Microsoft OS for gaming

Which MS OS is best for gaming? Vista Basic 64bit or Vista Premium 64bit?

 

I don't think you'd notice a difference between the two. Besides, you can tweak Home Premium to run like basic (disable Aero, services, etc).

With that said, I'd get Home Premium.

 

none of them get a 32 bit OS

 

Why is that?

 

hey D if you are planning to game on yor rig in the sig, then its pretty hard, Vista is a ram hog.

 

He doesn't know. I would advocate that 64-bit operating systems have no outstanding compatibility issues, however I would go further to say for a fact that more and more games are being compiled for the x64 architecture, so it is at least a wise future-proof decision.

@OP; go for Home Premium. When you start games in Vista, Aero is disabled anyways. Basic also lacks a ton of features that most users need.

 

thanks bog and @ brainer its going to be for the NP5796 i am gonna get once it is released

 

With the standard today being 2 GB of RAM in most new computers, I wouldn't go as far to say that Vista is RAM hog. However, if you only have 512 MB of RAM, then yes, Vista will use most of it.

Dreidel, It seems the T3256 is a desktop? It should be very easy and cheap to install 2 GB of RAM. That would greatly improve your performance while running Vista and games.

 

In that case, definitely go for Home Premium and, as bog recommended, stay with 64-bit. There really is no reason to use 32-bit unless some vital software you use does not run in a 64-bit environment.

 

check out my pic u wont find a bigger geek than me here, trust me a 64 bit Windows runs slower than a 32 bit and it wont even run older games.

 

just wanted to add that on Microsoft site it says that only premium comes with the power optimizer (setting the power mode to performance, power savings etc)? that feature is pretty much necessary for laptops correct?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

 

Are. You. Joking?

Do you even understand the architecture. One of the biggest points that the 64bit has is the speed increase, along with being able to fully access 4Gb of RAM. I have 32bit on my Vaio, and 64bit on my P-FX. The 64bit seems faster, but this could be due to having 4Gb of RAM.

Please, don't make un-educating accusations about an architecture without actually doing a little research. Don't get me wrong, I don't know much about it, but saying it is slower than 32bit is absurd.

 

hehe sorry for rushing my conclusions, well, Grats on your upcoming system, its a hell of an upgrade! rofl

 

Well....I beg to differ. Crysis, for example, has benched noticeably faster with the 64-bit version. 64-bit Windows - or any 64-bit OS - cannot run 16-bit applications, yes, but you have to go pretty far back to find a game that cannot be run for that reason. Specifically, to the mid-90s. Windows 95 did away with 16-bit, for crying out loud.

Any productivity or other non-GPU-bound software properly coded to take advantage of wider 64-bit data paths will be faster on a 64-bit OS. 32-bit applications will run at the same speed regardless. Some games - notably HL2 and UT2004 - may run slower with their 64-bit executables, but there's another reason - in UT2004's case, the 64-bit executable runs in DirectX 9 mode while the 32-bit version runs in DirectX 8. In the case of HL2, the 64-bit mode uses higher precision FP32 pixel shaders, whereas the older 32-bit executable ran in FP24 mode.

The only issue with 64-bit Vista is the requirement for signed drivers, which precludes the use of some programs like RMClock and some older hardware. Almost all modern hardware has proper x64 drivers, however, and the transition up to 64-bit is pretty painless, not to mention it's a solid step towards future-proofing your PC.

 

64 bit Windows will run the same speed or faster than 32 bit in all but the most rare of cases. 64 bit will also run all software except for the most rare of cases. Nothing is ever 100% backwards or sideways compatible, but Vista 64 is about as close as you get.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself!

 

You must be joking....
I can play Starcraft(10 years old) on a x64 Vista....

Agrees, 64 bit is much faster.

Ya, I want to get it set up on my laptop, eventually.
It offers much better performance, along with a lot of more features.

 

I don't really listen to much that comes out of Satyrion. Seems like a nice kid, but always posting inaccurate and absurd things.

 

I concur 100%.

 

It really doesn't matter, just make sure it's 64bit.

I disagree; you do know that some games like Crysis and Alone in the Dark take advantage of 64bit, right?

 

Is that really a pic of you? ....

Anyways, I am new to the 64-bit OS world (dual booting XP 32 and Vista 64), and I am so damn close to making Vista 64 my main OS. In every day tasks, it feels so much "snappier". I finally feel like I can move to Vista and be happy about doing it.

The only issue I am having is finding some solid video drivers. I have tried quite a few from LV2G, but the ones I have tried have been buggy to say the least.

 

Thank you, KGann. Because I was at a loss of words after that comment.

Ok Satyrion, you can't just post "crap" when you are making statements like that. Not to mention, after posts like that, you will lose credibility for your "serious, good posts".

 

Satyrion, this is not a forum to post "crap" in. Do you realize how many people read this forum, and take advice found on here. When you post misleading information, you potentially guide people into believing false things.

Please don't do that. It's very immature. I find it hard to believe you were an amateur reviewer, and yet you find it okay to post innacurate junk on a helpful forum.

 

whatever you do, don't go below home premium and don't go to ultimate unless you want to get 8GB of ram :$

 

Remember though if you need to connect to a domain (pretty rare), only Vista Business or Ultimate can do that.

 

Uh, you do not need 8GB of RAM for Ultimate. Ultimate is running quite well on my 4GB.

 

QFT. Both on laptop and desktop no issues with a paltry 4GB of RAM.

 

so how much faster is crysis running under x64 compare to x86 XP?

 

Don't know, there's a huge difference from my 8400GT to my 8800GTS. It runs faster, but that's probably attributed to the GPU/RAM. I'm thinking about getting a second HDD and booting XP with it.

 

Please stay on topic, i had to clean up a whole lot of irrelivant posts.

 

i can almost doubt it runs faster

 

It wont be that much faster, as it doesnt really use the true 64bit architechture.

Most programs/games are still running on the 32bit subsystem. To truly take advantage of 64bit, it needs to be programmed to be 64bit native.