First of all I would like to apologize if this becomes a lengthy or confusing post but I do have 2 very important questions.My goal is to get an ancient pc setup for all of the old school games and console emulation.

The specs of this pc are as follows.

800mhz Celeron Processor

256mb sdram

16mb VooDoo 3 2000

Windows XP Pro SP2

I just recently bought the computer for $50 and it already had Windows XP Pro installed. The motherboard is not capable of upgrading over 256mb of ram and Windows XP seems to be using somewhere around 160mb of that just at a stand still after bootup. Now my thoughts were to reformat and install Windows 98 as to hopefully increase the amount of ram available. Games like Baldur's Gate 2 on this system seem to run very choppy and slow even though I am well above the system requirements. Diablo 2 runs flawlessly but most games that should run well seem to be choppy or slower then they should be.

Now my two questions!!!

1.) Now I actually have two copies of 98se but both copies were so scratched that I could not use them to install the OS. I did however manage to get alot of the files copied into a folder on my desktop off one of the cd's and the missing files off the other cd so I have the full directory of the 98se install in a folder. The problem is I have to reformat before I can downgrade to 98se. I was thinking since I cant use the cd's to install 98se that it may be possible to copy the folder with the 98se install directory to my secondary harddrive and after I reformat the primary drive with xp on it I could boot into DOS and execute the install from the secondary harddrive. My question is if I do that will the 98se install automatically choose my primary harddrive for installation?

2.) Is it going to make enough of a significant difference in games that rely on ram like Baldur's Gate 2 to downgrade and go through all of the trouble of downgrading to 98se? ALSO: One of the reasons for downgrading is my Voodoo card is not actually built to be run on XP obviously and downgrading would allow me to use the original drivers instead of third party drivers which would bring more compatibility.

I think the issue needs to be examined a little before everyone starts agreeing...

The issue isnt people complaining that the game is bad because its short. I personally feel ripped off when I spend $60 on a game that lasts 10hrs and sometimes offers no replayablility. I might as well rent the game spend the day playing it and return it.

Now, of course the "casual gamer" may disagree but there is still a very large amount of people in the world that are considered hard core gamers and who enjoy the lengthy games.

One of the main reasons Oblivion is so popular is its lengthy neverending game play. If I spend $60 on a game take it home and play through the 20hr campaign and there is little replayability I feel ripped off and its likely the next time I touch the game its going on Ebay.

To be honest I am more upset with the games being catered to the casual crowd these days then they are for the hard core gamers.

Well the most impacting game I have played that really showed me the love of gaming was Neverwinter Nights.

The games that really stood out of course back in the day and made me love gaming was when Atari started to release its top sellers. Back then those games seemed amazing even though gaming has come a LONG way. 

I will share with you something I just went through to show the seriousness of my addiction towards gaming.

I recently have been looking for a new apartment or house. While looking a found a perfect little place near my job and conveniently located to most everything I would need. I ended up turning the apartment down though. The reason I chose to turn it down is I have a pretty hefty surround sound system hooked into my setup and with the location of the place I was moving it would be impossible to take advantage of my sound system with the neigbors right next door. This is the core reason I chose to decline the place. I ended up moving into a place way out of the way in the middle of no where far from my place of work.

I found it funny to really take a look at myself and just laugh at the reasons behind picking the place that I did.

How dare they offer us leaderboards, multiplayer gaming, tournaments, downloadable content and voice chat!
Really though, Live is great and I don't think it's motivating developers to do less with the single-player portions of their games, just EA. It's an innovation and it sucks if you don't have it, but single-player games were all developers had to make in the past. The online element is an entirely different part of the game to focus on now, and a lot of gamers prefer online multiplayer to single player games. Developers are still creating games like Mass Effect and Bioshock, and Guitar Hero II still has same-console coop play (even though that's the only coop play). Live didn't ruin gaming, it's making it better.

DaHunta90

Your missing the OP's point. Because of Live being offered most games are focused on the Live portions of the games since Live is a huge feature Microsoft is focusing on and they are doing away with offline co-op in alot of games as well as effecting the length and quaility of the single player experience. Sure its great that live is being offered but this dosent mean they need to sacrifice the single player game and completely do away with offline co-op etc.

Live should be an addition to what we are used to in console gaming and not such a focus as to do away with single player experiences, length, and co-op modes.