This has been asked a million times but

It seems most everyone in this forum uses 64bit Vista. Is vista really that bad for gaming or are people just exaggerating? On one side people are saying to stick with XP, the other are saying no vista is fine. I am not really concerned with DX10 support right now, mainly just how they handle current games and those being released this year (age of conan for example). Another interesting argument was that XP is bogged down months after installation whereas vista is not, but rather it gets better as time goes on.

 

It`s not bad for gaming, it`s actually a bit faster than 32bit gaming if properly supported.
The worse thing though is the lack of driver support for many many things. But it`s improving, and with SP1 released,Vista looks better and works faster.
Although XP still is better at gaming, now with SP3 it`s even faster once it`s available for the public at large (29th of april)

 

so maybe I should just get XP for now and upgrade later on next year perhaps, the truth is I am a little tired of using XP but I could wait out on vista for the time being.

 

For me Vista is really great, I don't have any problems, even my old HP Printer works.
Also for gaming everything goes perfect.

I should say: go for Vista

 

i dont have any problems with any game i have tried so far. and honestly i prefer running apps on vista than i do in xp..

 

Ditto Zfactor's comment. This is my second laptop with Vista and I'm pretty happy with it, SP1 did make a nice difference.

XP was great, and I'm sure SP3 is pretty big, but I don't think I would go back to it. There are some things on Vista that I'm attached to now and don't want to let go of!

 

Before Vista SP1, I had dual boot Vista x64 and XP x86.

Now there is no need to keep XP, an well tweaked Vista is as fast as XP.

 

As fast in desktop mode.
In gaming XP will always be faste.Just keep that in mind.About 10-15% faster than any tweaked vista.

 

Now that i have Vista I'm going to stick with it, but honestly, get XP and wait till Windows 7 comes out....

 

I like vista64, but yea, the driver problems can get annoying.

As can 'unsigned' drivers like vmware that force me to use the boot option every time. grrrrrrrrrr

 

wat do u mean 10-15% faster... do you mean in framerates? if so... i beg to differ VERY much... which attribute do u say is 10-15% faster?

 

Fps of course.
I would only name UT3,Crysis,Painkiller,Half Life 2 , Cod4, GTA San Andreas...
Should I go on? In vista I could not play crysis all high at 1024x768. In XP I got over 6 more frames at the same details, SAME DRIVER # (169.44) ,no OS tweaking and got to ~20 fps.
Since 7950GTX is a DX9 card, XP seems to favour it, but just ask around.
XP will always be better than Vista in gaming, by at least 10%.
And sometimes 10% is what turns unplayable to playable.
But Vista isn`t that bad. It`s just not as good as XP.Maybe yet...

 

One little thing to keep in mind, particularly if, like me, you tend to keep your h/w and OS around for a while - unless you're prepared to upgrade to Windows 7 when that's released, or else you have _Vista Business, security support for _Vista Home stops in April of 2012, but security support for XP - both Pro and Home - continues until April of 2014.

So, if you don't believe Win7 will be out on time, or don't want to switch to it immediately (for many of the same reasons people put off switching to _Vista, most likely), or don't feel like "upgrading" to one of the Business versions of _Vista, then you'd better keep a version of XP in your back pocket, ready to go in April 2012, when _Vista Home becomes virus-fodder.

 

Software needs to be in co-relation with hardware. With my two year old computer, with 1GB DDR1 RAM, XP runs MUCH better than Vista! But on this laptop with 4GB DDR2 RAM, Vista runs way better than XP on that machine.... and with being loaded with MUCH more software, it still boots WAY faster!! Go figure!
.... What I'm trying to say is if you're buying a new machine NOW, then don't even think about XP.... And it's not like gaming is terrible on Vista anyway! Sure Crysis is the big performance killer.... but since when was Crysis well running on any given system anyway ? Crysis is an exception as we all know.... all other games currently on the market can be run maxed out with the 8800M GTX with more than decent FPS!! And by the time newer games like Crysis come out in the masses, Vista will have become more mainstream and optimized and supported So you're not losing on anything.... Today, Vista is just the way to go!! But 64-bit Vista...

 

I would say Vista 64 over Vista 32 bit. It`s faster, more reliable, and uses the full 64 bit power of the CPU.
However, drivers are lacking baaaaaadly. I had so many headaches figuring out what to do with some softwares.
And worse yet, my USB Sound Card sounded like crap under Vista,whereas in XP the volume is 3 times the one in Vista!!! It`s something that still aches me, cause I`ll be passing to Vista soon, and I`m gonna get the 8800M GTX and give DX10 a chance...
Yea,Vista is the future,but remember kids, the future can also be such a pain in...

 

The future can be such a pain in the e-butt ! Anyway, I was only talking with respect to 64-bit Vista, wouldn't even bother with 32-bit now!

 

I have gone from xp on my old lappie to vista 64 on my new un and don't regret it for 1 sec.
Yeah you may be dropping some frames here and there, but I don't notice it. I'm running COD 4/Assains creed max all at 1920 Crysis all high at 1680 and everything is as smooth as a freshly waxed ?????

 

eleron I read that the external usb card you have isn't supported well in vista, even though creative labs says it is. However I've heard the x-fi xtreme audio express card works much better (in vista) but it requires 512mb ram I believe, what a hog.

I can't decide if I want to get it or not

 

I stick with XP, but my everyday use is UBUNTU!!

 

How's Ubuntu working with the D901C?

 

I've got Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) working fine. It sleeps and suspends fine (I think) and I've got sound working fine, and I see all my Quad CPUs and ram. I love the cute extra applets in the top menu bar. I have Compiz-Fusion working perfectly and everyone loves it. My only 2 compaints are:
1 - Software that I'm using to having, but I've found replacements. Quickpar for instance, I found it for linux, but it's more of a small front end for a console. But, I was able to install Nero for Linux just fine!

2 - Options. I starting to use apps and they just don't have the nice gui front-ends or enough options to enable advance features. It's probably just be not spending enough time going through eveything.

But, what I really love it not having to spend time finding all the everyday-software that I use (like torrent gui, compression tool, drivers, IM apps, filezilla, adobe reader, iPod organizer, VLC) all on different sites, I just go to the Add/Remove or Synaptics tool and I can just search for what I need, click to install, and VOILA! It's there. That's not to say I had to go hunt for 1 or 2 apps not already available (Nero and VMware).

I'll keep learning as I use it more and more.

 

@Antebios: Any problems with the mind-set change? I did some ill-advised tinkering with several linux variants on an old Compaq laptop (that, by itself, was one of my biggest mistakes ), and found that I got stuck between the Scylla of a very different, and sometimes obscurantist underlying OS, and the Charybdis of being lulled into a sense of false-mastery by the surface similarity of the current crop of linux GUIs. Once I get some other things squared away, I'll probably dip my toes into it again when I have some time to just relax and goof around without getting anything done, but not right now.

Scylla and Charybdis, from ancient greek mythology:

Otherwise known as ancient greek for Catch-22.