Moving from XP 32bit to Vista, couple questions

[suszterpatt]

Doing a major upgrade on my gaming rig, which includes the move from XP to Vista, mainly for DX10. Main specs will be:

Asus P5Q mobo
E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz
2x2GB 800MHz RAM at 4-4-4-12
Gigabyte 8800GT
SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card
Logitech MX310
Some cheapo generic "multimedia" keyboard, on which the only multimedia function I ever use is volume +/-


First off, would I have any difficulties in the driver department if I go 64bit? I recall Creative being criticized for being sloppy on their Vista support, has that changed lately? What about the other brands/products, anyone has any experience with those?


Second, I'm trying to decide whether to go 32 or 64 bit. On one hand, I'll have 4 gigs of RAM, so theoratically 64 bit will take use of it all, but I read that 64 bit Vista also uses more memory while giving no real performance boost. So, considering the above compatibility (non-)issues, would it be worth to go 64bit?


Third, how much space does Vista need? I'm limited to a single 200GB SATA drive, which is currently split into a 10GB partition for XP and a 190GB partition for everything else. The 10GB is barely enough for XP, but will say, 20GB be enough for Vista?

(Bonus question: what's the best free software to repartition a drive without losing any data?)


Finally, I haven't been keeping up at all on neither Vista or 64bit tech, so any sage advice, perhaps some quick guide or FAQ, but probably even just stating some obvious points would be a great help to put things in perspective. Also, it is an option to stick with XP, either 32 or 64 bit (thanks, MSDNAA), so if you have any convincing points then feel free to talk me out of Vista altogether.

 

[ChristianV]

I don't know about the driver support, but I'd say see how it goes with 32bit. Of course you won't be able to use your 4GB of ram fully, though there are 32bit systems that can use more address pipelines than 32, this is called PAE in combintation with the virtual addresses that are always used. However, I don't know if such a version of Vista exists.
64bit does not really give a performance boost aside from having more memory and faster calculations with BIG numbers. However, on the other hand the size of the applications is increased because of the 64bit numbers which makes them almost insignificantly slower.

I'd go with 20GB at least for Vista. If I recall correctly(I don't use Vista anymore because it's very slow in response) It used about 9-10GB as clean installation without any additional software.

As for the partition manager software: I advise you to use gparted.


I bought a new notebook recently and got Vista preinstalled. At first I was quite content. It wasn't as slow as I expected. I've got a Core2Duo T9300 - 2.5GhZ which is rather fast for a notebook and 2 GB of memory. I was able to play Assassins Creed on Vista even with DX10, although the settings were not really high. Over time I got really annoyed because it's response was rather sluggish in general. That's why I switched back to XP and my system is now fast as lightning. I'm sure there is a version of XP or something similar that supports PAE which let's you make use of 4GB of ram, although the hardware has to support this as well. However, I do not know how well this technique works, because one app is still limited to it's "phyiscal" memory of 4GB and I think WIndows even limits them to 2GB at maximum, for one single app.

//edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...ress_Extension#Windows
Seems as if all systems support PAE, but I think you have to enable this, afaik you have to use the boot.ini on XP, I'm not sure though.

 

[Jeff7181]

I installed a 32-bit version of Vista in a virtual machine... the hard disk image was 8 GB after installing the OS. You'll want at least 20 for the OS partition if you MUST create a separate partition for it.

 

[HdwGuy]

I just did this 3 months ago. Went with Vista X64 and disabled the IDE channel as I do not use any IDE devices anymore. Your dirve is small. I had a 250gb Sata drive before that did not support SATA NCQ. It was frustrating how this bottleneck of a drive slowed down my whole computer. I replaced with a 750GB Samsung from the Egg and my computer flys along now. My boot and shutdown times were cut in half. With the superfetch feature ( a great feature but stresses your hard drive) turned on with the old drive I sometimes thought the computer was malfunctioning. But it was the drive not being able to keep up with the load. BTW the drive was on sale fro $106 shipped to me a few weeks ago.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: suszterpatt
Doing a major upgrade on my gaming rig, which includes the move from XP to Vista, mainly for DX10. Main specs will be:

Asus P5Q mobo
E8400 Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz
2x2GB 800MHz RAM at 4-4-4-12
Gigabyte 8800GT
SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card
Logitech MX310
Some cheapo generic "multimedia" keyboard, on which the only multimedia function I ever use is volume +/-


First off, would I have any difficulties in the driver department if I go 64bit? I recall Creative being criticized for being sloppy on their Vista support, has that changed lately? What about the other brands/products, anyone has any experience with those?


Second, I'm trying to decide whether to go 32 or 64 bit. On one hand, I'll have 4 gigs of RAM, so theoratically 64 bit will take use of it all, but I read that 64 bit Vista also uses more memory while giving no real performance boost. So, considering the above compatibility (non-)issues, would it be worth to go 64bit?


Third, how much space does Vista need? I'm limited to a single 200GB SATA drive, which is currently split into a 10GB partition for XP and a 190GB partition for everything else. The 10GB is barely enough for XP, but will say, 20GB be enough for Vista?

(Bonus question: what's the best free software to repartition a drive without losing any data?)


Finally, I haven't been keeping up at all on neither Vista or 64bit tech, so any sage advice, perhaps some quick guide or FAQ, but probably even just stating some obvious points would be a great help to put things in perspective. Also, it is an option to stick with XP, either 32 or 64 bit (thanks, MSDNAA), so if you have any convincing points then feel free to talk me out of Vista altogether.

Drivers should be fine,there are a few different drivers for your X-FI card to try,however install the latest 64 bit driver and see how that works out,personally I went Vista x64 Home Premium with 4GB and have found it to be solid with excellent driver support for my hardware.

XP,Vista 32 bit ,64 bit debate comes up all the time,each has Pro's and Con's,I went Vista x64 mainly because it could use all of my 4GB ,also having DX10 and future DX support for my gaming plus better security/longer life span then XP.


I don't see the point in partitions to be honest so don't bother with them.

 

[suszterpatt]

So wait, I don't even need 64bit to take advantage of 4 gigs of RAM? Whereas apps take up more space? I'll have to look into this, doesn't sound like there's a point in going 64bit then (though I'm sure there's more to it than that).

Originally posted by: HdwGuy
I just did this 3 months ago. Went with Vista X64 and disabled the IDE channel as I do not use any IDE devices anymore. Your dirve is small. I had a 250gb Sata drive before that did not support SATA NCQ. It was frustrating how this bottleneck of a drive slowed down my whole computer. I replaced with a 750GB Samsung from the Egg and my computer flys along now. My boot and shutdown times were cut in half. With the superfetch feature ( a great feature but stresses your hard drive) turned on with the old drive I sometimes thought the computer was malfunctioning. But it was the drive not being able to keep up with the load. BTW the drive was on sale fro $106 shipped to me a few weeks ago.

How much space does Superfetch need? I don't need a lot of space myself, all I have on my HD are a couple games I currently play, and some installers for said games and movies that I keep burning to dvd's to make room for yet more installers and games. As long as it's reasonable, I have no problem limiting myself to a smaller movie buffer, so to speak.

Oh and the GParted live CD looks pretty handy, thanks for the tip.

 

[Cutthroat]

My Vista partition is 50GB, it's currently using 23GB.

Superfetch doesn't need HDD space. It pre-loads apps into RAM based on your usage patterns, and it uses ALL available RAM.

 

[suszterpatt]

Right, I seem to have misread Wikipedia's description of superfetch. How does HD size make a difference then?

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: suszterpatt
Right, I seem to have misread Wikipedia's description of superfetch. How does HD size make a difference then?

As far as superfetch is concerned it doesn't.