Still not sure about Vista 64

EagleOC · 2 Dec 2007 at 17:08

NathanE said:
That must have been a slow PC with no chipset drivers...

Well, ok... maybe them too

Vista installed flawlessly, recognising all 4Gb of RAM too - and it flies!

I haven't even started tweaking yet.

The interface is going to take some getting used to though

Glaucus · 2 Dec 2007 at 17:10

If your having problems with drivers xp64 bit drivers usually work on vista.. Or at least they did for my asus motherboard.

NathanE · 2 Dec 2007 at 18:04

AcidHell2 said:
If your having problems with drivers xp64 bit drivers usually work on vista.. Or at least they did for my asus motherboard.

Not recommended though. Use as a last resort and even then a future hot fix or service pack may break things again...

TheVoice · 2 Dec 2007 at 18:09

Slyvester said:
Picks up all my drivers automatically, for both hardware and peripherals, never had to bother putting in a driver CD or going to the manufacturers website (apart from GFX).

Probably not that great an idea to rely solely on the Vista-provided drivers though - they're going to be pretty old by now.

Glaucus · 2 Dec 2007 at 18:14

NathanE said:
Not recommended though. Use as a last resort and even then a future hot fix or service pack may break things again...

Unfortunately doesn't look like asus are going to release vista drivers for their a8n-sli boards

EagleOC · 15 Dec 2007 at 20:18

Update: 100% happy with Vista Ultimate! :cool:

Installed flawlessly and it flies!

A Chosen Man · 15 Dec 2007 at 20:49

I tried Vista Ultimate 64 bit since Feb.

I’ve just gone back to XP pro 32 bit.

Now hardware works. Software works and drivers are plenty. Don't need to worry about that god-awful activation process that won't let you upgrade much without throwing a hissy fit. No more dodgy 64 bit drivers. No more searching the compatibility list to see which PCI card I can use, only to find out that the few on the list are like hens teeth.

Don’t get me wrong, it has some good bits…it’s just that for me it isn’t worth the hassle.

I’ll try again in about a year or so…it might then be what it was promised to be now.

Spudgun · 15 Dec 2007 at 21:43

i too have ditched vista64 for XP, the main reason i have done this is gaming performance, i see between a 10 and 15% loss in performance on vista64 compared with XP in titles such as gears or war, crysis and cod4.

I like vista as an OS and it is beautifully stable, but as a gamer i can't go back until the performance is equal to XP SP2

beano · 15 Dec 2007 at 22:14

Spudgun said:
i see between a 10 and 15% loss in performance on vista64 compared with XP in titles such as gears or war, crysis and cod4.

I'm currently having fps issues with COD4, could well be what you are talking about. Still investigating... :mad:

FatRakoon · 16 Dec 2007 at 05:06

AcidHell2 said:
Unfortunately doesn't look like asus are going to release vista drivers for their a8n-sli boards

I have Vista32 on my A8N-SLI for about 8 months till only last month when I put it back to XP32 ( I need the full functions of the LiveDrive ). I found that it ran Vista better than any other board I have... And I have a few.

Annoyingly, I want to have Vista64 on my main system, and I have gone to it 5 or 6 times as of late, in the hope that any issues I have, I can iron out, but no... Something always gives me a headache somewhere?

I am knocking up a system for the wife now, that will have Vista64 on it and nothing else, no matter what issues I have with it, I will stick with it regardless... If, after one month of non-stop sorting outs, if I have not had 100% success, I will be going for a refund.

beano said:
I'm currently having fps issues with COD4, could well be what you are talking about. Still investigating...

How can you get the FPS on COD4?

macca672 · 16 Dec 2007 at 05:38

only real problem I had with incompatibilty in vista 64 was with itunes and my iphone. Other than that I highly recommend it

Vimes · 16 Dec 2007 at 10:04

EagleOC said:
Received my new machine's components today but I'm still unsure about busting open the seal on Vista 64. I've ran XP Pro for many years without ever having to install a manufacturer's driver (less graphics card and modem). The XP install is also absolutely rock-solid, fast and virtually flawless - I've never had a hint of trouble . Is Vista just as capable or am I about to enter the nightmare zone?

My DSL modem is old but still functional - there are no drivers for Vista on the manufacturer's site. Will it still work?

I need 4Gb RAM+ so should I just RMA it and get XP Pro 64 instead?

Cheers.

Not sure why you 'need' 4GB of RAM but if you do then your choices are limited to a 64bit OS anyway, even though XP32 is showing 3.5GB for me.

When I tried either Vista or XP 64 I found a few niggles...

My Canon scanner would not work, no drivers.
My BlueSoleil (bluetooth) software works but not fully with my phone, even though there is a 64bit version.
One game (Vampire Masquerade) would not install - had to edit the msi installer to change the launch conditions, then it is fine.
The BBCi software to download their programmes would not install.

Finally, for Vista only, the file transfer rate, especially over my network, was terrible, even when Vista was fully updated. This alone was enough of problem for me to go back, for now, to XP 32.

As, like you, my copy of XP32 is absolutely rock stable and has no problems at all. The footprint that it takes to boot to a desktop is far less than that of Vista, although it is claimed that Vista is far better than XP in the way that it manages the memory there just isn't as much of it left when it finishes booting. Although I did try and trim a lot of it down it was still quite demanding.

I am using XP32 again and I do miss a little some of the eyecandy type features of Vista but, having kept to Vista for a little while, I did notice the OS to be far more responsive.

YMMV and others have expressed their own valid opinions, so good luck to you whatever you choose

beano · 17 Dec 2007 at 07:32

FatRakoon said:
How can you get the FPS on COD4?

/cg_drawfps 1

FatRakoon · 17 Dec 2007 at 08:15

beano said:
/cg_drawfps 1

Many thanks.

Vimes said:
Not sure why you 'need' 4GB of RAM but if you do then your choices are limited to a 64bit OS anyway, even though XP32 is showing 3.5GB for me.

But lets be honest, there is absolutely no noticeable benefit of 3.5GB v 4.0GB on any desktop PC under normal use.

The only benefit I have found, is that I do toy about with Virtual Machines, and the full 4GB has been handy.

The only thing is, that XP64 has been a lot smoother and responsive than XP32 anyway, so, would the 3.x drop down in RAM be that much of a crippler?

Vimes said:
Games etc

All my games thankfully run great on XP64.

Only issues I have had, which were at first and have now all been resolved is that some apps wont go, such as Partition Magic, but I have now moved to acronis, PageDeFrag and I have no substitute for that... Other than that, its been great.
I only wish I could say the same for Vista

Vimes said:
Finally, for Vista only, the file transfer rate, especially over my network, was terrible, even when Vista was fully updated. This alone was enough of problem for me to go back, for now, to XP 32.

Oof! - Agreed 100%

My 108Mb line got kind of limited to 1Mb while it was going between directories on other systems, and then up to 10Mb while it transferred data.

Under XP, I am happily letting the kids play online with their 3 PCs and at the same time, Im updating them all and watching a DVD from the file Server to my main PC and I get no glitches or any noticeable slowdowns... Under Vista, I was unable to do half of this.

Vimes said:
although it is claimed that Vista is far better than XP in the way that it manages the memory there just isn't as much of it left when it finishes booting. Although I did try and trim a lot of it down it was still quite demanding.

Yes, but this is how Vista has been designed... It is supposed to do this.
It takes all the RAM and releases the RAM according to how much the App asks for. This will make it better under a loaded PC, and this allows the OS to know exactly what RAM is where better then before.

I think that in the long run, this is a better option.

Vimes said:
YMMV and others have expressed their own valid opinions, so good luck to you whatever you choose

Vimes · 17 Dec 2007 at 10:31

FatRakoon said:
Yes, but this is how Vista has been designed... It is supposed to do this.
It takes all the RAM and releases the RAM according to how much the App asks for. This will make it better under a loaded PC, and this allows the OS to know exactly what RAM is where better then before.

I think that in the long run, this is a better option.

Even though I think that I understand what you mean the point, valid or not I'm not entirely sure, that I had is when I booted Vista, with eyecandy, AV, Firewall etc etc, to the desktop it showed 1.2GB of memory used. Maybe some of that memory used was possible to release when and if demanded. XP32 shows less than 300MB used. XP64 showed around 550MB (IIRC).

I wouldn't give Vista the credit of being able to free up more RAM than it actually needs just to sit there but I can accept that it will be able to release memory that has been used to pre cache apps and games to make their load times etc potentially quicker. I can't see the difference from less than 300MB to 1.2GB is potentially free memory that Vista can unload.

In time OS's like Vista64 will become more efficient, in memory terms, when there are demands for 6,8 or more GB's of memory. As it is with XP32 showing 3.5GB, for me, the difference that Vista64 can address all 4GB is a little academic as it needs to use that difference just to sit there over and above that of XP.

However I do agree with you when you write...

But lets be honest, there is absolutely no noticeable benefit of 3.5GB v 4.0GB on any desktop PC under normal use.

But, for me, I'm not sure that I found this to be the case...

The only thing is, that XP64 has been a lot smoother and responsive than XP32 anyway, so, would the 3.x drop down in RAM be that much of a crippler?

....except when I turned off all the eyecandy, and went back to the classic look. The eyecandy and animations of Vista were 'nice' but it isn't 'needed.'

I am looking forward to going back to Vista post SP1 I'm just really hoping that the network speed transfer issue has been sorted by then or I will be forced to stay with XP.

Gimpymoo · 17 Dec 2007 at 10:46

Bony Maloney said:
Vista x64 here, great OS no regrets and 4 gig of ram

Same here.

Have been using Vista x64 Ultimate since launch.

Way ahead of XP and will only get even better, why deprive yourself if you allready have it in a box :confused:

Supertaff · 17 Dec 2007 at 13:16

No problems here with Vista 64 apart from with iTunes and my iPod Touch, but have created a dual boot with Vista 32 just for the iPod.

Don't have any problems playing any games, not sure if they're running slower than XP, but as they play fine I'm not going to worry.

Taff

Jleo · 17 Dec 2007 at 13:35

EagleOC said:
My DSL modem is old but still functional - there are no drivers for Vista on the manufacturer's site. Will it still work?

If this is a router/modem it wll not need drivers for it to be used as a router for internet acccess if you are using the modem functionality you will need drivers.

Post the make and model of your modem. Someone else may have had experience with it.