XP verus VISTA for a hardcore gaming PC

Vista 64, you'll be a fool (despite what some people are saying) to get a 7(?) year old os (even the slightly botched 64bit release).

I am going to point out that putting xp on such a machine is like running dos on it as it'll be lightening quick, but you'll have so little functionality compaired to a modern os (so ignore vista-phobia and get the x64 version of it!)
 
2008 server, seems to be running games better for me then XP, XP64 or vista64 did. Using the trial version of it from MS site atm, configered to work as a workstation. Dont think its a long term option, but will do me till windows 7 :)

(It uses the same drivers as vista64, so is compatable with everything i have tried)
 
I cant believe how ignorant all of you are being A 32 bit game still runs in 32 bit mode under vista 64 the only thing +2 gigs ram is good for is a few apps caching (so programs load faster) alt tabbing things like that no games will benefit from it what so ever.

I find xp 32 bit with 4 gigs of ram even though it only sees 3.25 it still alt tabs and ends programs as snappy as xp 64 bit better for gaming than vista 64 personally.

It's the software that matters and games are 32 bit thus even under 64bit there's no performance boost.
 
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C64 said:
I cant believe how ignorant all of you are being
A 32 bit game still runs in 32 bit mode under vista 64 the only thing +2 gigs ram is good for is a few apps caching alt tabbing things like that no games will benefit from it what so ever.
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I did the source stress test under XP and Vista, same settings, same hardware, and under Vista i had a lot higher framerate. Both were well over 200 anyway so it wasn't noticeable.
 
Never mind a source stress test lol what matters is actually playing games.I have vista 64 sitting here am a heavy gamer yet choose to stay on 32 bit because most things are better.
Cant even run pes6 properly on vista 64 bit and forget vsync.
 
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if you 're a hardcore gamer(which u havent said) then get the sharpest/most responsive OS.

which vista isnt.

if you're not then just get vista 64 as most have suggested... it has all the fancy bells and whistles.
 
C64 said:
It's the software that matters and games are 32 bit thus even under 64bit there's no performance boost.
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32-bit games benefit from a 64-bit OS in many ways:

- more RAM available for the disk cache, and on machines with 6/8GB or more setting up a RAMDisk for very I/O bound games becomes feasible.
- they can have 3GB of private address space compared to 2GB on 32-bit Windows. A few games (SupCom is one that springs to mind) can exhaust 2GB of address space at high settings and crash.
- the libraries and drivers they call on are 64-bit and in theory should offer some extra performance.
- address space gobbling cards like a 4870X2 or a pair of 1GB cards in XFire/SLI don't limit the amount of memory. Try using those on a 32-bit OS and once the OS and any background processes have taken their chunk you might just have 1GB of actual free memory for running a game.
- it's much easier to run multiple instances of a game (particularly important for MMOG players) without crashes or massive disk paging.

TBH I don't know why anyone with reasonably modern hardware runs anything but Vista x64. After a ropey start it's developed into a very solid OS.
 
Another one for Vista 64 here.

Seems just as quick as XP to me, certainly no slouch anyway on a top end system anyway!!

Plus, only ever had one program stop responding in about 5 months of use, seems far more reliable to me than XP
 
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