For gaming....

I'd go with XP. Besides, Vista will get replaced in 2009 when Vienna is released, so don't even bother.BounceDK

Oh yeah I forgot about Vienna.  I heard it's supposed to actually be a new os from MS rather than a broken rehash like all of their os's since 98. 

Go with XP, you really need 2g ram for Vista. 

Win2000 and XP are essentially the same OS. The only thing you'd really gain by upgrading to XP is a new interface. I don't think its worth upgrading to Vista yet either, so I say stick with what you've got.ProudLarry

Would the above mentioned games support 2K though?  Win2K is about 8 years old now :? 

I wouldn't worry about the OS as much concerning those games as I would the system requirements in general since your machine is fairly underpowered by todays standards. No offense. Your processor is what really has me wondering if you will be able to run the games, and if they will run, will they run well...Cerza

I'm amazingly able to run Doom 3 and Prey both on medium graphic settings with this rig.  I think XP and a Geforce 7k will spark some new life back into the old bird.  It'll still be very obsolete, but it'll run stuff again.  :)  This would be the last upgrade before I just get a new rig with a faster cpu. 

I'd go with XP. Besides, Vista will get replaced in 2009 when Vienna is released, so don't even bother.BounceDK

Vienna will be delayed. I mean when was Vista supposed to be released. But yer XP since Vista is a waste of time and money at the moment. 

I'd go with XP. Besides, Vista will get replaced in 2009 when Vienna is released, so don't even bother.BounceDK

hopefully it doesnt end up like Windows ME... 

You should at least try to overclock your CPU if you aren't getting a new PC. 1.4 Ghz won't take you far.Oolark

I'm not expecting it to go much farther.  A new video card will help, but I'm honestly not expecting more than a 25% boost in performance.

hopefully it doesnt end up like Windows ME...

CYSYKO

I have a bad feeling it will.  Vista has alot of bad flaws, just like ME had.  I actually owned ME once upon a time.  It had come with my previous computer.  It's THE worst os I've ever seen.  The problems were never ending.  And it had a near 100% ram leak.  As for Vista...it may not be THAT bad, but I think it's overall not really an improvement over XP.  Hopefully Vienna will be better. 

[QUOTE="Oolark"]You should at least try to overclock your CPU if you aren't getting a new PC. 1.4 Ghz won't take you far.NocturnalDemon

I'm not expecting it to go much farther. A new video card will help, but I'm honestly not expecting more than a 25% boost in performance.

hopefully it doesnt end up like Windows ME...

CYSYKO

I have a bad feeling it will. Vista has alot of bad flaws, just like ME had. I actually owned ME once upon a time. It had come with my previous computer. It's THE worst os I've ever seen. The problems were never ending. And it had a near 100% ram leak. As for Vista...it may not be THAT bad, but I think it's overall not really an improvement over XP. Hopefully Vienna will be better.

i had ME too, it was worse than windows NT. and windows NT was pretty bad... 

[QUOTE="BounceDK"]I'd go with XP. Besides, Vista will get replaced in 2009 when Vienna is released, so don't even bother.NocturnalDemon

Oh yeah I forgot about Vienna. I heard it's supposed to actually be a new os from MS rather than a broken rehash like all of their os's since 98.

XP currently isnt even close to being a broken rehash its perfectly stable fast and a massive hyooooge improvment over win98. If it sucks for you you simply dont know how to tweak/use it.

Do you guys think this time next year Vista will be as stable as XP?jongaska

Possibly.  It's too hard to tell what Microsoft will do.  I'm going to get XP this weekend.  Vista will draw too much of my weak computer resources. 

Do you guys think this time next year Vista will be as stable as XP?jongaska

 My guess would be yes, though that depends on when the first service pack comes out. Many of the gripes about Vista are similar to those that were being thrown around when XP was first introduced, but those subsided after SP1 was released.

On a relkated note, I've owned nearly every version of Windows since 3.0 (3.0, 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, NT, 95, 98SE, 2k, ME, XP, and now Vista) and I think the people comparing Vista to ME are howling a bit too much. ME was the last gasp of an unstable kernel, something Vista is not. It does seem finicky, but once people get used to writing drivers and such, I'd imagine that it will be comparable, if not better, than XP.

I'd go with XP. Besides, Vista will get replaced in 2009 when Vienna is released, so don't even bother.BounceDK

Regardless of the OS, you wont get very far with your CPU. Youll have to upgrade it to at least a 2.0 Ghz one...

Spend the upgrade money on a new machine.  Start with a good base to build on and work from there.

Newegg

AVA Direct  

you should also consider checking your mb specs to see if your MB can accept an athlon XP processor, palomino or whatever, which i'm sure you could pick up for about 50 bux now... my old asus motherboard with the 1400 mhz thunderbird accepted an xp 2100 cpu, which added a year or two onto its gaming life.ElvisNixon

It is an Athlon.  A 1600+ running at 1.4 ghz.  To whoever asked if it was 4x AGP, no...it's 8x.  I've just ordered another half gig of DDR (yes, just DDR...not DDR2) ram (i'll have a total of 1.2g ram) and a GeForce 7600GS with 256m of DDR2 vram.  I'm fairly certain I'll get a 25ish % boost in performance (it'll still be a crappy rig) but it will squeak out another few years from the upgrades.  As for a new $1,500+ rig, I can't do that right now.  I really only play Blizzard games though I might give Hellgate, UT3, and Bioshock a try though I'm 100% positive that they'll look like crap on my machine.  Oh well...atleast they'll run....hopefully.

I just got Win XP a few hours ago and am still installing programs as we speak. So far, I'm impressed with it's ease of use and stability. I figure it will last me until, if, I get a Vista upgrade in several years when all of the problems get worked out.NocturnalDemon

What you JUST got xp have you been using win98 till now? 

I wonder if the people who complain about Vista have even tried it...I've been running it for a while now and the only thing that hasn't run is a program called Diskeeper which complained on installation about my OS. Other than that any hint of a problem with a game or program has been solved by running it in compatibility mode.

True, if you run it with all the fancy see-through stuff and side widgets it is a monster memory eater...but Microsoft has invented a cool new feature called "being abel to turn that **** off".

I got Vista free from my school so upgrading was a nobrainer...but since you're paying retail, even though I like Vista, I'd recommend going with the cheaper one if you're unsure.