Gemeral gaming Vista vs. XP questions.

Hello.

I’m about to purchase the XPS M1730 as a top range mobile gaming machine since I move around a lot due to work. And would be very very grateful if anyone could help me out with a bit of advice. Point in question: Vista vs. XP. Dell is offering a downgrade package for this laptop and I can’t decide which OS to get.

Since this has ended up being a bit long winded, I’ve broken it down into separate questions/issues/concerns:

a) Resource usage – One of my biggest problems with Vista has always been that it is a resource hog. However from my understanding this is a non issue with for this machine due to the specs. But just to be sure will I notice a hit in performance due to this if choosing Vista over XP?
b) Compatibility with older stuff – I keep coming back to older games from time to time on my current machines (think: The Lost Vikings, Syndicate, Fallout 2, C&C First Decade; stuff like that), I assume the only way out to continue doing this with Vista would be to have XP on dual boot. How accommodating is Vista with this, are there any big issues to doing this?
c) Direct X 10 and 9 – Is Direct X 10 required or highly advised to have for the top range games (for example something like Crysis) Will it be a performance issue if I go with XP and directX9? From my understanding directX10 is not really utilized in games to the point where it’s a pain to be without it.
d) Ability to use the hardware that’s there – Again from what I’m led to believe XP cannot use all of the 4 gigs of RAM and neither can the 32 bit Vista. This leads to the following:
a. Is the Vista preinstalled by Dell on these laptops 32 bit or 64 bit?
b. Will using 3.something gigs and not all 4 gigs due to OS be a big performance issue with the top range of games?
c. Is the RAM the only thing that suffers from this issue of OS not being able to use all the available resources properly?
e) Driver compatibility/support – I’ve seen it mentioned that this laptop has some driver issues. Is this true? If yes are these driver problems relating to Vista or XP? Should I not worry about this at all as the system has already been out for some time?
f) Any big difference between Vista Home Premium and Ultimate? Which would you recommend?
g) With Microsoft planning new OS’s in the future is it even worth getting used to the new setup/controls of Vista after using XP for years and years, or would you personally just ride it out with good old XP for a couple of years?

Sorry if this is a lot to take in. The question is just doing me head in. 
On one hand it would be easier for me to just stick with XP on the other I don’t want to end up with a sports car that I can only drive to work and back, it feels nice and you can show it off but you ultimately never get to use it to it’s full potential (if you get the analogy)

Please if you can help even with 1 or 2 of these questions, it would be soooooo awesome ><



TLDR version: As a gamer what would you pick for this laptop, would you go with Vista or XP?

 

Well, gemerally speaking p), if it's compatible with vista, at this point there is no reason to use XP. Vista is the future, and with new systems now, you can't notice the performance difference if any.
Driver support is a lot better for vista now. The limitations with memory usage is whether your OS is 32-bit or 64-bit, not depending on XP or Vista.
Hope that gives a little insight.

 

Vista the future? Hah =)

 

Keeping in mind that Windiws 7 will be building on the Vista codebase, would you like to tell us what Dumpduck thinks the future is?

 

Dell only installs 32 bit OS afaik. Even with their premium brand alienware. That, in my opinion is very stupid choice but hey, i don't have billions of dollars and a company named after myself.

There's really no reason not to use vista. The drivers are basically up to par with XP performance.

And no, you won't get a huge boost from 3 gigabytes of memory to 4 gigabytes provided you don't edit video etc.

Especially since by the sheer fact that you're on these forums, you're already more savvy than 90% of vista users. Configure Vista however you like it and make it really slim.

 

Tennmuerti,

I placed a new order last week for an XPS 1730 notebook through the business division. I wanted to order it with the XP Windows operating system but was told that they no longer offer it as a purchase option for this particular model. The Dell sales rep also told me that this is true for the home division as well. You may want to check and verify that this option is still available, since I was told otherwise.

 

For strictly gaming XP hands down, forget what the Vista apologists say with the benchmark numbers. I run both OS' and XP kills Vista with MUCH LOWER resources better framerate and smoother gameplay.

Direct X10 is a joke and very few games even take advantage of it. Crysis is one game along with Microsoft Flight Simulator X but framerates hamper FSX running in DX10 and the visuals don't look that much better as opposed to DX9.0c

If you want the latest OS then get Vista it should run most of your games. If you want to squeeze out every drop of performance of your games then XPSP3 is still the way to go. Vista still cannot give me 60 race cars (rFactor) on the screen with max graphics settings all running at 60FPS.

 

First off there are reasons why vista is a "resource hog". For instance when gaming on xp sp3 I use the same ram as I do with vista business sp1. The reason it uses so much ram is that it caches it for quicker use, and yes it does work. As for comparing vista gaming to xp, there is zero difference for me on any of my systems.

 

Rubbish. I have Race07/GTR Evolution, it works fine in XP on my Asus M70VM but when I run it in Vista I get stuttering, it's not the card doing it - nVidia 9600M GS, it's not the CPU C2D P8400, it's Vista. And it's not the video drivers or any others as I've tried all the drivers under the sun and they haven't solved the issue.

My advice for gaming, to be certain you get the best from games is to use XP.

 

Yup same problem with my gaming rig. That's why I only use XP.

 

Well I dual boot with Vista and I'm trying to move to Vista because my Avermedia A577 expresscard TV tuner refuses to find digital channels in XP (something which Avermedia can't solve, despite the card being XP compatible) and to be honest Race07/GTR Evo is the only game that I get such a problem with performance on in Vista, I have the odd stutter in Oblivion when run in Vista but it's not as bad and certainly doesn't ruin the playing experience.

All my other games run adequately imo.

But XP is proven, it does have better and smoother fps in my experience and generally you can run games in higher settings/resolutions straight out of the box.

I find with a number of my games I've had to reduce the res from the native 1920x1200 to a lower one in Vista, not to mention I have to run them all as administrator and in XP SP2 compatibilty mode just to make sure.

In XP I've installed all the same games, I've not had to play with any of the graphical settings after setting them to max and I've had much more game time because I haven't been trying to work out how to get the games to run well...

 

All the more reasons why XP is the OS of choice for games when you want to squeeze the maximum performance.

I do use Vista but it's for my business laptop. I actually prefer the look of XP over the glassy look in Vista, again just personal preference.

 

I'd recommend Vista in most cases unless you absolutely MUST have that extra 5-7% FPS. (the only difference I can see)
Perhaps if you bought a laptop that requires a car-payment and feel less-than if you must claim 57fps average instead of 60fps.

Vista usually runs older games with some exceptions in XP compatibility mode.
Be forewarned that due to the soundcard driver changes, a rare few games must be run without sound. I haven't found a game which won't work with some tweaking or downloading a patch, but not all laptops react the same.
XP is most certainly better for old games.

Vista offers security and stability that isn't possible on XP... and keep in mind that Dell support will most likely be in Vista and not XP.

XP is just fine and does indeed give a small performance margin and support for older games, but Vista will support the future... DX10, DX11 and beyond.
You better bet driver development, windows development, and all the support is going towards Vista...

Heck, you could even grab Windows 2000 and install it if you really wanted to get rid of the extra overhead...

 

Thats why I play the only game I own, Solitaire, on XP exclusively

 

Because we all need them extra frame rates when playing solitaire ;P

 

That's my new story (frame rates) and I'm stickin' to it

 

Me too, so in Vista I choose Classic Windows style and get rid of the Aero that Vista starts with. My desktop looks the same now as ever.

 

Yes XP does offer some performance boost over Vista but not by much.
Vista 64 with 4GB's of RAM is pretty close performance wise.
On a side note you might want to check out the SAGER NP-9262 SLI, it performs better than the DELL and is much cheaper!