Is Vista worth getting now?

Robbie Ragdoll

Robbie Ragdoll

Robbie Ragdoll

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As title really.

About to get a new rig and thinking of finally taking the plunge to Vista.

Ive heard mixed things about it so not 100% sure whether to keep with XP. However Vista is the future (well till Windows 7) so is it worth the upgrade? Plus Aero looks really nice.

I have also heard that vista is a real Ram hog and as im going to use the computer for 3d animation i need all the power i can get.

So is there any major glaring things that I should know?

Cheers-
 
Its not a ram hog...

he is a question.. you have 4g and xp shows 3g free.

Thats not being used at all.

vista uses it for caching stuff and will release it when needed.

It make better use of the free memory.
 
HarryPainful said:
Its not a ram hog...

he is a question.. you have 4g and xp shows 3g free.

Thats not being used at all.

vista uses it for caching stuff and will release it when needed.

It make better use of the free memory.
Click to expand...

Erm, what are you talking about? The 3gb in XP thing is a technical limit with 32-bit OSs, XP or Vista. Its only when going to 64-bit that it can be fully used. I have no idea why you started talking about this, though :/

While Vista is a bit of a ram hog, thats mainly since it loads a lot of stuff at system startup, such as programs you use lots, so they open much quicker. And aero will need a little bit of ram too.
However, there shouldn't be a noticible drop if all the programs you use are vista compatible :)
 
hes saying that if you had 4gb installed and you were running 64bit xp at idle it may only be using 1gb leaving the other 3gb sitting there doing sod all whereas if you have 4gb and vista x64 at idle it will probably be using 2.5-3gb of ram to help speed your system up therefore not leaving as much just sitting there doing nothing, but as soon as a ram intensive program is launched vista will free up the ram.
So if anything vista just uses the ram much more efficently whereas xp would be sat there with its thumb up its bum doing nothing with all the spare ram
 
Definitely worth getting, PROVIDING you have sufficient RAM. I've tried it with 1GB, 2GB and 4GB RAM... it's terrible for anything beyond Office on 1GB, very usable on 2GB and blazing fast on 4GB, IMO faster than XP ever was.

I'd get 4GB of RAM and run Vista 64-bit. I've just upgraded to this setup, and it's very fast, smooth and stable with an overclocked E6300.
 
Heya, I use both Vista and XP on a daily basis and here is my two pennies: -

VISTA CORNER
Vista is great IF you are buying a new computer that will take advantage of its features which at this moment in time is: -
  • The ability to use more than 3 gig of RAM
  • DX10.1
  • Better compatibility with NEW MS applications such as Exchange, Sharepoint 2007 and Office 2007
Vista is considerably more future proofed as well, but that is a given seeing as its newer!


XP CORNER
If however you are buying a low spec computer or you were just looking to upgrade your OS for an older machine (say a year or more old) then I would stick with XP

  • XP runs games at DX9 a lot faster (I have tested it out and you are loosing a large percentage of speed using Vista over XP (read reviews too if you dont believe me).
  • XP runs older applications with no problems
  • XP has a lot more support available for problem solving.
I feel I should say that XP isn't bad either, so why change something if it aint broken.
So if it is just for the desktop visuals and for the gimmicks/widgets, which is what grabs a lot of people then get Windows blinds. (I have been running aero front ends for ages on my old XP machines).


So in short:
  • If your new computer has more than (or will have more than) 3 gig of RAM in the near future then get Vista
  • If your computer has (or will in the near future) a DECENT and I mean 8800/8600 GFX card then get Vista.
If not then upgrade later and spend the money more wisely.

I personally would probably get Vista for a new machine, but I do feel I must point out that I hate it.

It is fiddly and annoying and the having to approve what seems like every process as standard makes me want to hurt people.
 
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iviv said:
Erm, what are you talking about? The 3gb in XP thing is a technical limit with 32-bit OSs, XP or Vista. Its only when going to 64-bit that it can be fully used. I have no idea why you started talking about this, though :/
Click to expand...

Harry is correct, xp doesn't utilize free ram very well, say you had 2gb of ram, most of the time it'd be using about 50-200mb -depending how lean your machine is)

whereas vista will use a lot more -in a good way
 
PoD said:
Heya, I use both Vista and XP on a daily basis and here is my two pennies: -

VISTA CORNER
Vista is great IF you are buying a new computer that will take advantage of its features which at this moment in time is: -
  • The ability to use more than 3 gig of RAM
  • DX10.1
  • Better compatibility with NEW MS applications such as Exchange, Sharepoint 2007 and Office 2007
Vista is considerably more future proofed as well, but that is a given seeing as its newer!


XP CORNER
If however you are buying a low spec computer or you were just looking to upgrade your OS for an older machine (say a year or more old) then I would stick with XP

  • XP runs games at DX9 a lot faster (I have tested it out and you are loosing a large percentage of speed using Vista over XP (read reviews too if you dont believe me).
  • XP runs older applications with no problems
  • XP has a lot more support available for problem solving.
I feel I should say that XP isn't bad either, so why change something if it aint broken.
So if it is just for the desktop visuals and for the gimmicks/widgets, which is what grabs a lot of people then get Windows blinds. (I have been running aero front ends for ages on my old XP machines).


So in short:
  • If your new computer has more than (or will have more than) 3 gig of RAM in the near future then get Vista
  • If your computer has (or will in the near future) a DECENT and I mean 8800/8600 GFX card then get Vista.
If not then upgrade later and spend the money more wisely.

I personally would probably get Vista for a new machine, but I do feel I must point out that I hate it.

It is fiddly and annoying and the having to approve what seems like every process as standard makes me want to hurt people.
Click to expand...

Thanks thats loads of help. As the new PC will be 4g of ram and and 8800 i think vista probably will be the best choice.

Ive heard that the approving thing does **** a lot of people off, but hopefully soon microsoft will realise this and patch it. Or ill just get used to it.

Thanks a lot!
 
TweakUAC lets you easily turn off the UAC prompts. Just set it to Silent mode; that way UAC stays on but doesn't bother you. Far better than turning it off completely.
 
You can remove it, but I cant see them removing it as standard as it is a security feature for Vista. Having it on would in theory prevent unauthorised security processes from running, so say dodgy .exe's etc that are attached to emails or in websites.

There is a lot of things that I don't like about Vista and a lot of supposedly new things that were available in XP anyway.

The one thing that makes Vista more of attractive that sticking with Vista is DX10 and being able to use more than 3 gig of RAM.

That is really it!
All the nice blends into MS applications and esentially all the features that the average consumer will use could have been easily been achieved in XP as well.

Grrr Microsoft etc, but I won't blame them for wanting to make more money!


EDIT:
Yeah what he said ^
 
If you want to use more than 3GB RAM with XP then just get 64-bit XP Pro. It won't use the RAM as well as Vista though :)
 
quick question does anyone have the link to microsoft where you can get the 64bit version of vista if you already own the 32bit one
 
Vista has been worth getting for a long time now, the main thing that's held back it's perception is people used to XP's incorrect ways of doing things and now moaning that vista does things better...
 
From my own experience with 3d apps under Vista I would stick to Xp for now or use 64bit linux if your 3d app is out for it.
 
I have been using Vista 64 bit for about 6 months.
I ran into trouble, sudden BSOD, not even clocking down to stock speed did not get it working, i got anoyed and just reinstalled win XP and all works fine

I was running 4gig of ram with it (with xp i use only 2 gig)
but to really get any gains of increased ram you really need 8 gigs there is really good article about that on toms hardware.

I will not say i was unhappy with Vista, all works fine, aldough it can be sluggish sometimes. I am gamer, so DX10 was a selling point for me.

There is too many bad things said about vista which really arent complete true, most people who complained have been running it on low spec PC's, but thats another side of argument.

Also very important matter, you need big, i mean big hard drive for Vista 64 bit, its massive system, once you instal all updates, all programs you are using , couple of games you are down to 20% free space on hard drive, you need at least 1/2 TB drive.

I will leave win Xp on this hard drive 250 gb, and get bigger one for vista and use dual booth. Best way forward would really be that, having both and then switch as needed.

But in General Thumbs up for Vista 64 bit, lets see what SP1 will bring us
 
I have had no real problems with Vista before SP1,now I have SP1 RTM installed on both my laptop and PC performance is still great if not better.

I game all the time and never had any issues which was caused by Vista,drivers are solid plus all my software works fine,infact stability is better then XP IMHO ,I don't say that lightly since I have been using XP for 7 years.

I'll never go back to XP as my main OS,also got to love the improved security features of Vista,I get far less spyware(that includes harmless spyware cookies) on Vista then I ever did on XP, infact quite normal for me to get 0 spyware with Vista,can't say the same thing about my XP.

Also got to love how fast Vista installs compared to XP,I could go on but Vista has so much more to offer then XP ie most of the drivers taken out of the kernel system to improve stability,Vista will do a reboot of the drivers in question(ie buggy sound drivers) rather then take the whole OS down like in XP.

Too bad a lot of FUD is spread about Vista from diehard XP fans(too bad I can't shoot them),I wish they could see my Vista systems with my XP PC side by side,they would soon see how well my Vista computers are doing :).
 
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i would recommend being as lazy as possible in gettin vista 64, (time to get better drivers/software/64bit native).. and check that all hardware has 0 problems in vista
 
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