Is that the improved stability that left them wide open to most of the viruses and worms of recent years (such as Blaster), to which 9x were often immune?

(That doesn't include "OMG CLICK COOLSHIT.SCR.PIF.COM.EXE FOR NEKKID PICS OF ANNA KOURNIKOVA" email viruses, of course. Then again, since my main mailbox is a Unix shell account, I don't worry much about those...)

That's not entirely fair, the biggest wheel is going to get picked on the most.

I used 2k for a while and was quite happy with it. I still use... um, recommend it when I'm upgrading an older PC for someone.

That being said, I refused to move up to XP until the first service pack came out.

I'm running XP on a PIII 800 with 512 MB of RAM and it runs fine. If you turn off all of the glowy crap and visual enhancements and run your pc with a little attentiveness and don't install every plugin, browser bar, weather bug, clock updater, calender, run MSN, ICQ, AOL and Yahoo Messenger, while playing winamp and solitaire with your anti-virus, ad-watch, winamp agent, quicktime monitor, lotus works quicklaunch and your office shortcut bar running in the background you'll be fine.

And don't forget to run your updates.

I use Windows Update on a regular basis and haven't had a problem. YMMV.

If stability is your major goal, then Linux or BSD would be good choices. Not as many games for them, though.

For me, my job is developing for Windows (mostly) with some Unix thrown in. If you have to use a Win32 OS, then 2000 and XP are better choices than the 95 based versions.

Doom 3 is coming out for Linux.

A /. story has information on how D3 might work with $500 cards but is so underwhelming with information that I refuse to link it. But in it, it's hinted that people got a decent game experience on a 1.5 ghz machine with an MX440 card. Maybe the best thing to do is wait.

ATI 9800, P4 1.8, 512 RAM. I expected my system to choke on this game based on the hype. At 1024x768 medium detail the game plays beautifully and looks amazing. I was thoroughly impressed and the game has a couple "jump out of your skin" moments.

Gameplay is basic, not really groundbreaking, and the scary moments in the game so far just amount to the cheap shots (demons dropping from the ceiling or popping into your field of view suddenly). But this game really is the natural evolution of Doom. I think that as long as you go into the game expecting to see just that, you're gonna be thoroughly pleased.

I went and bought a 9800pro card and it wound up not working. Might be due to a power supply (not again!) and thus require a whole new supply. This game is getting expensive and I haven't even installed it yet.

98SE wasn't too bad. ME sucks, but it could be worse, you could have a Mac and be stuck with a machine that crashes more than any Win2k box, costs twice as much, and has a tenth of the software available and a one button mouse. lol

If you're a stickler for not wasting any resources, go with something thin like Linux. Although the learning curve is a bit higher for that.

I went into ebgames to buy Doom because I heard it was one of the best games out, then they guy convinced me to buy x box and wait another two months to get doom on it. But, i heard the game was fantastic.

Fuck the guy at EBGames. Go get it now. You'll thank me later.

Friendly advice: ignore everything the guy behind the counter at EBGames says. In fact, more often than not, you can take his advice, do the exact opposite, and you've made a better decision than those dumbasses are capable of.

And if you really want to have fun with them, ask them to pronounce "Suikoden".

the thing is that he said that you need a top notch computer, which i can believe or else this thread would not have been created. according to him, that if my computer is as old as i say it is, it will run at an incredibly slow rate. I may just buy the xbox

Post specs.

Early reviews are saying that the game is not that bad on a minimum box. I think it would suck on an Xbox where the controller isn't made for FPSing.

OTOH I'm waiting to debug my 9800pro video card before installing it. I want the maximum effect.

Yeah, I've never considered my system much of a "gaming rig" but I'm really pleased with how D3 looks. Granted, I haven't seen it on a high-end system, so I really don't know what I'm missing.

I'm not bashing on the Xbox here, it's a helluva a nice console, and I tend to prefer it over the other 2 current generation systems, but yeah, D3 really needs to be played on the PC. You're gonna get the following:

1. Higher resolution
2. Mods! There's already a couple out to improve the game a bit (I like the duct tape mod)
3. Much better controls. Let's face it, console controllers have a long way to go before getting this right on an FPS. Halo tried, and in some ways succeeded, but the bottleneck here is not the games.

So get the Xbox, and get SSX3 and Crimson Skies with it. But upgrade your PC if needed, and play Doom 3 the way God intended.

the thing is that if i spend 55 bucks and i can't play it for shit because of my computer, its a waste of money. And i don't think i'm going to be getting an upgrade any time soon.