Do you use an x86 based machine?

[Hammer]

iamaboringperson wrote:
I just want to know who on this site owns and uses an x86 based machine(or IBM-PC, call it what you like), especially running an operating system other than AROS, AmigaOS, or - if you found a way to do it - MorphOS.
Do you use an OS such as Linux, *BSD, MS-Windows, and BeOS on it?
If so, what for, and how often?

Me:
I use MS-Windows for games, and Linux for most of my work, including webpage design.
I also occasionally use net/386/freeBSD and play around with AROS

Main machine: AMD K6-II 400

I probably use this more than my A 4000 T

:-)

The idea for this thread has come from here:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=3661 ;-)

System details(main machine):

+ ASUS A7N8X Deluxe (nForce II class chipset)
+ CPU: Athlon XP 2600+ (@~2.08Ghz**) with 333Mhz FSB variant  (**not o/c at this time).
+ RAM: Dual channel mode PC2700 512Mb DDR SDRAM, running at 333Mhz.
+ OS 1 : Windows XP Professional with SP1
+ DirectX: 9.0a
+ GPU: Geforce 4 TI VIVO
+ Audio: NVIDIA APU
+ NIC: nVidia NIC & 3Com NIC
+ Speakers: 5.1 Surround Speaker System
+ HD1: 80Gb UDMA133 Seagate 7200 rpm IDE
+ HD2: 40Gb UDMA133 Seagate 7200 rpm IDE
+ HD3: 20Gb UDMA33 Seagate 5200 rpm IDE
+ CD1: UDMA LG DVD/CD-RW
+ CD2: UDMA Liteon DVD-ROM
+ Other: 350 Watt power supply

It’s probable that DDR SDRAM (up to 1Gb) and GPU will be upgraded in the near future (within this month)…

400Mhz FSB overclocking works like a charm (with appropriate 400Mhz DDR SDRAM, This motherboard enables CPU multipliers to be set via BIOS without mucking with Athlon’s L bridges).

I do have access and own other Athlon-Tbird/AthlonXP/PentiumII/III/IV class machines for development/testing work. Win2K3 relegated for development work at this time. I mainly develop application in the area of MIS (Managed Information System).

Currently evaluating the migration to IA-32/X86-32/AMD32 Linux (several distros) and FreeBSD. Also evaluating MS dotNET (all business related). Win32/Direct8.x based games and AmigaOS/AROS is for leisure related activities…

PS Waiting for Eyetech’s A500/1200 target PowerPC based solution… USD $299 Pegy (whatever number) is tempting. IF USD $299 Pegy is bundled with AmigaOS 4.0(licensed, not MOL like situation); this factor will push it to beyond tempting…

[Hammer]

Windows is only good for three things:
1) Gaming
2) Microsoft compatibility

Note that MS Windows NT 4.0 PowerPC edition is worst than MacOS X in terms of MS Office compatibility. So, careful on which MS Windows edition.  (IF I recall, MS Front Page 97 PowerPC edition should be available for download on the MS’s website). MS has yet to release the source code for the MS Windows NT 4.0 PPC edition.  

An updated MS Windows dotNET PowerPC edition is theoretically possible IF one ports MS dotNET framework to this platform (it enables the platform to run any dotNET applications e.g. Quake II dotNET, MS Office dotNET and 'etc').  

MS Office X.x is available for MacOS X and it has near perfect/excellent  MS Office compatibility (both in skill training/knowledgebase and data files).

IF I have MacOS X PC with MS Internet Explorer and MS Office X.x I can be certain that I can do most of my MS Office work with this setup. The issue is price and performance of obtaining the hardware(not factoring legacy software and SoftWindows 9x issues).

Note that Warcraft III (& Frozen Throne expansion pack) includes both Macintosh and Windows edition in the same CD (my RTS gaming needs somewhat satisfied with this at this time).

[Hammer]

olegil wrote:
@Hammer:

And you're telling him this because?

Not all of Windows platform editions will excel with the said areas.  

The application of;

“Windows is only good for three things:
1) Gaming
2) Microsoft compatibility”

without qualifier on the type of platform edition may lead to a false representation especially in the area of games.  The MacOS 9/X can run more “games” than Windows NT 4.0 (SP3) PowerPC edition. At the moment MS Windows XP 64 IA-64 edition is considered poor for current games releases relative to MacOS 9.

[Hammer]

64 bit windows has yet to be really made a mainstream platform and I doubt it really will be until the "next" version of windows which is at least 2 years away.

The MS Windows 2003 Server AMD64 Edition is planned be released as the next Service Pack 1(SP1) release (for MS Windows 2003 Server X86-32). The same can be true for Windows XP X86-32 Edition. MS Windows AMD64's project name refers as “Anvil” (same name as MS’s games label).

More AMD64 Windows XP/2003 refer to
http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/f/1/cf1806ad-5a4f-4f7d-a5b2-07fdb59a7adb/WH03_TPA56.exe

The next 2 year major release refers to the Windows “Longhorn”.

[Hammer]

DonnyEMU wrote:
OMG what a very weird viewpoint... No one runs NT anymore it doesn't even support  DirectX (the windows gaming  API wasn't introduced into NT technologies (beyond direct draw) till Windows 2000).  So no NT 4 isn't even a choice for gaming. NT at that time was soley for file servers and enterprise useage.

Note that, MS Windows NT 4.0(SP6) (X86-32) can run OpenGL games (e.g. Quake series)…

[Hammer]

OpenGL was hillarious under NT 4 the PIPES screensaver just crawls. Even Microsoft admited it was just there to say that NT could compete as a graphics workstation (and went on to inspire an industry that competed well against SGI)...

Dependant on the installed GPU hardware… I still remember the University LAN parties running on Windows NT 4.0.

**QuakeII/QuakeIII and mods....