.
Paul.
I'm back...
...can't you smell the fear?
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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5. March 2003 @ 13:05 |
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I aprreciate the lack of informationa as Im sure I dont wanna know the details of this game.
The klown~
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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loaded
Moderator
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5. March 2003 @ 13:39 |
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And we are way off topic...
Paul
;-)
I'm back...
...can't you smell the fear?
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PopWeasel
Junior Member
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6. March 2003 @ 13:55 |
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Win XP Pro is running fairly stable on my machine and my computer isn't your every day off-the-shelfer either. Service Pack 1 made a big difference. I couldn't tell you what the minimum requirements would be for it to run smoothly. It all depends on what you consider smoothly, I guess. And it depends on what type of purpose the computer will serve (what type of work/play ;) will you be doing on it). If you are content to have it not crash but have to wait for documents to open and when you have a few programs open at once your whole system is sluggish then you could probably get by with a Celeron or a Duron. I would say bare minimum for memory is 256MB. Bare minimum for video card would be 16MB (don't expect to be playing any full/newer games with this). Bare minimum for sound card is Creative SoundBlaster Live!. Bare minimum for hard drives is one 40GB,7200RPM. You should use a good power supply brand. I use Enermax but there are a couple other good ones out there if you ask/look around.
As for my system config, it has 1 Athlon XP 2200+, 1GB PC2100 DDR Ram, 2 40GB 7200RPM ATA-133 hard drives striped in a RAID array as my OS partition, 1 100GB 7200RPM ATA-100 8MB buffer (Western Digital Special Edition) hard drive, 1 40GB ATA-100 7200RPM hard drive, 1 20GB 7200RPM hard drive (in a removable rack), 64MB nVidia Geforce-4 video card, Creative Audigy 24-bit sound card, 1 52X CD-ROM, 1 48X CD-RW, 1 16X DVD-ROM, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 1 Firewire port, and 1 ethernet port built in to the motherboard. By the way, if you're thinking of building a computer I can highly recommend SOYO motherboards. ASUS and Abit were thought to be good but lately their boards are just down the crapper. My mobo is the KT333 DRAGON Ultra - Platinum Edition (Athlon XP board).
I just list here what I'm running not to brag but so you know that XP is running stable on a system with these particular devices. There's also a printer and a webcam connected.
System stability is constant, barring user-intervention;) The other day I forgot *not* to open Explorer while the defrager was running. The system didn't crash or hang, just paused for 30 secs and then I was able to close Explorer to let the defragger finish.
Ogres are like ONIONS!!
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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7. March 2003 @ 06:54 |
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Very imformative PopWeasle....
I am pretty positive to say that your maching comes close to what some would call a "dream machine", although my system doesnt quite match yours, it does have a few higher end components, but then again a users system should be built to what you would use it for.
I gave my buddy my old 433 celeron with 128mb ram and a 20 gb hard drive, and i think im a god to him now, but thats getting off topic.
As far as my system stability, it is very good within the terms you had mentioned, occaisionaly sluggish with certain programs, lighting fast with others.....but you know what hangs my system above any other issue .......POP-UPS!!!!!!!!!
Sure I have Pop-up Blocker via Tweak XP, but half the time it just hangs my system while I wait for the blocker and the window to duke it out.
So, not to get to off topic, but when comparing system stability to causes, does anybody know a really good way to prevent pop ups?
Thank you to all of you for the continued support on this thread.
The Klown~~
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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PopWeasel
Junior Member
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7. March 2003 @ 10:05 |
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Ah yes, those pesky pop-ups: brain child/demon spawn of some over-ambitious webmasters... I have experienced the system slow-down that occurs when you get a barrage of them flying in your face. The worst are those that are made to pop-up off-center so you have to hunt all over for the "x" to close the window. The past couple of years I haven't been bothered with them at all and there's 2 programs I'm running that are likely responsible for this safe haven. The first is ZoneAlarm Pro. It's got great privacy options that prevent pop-ups. The second is the [free] Google Toolbar. http://www.toolbar.google.com While this has proved to be an invaluable and extremely convenient search add-on to my Internet Explorer, it also has the nice side-effect of suppressing the pop-ups that happen when you close certain web-pages. If you want to try this then go to that webpage, download the Google Toolbar (it will install automatically), then once it's installed, you have to click on the Google button and then click on "Toolbar Options." This will take you to a page where you can customize all the buttons that you want to show up on the toolbar. Don't forget to check out the "Experimental Features" near the bottom - that's where the "Suppress the onUnload JavaScript event" feature can be found.
Ogres are like ONIONS!!
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ICP_RIP
Junior Member
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7. March 2003 @ 10:24 |
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Thank you so much for the advice, I am hoping that they will be as useful for me as they have been for you.
It really is too bad that the internet has been mutated into an advertising tool for everything, and of course there has to be a pop up for everyone of em.
Anyway thanks again for the advice.
The Klown~~~
~Down with the clown,till your dead in the ground~
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PDR60
Suspended permanently
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11. March 2003 @ 20:13 |
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I guess I go against the grain. I am a network admin and work with Windoze in all its permiations everyday. I like Windows. Its great everyday os. Kinda Plain Jane. So what do I run at home. I have a Dual P3 with 10000RPM SCSI drives and 1.5 gig of ram running LINUX!!!. I run dvd::rip and I never have any problems. I only started running linux as my main desktop os back in June, so I am still learning.
However I really think that the kernel stability and the speed of the linux os are way far ahead of the windows machines I work with everyday. XP seems kind of sluggish and bloated. I really like 2000. It is like an old comfortable sweater. It just works!! But I really have to admit that the performance gain and pure stability of Open source is really impressive.
The only drawback I see of linux is the learning curve. Its pretty steep but once you get started things just get easier and easier.
As for this site. I am new to ripping. I have not tried it under windows but my linux box has not had a bad rip in 76 rips that it has done. That is impressive. The software for windows seems to be having problems. I'm not so sure that allotof it isn't just plain junk. I only wish more folks would give linux a try. It certainly will open their eyes to a whole new world of software. Free and legally free.
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PopWeasel
Junior Member
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11. March 2003 @ 20:28 |
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PDR60, I tried Red Hat Linux (I think v7.3) on my older box about a year ago. I agree with you, the learning curve is steep - it's nothing like Windows. When I tried to put the latest version of Red Hat (Psyche) on my current machine, it gave me issues and wouldn't install correctly. Led me to believe that Linux didn't have the proper RAID drivers for my Highpoint RAID controller. Or it could be that I'm too much of a damn newbie when it comes to Linux. I was curious, could you please tell us what programs you are using to rip DVD's with on RedHat? And are they installed automatically or are they additional packages/prm's/whatever-you-call-'em-in-"Linuxese" that must be selected during the install of the OS. Any info you can provide would be much appreciated amongst us who are, as of yet, uninitiated with RedHat.
Ogres are like ONIONS!!
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PDR60
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11. March 2003 @ 20:59 |
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I am not running Red Hat. I run Mandrake 9.0. I was going to load Redhat 8.0 but Mandrake had better support for "desktop" programs. Mandrake doesn't technically support the programs as they are in their "contrib" download sections. Redhat has them also. The other reason I run Mandrake is the user support and the ease of the install/upgrade process.
I would first download /purchase the os, Install it and get familiar with it. There is a great music ripper included also called Grip. Then get on their web site and start learning. Its really not that hard. The thing I like and its also probably the most intimidating to new users is... everything in linux is configurable. You can customise everything on your desktop; Even something as simple as whether you want a blinking colon in the clock.
Then start adding software. I started with DRIP. It was a good program. It would turn out a 2 pass divx5 avi in about 2.5 hours including the rip. Not bad. Then on a whim I tried dvd::rip. It is wonderful. I have since uninstalled drip. With dvd::rip I can pick and choose each chapter or the entire disc of the movie,audio,etc. etc.. the list goes on and on. The program is all in one tabbed interface. It is very easy to use. I have 76 rips and not one has failed. It uses transcode as the encoder and it does a great job. There is even a cluster mode. That means you can install just transcode on another pc and use them both for encoding. Pretty cool!!! Here are some links.
http://www.mandrake-linux.com
http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/
http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/
Check them out! and remember EVERYTHING is free including the operating system.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 11. March 2003 @ 20:59
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PDR60
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11. March 2003 @ 21:03 |
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By the way your raid controller is supported under Mandrake.
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PopWeasel
Junior Member
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11. March 2003 @ 23:42 |
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Very cool info. It's really interesting to know that you're able to rip & encode DVD's to DivX on Linux. Thanks for the tip about Mandrake supporting the Highpoint RAID controller. I will definately take a look at Mandrake. From your personal experience, is it possible to run a dual-boot system with Mandrake and XP (each installed to its own partition) without one OS corrupting the other? This is for those of us who are interested in learning/getting familiar with Linux while at the same time getting our day-to-day work done in an environment we are more familiar with until we are up-to-speed using Linux.
I recently read an article that said that much of Microsoft's software, including OS's, is bloatware and is partly aimed at necessitating constant hardware upgrades in an effort to rub the back of Intel, who favors Microsoft with their latest high-end chips. The same article went on to say that current versions of Linux, while able to benefit from the greater capabilities of newer and faster systems, still run well on old 486 systems.
The backwards-compatibility of Linux with older hardware coupled with it's low investment price is reason enough to draw attention and make anyone consider migrating from a Windows-based OS to one that won't dictate that they shell out $200 every-other year on a new OS. Or, drop $1,000 on a new machine just to be able to run that OS.
I'll step off my soap-box now..hehe. Thanks for the input.
Ogres are like ONIONS!!
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monzaman
Suspended permanently
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12. March 2003 @ 01:21 |
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Sorry I must have missed this thread earlier.
Anyway XP is NOT the problem that most people think it is. 800meg (and I've see 650meg pc run XP fine)Athlon or P3 with 256 of 100mhz mem will run XP at acceptable speeds and stability. THE REAL PROBLEM with XP is the INSTALL requirements, get this wrong and your fresh install will be buggy (presuming you get it to install in the first place). Trust me I've put XP on about 20 pcs so far without a hitch. But to get to the point were I could install XP Pro without a hitch took 5 MONTHS of my afterwork life. Read that again 5 MONTHS as some errors do not show up immediately!
For advice on INSTALLING XP read my posts here http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/26329
Once installed and you have put in the graphics, sounds (if fitted), extra CD or DVD drives etc with there shiny new drivers (always use signed drivers over unsigned drivers AND avoid where pos the default XP drivers) you then need to check the services XP is running! 50% of the services that you will find running are POINTLESS on a stand alone PC. Microsft take the stand point of turning ON (most) all the background services and letting the ADMINISTRATOR sort out which ones to turn off. Remember (and I'm talking exclusively about XP PRO here)this edition was targetted at CORPORATE Users (not home users) where it all makes sense.
Now as an ADMINISTRATOR in a Corperate enviroment you will know your stuff. But a home user who becomes the administrator by default will not have a clue BUT because it looks SIMILAR to any previous (Windows 98 etc) version the public at large think it IS the same and they DO KNOW all about it, then ridicule it when things go wrong!! Just think how many people slag off XP!! Are you with me so far?
Next we have to look at the history of XP and as you quite rightly point out it is only a point release over W2K. This should now start the bells ringing in your head i.e. when do you think the source code was written? Answer: at the same time as W2K (late 90's) which explains what I've been trying to get through to everyone about not using NEW AGP Cards etc when installing.. XP WILL NOT HAVE A CLUE AND WILL TRY AND GIVE YOUR SUPER FANTASTIC CARD A DEFAULT (BASE LEVEL) DRIVER. But your card will not run properly with default drivers will it? So what happens on install is XP gets internal timing errors (checksum faults) and either corrupts the install completely OR corrupts (the install) VERY slightly but the error will not be seen and you will not know its there except for sluggish perfomance that gets more UNSTABLE over time (as I said earlier it took me 5 months and umpteen installs to figure it all out)!
Other CRITICAL areas are your memory speed (the age of the source code explains why it installs better at a 100FSB over 133) and the periphials that you have plugged into your mobo. People forget that ANYTHING that is plugged into the mobo is LIVE as soon as the power is turned on even if it is not in use!! So all these devises are trying to get an IRQ from an OS that is not yet installed, just asking for conflicts and another corrupted install. The problem is XP is TO clever for its own good, you know that XP assigns IRQ's automatically AND allows shared IRQ's don't you? So you can see now why its dead easy to screw up an XP install and aslo explains why some older and slower machines run XP just fine although to read some posts you all seem to think you need 3gig cpus.
Next once installed be careful of the apps you put on it ESPECIALLY ANTI VIRUS AND FIREWALLS!!! DO NOT use ZONEALARM unless its the LATEST version you'll be Blue screened randomly! A better alternative is Agnitum Outpost (and its free). Use Norton 03 pro for anti virus and check your version of NERO if using this app for your burning get latest version only do not use any NERO before 5.5 as it will again blue screen you regardless of waht the box says.
One more thing, if your version of XP Pro is a bootleg DO NOT use the microsoft update sight for ANY updates as they will corrupt your install. MS knows which key codes are bootlegs (they all come from about 100 original CDs) checked whilst scanning your pc and will give you serious problems!! Be warned
And to be honest the first thing I do is turn of this service and disable alexa. But thats another story.
If this doesn't help then nothing ever will!!
MONZ
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monzaman
Suspended permanently
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12. March 2003 @ 01:45 |
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Addendum to above.
OEMs (graphic cards, sound cards,hard drives,mobo manufacturers,etc,) do not warn you as it is NOT in their interest to do so!!
PC manufacturers do NOT install XP in the same way that we have to and 'net and magazine reviewers, when testing new mobos or cards, use a hard disk with XP PRE-INSTALLED to save the headaches of a frsh install. Which is why you hardly ever get any info on XP installs on commercial web sites! It is simply NOT in microsofts or any other OEMs interest to give the game away. They ALL want you to BELIEVE that your system is crap and needs UPGRADING, and people who don't know (about installing XP) fall for this hook line and sinker EVERY time. You know who you are (95.43% of the world) its what keeps the pc world going. Its called CASH, YOUR CASH!!!
MONZ
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