Questions about drivers and OS

Hi,
I have ordered a new computer a while ago. It should be arriving some time next week. It's going to be a Zepto Znote 6625WD.

The specs are as followed:
2.40 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 800MHz 4MB
2048MB (2x1024) DDR2 667/PC5300 SODIMM
nVidia GeForce 8600M GT 512MB
160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD

My plan is to partition the HDD into 2 drives of C:90 and D:70 GB. I'm going to install Windows XP Pro 32-bit on the C drive and it is going to be my main at which I will pretty much do everything I need to (Surf, chat, program, school stuff, 3D modeling and animation, etc). On the D drive I'm going to install Windows Vista Business 32-bit. The reason I want Vista is for one simple reason: DirectX 10...

But, I'm really not experienced in matters of graphic cards and PC gaming, since this computer will by far be the most powerful I have ever owned. So understandably I have a few questions. I have spent a lot of time surfing the web trying to find answers to the questions but some still remain.

The first one regards drivers for the graphic card. I know extremely little about drivers in general, but I get the gist, they improve performance, fix glitches and so on. I have been hearing that some users of the same type of computer as the one I've ordered have experienced problems with some drivers for this graphic card. I would like to avoid this happening to me .

I would like to know which is the best driver to use for Windows Vista 32-bit if I'm mostly just gonna be playing games. I plan to play Crysis, CoD4: Modern Warfare, Gears of War, and possibly Unreal Tournament 3. Obviously I will most likely play others games eventually as well, but these are the main focus for now.

But I also need to know which driver to get for Win XP Pro 32-bit. I'll still probably play some older games and MMORPG's on it, but I will also do video editing in Adobe Premiere and After Effects, 3D Modeling and Animation in 3D Studio Max, possibly Maya, and programming in such languages as C and C++. So I need something that will keep up.

The thing is, I have been looking around about drivers, getting a lot of hits on this site because Google seems to refer to it a lot. However whenever I find a thread about these type of driver questions there is never a solid answer. Instead there are opinions of people who have tested one and say it works. I would much rather have an answer from a person who has tested more than one and can from person experience tell me which he or she thinks is best. I just fear that I might have the same issues as the people who have been reporting problems with some drivers. When I read in some places that people have blank screens and nothing runs as it should, it kind makes me worried as I plan to take good care of my new computer.

.. Also, I have another question. This one however is not about graphics and drivers. Although I do wonder if this will improve my game performances... I am planning on eventually buy more RAM. Most likely 4096MB (2x2048) DDR2, although I haven't completely excluded the possibility of 2048MB DDR3. Since it will most likely be 4GB, should I consider upgrading my OS's to 64-bit? The cost for this is not an issue for me as my college issues us genuine copies for free as a part of our education. I'm mostly wondering if it's worth upgrading to 64-bit? What are the pros and cons? Would this improve game performance by any chance and so on?

I have loose plans on working on a machinima in Crysis, so I would like to get it to look as good as possible. I'm probably gonna do all the recording from a different hardware recorder like a digital camera and not a software like Fraps, since Fraps will hinder the game performance.

 

Looong post. .

Why do you want to have both XP and Vista? Vista is really good for the things you mention. Might save you the headache of looking for XP drivers for all your hardware. Give Vista a try. It's also a sure way to keep your machine in good working order. Not all new machine are compatible with XP, mainly because of lack of drivers.

Which driver is good and which is bad depends mostly on preferences or so I noticed. Best is to check www.laptopvideo2go.com to get drivers and read peoples opinions on them. I don't upgrade my drivers that often. As long as they work fine then I'm okay. There is no solid answer to this question.

To get drivers for XP check with your notebook maker. They provide a lot on their support website. But like I said, give Vista a try, it's really good and it can save you a huge headache.

To use all your 4Gb of RAM you need 64-bit OS, but this requires a clean install if you want it. To go DDR3 you need a mobo that supports it. I don't know if your laptop supports it. I don't know any mobo that supports DDR3 right now.

 

Thanks for the quick reply

I just somehow feel safer with XP. I've been working with it for so many years. Plus it uses up a lot less computer power than Vista. Even with that I usually set the XP theme to the old 98 style just for an extra boost . Plus it's not as flashy .... Another thing is that there are still a lot of open source and freeware programs out there that Vista still doesn't support... or so I hear

As for the driver thing, well, I'm assuming that there must be one that has so far had the best effect, and resultet in better performance than the others and so on, so that's one I'm looking for . I just need a general direction as to which main ones to look at for best performance.

Right, so 4GB would be useless if I don't upgrade to 64-bit? Is that the only benefit to 64-bit systems, more RAM?
As far as I know, my computer should be able to handle DDR3, but I'm not sure. Either way, it'll most likely be 4GB DDR2.

 

If your comfortable with XP stay with it. It is however the past.
6 months ago I got 6625W 4G ram and installed 64 bit Business Edition Vista. There are issues with Vista.

In the main I run Sql Server 2000 & 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. It works well enough. My legacy software installed OK and works.
As I write SP1 (the proper one) is being rolled out and should be on my laptop in 2-3 weeks.
The core is being changed to that of Server 2008.

I never felt the need (or panic) to install XP

 

Well I can say one thing to you: Its most likely that you get all the software you need to run under Vista!

I even managed to install a XP SP2-only program on my Vista 32 without any problem (after setting compatibility with XP SP2)

 

The 6625WD does not support DDR3 memory.

 

Well that solves that


So, most people seem to suggest that I simply forget XP altogether. Upgrade to 4GB DDR2 RAM and install 64-bit Vista Business.

Anyone that doesn't agree? Still haven't heard anything about pros and cons.

And I'm still not fond of all the CPU power that Vista uses up for simple things that don't matter.

 

You can easily disable the things that don't matter. See the Vista Tweaks thread in the Windows forum.

I've got Vista running on my Sony G11 which has a U1500 CPU and it works. 9 hours + battery life is an indication that Vista isn't unnecessarily thrashing the CPU.

John

 

People who thinks vista eats away their system by being heavier than winxp just dont know how vista really runs.

Its just not true, vista even handles duo core and quadcore ALOT better than winxp, so you will actually gain cpu performance when doing multithreaded stuff.

install vista x64 and sp1 and tell me it runs better than winxp.. if you truely belive that, then youre not allowed to comment on OS performance in generelt, because then you are doing something horrible wrong.

Simply dont get why so many people love to hate vista and are scared of it? It has just as good driver support as xp, if not even better! since new software is more often released to vista32 and x64 and not for xp at all.

The only time id advice anyone to not install vista over xp, is people with lower than 2gb memory.

 

In general, I agree with the above, but did you mean better or worse in this sentence:?

John

 

I don't hate Vista, and I'm not scared of it. Like you said, I simply don't really get how Vista runs. That's why I'm asking about it. If I was scared or it or hate it I wouldn't even be considering it.

And whilst I can't verify anything you've said, there is a whole lot of talk from Other people who have used it and still say it is to heavy and slower and so on, not to say I don't trust you. I'm just being careful. I've read several reviews and they all seem to at least mention in one way or another these flaws. One review mentioned how companies get a lot of trouble with Vista and simply don't want to bother with all it's problems, so they switched a lot of their machines back to XP. A lot of people simply say that Vista is not stable enough yet, that it will take more time for it to get stable and that until then it's safer to stay with XP.

I'm just taking everything into consideration before I choose. I'm not prejudice against any OS or developer.

 

Vista 32 runs very well indeed. even if we have to wait until march for the "official" service pack1. I prefer vista over xp. I run a network with 20 XP machines, and 7 vista ones, the vista ones work MUCH better with fewer errors (don't think I've seen a single blue screen in just over a year!!!!!!).

 

@g0gge

Sure I get your point of view, but my advice would be test it out yourself! lots of reviews are only written to find errors with vista when it comes to conclusions. I would say that you cant trust those really.. because they might test it for one thing only just to push it far enough for it to make some kind of error just to have something to write about.

Most people use their OS for different things and thats why we also have this constant PC/windows vs mac/OSX war which is silly if you ask me, because it all depends on what you use it for.

point is, test it yourself! only then you can be sure if its worth it or not. My bet is that you will like it. : )

 

Ok I'm still considering it... But in the mean time... More info about the drivers maybe?