General Consensus of Vista and Gaming on PC?

[Xavier434]

Slightly off topic since this is a thread about Vista and gaming but ZDNET has a nice article including benchmarks regarding the difference between many types of file transfers between the Vista SP1 RTM and Vista SP1 Final....or almost final. It technically has not been released for official public download over Windows update yet but a lot of people have gotten their claws one something which they believe is equivalent to the final.

In any case, here is the article. For those waiting for SP1, I think you will be quite pleased. Hopefully these results will be close for most of our rigs.

Vista SP1 ZDNET Blog

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: spike99
I still don't understand why companies say their software is VISTA compatible but don't disclose that it doesn't support 64bit version. So don't assume that just because you see a VISTA label means that it supports 32 & 64 bit versions...

If you don't want the hassle of software not supporting 64bit version... Or wait until they come out with a 64bit version... I would stick with 32bit version.

If you have 4GB of memory... who cares if 32-bit doesn't utilize all 4GB... at least it will use over 3GB of memory... I currently use 4GB of memory... and I have never seen my PC memory utilization over 3GB.... but I guess it depends what you run on your PC... but I don't think most people use that amount of memory...

Hope this helps...

FYI, the 64bit version of Vista has 32bit support. Backwards compatible w/ 32bit apps. Vista 64 works fine, my system has 8GB of memory.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I wonder the same thing... but for older games.

I like to play Empire Earth part 1, Age of Empires Rise of Rome, Thief 2, Dungeon Keeper 2.

I also like new games too, but some older games I just really enjoy revisiting.

You will always risk performance issues with a newer OS on older games. Thankfully, there are usually workarounds to them all too. If I am not mistaken, there are even some easy ways to get DOS based games working fine with Vista. Don't quote me on that though.

You mean DOSBox?

 

[imported_spike99]

FYI, the 64bit version of Vista has 32bit support. Backwards compatible w/ 32bit apps. Vista 64 works fine, my system has 8GB of memory.

skace, I don't agree at all... If this is the case... then 64bit version should run all 32bit software... and this is not the case...

For example... I wanted to buy an external hard drive... and companies (in plural, I checked several companies) told me that their software was VISTA 32BIT compatitble... but did not support 64bit version... as of yet... and suggested to format the drive and not use the software included to run backups... I did buy external hard drive... but I use Windows VISTA to run backup instead of using software included in external drive...

Another example... I want to buy MTEC software for Freezone Elite... They only support VISTA 32BIT and supposedly are working on supporting 64bit version in the coming months... So now I have to wait until they support 64bit version to buy MTEC software...

So as you can see.... I would not assume that a 32bit application will run on a 64bit.

That's good you have 8GB, but I wonder what you run that hogs so much memory... Like I mentioned before... Of all the games I play and stuff I have running on my PC... I never utilize more that 3GB....

 

[Xavier434]

Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX

Originally posted by: Xavier434

Originally posted by: TheSlamma
I wonder the same thing... but for older games.

I like to play Empire Earth part 1, Age of Empires Rise of Rome, Thief 2, Dungeon Keeper 2.

I also like new games too, but some older games I just really enjoy revisiting.

You will always risk performance issues with a newer OS on older games. Thankfully, there are usually workarounds to them all too. If I am not mistaken, there are even some easy ways to get DOS based games working fine with Vista. Don't quote me on that though.

You mean DOSBox?

*shrug*

You tell me. I have been thinking about playing the original Carmageddon again so if that is a solution then I may give it a shot.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: skace

Originally posted by: spike99
I still don't understand why companies say their software is VISTA compatible but don't disclose that it doesn't support 64bit version. So don't assume that just because you see a VISTA label means that it supports 32 & 64 bit versions...

If you don't want the hassle of software not supporting 64bit version... Or wait until they come out with a 64bit version... I would stick with 32bit version.

If you have 4GB of memory... who cares if 32-bit doesn't utilize all 4GB... at least it will use over 3GB of memory... I currently use 4GB of memory... and I have never seen my PC memory utilization over 3GB.... but I guess it depends what you run on your PC... but I don't think most people use that amount of memory...

Hope this helps...

FYI, the 64bit version of Vista has 32bit support. Backwards compatible w/ 32bit apps. Vista 64 works fine, my system has 8GB of memory.

the *problem* is when your HW is unsupported and has no "signed" drivers. i AM running Vista 64 and 32 bit right now ... but my Belkin Bluetooth adapter has no signed drivers for Vista 64 although it works *perfectly* [now] in Vista32.

of course, i can "workaround" or disable driver signing [which is like disabling some security and defeats the purpose].

If you have 4GB of system RAM and are a GAMER ... then Vista 32 has slightly better performance than Vista64 in 99.999999999% of PC games.

you like lower performance?


in the FUTURE ... Vista 64 will be the way to go. For now - unless you are a RAM-hog and have a *use* for 8GB, why bother with 64bit?

 

[Gunslinger08]

I'm running Vista64 with 4 gigs of RAM and a 7900GT. It's definitely slightly slower than XP, but it's not slow enough to make me switch back.

And yes, I have seen my RAM use over the magical 3GB limit. My setup will run at about 50% utilization when idle, after a few hours of uptime. Precaching FTW.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: joshsquall
I'm running Vista64 with 4 gigs of RAM and a 7900GT. It's definitely slightly slower than XP, but it's not slow enough to make me switch back.

And yes, I have seen my RAM use over the magical 3GB limit. My setup will run at about 50% utilization when idle, after a few hours of uptime. Precaching FTW.

Try it vs. Vista 32

and i seriously doubt you have seen RAM above 3GB usage in an properly written game that has the latest MS 'hotfix' for memory management --unless your OS is *clogged* with running background processes and applications.

 

[Aikouka]

Oh and as a note, my issues seem to be rampant among some 169.25 WoW players that use Vista:

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiv.../index.php?t55273.html

Something to look into if you have one of these cards as it seems to affect other engines as well. I guess I better just downgrade to 168 as I keep all old drivers on my server.

EDIT:

More stuff here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/Te...stID=2706068&SiteID=17

Oh and I wanted to add, there's no such thing as a "general consensus." A consensus is general by definition.

 

[TheVrolok]

I've had 0 problems gaming thus far - my rig is still relatively new.

Crysis
Bioshock
STALKER
WC3
WoW
CoH
Mythos
The Witcher

All run fine on my system
Q6600@3.0
8800GT
4GB RAM

<edit>
Oh, meant to say on the 169.25's
</edit>

 

[themisfit610]

IIRC, Crysis in DX9 on vista is significantly slower than Crysis on XP.

I can play Crysis on XP with modded INIs at 1920x1200, mostly all "very high" equivalent. I played the whole game through and never needed to reduce settings. It was a little slow at a couple points, but totally playable. I'm sure on Vista it would have been quite a bit slower, since it was just on the knife's edge of acceptable on XP.

That little bit made a big difference

~MiSfit

 

[imported_spike99]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
I've had 0 problems gaming thus far - my rig is still relatively new.

Crysis
Bioshock
STALKER
WC3
WoW
CoH
Mythos
The Witcher

All run fine on my system
Q6600@3.0
8800GT
4GB RAM

<edit>
Oh, meant to say on the 169.25's
</edit>

I noticed you have included COH as a game that runs fine. I also have COH and my PC crashes/freezes when I play COH. In order to avoid crashes/freezes I changed graphics setting... I changed the shadow quality from DX10 to High. After this my PC does not crash. Did you have to make this change too ?