Windows NT 4.0 Improved Video Performance Michael Hayman
Once we got past the installation problems, everything worked fine. Except for the aforementioned application categories, all our applications appear to be working.
Microsoft's claim that the video architecture change has improved video performance is true. Both Wintune 95 and application testing bear this out. Cached hard disk performance has also improved significantly. For desktop apps, we've seen performance that's equal to or better-in some cases, substantially better-than Win95's, provided NT isn't starved for memory.
NT Server 4.0
With all the attention being paid to NT 4.0's new user interface and other end-user features, what could Microsoft possibly add for network managers and server administrators? Actually, quite a bit. NT 4.0 represents as significant an upgrade on servers as it does on desktops.
We tested NT Server 4.0 on a variety of single- and dual-processor Intel systems, as well as on a Mips Technologies RISC-based system. It was generally stable, and most features worked well. The few exceptions were mainly in cases where new features were not completely stable (or in one case, even available for hands-on evaluation) in this release.
NT Server is not a lightweight operating system. Microsoft's published requirements are a 486 or better CPU with 16 MB of RAM and at least 148 MB of contiguous free disk space. We found these minimums were inadequate for all but the most casual user. Realistic requirements for a light- to moderate-duty server are 32 MB of RAM and at least 1 GB of hard disk space, depending on how many users you intend to support.
