Vista worth it with 1GB DDR?

Soldato
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I have a fairly old system, AMD64 3200+, 1GB DDR, MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum, Radeon 9800Pro 128MB and am wondering if it would be worth me getting Vista and having smooth performance?

At most I have say 3 Firefox windows open, Media Player, MSN, Azureus (Bit Torrent) with Nero or some similar program encoding in the background.

I don't use my computer for games so I doubt I will upgrade anytime soon but I fancy giving Vista a try.

Any ideas?
 
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Magister said:
Vista is not worth it, period.

:rolleyes:

If games aren't your bag then the move to Vista is one that is completely justified, in my opinion.

I personally wouldn't recommend it on one gig. I just think it'll be a bit sluggish when it comes to the crunch of having all those things open.
 
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ive gone back to XP from vista x64. dont get me wrong, i had no problems what so ever with vista. BUT, scarface wouldnt work on it, so it had to go. im much happier now im back on XP. it feels more natural to use too. stick with XP for the moment i say.

on that note, isnt service pack 3 out soon?
 

4T5

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Work system has 1Gig & vista & it really ****** me off when i am trying to do owt. Think XP on 512 & 56k 7 it'll give you a fair idea how it feels :p
Of course i am exagerating & comparing it to my super fast home system & connection but Meh I couldn't live with it at home.
 
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Clarkey said:
kinda agree with this, it doesn't actually offer anything which XP doesn't.

Precisely. I get on fine with XP Aero. ;)

I've ran Vista Ultimate on a gig of DDR2. Not sure how that compares directly to plain DDR, but it seemed fine.

If you're a gamer though you'll need more than 1GB, but that's the same if you're running XP.
 
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If it runs any less than perfectly fine on your system which is not really that old imho then it simply goes to show how poor vista is, theres a 1.6Ghz 512mb 5500fx here which can run ubuntu with compiz fine, using most of the visual effects with some nice very high resolution background images for the cube and i know it can run on even older machines like a 500mhz 256mb geforce2, makes you wonder a bit about vista doesn't it? :)
 
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I didn't want to make a new thread about this, but I am in a similar position.

I've got an AMD Athlon X2 4200+, 1GB DDR, 6600GT 128MB, how different will the performance be between now and on Vista?
 
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Magister said:
Vista is not worth it, period.
Agreed.

Also I have used Vista (x86) with 1 gig of PC3200 and as said above, it's akin to XP with 512MB. Despite all the hype about Vista's clever caching it is sluggish all round and slow to load apps - even my most frequently used apps.

Also I gather that 256meg is a more of a desirable minimum for video RAM too.
 
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My mate with a p4 3.06 ghz HT, 1gb ram, 6600 regular 128 mb seems to swear by vista, so I'd say go for it imo, vista is much nicer to use as xp, although if you're a gamer, leave it, for some games its useless...
Ideally dualboot like me, I still boot into xp often, but mostly vista still...
 
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Im currently using 1gb coz my ballistix has gone **** up, and honestly i couldnt notice much difference between 1 & 2gb in general use (web browsing n stuff). Gaming it was a lot more noticeable but my mem stats are saying 35% of a gig is in use whilst on the desktop, so probably pushing it a little but still bearable.
 
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snowdog said:
My mate with a p4 3.06 ghz HT, 1gb ram, 6600 regular 128 mb seems to swear by vista, so I'd say go for it imo, vista is much nicer to use as xp, although if you're a gamer, leave it, for some games its useless...
Ideally dualboot like me, I still boot into xp often, but mostly vista still...

how is it much nicer to use? If anything i'd say its more difficult, makes you go around the houses just to do a simple task which is a couple of mouse clicks in XP. The only really good usability improvement in vista is the desktop search, but google desktop runs on xp great and it is better/faster than the vista one.
 
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Clarkey said:
how is it much nicer to use? If anything i'd say its more difficult, makes you go around the houses just to do a simple task which is a couple of mouse clicks in XP.
It does doesn't it. Like in XP, to get LAN status all I have to do is left click once on the LAN icon in the system tray. In Vista it involves several convoluted steps. It's like that throughout. The Start menu too, what takes a few seconds in XP involves several clicks more in Vista. It's not very good.
 
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dirtydog said:
It does doesn't it. Like in XP, to get LAN status all I have to do is left click once on the LAN icon in the system tray. In Vista it involves several convoluted steps. It's like that throughout. The Start menu too, what takes a few seconds in XP involves several clicks more in Vista. It's not very good.

Oh how very true, somethings that they say are easier to access is just a pain in the **** to do, i wish they would have left the navigation alone for the folders, i hate the way it is layed out in vista so much easier in XP.

I do like some features of Vista but overall XP wins totally in my own opinon.
 
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Soldato
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Clarkey said:
how is it much nicer to use? If anything i'd say its more difficult, makes you go around the houses just to do a simple task which is a couple of mouse clicks in XP. The only really good usability improvement in vista is the desktop search, but google desktop runs on xp great and it is better/faster than the vista one.


Ehh, It takes a lot shorter in vista to do it all, give me a few examples what takes longer in vista than xp, can't think of anything myself :confused: .

Its nicer to use because of its looks (aero), stuff like search, favorite folders, superfetch (!!!!!, its a lot faster than xp because of this), no need to use any outside apps to edit pics etc ( red eye removal has never been this easy for me ) , nice sidebar, sure this can all be achieved in xp, but not without using many extra apps wich slow the pc down, besides it all takes longer in xp, vista has it all built in...

dirtydog said:
It does doesn't it. Like in XP, to get LAN status all I have to do is left click once on the LAN icon in the system tray. In Vista it involves several convoluted steps. It's like that throughout. The Start menu too, what takes a few seconds in XP involves several clicks more in Vista. It's not very good.


Why need lan status at all, if its fine always?

As for the start menu, I'm not sure what you mean, a lot easier to find stuff now that is has a search bar in it.
 
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DAS

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I've been running Vista with 1GB since January and have been surprised how smoothly it works, even with a few applications open. Even games run fine. I do use a readyboost stick permanently but I can't say whether it makes a real difference.

If I were buying a new system, I would go with 2 GB, but you don't have to upgrade to that from an exisiting system.
 
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snowdog said:
As for the start menu, I'm not sure what you mean, a lot easier to find stuff now that is has a search bar in it.
XP's start menu is sorted into alphabetical order. How can it be hard to find things? You click the start menu then the other menus all pop up just by moving the mouse. In Vista you need to click AGAIN to make folders open, it's cumbersome and clumsy compared to XP. What I find unacceptable is that they didn't give you the OPTION of keeping an XP-style start menu. They did however give you the option of a Windows 98 style start menu :rolleyes:

I'm not in Vista at the moment so I can't give proper examples but everything is changed from XP, like Desktop properties for example - so many changes where everything is buried one or more layers deeper than it was in XP - and for WHAT? Change for the sake of change. Let's change 'Properties' and call it 'Personalise' :rolleyes: Let's change Add/Remove programs and call it 'Programs and Features' :rolleyes:

Another thing (IIRC) you can't access the full sound properties (balance, treble/bass etc.) via the sys tray volume icon any more, you have to go through the control panel.

I have XP looking like Vista and it is still quicker than Vista itself on my machine.
 
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