I'm deciding whether or not I should stick with XP, or install 98SE on my beloved P2--the first PC I bought purely for entertainment. Nowadays, I use it as a DVD player for the TV in the basement. Just can't let it go :) Specs: P2-300MHz, 384MB of RAM, Radeon 7000 card. The first thing I tested after 98SE was installed was of course DVD playback. The P2-300 is just too slow to play back DVD content without hardware assist from the video card. Under XP, the ATI hardware assist was automatically enabled when I installed the driver. I was able to play movies under WMP-10 with only 70% cpu usage. But I can't get 98SE (or ME) to use the card's hardware assist. In the control panel, it says that ATI hardware DVD is enabled, but it certainly doesn't seem like it. I'm only getting around 15fps and horrible fullscreen image quality. Tried alternative drivers, updated 98SE to DX9, used different media players, and got no luck. Anyone know why 98SE (or ME) won't let me do this? ATI tells me that the procedure is the same as XP; hardware assist should work. Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core. Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2 X800XT AIW OC 580/600 2GB of RAM 250GB HD SB Audigy 2 QDI Advance 12 mobo Smugly running Vista

"Tried alternative drivers, updated 98SE to DX9, used different media players, and got no luck" You've tried WinDVD or PowerDVD?

PowerDVD. The same PowerDVD that was providing the codec for playback using WMP10 under XP. Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core. Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2 X800XT AIW OC 580/600 2GB of RAM 250GB HD SB Audigy 2 QDI Advance 12 mobo Smugly running Vista

What version of PDVD? 3.0 or 4.0(PDVD XP) work good on older systems. Plus those specs are a bit over kill for dvd playback in 98SE as a p166 is required as a minimum for PDVD3.0 to playback files. Just to ask how much VRAMM for the Radeon 7000? YOu say XP plays fine? well did you try changing DMA mode on your DVDRom in 98 to on?, removed any running junk before playback?, tried removing and then reinstalling just one DVD player and say WMP9. As for the program ATI hardware DVD tried turning it off and then restarting, turning it back on restarting adn then tried a movie? If this equals that, then why does that equal this?

I'm using PowerDVD 5.0. DMA on the DVD drive is enabled. Fresh install--no junk/malware. But I still can't get the video card's hardware assist to freaking work. Grr. Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core. Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2 X800XT AIW OC 580/600 2GB of RAM 250GB HD SB Audigy 2 QDI Advance 12 mobo Smugly running Vista

Problem solved. Tried Windows 2000, and got both hardware-assisted DVD playback AND faster boot time (the faster boot time is why I wanted to install 98SE in the first place)! Thanks Pentium III--Descendant of Intel Core. Pentium III-S 1400 @ 1.63GHz, 512K L2 X800XT AIW OC 580/600 2GB of RAM 250GB HD SB Audigy 2 QDI Advance 12 mobo Smugly running Vista