Hi Everyone

I Have now saved up enough money for a new computer , i have got someone who is going to build it for me , but i am still not sure what operating system to use,
the main programs i will be useing are Vue 4 d'Esprit , Poser 4 and xfrog , at the moment i am using ME

Thanks for any help
andy

Attached Link: http://www.litepc.com/

Well everything is better than ME. There is no program in your list that requires NT based software. It depends what you plan on doing I guess. I use the KISS system Keep it simple stupid. Those 3 programs i'd get 98lite but most here will disagree with me. Operating systems consist of no more then about 10 megs of file tops all the rest is bloat slowing you puter down and degrading preformance and security. But Pick you poison after all it's your puter. I haven't found a program yet that can't run on 98 lite but micronot is fast trying to change that. But it still maybe years away.

What is a KISS system??? I have tried to run Vue on Windows 98 (worked fine) On ME 'worket fine (but I hate Win ME) Since a few days on XP Pro, works fine too. As well for Poser and other soft. I like Windows 98 for its simplicity. The other programs likes to make things more difficult. And completely OT: I would like to create a Network from XP Pro to Win98 and Win ME. Whatever I do, I get only the Internet connection shared for all OR the file sharing fo all, but never can get both:-( I use a Switch). Some idea MightyPete? Guitta

Attached Link: http://www.winproxy.com/english/products/WinProxy/pd_WinProxy_en.asp

KISS SYSTEM= Keep It Simple Stupid. You need somthing like server software to handle that. I use a Nat box and a switch but if you do not have one of those you need somthing like Winproxy Software. Silly XP sould have Winproxy built in but I bet there is not some similar program inside. Winproxy is a pain to run that is why i eventually built a Nat box. It's a small computer running Linux acting as a server tht works extremly well. Switch is the best way I'd say. I like it better that a hub it is trickier to use till you figure it out. Different operating systems is where WinProxy can be a real pain but the server machine will be running that software. Now what you can do is plunk WinProxy on a useless not to slow Win box (Yard sale stuff) and keep it as that server then just plug everything into the switch. That box only does the server nothing else. I own this software but I never use it anymore. I wonder if I can sell it. It's a older version though. There is different softwares around too. I'm not saying this is the best or cheapest but it worked for me when I used it till I built the NAT firewall box. Now XP should be able to do this of course but it's probibly some stupid option that costs way to much extra. I wouldn't trust XP to be a server anyway. It's a hole in one..... All operating systems are just DOS"s Disk Operating Systems. There only job is putting / finding files on the drives and now days TCP/IP and of cource letting you see it on the screen. That it. The rest is BLOAT. The part you use of XP that's atually the DOS is less than 10 megs the rest if you deleted it carfully would not even be missed. The computer would still work just find and be 500% faster. Even though computers are fast there still serial devices and not parallel so the more instructions you have running in the background the slower you puter goes. FAST= WIN 98 Lite on a 3 gig computer SLOW= XP on a 3 gig computer So explain to me what is so good about it? I'm not a XP expert so maybe somebody else knows how to get the proxy server on it running properly if it's possible. If I had to upgrade my operating system right now cause WIN98 lite no longer worked I'd use WIN2000 If the box had to remain assimilated otherwise I'd just use Linux and delete Winderbugs.

I use Windows 2000 Pro and with the exception of a few games runs everything better than any other OS I've used. (I haven't used XP). Since moving to Win 2000 I've never had a windows crash. Applications still crash very occasionally, but it doesn't drag the entire system down.

Thanks every one for some great advice

I'd say stay away from 98 or ME if you are looking for stability and security. I agree with MightyPete that XP has a lot of bloat but I bet Vue runs faster on XP than 98 and the OS is a lot more secure if you are running this computer on a network or cable modem/DSL.

Plus I would imagine that XP is a lot better for plug and play as far as using newer cards and devices.

In terms of what operating systems do best (memory management, disk i/o,process, thread management etc) XP/Win2k is in a whole different class over 95/98/ME

As far as home networks... I would recommend linksys type routers like this one

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10235958&loc=7074

IMO it is the easiest, cheapest and most secure way to get a bunch of computers to talk to each other (and get out to the internet)

Attached Link: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm

"but I bet Vue runs faster on XP than 98 and the OS is a lot more secure if you are running this computer on a network or cable modem/DSL." I'll take you up on that bet. $10,000 fair enough? I could use some easy money. Put your money up and we'll test it fare and square, winner takes all, first box to get hacked pays a extra $10,000 stupidity bonus this will include popup banners showing up threw MSN backdoors as a hack cause it is and is a security risk. Well I beg to disagree, Maybe faster then 98 but not faster than 98lite. With 98 lite you'll get computer clock speed as in it cannot go any faster unless you change the processor or overclock. As for security, Where ya been man? There is a new hole a week found in xp at least if not more. 3 this week alone and one of them installs a new hole. This is a not secure operation system by any stretch of the imagination. How can you truthfully say that? Any operating system with IE and LOOKOUT is a hole with a big red sign saying hack me please, I'm easy! Like how may worms have wiped out the web this year? Oh you forgot to patch? What about the a least 5 patches this year that made new holes? As for stabiliy I beg to disagree too. A look around this site ( the link), Look around the help forum. Unbeleavable how anyone could say this is stable ! You need to sign up to see the posts but it's painless. Oh don't forget to look at all the 1000's of problems people are having getting there hardware working. Make sure you read the post about the guy changing his motherboard and having to buy a new copy of XP pro from micronot. You only need to run Zone Alarm on 98lite to make it hack proof after you remove IE and LOOKOUT form the installed components. But there is a bad side too in that is a few short years this probably will not be a option so as time goes by problems will show up. But hey you got time to upgrade later after most of the bugs are ironed out or Mirconot goes bankrupt. All he needs to get is the 98lite loader program and it will load his ME as a new 98 Lite version. Cheap like $25 bucks, done deal. But like I said pick you pain, but lets tell him the truth. Like 98lite for sure is not the best solution but look at the big picture there is no best solution. Even Linux you may have problems running some of these programs but somebody did get Vue and Poser to run on it. Xfrog probably will run no problem, it's a fairly simple program it may even be available in Linux flavor I'm not sure.

I use Windows 2000 Pro on my graphics machine; never had a problem with it at all. I do have the occasional application crash (including Vue), but it happens a lot less frequently than it did when I ran it on this machine, which has W98. I keep the other machine offline, although I have the 2 machines connected thru NIC cards, but although I was able to configure the W2K machine to see this one with no problem, I couldn't get the drivers to work correctly on this machine; they'd conflict with the dialup settings and I'd lose that capability. So from experience, I can recommend W2K Pro; it's very stable.

Sorry mightyPete - as a newbie on this forum I didn't mean to hit a nerve! I know you are respected by everyone around here and you offer very knowledgeable advice.

I have not used win98 in a long time so I can't say whether vue runs well on it.

I can say as someone who works in computer security that all operating systems have flaws, winXP, 2k and linux all can be exploited over a network and sitting at the computer some easier than others.

When talking about fresh installs of one vs. the other I still believe XP is more secure despite having new vulns found everyday. The architecture of 98 was not meant to be secure or keep people out. There are many file share and remote registry exploits available for 95/98/ME that allow any determined hacker an ample oppurtunity to take over the computer. I think going into detail is quite off topic but would be happy to discuss it with you further on a private channel.

Running ZoneAlarm will certainly help protect you from hackers whether using XP or 98 and it is a good practice.

As far as bloat,cost, stability, these are all relative to the consumer and their needs. I personally run XP and Vue and it works pretty well although I was getting a weird crash with custom materials recently...

again sorry to stir the waters - just trying to offer my outside perspective.

• Jason

No you never hit a nerve. Just that I find that 98lite is so lean there is nothing left really to hack. Like even if you tried to run a virus it probably cannot run. The only thing you have to do really is write protect winsock32.dll. Like I said I'm looking for the smallest DOS not the largest. You don't need large to handle these fairly simple programs. Vue works as well as any other program I have here. Is it crashable? Sure, I think you can crash any program on any operating system if you go nuts. Like I've crashed it but not to often. Usually it's my fault trying to do to much all at once. See I want max speed max memory to run my software as fast as possible. I really don't like bloated code. I'm from the old school where every instuction counted and size was everything.Pride in ones code that it was as small as possible and bug free or at least error traps. I used to write programs. Like they can't even figure out buffers this day and age. We are regressing. If XP was made that way I'd be recommending it but it not. Can't be done? Bug free software? Mojoworld 2.0 came out in the summer and it's still 2.0. I haven't found any bugs in it. It works well. It can be done. I have a few programs here that have never died ever. It can be done. A bet more then half my programs are that way at least. Some people got the right idea. I just don't like the direction operating systems are taking. Like changing the mother board then finding out you got to purchase the operating system again. No thank I'll pass. That's unexceptable to me. If everyone said no we would not be putting up with this BS. Oh noticed Xp Look at it sidways... It's Bill RIP

I'll have to back Pete up on that; 98SE done as a 98lite install, with the shell swap for the 95 desktop, is a peppy, stable, and pretty robust OS. Once you get IE, Outlook, scripting host, and the active desktop completely out of your system, you have slammed the door on about %95 of what's out there. The bugs are still there, such as the buffer overrun problems, but the -vectors- to access them simply aren't there anymore. And the resources that are freed up when IE and active deskcrap are not there is almost scary. Just as an example, a couple of years ago, a friend was bragging about how ballsy his system was (a P-III something running NT4). He had a legal copy of 3dsMax 3.1 from school, and commented that my then POS white box wouldn't even install it (a K62-350 on a Tyan 1590 mobo, no overclock). That machine used 98lite, and it not only installed Max 3.1, it ran it in software mode. The only BSOD he pulled out of that computer was when he popped the CD tray during a disk read. And I have run Vue on 98lite (on a slot A Athlon 700). Did just fine and dandy. Maybe a bit slower than win2k due to the better memory manager....but then again... Hmm. I may have to put a second Vue install on the current XP1700 C drive for 98lite to use and benchmark which performs best....

I think XP is optimized for newer CPUs. If you have 1900+ processor, I would get XP Pro.

Charles

win2000 the best :)

Dale B. That would be a interesting test if you do it. I'd like to see the results. I plunked Win2000 on a puter and it crawled so I can't see how it could possibly be faster. It's a no brainer Speed=cpu executed instructions (Flops) If you cut the instructions down to the bare min the speed will increase, It's directly proportional. Now there is things like swap files and who knows what but a clean machine should be much faster because only render and output should be running. Like there is no magic here. There is only so many instructions available on a 32 bit puter. Nothing you do is going to make them execute any faster. Like it don't matter what operating system the processor instruction calls are the exact same. Good thing too. Now sloppy code could impact it but complexity is usually a sign of sloppy code. So what's going to render faster? A 80 meg 98lite or a 1.5 gig Win2000? I'd like to see. The Win2000 boxes that are at work run slower than my machine here. Most of them are newer and faster processors than mine here. Yes there is a few instructins in the newer processors that Win may use or not use. The running program chances are does not use them. Not to many out there yet. And big deal Intel has them and AMD does not but running the code on the Intel box VS running a AMD box shows no real advantage. The AMD box still does more work in the same time frame. So where is the advantage of these wonder instructions? It like a Sale a 4 letter word. Beware. Put the price up 50% then mark it down 25% and call it a sale. Bottom line is your pocket book cause it tells the real truth. See Intel chips keep getting faster and faster but the FLOPS are not doubleling for every double of the clock there dropping like a rock so they put extra code in there to speed it back up. Like a 1 gig processor and a 2 gig processor from intel you'd think it would think it would be twice as fast but it's only 25% about faster. So add a new bus and get it to 50% faster then call it a sale ! See my point. So it may seem faster when the operating system is using it but it's actually slower than it should be still. By lots to. The 3 gig chips are only 10% faster yet. That's why AMD give up on that Mhtz idea long time ago. It's a poor measure of work done. A cool test I did. A Intel and a AMD that was exactly twice as fast. Same job. Intel time 24 hours to complete task AMD should be 12 hours right ? Nope 3 hours 22 seconds. Why is that? FLOPS, More FLOPS per clock cycle. FLOPS ( Floating Point Operations) Win2000 will not save you on a AMD. Now on the Intel above that would have improved the speed task down to about 12 hours and we'll call it a sale. Same processor speeds would have cut it down to 6 hours. It's still a 4 letter word.

Most artists don't want to be hackers or take the time to fiddle endlessly with their machines. I'd say go for XP for stability and ease of use. Another factor which has not been mentioned but can be very important for artists is XP's thumbnail view in Explorer. Until XP I hated Explorer and only used substitutes, but now I wouldn't be able to live without it. The value of being able to SEE what you've got cannot be underestimated.

XnView is free, where ya been? And yes the idea is art not hacking and that's what I do here. Art. My machine takes care of itself. I don't even have to Patch!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not talking about viewers. I'm talking about thumbnails when you're in Explorer. Big difference. I have viewers myself but viewing thumbnails while looking through directories is wonderful. Patching? I let XP patch itself.

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1037305,00.asp

Ya like the last patch that slows your computer down to half speed. That's the problem when you let somebody else do your thinking for you. Hang on it's going to be a bumpy ride ! That patch will shurely make me 10 grand if he would just take my bet. Thumbs in Explorer is nothing new. 98 can do that. I had it here at one time but I just use XnView now cause it has just so many other pluses like sort by image type and it can open and convert almost any kind of file.

Hey, you were the one who advocated the KISS system and automatic updates is definitely KISS. Just uninstall the update if your machine has the problem. Mine doesn't. Win 98 did not have the same thumbnails. And 3rd party explorer replacements are slower than XP's thumbnail view.

I'm running W2000 and crashes now are so rare that I forgot they still existed ;) Faster or slower? There is no differense that I can notice. I probably could if I used an test applicatin but I can't otherwise. I prefere the stability over maybe a couple of percent speed increase. I have stayed away from XP as i can't se what it adds to the usability of an OS compared to W2000. Not when it concerns size, speed, functionality or stability. To me it's like a car with for weel steering..who needs it.. Also keep in mind that big HDs kan be a problem on older systems and they might not use your RAM the best way either.

A Promise card will solve the BIOS limitations on drive size (assuming the old system is new enough to have the PCI bus; don't think they have a Promise card for VESA... :P ), and MS has a new FDISK executable that allows formatting drives larger than 64 gigs. And memory issues are more a matter of chipset and BIOS not being up to the demands. I think Pete's KISS principle is better stated as Apples are Red. Not Orange, Green, Blue, or Pink with Purple Polkadots. What 98lite does is allow you to decouple things from the OS that are -not- part of the OS. Browsers are applications for accessing URL-tagged information. E-mail and newsgroup readers are for their parts of the net. None of the above is 'an integral part of the Operating System'. And the Internet sure as hell isn't. OS's deal with I/O, system resource management, memory access and management, and providing a common set of connection protocols for any compatible 3rd party application to function (the keep it simple part. Simple is more compatible). Every application that is bolted onto an operating system under that layer may be 'neat, cool,' whatever apellation you like. But you expose parts of the system to access that shouldn't be. MS and its fetish for sticking everything under the hood and claiming it an 'essential' part of the OS has been the one prime reason for the rampant growth of the script kiddie. Each 'New and Improved!' version of Windows has had more junk added, and each version has had at least one order of magnitude more security issues. And that holds true with just about any program that accepts data from outside. Eudora 5 has more issues than Eudora 4, simply because it has a more 'capable' embedded html setup. Makes it easier for the porn spammers to shove gifs and flash under your nose, but who really =needs= to embed an active web page into an e-mail? A hotlink is dangerous enough, and all you really need. I know that not everyone is or wants to be a geek...but if you are a computer user, you need to be at least a neo-geek, and for one simple reason. Computers aren't appliances, despite the ad campaigns, and Ghu forbid they ever become so. They are incredibly sophisticated and versatile general tools...because -what- they do is defined by what applications they are running at any one time. A simple change of app turns a text based chat toy to a CAD station. Or a virtual world simulator. Or artist's toolbox. And a craftsman has to get to know their tools, because even something as apparently simple as a hammer has 'personality'. Mass produced or not, there are very subtle differences that can affect usage. OS's are even more distinct critters, due to the incredible number of hardware configurations that can be slid under one. It's not a matter of knowing what it's doing; it's knowing what is going on when it looks at you and doesn't do what it's supposed to. And the fewer things you have to choose from, the easier it is to find the trouble.

XP Pro......been using steady for over a year.....rebooted once (the XP equivalent of a crash). No more "blue screens" like you'll get in any Win 9x system. Defrag it once a month and you won't crash at all. You can leave it running for months without having to restart your computer. The memory management is amazing. I have a 1.7 ghz processor, 512 mb of ram and P-IV. I run Bryce 4, Vue 4.1+, the new PsP 8 and Poser 5(not to mention all the typical Microsoft Office stuff I use for my job). Poser 5 is the only real memory hog in the batch, but XP Pro manages the memory issues without shutting down a thing.....simply allocates more memory so Poser can finish whatever it's doing. I'll never own anothe OS.

i am just getting vue and have xp. i currently use poser (crashes on its own- no help required from microsoft), bryce (gets error messages on importing 3ds and crashes) so hope things are better with vue. i do think all the recent security updates are really screwing up xp as i am getting more crashes of programs that never crashed before

There was another post here about one of the recent updates that has created some real problems.....especially slowing the OS to a crawl. Apparently Microsoft has acknowleged it. Fortunately, I didn't install that one. If you're using auto update.....don't :) It's better to go to the update site....read the faq's for each update and then install the ones that you really need and make sense for your system. I typically don't install anything that's not rated as critical. Since getting Norton Security, I pretty much avoid Microsoft :) Some programs will still crash in XP Pro, but at least your system doesn't. Aside from the typical Poser problems (lock ups vs. crashes for me), I've had no problems with Bryce 4 or Vue on this OS at all. One other suggestion: Defrag on a regular basis. That can prevent a lot of problems and may help with some of your program crashes.

Another thing that will help is running Norton's Windoctor in the Utilities package. You would be amazed at the number of ActiveXCOM registry entries that dangle, shortcuts that aren't, and other kinds of mess that you get even doing a clean, recommended setup of Windows. Shortcuts are more of a nuisance, but -any- damaged or unlinked entries with the Active X controls or the COM libraries can and will cause you major trouble. Including causing programs that -have- no registry entries to crash, or not start at all.

Thanks everyone for some great advice:-)