Bigeye #12: Quake on Windows NT!

Created on May 30, 2020
Indexed on September 01, 2022 at 04:05 PM

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Who said Windows NT isn't suited for gaming? This often overlooked operating system is a real powerhouse, super robust and fun to use. It's doesn't quite have all the perks of Windows 95, but it's ideal if you're not concerned about running a lot of games.

Nonetheless, games that use OpenGL can run all fine under here. DirectX is also present in Windows NT 4.0, but only up to version 3.0 with a later service pack.

The Katmai-based Pentium III isn't that much different from a Pentium II if you're not running SSE-capable software. It has the same 512KB of half speed L2 cache to the side of the CPU, and runs at largely the same voltage.

To make use of SSE instructions, the operating system needs to be aware of the XMM register set. MMX and 3DNow reused the FPU registers, so they are available in all operating systems. Windows 98 and Windows NT4 SP5 support SSE with proper context switching. You can trick Windows 95 into using SSE as well with an external program, but you have to be careful to run only one SSE program at a time or be faced with serious data corruption.

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Comments

Old Winndows NTs sit somewhere between comfy and weird to me. Having (partial) Unicode support since the very first version is nice as a multilingual speaker but the lack or bad support of "consumer" features like DirectX (not that I want such features anyway) and NTs having editions make me...well I cannot express again.

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