xp vs. vista

romperstomper · 12 Sep 2007 at 13:28

If you were building a new gaming tower which windows system would you choose and why ?

windows XP .....pros
1 it works well and will play older and new games without eating your resources .
2 trouble free (mostly)

against -1 can not utilise direct x 10
2 its getting old

Vista .....pros --1 can utilise direct X 10
2 Looks nice.

against ...1 eats system resources
2 lots of software incompatibilities
3 have to confirm everything
4 many headaches

thoughts please

Brian Stuart · 12 Sep 2007 at 13:42

Hi and welcome to the forums.
How much RAM will you be using? if it is 4GB then Vista 64 bit is the way to go. I run Vista 64 on a C2D with 4GB RAM on a DS3R and have no problems with games such as Stalker, Far cry, FEAR etc.
Regarding the user account control (the popups that ask you to confirm everything) this can be switched off.
I don't know what programmes you will want to run or what headaches you mean but from my experience of using Vista since Nov last yaer it has all been positive

InvaderGIR · 12 Sep 2007 at 13:47

romperstomper said:
If you were building a new gaming tower which windows system would you choose and why ?

windows XP .....pros
1 it works well and will play older and new games without eating your resources .
2 trouble free (mostly)

against -1 can not utilise direct x 10 Urmm, well seeing as DX10 is Vista only, that really doesn't suprise me...as you can't even use it letalone utalise it on XP.
2 its getting old Not really, XP is still supported by MS, 98 is old, as it is not supported anymore.

Vista .....pros --1 can utilise direct X 10
2 Looks nice. You can skin XP easily, so it too can look 'nice'

against ...1 eats system resources I never found that on my system, it ran better than XP, and I had 32bit Vista, and system in my sig.
2 lots of software incompatibilities I used LOADS of programs, never found there to be a problem unless I used something that was silly old.
3 have to confirm everything That is annoying.
4 many headaches Explain?

thoughts please

InvG

Mindriot · 12 Sep 2007 at 14:15

I build a new computer and so needed a new OS, went for vista in the end as i thought i may as well, not much point buying xp, also with 8800 dx10 was a nice feature, though hasnt made much difference to my life. To be fair i never expected it to but nice to have the option.

This also means i can't directly compare xp to vista as i haven't had the same computer with both. As far as problems go i have had very few. It seems drivers and software is finally grasping that people are starting to use vista so have released updates. Also drivers are not a problem as they were with XP64. You can also turn off UAC which makes things so much nicer and quicker without having to confirm everything!

"andy" · 12 Sep 2007 at 14:28

as said you can switch off the confirm thing

the option is in the user accounts section of the control panel

im loving vista now ive got everything sorted

manic_man · 12 Sep 2007 at 15:01

32bit Vista shouldnt offer any incompatabilities to speak of.

A couple of not very forward thinking companies in the past made the OS check for their installer specific rather than using a > clause on the version check. The few times it has happened to me, the compatability option has sorted it out.

UAC can be easily disabled.

div0 · 12 Sep 2007 at 15:52

romperstomper said:
If you were building a new gaming tower which windows system would you choose and why ?

Vista.

I just built a new machine and went with Vista 64. Glad I did, really happy with it! XP is still on my old machine just incase I come across any issues with something not having Vista drivers yet. But so far not found anything!

romperstomper said:
Vista pros

1 can utilise direct X 10
2 Looks nice.

Vista doesn't offer that much over XP - but if you're buying new then there is no real reason not to go with Vista IMO. Unless you know of something you need that isn't supported.

romperstomper said:
Vista cons

1 eats system resources

This simply isn't true. Vista just makes better use of the available resources. People have come to think that if a program uses very little RAM then that's a good thing. But with an O/S that isn't the case. You should WANT your O/S to use as many available resources as possible! Vista uses the resources to maximise performance. If something else needs the resources then Vista gives them up and lets the other program use them.

romperstomper said:
2 lots of software incompatibilities

I have yet to come across much that I used on XP that I can't use on Vista 64. The ONLY thing I can think of off the top of my head is a software firewall. There are options available on Vista 32, but so far I can't find a decent one for Vista 64. Not a big deal though, as the built in Firewall is quite nice.

romperstomper said:
3 have to confirm everything

This is true, but can be disabled easily. I actually haven't turned it off yet, as I haven't found it 'that' annoying. But I can see that some people would hate it.

romperstomper said:
4 many headaches

No headaches at all for me. Installing was as easy as XP. Activation was as easy as XP. Drivers and programs have also been very simple to find.

Mr Jack · 12 Sep 2007 at 16:06

Well, I've opted for Vista 32-bit for my new machine. Once I've built it and set it up I'll let you know whether I still think that was the right decision.

As I see it, the machine you're making now you'll want about three years life from. Right now, there's very little reason to choose Vista but in two years time I expect there to be a significant quantity of Vista-only or Vista-enhanced software out there.

Elevon · 12 Sep 2007 at 16:28

Vista x64 HP here for many reasons,4GB+ ,longer life span and slightly better security then Vista x68.

Glad I went Vista x64 HP,all my hardware and software/games work great

.

ns400r · 12 Sep 2007 at 16:31

Purely for gaming I'd have to choose XP.
After nearly 10 months of using Vista (multiple installs, zillions of driver changes/updates)on a second drive in this PC, it STILL has a 20-25% drop in frame rates with occasional stutters on my 7900GTO.

Elevon · 12 Sep 2007 at 17:06

ns400r said:
Purely for gaming I'd have to choose XP.
After nearly 10 months of using Vista (multiple installs, zillions of driver changes/updates)on a second drive in this PC, it STILL has a 20-25% drop in frame rates with occasional stutters on my 7900GTO.

Something seriously wrong then somewhere, latest benchmarks show Vista very close to XP and even beating XP in some games.

No way I'm getting that much of a hit even with my 7800GT card.

Carling · 12 Sep 2007 at 17:10

Mr Jack said:
Well, I've opted for Vista 32-bit for my new machine. Once I've built it and set it up I'll let you know whether I still think that was the right decision.

As I see it, the machine you're making now you'll want about three years life from. Right now, there's very little reason to choose Vista but in two years time I expect there to be a significant quantity of Vista-only or Vista-enhanced software out there.

If your building a new machine it will be a 64bit cpu, so why bother with 32bit vista?

64bit apps are only going to get more support.

div0 · 12 Sep 2007 at 17:18

Elevon said:
Something seriously wrong then somewhere, latest benchmarks show Vista very close to XP and even beating XP in some games.

No way I'm getting that much of a hit even with my 7800GT card.

No performance hit for me as far as I can tell. My fps in games like Doom3, Fear, CSS all seem perfect when using high settings.

Can't say I can do a direct comparison with XP - but I find it hard to imagine I'd be getting 25% better performance in XP. Will have to check out some benchmarks.

Mr Jack · 12 Sep 2007 at 17:40

Carling said:
If your building a new machine it will be a 64bit cpu, so why bother with 32bit vista?

It has no 16-bit backwards compatability, requires you to use signed drivers and has poorer driver support.

Elevon · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:00

Mr Jack said:
It has no 16-bit backwards compatability, requires you to use signed drivers and has poorer driver support.

Not much 16 bit software around unless you consider very old and I mean very old 16 bit games,Virtual PC 2007 can be used to get around that anyway.

Signed drivers is not a bad thing,all my 64 bit drivers are signed(any half decent company will have signed drivers,even the guy that made Speedfan has signed drivers) and I have yet to have bad 64 bit driver support and I use quite a lot of hardware with my Vista x64.

Mr Jack · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:14

Elevon said:
Not much 16 bit software around unless you consider very old and I mean very old 16 bit games,Virtual PC 2007 can be used to get around that anyway.

There's more than you might think. I've come across installers, and build tools that are 16-bit still. Usually they're parts of a larger whole but I do come across them still.

Signed drivers is not a bad thing,all my 64 bit drivers are signed(any half decent company will have signed drivers,even the guy that made Speedfan has signed drivers) and I have yet to have bad 64 bit driver support and I use quite a lot of hardware with my Vista x64.

Signed drivers means never getting user modified versions (like the graphics drivers I currently use) or user drivers for unusual hardware (for example, the drivers I'm using to run the EyeToy as a webcam). As to what happens with beta versions of drivers and hardware, I don't know?

romperstomper · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:14

Brian Stuart said:
Hi and welcome to the forums.
How much RAM will you be using? if it is 4GB then Vista 64 bit is the way to go. I run Vista 64 on a C2D with 4GB RAM on a DS3R and have no problems with games such as Stalker, Far cry, FEAR etc.
Regarding the user account control (the popups that ask you to confirm everything) this can be switched off.
I don't know what programmes you will want to run or what headaches you mean but from my experience of using Vista since Nov last yaer it has all been positive

Thanks
The main thing that put me off vista was reading amazon reviews

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=vista&rh=i:aps,k:vista,i:software&page=1

Do you not have trouble with signed drivers for the 64 bit version ?
Can you just switch it back to 32 bit in display properties if your having problems?
I would like to go for 64bit version because its more future proof just a bit worried about problems I've heard :confused:

InvaderGIR · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:18

romperstomper said:
Can you just switch it back to 32 bit in display properties if your having problems?

Urmmm, 32bit and 64bit are not graphically related. It's the architecture of the CPU/machine code/OS structure that is 16/32/64bit.

InvG

deadite66 · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:18

XP64 + 4GB = no hibernate.
i had to move to vista64 to get it back.

Elevon · 12 Sep 2007 at 18:42

Mr Jack said:
There's more than you might think. I've come across installers, and build tools that are 16-bit still. Usually they're parts of a larger whole but I do come across them still.

Signed drivers means never getting user modified versions (like the graphics drivers I currently use) or user drivers for unusual hardware (for example, the drivers I'm using to run the EyeToy as a webcam). As to what happens with beta versions of drivers and hardware, I don't know?

I use beta and official drivers by Nvidia and ATI which are signed,if the company in question can't be bothered to get them signed then that's their problem not Vista's or Microsoft,FYI regarding 16 bit software I have yet to use any 16 bit software,99.9% software today is 32 bit anyway.

FYI been using Vista x64 since Jan as main OS,I have yet to encounter any problems.

Btw if I did come across 16 bit software I'll probably ditch it for 32 bit version or something silimar from a different company that offers 32 bit version,no real excuse nowadays to be using 16 bit software still.

As to modified drivers,you should know installing those can be risky why compromise your system?