Im buying a new computer shortly and the company im going through have Windows media centre and xp pro as the 2 o/s's this is going to be a gaming rig so which one is better ??????

I'd go XP pro for the functionality. I've never used Media Centre edition, but I'd wager it would be as much of a piece of crap as XP Home.

XP Pro

Vista Home premium, it's better than XP Pro and has the media Centre built in.

Can i still play Direct x 10 games on media centre as im getting 2 8800 gtx sli ???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you need Vista for Direct X10, but I believe they are trying to do something about that for XP.

Cheers fellaz

Correct, afaik XP is not officially being supported in DX10. There will undoubtedly be third party haxed versions that may allow you to run DX10 games in XP but no official support (unless they have changed their minds).

MCE is really only going to make a difference if you want to run your PC through your main TV and use a remote with it to watch regular TV shows/navigate to other crap without leaving the lounge.

I do have a media box on my TV not to watch regular stuff but only to play my magical utorrent tv shows, the machine has MCE installed on it but I never even use the actual Media Center part. I dislike navigating with remote button and I personally find it easier to just use the mouse on the floor click the vid file I want and sit down and watch it.


If your new rig is going to be a DX10 gaming rig, go find a Vista flavour to suit.

last edited by rubba-chikin at 16:52:16 19/May/07

Im buying a new computer shortly and the company im going through have Windows media centre and xp pro as the 2 o/s's this is going to be a gaming rig so which one is better ??????

Windows Media Centre is XP Pro +extras. they ripped the advanced networking features out. unless you need to log into a domain just to log onto your machine XP Pro is kinda pointless

neither will play games any differently

Cheers koopz that set's my mind at ease

koopz is on the money, MCE2005 is XP with a mce plugin. But i also think that the kernel is a newer version (same kernal as x64 and Server 2003). So bit more stable/newer from my experience.

But i also think that the kernel is a newer version (same kernal as x64 and Server 2003). So bit more stable/newer from my experience.

surely they'd update the kernel in xp pro through windows update if they made critical security/stability fixes?