time to upgrade to vista ?

[Arge]

Hi,
I have held off from vista since my new build about 6 months ago as I had access to xp pro and the price quickly shot over budget even without including a copy of vista !

Anyway, with dx10 being around for a while and 10.1 here also i feel i should upgrade. If i do i will also purchase another 2gb of the same giel memory which i think is around £35 (mad as i payed over £100 !!) Do people think this is a good idea ? or will 2gb cut it ?

My current specs are in my sig below and my main question is...

Is now a good time to upgrade to vista ?

Also, is there an ETA on Vista SP1 ? as this should smooth things out a bit !?

Also Also, Am i right in thinking it would have to be the 64bit version if i am to run 4gb memory ?

Last Also, which version of vista would people reccomend for home use and gaming ?

Sorry for all the questions but everyone on here always seems to know the right answer so please enlighten me !

Thanks

 

[Arge]

Me again !

Just thought id add....

I know i will need a new graphics card to experience dx10 and above but i am waiting it out until nearer christmas and am interessted in what the g92 8800gts will be able to produce as i have just purchased crysis ! nuff said !

ta

 

[Kobrakai]

If i do i will also purchase another 2gb of the same giel memory which i think is around £35 (mad as i payed over £100 !!) Do people think this is a good idea ? or will 2gb cut it ?

4GB will run smoother under Vista 64Bit.

Also, is there an ETA on Vista SP1 ? as this should smooth things out a bit !?

No official ETA has been released but it is rumored to be around Q1 2008.

Most of the updates that will be in SP1 are already available via Windows update.

Also Also, Am i right in thinking it would have to be the 64bit version if i am to run 4gb memory ?

That is correct. The 32Bit version will only use ~3.2GB.

Last Also, which version of vista would people reccomend for home use and gaming ?

Home Premium or Ultimate depending on your budget. Go 64Bit if you can for the 4GB support.

Is now a good time to upgrade to vista?

As good as any.

 

[Arge]

thanks for the quick post Kobrakai, brilliant !

Ayone else got anything to add ?

Hows are games running now compared to when vista was first introduced and all i read about was big framerate drops under vista ?

 

[Fire Wizard]

Hey Arge, this is a fantastic time to move to Windows Vista in my opinion.

When Windows Vista was first released sure their were a few problems with compatibility, however, this has now changed and the support for Windows Vista is now excellent. The majority of the manufacturers out their have now released 64-bit drivers (If you are looking at going for the 64-bit edition, which you should be ) for their hardware and as regards to software, once again, the majority of software now work perfectly fine under Windows Vista. Their have also been a few problems within Windows Vista but the majority of these are now fixed thanks to the Performance and Reliability packs that Microsoft have been releasing along with other updates. Now their are still a few problems around for example, slow transfer rates across networks, from one folder to another but this seems to be only affecting a few people and not the whole user base that is using Windows Vista. Though I believe this is set to be fully fixed in Service Pack 1 (Fiji) which is due out in the first quarter of next year.

Here is a great graph that compares all of the editions of Windows Vista with one another. The two you are most likely looking at are Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. I have used both Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate and in my opinion, Ultimate is not worth the extra £50 over Home Premium.

Referring to your question about, "will 2GB be enough for Windows Vista". Windows Vista runs perfectly fine with 2GB of memory installed. Now if you was to upgrade to 4GB, in the Windows environment, especially in Windows Vista because of the way it utilises memory (This is a good thing), you should notice a performance increase in application loading times and general usage around the desktop. Now in games, this may not be so apparent. Their will be a increase but nothing major. I have yet to seen any benchmarks or articles stating that the jump from 2GB to 4GB makes quite a big difference in games. Now if anyone wishes to show me some evidence stating that there is actually quite a big increase in performance going from 2GB to 4GB of memory in games, then please post since I would be generally interested.

Having said all of that though, memory is so cheap at the moment, if you would like the extra 2GB of memory, it certainly won’t do your system any harm.

Now as far as gaming performance goes, in my opinion, it is now exactly the same as Windows XP, I notice no slowdowns what so ever. Now I understand that some people are still having a few problems but I believe these are very far and few between these days and I feel that some people tend to over exaggerate things a tad. Though please take into account this is under DirectX 9. Regarding DirectX 10 performance, going on most of the responses from others, it currently isn't up to scratch and is actually better to run it under DirectX 9 in some games. Now in my opinion this has nothing to do with Vista and DirectX 10 itself. DirectX 10 is implemented just fine and it is the hardware that needs to catch up a bit. I think their is a lot more to DirectX 10 then some people think. If someone disagrees with me on this, please post and state your reason. I would be very interested in hearing other people’s views regarding this.

 

[Arge]

hey, thanks fire wizard !

It may have been a long post but i think you have just convinced me to upgrade !
One more question though, u say...

If you have a processor that is capable of handling 64-bit instructions then their is no reason to go for the 32-bit edition.

My processor is a core2 duo e6300 surely this is 64bit right ??

 

[R4z0r]

My processor is a core2 duo e6300 surely this is 64bit right ??

Yep

FWIW, I'm running 64bit Vista here and it's awesome!

 

[uv]

hey, thanks fire wizard !

It may have been a long post but i think you have just convinced me to upgrade !
One more question though, u say...



My processor is a core2 duo e6300 surely this is 64bit right ??

Yes it is

I have the same grfx card as you, and whilst Vista doesn't exactly cripple gaming speeds, it definately *isn't* as fast as it is in XP.

just an FYI

 

[Vimes]

hey, thanks fire wizard !

It may have been a long post but i think you have just convinced me to upgrade !

If you have made up your mind to go for Vista then the best of luck to you
In my experience it runs well, but consumes a lot of memory when booted - although I have been told Vista can release memory as needed.



As you can see above I have 4GB of memory and at the moment I have Firefox open with three tabs. In my system tray I have Comodo, Avira Antivir, and a bluetooth icon.

When I boot Vista it uses around 1.1GB of memory and XP uses, with the same stuff loaded, around 300mb (a bit less than that) of memory.

Look at almost every games requirement. Vista's specification is usually higher in what it needs to run a game than XP.

However, as the above seems to be critical of Vista, I must also balance it by adding that since I have 4GB of RAM and have Vista X64 loaded then the full 4GB is available. There is no point in having 4GB of memory if you do not use it and I'm quite sure that Vista will.

The only 'real' issue that I had with Vista, which was related to the fact that it was 64bit, was with the game Vampire Masquarade. I had to edit the msi installer to get it to work as it would not accept being installed on a 64bit OS. Once the launch conditions were edited within the msi file then that installed without a problem.

I would like to think that SP 1 might help with some peoples performance issues, but perhaps not...
http://exo-blog.blogspot.com/2007/11/vista-sp1-performance-dud.html

When I read articles like...
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/infrastructure/applications/news/index.cfm?newsid=6258

...it tends to make me feel that whilst Vista is far from being bad, XP is just too good at what it does do, again in my opinion

 

[Kobrakai]

In my experience it runs well, but consumes a lot of memory when booted - although I have been told Vista can release memory as needed.

As you can see above I have 4GB of memory and at the moment I have Firefox open with three tabs. In my system tray I have Comodo, Avira Antivir, and a bluetooth icon.

When I boot Vista it uses around 1.1GB of memory and XP uses, with the same stuff loaded, around 300mb (a bit less than that) of memory.

Vista uses a feature called “superfetch” which loads your most commonly used applications into memory so that they can start quicker. As soon as memory is needed the memory is released. Wouldn’t you rather Windows was putting your memory to use in speeding up your system rather than leaving it unused like in XP?

 

[Elevon]

thanks for the quick post Kobrakai, brilliant !

Ayone else got anything to add ?

Hows are games running now compared to when vista was first introduced and all i read about was big framerate drops under vista ?

Vista is now up there with XP,check out these benchmarks http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/
Only in SLI mode its slighty slower but then how many people use SLI mode or have a game that supports it,also remember this test is a few months old now, so Vista drivers have probably improved even in SLI mode since then.
Personally I run Vista x64 HP and have about 40 games installed,can't say I have notice any performance drop or gaming issues with my 32 bit games.

Vimes I suggest you read up on Vista Superfetch etc..lot of FUD being spread by some XP users.

Very happy gamer you could say .