Everything We Need to Know About Vista

I am creating this thread in hopes that the experienced collective minds of the OS savvy can post their knowledge on the Vista issue. My concerns, I hope will be addressed, include: What hardware do I really NEED to run Vista? How long will the transition to Vista be (estimated) before it will become the norm (as XP is now) on laptops and desktops alike?
Does one absolutely need a 64-bit Dual 2 Core processor to run Vista, as well as discrete graphics to run the graphically enhanced portion of the OS? If so, what Dual 2 Core, and how powerful a discrete card: 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, more?

I hope this thread benifits others as those who have insight on this topic post what they feel is relevant information.

 

Its more what hardware do you need to RUN vista in a functional manner.
The laptop in my sig runs vista (rc1, anyways) in a functional manner. The aero function does not work because of the integrated battery life, but running aero decreases battery life by about 50%, so I wouldnt use it even if my laptop could. You need at least 1GB ram, and a 60GB hard disk. A higher level PenM/Turion (preferably a dual core) will run it pretty well. 64bit is wholly unecessary, because there arent that many programs that utilize 64 bit technology yet. for Aero, you want at least a Radeon (X200M/X1150) or GeForce (Go6100/6150) integrated graphics card, GMA950 may run it, GMA900 does not; I would prefer having a dedicated card such as the Go7200 at minimum.

So in a list, what I recommend people to get for their next computer (my next computer will likely follow the same guidelines):
Dual Core processor
1GB+ memory
80GB+ hard disk
low end dedicated graphics
DVDRW
wifi

The mass transition to vista will occur after the bugs have been, for the most part, exorcised; usually this is after the first service pack is released. XP was released late october 2001, SP1 was released in september 2002, and I bought my first XP based machine Dec 27, 2002. It will likely be the same case with Vista.

 

So you are saying Dual Core would be optimal, (with the other specs), but not neccessarily Dual 2 (Two) Core - 64-bit? What will one not be able to run w/o a 64-bit like X2 or C2D?

 

I understand other programs are not 64-bit and will be released slowly, but what aspects of Vista are actually 64-bit?

 

I have run Aero with very minimal hit to battery life. There is NO WAY you take a 50% hit while running it. If you do, your system needs to be checked out. You take much more of a hit if you turn your screen brightness up. My low-end discrete card doesn't take much power, and it can run Aero fine. I'd say I only lose about 20 mins vs. XP, and that can be attributed to Notebook Hardware Control not running.

I also don't think you need 80 gb of hard drive space, unless you have things to put on there. Vista doesn't take up much more space than XP does. It only requires 10 gb, but recommends at least 20. I've got it on a 15 gb partition and it's running very happily.

 

what is aero? i have a amd x2, 1gig ram, and nvida 6100 vid card, but my battery life sucks ass cuz its 12 inch laptop.

itd be nice if someone tells me what it is and also if i should install rc2(64bit) since i am downloading it right now. thank you.

 

Aero is Aeroglass a new graphical feature of Vista that makes it look spangly but eats up gpu performance and probably battery as well.

 

Norm of RAM with Avast, IE7 or FF2, Sidebar & maybe 2 other medium resource hoggers is around 500MB - 600MB at any given time.

But when you use Heavy resource apps it's usually 800MB - 950MB+.

I know 1GB is only required, but IMO I would seriously recommend at least
2GB ram. There has been occasions when Multitasking a combo of certain apps can push over 1GB. EX: Gimp 2 & Adobe CS2, ...combined with the already running e-mail client(poppeeper in my case), IE7 & maybe a media player will most likely push Ram over 1GB. On XP it will still be well below 1GB.

But Otherwise my mem stay at 500MB.

But then again there is Virtual Memory & ReadyBoost. So It might not require more installed ram

Graphics Card should not be that much of a issue, I'm running Aero on a B.S card. (Look@SiG) My Graphics Score is 3.0. <<That is borderline tho.

Gaming is good on vista .... Need For Speed Carbon doesn't work yet tho. Most other games I tried did work.

I'm already hooked on Vista .... It sucks logging to XP, but I have to in order to use Active Sync & certain Games.

I'm using Matte. Even tho I prefer Matte, I think Vista might look much better on a glossy.

MY non tech Vista updates .. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=84306

 

With the 64-bit version of the processor you will be able to run the 64-bit version of Vista that will also be released along with the 32-bit version. Coincidentally Vista will give machines different scores depending on which version of the OS you are running (32-bit vs 64-bit). The 32-bit OS will give a lower rating than the 64-bit version on the same exact configuration in some cases. When I was testing it that was the case for me. I never got a chance to check dual-core on it though.

 

I heard Vista will check for copyrighted infringed files on your computer is that true? I think that has to be false, it is going against our privacy.

 

I actually had fears of this for a little while until I sat down and thought about it...how the freak would they do it? Ha, I doubt we need to worry about getting busted for your copy of "The Matrix" being illegal, and not because they are protecting our privacy, but because they really don't have any way to do it. It would just be too hard to discern what is a legal and illegal file on ones computer.

I'm running vista RC1 build 5600 on my PC which has a gig of ram, 120gig HD, P4 at 2.6ghz, ATI Radeo X700Pro. Vista is a little buggy (well, its still a beta, and a lot of the programs I am trying to put on it are designed for XP, so I would expect it to be a bit finicky). It has a nice look and feel, but it really isn't any huge improvement over XP, there is absolutely nothing you can do in Vista that you couldn't in XP at the moment (or at least I have yet to run into ANYTHING like that). Vista does streamline a lot of things though, like networking. I really do like it though, and would buy it, but I would want to buy one of the higher end packages and they are just going to be too expensive to be worth it AT ALL. Heh, if worse comes to worse I'll just keep running the beta .

 

Vista has a partition management program. XP does not.

 

Mmmmm, yeah, forgot about that, but I'm sure someone could cook something up (a third party tool or something) if they were motivated enough.

 

RC2 is a completly different story I didn't like RC1, but RC2 is MUCH better. And there plenty that vista can do that xp can't. In term of mostly minor stuff tho. But that all adds up.

 

More about Aero, please?

Do you Vista users find that it kills battery life, and/or uses too much GPU power so that you can't game properly?

 

I haven't noticed any Battery change. I usally get 2 1/2 - 3 hrs on XP and Vista(with Aero). Maybe Aero cuts 10min or so ...Who knows??? But I haven't seen a noticeable change in battery life using Aero.

Gamming seemed the same to me. Aero did not seem to mess with anything.

 

Wait....were did you get RC2 from? I've only been able to find RC1...**** now I really want RC2...WHY IS LIFE SO CCCRRRRUUUUEEEEELLLLL.

Edit: In response to smartsam, I'm running vista on my PC so I can't say anything about battery life, but I have noticed something a little funny. With vista my graphics cards temps are actually a couple of degrees cooler than it was with xp, I would have thought the opposite because I assume it would be working the graphics card harder, huh, strange. But vista does use half my friggin ram even when I'm not running anything (I have a gig installed). Aeroglass does look cool, really cool, but I wish they could find a nice way to streamline it into the window when you have something full screen.

 

LOL, Why didn't you look for a torrent file? It's all over the place.

Heres a Link ... http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=Vista+RC2

The first link should be Ok. Ask me if you have a problem DLing anything.

Your serial number in RC1 will also work in RC2.


And I also wish Aero was kept in Full screen.

 

Well that re-assures me a bit. But do you find any lag in the computer? Like sometimes you type faster than the computer can display it?

 

Rofl, ohh, my old pal bittorent, why didn't I go to you first (actually I did when the beta FIRST came out, then sort of forgot about it). Uhh as far as lag goes, I notice nothing other than a program loads a little slower than it should once in a while. Ohh, and media center on vista runs like CRAP...but it does on XP too so I guess I shouldn't expect too much from it.