i might be changing OS and wanted to know what the best one is? i play a lot of games and am learning to work with 3dsmax5.1.
my dad says openVMS, as he was one of the designers for it, but i'm not shure

If you want to play games, the only choice is Windows and maybe Mac or Linux if you are prepered for a very limited selection.

You won't find any mentionable games in other OSes unless you want to go for DOS

Also, AFAIK 3ds max is a Windows only application, so you don't really have a choice there.

As for choosing a version of windows, Windows 2000 or XP Professional are the things to consider.

There really is no "best OS", though some people would say otherwise. It all depends on what you use the specific OS for, if the user knows what they are doing, and what your opinion is. It's a question only you can answer.

I would say Windows 2000 would be one of the most stable versions of the Windows OS. Though XP has done very well for me on my current system (but not as well on my prior PC).

Linux is good for a lot of reasons depending on what you need it for. You can't expect to play very many games on it especially if you don't know enough about what your doing to set them up. In my opinion a stand alone PC using Linux as a router/firewall or something of that sort is a very good idea. Again, it is an OS that takes a LOT of work to learn though.

All in all, if you know what your doing and treat your OS right, keep it up to date, etc then it will treat you good as well.

What you really should be asking is "what should I not go to?"

Don't go to

Win 95
Win ME

and you're fine.

good post xtr

i willing to learn thats not a problem i've got win xp but want to be the only one at the lan to use a different OS
cant you use games with an emulator or something?

Why would you want a different OS? You're going to have problems at your LAN party when no one can network your comp onto the network. Just go XP, and get ThemeXP so it will look different.

one of the smartest things i've read on a message board.

but it's also true that you'd want to stay away from windows ME (95 is dead so staying away from it isn't an issue)

depending on your knowledge of computers either go with win2k or winxp. xp is basically 2k only user friendly, meaning it adds some 'bloat' that some people dont like but for the average user i think it's well worth it.

if you're using a windows based computer and the game will install then it doesn't matter what OS the other people are using.

my advice is to stick with winxp.

If you go with Windows XP, make sure you have AT LEAST 512MB RAM. I've installed XP on many systems and it turns out that the bare minimum for smooth performance on XP is 512. Even with tweaking XP for performance no other quantity of RAM below 512 will do it smoothly. Just a tip.

i dont mean to argue with you by any means but.....

i run xp on a machine with 256mb of ram and have never had an issue with anything. it runs very smoothly. i can run several massive, memory intensive applications at the same time (photoshop 7 comes to mind) without an issue.

that said however, i do still plan on getting another 256mb of memory.

Linux has a program available called WINE allowing your to run Windows appilcations on a Linux Box, ive seen people run Half-Life, quake 1-3, and more games.

But like the others said, be prepared for a battle, and i suggest knowing what your doing before you even INSTALL linux.

If your just gonna play games, Stick with XP...i run Theme XP, and you can make it look MUCH different than everyone else at those LAN parties.

if you REALLY wanna be different, get a pimped out case with lights and stuff.

Ask yourself how long it takes for things to load.

"Whats the best OS" is not a question that can be answered easily:

Windows is the sole OS for gaming. Sorry to say it but Linux with WINE is useless.

Linux or FreeBSD are the best OS's for serving. Web serving, network serving, etc. They aren't up to desktop usage, and probably won't be until X11 is replaced.

BeOS is, well its BeOS. It does what you want. But it's not for serving or gaming.

MacOS is goodf if you have the money to support the kind of machine it needs. Its also not for gaming. But it can serve.

To me it sounds like all you want is to look cool or different at your lan parties (No offense, I like "pretty").

I strongly suggest sticking with Windows XP and just get ThemeXP as suggested or DestopX/WindowBlinds and add a bunch of cool looking, graphical moving, memory intensive pretty things and you will awww and oooo your friends.
(just turn it off when you want to actually play a game :P)

next to instant. the only exception being photoshop 7.

what type of RAM are you using?

OK here is best OS's for different categorys

Best gaming: Windows XP SP2

Best crash protection: Mac OS X

Best Security: Windows XP SP2

Best Graphics: Windows XP SP2

Fastest OS: Linux

All on standard system specs

any OS can be fast if you configure it right...

also I suggest checking out [URL=http://www.deanliou.com/WinRG/]WinRG[/URL]

Best Security: Linux

If you really need 3DSMax, I'd say Windows 2000. It's a stable and very clean OS.

If you can do Linux, Ubuntu would be the first timer approach.
For 3D on nix, check out K3D. I find it quite a nice program. It's directly integrated with Renderman.