Originally posted by: Mem
Vista is a worthwhile upgrade to me over XP(FYI been using XP for about 7 years),I'll say it again that I actually think Vista is more of a upgrade to XP then XP ever was to 2K(I like to see XP users come up with what major things/changes XP has over 2K,I remember all the bitching then when XP was new and I was one of the first to move over to XP then too,some XP users have very short memories 😉 ).
I game all the time(last count was 47 working games I think installed in Vista x64 with good performance and stability),reasons I like it more then XP are security,indexing, seems snappier, the way it handles memory is great and also very stable(a lot harder to crash then XP in my experience).
I hardly ever use my XP PC ,to be honest only used now for updates.I don't know why XP users bitch about Vista if you don't like it fine no need to go on about it,nobody is forcing you to upgrade and there will always be something else new down the road.
Funny how some people get worked up over an OS,I'm looking forward to Vienna down the road but not all the bitching we'll probably see all over again.
Fair enough, but i always compared XP to ME, i never had windows 2000 and didnt actually learn about what it was until about 2003-2004 time. I came from windows ME to XP and had a horrible time because of a knackered hard drive. But once i got that fixed i wasent really wowed until a few months later when it struck me that theres been no crashes or bluescreens, and i hadnt been forced to reinstalled it yet. That same thing never happened with vista, its just average, i dont mind it but theres not much from my point of view than it can improve upon over XP.
Originally posted by: BD2003
Why would I or anyone choose to downgrade my system from Vista to XP, unless there was a show stopping bug or incompatibility that basically forced me to? I dont see what it has to do with gaming, but at the end of the day, its just the OS, the apps you run on top of it are more important.
I guarantee you that if I had two identical systems side by side, (C2D 6300, 4GB, 7900 GS, 250gb 7200rpm drive), and I fired up call of duty 4 on both at exactly the same time, the Vista system would be into the game with the map loaded at least 10-20 seconds ahead of the XP one (superfetch + 4gb ftw), and any framerate differences would be imperceptible to my eye. It takes longer for the server to load the maps than it does for me - maybe 3-5 seconds max. So I really have no idea what it has to do with gaming, that was a problem early last year - its far from a problem now.
Well its not all to do with gaming my main arguement is that theres nothing really worth switching for unless you have 4GB of ram which has to be said not many people seem to have. Yeah if you got two 4GB systems then vista may well be faster, i cant see it getting more FPS than XP but i havent been too concerned as the difference was pretty insignificant most of the time. Not everyone has 2GB in their system though. I have a desktop and a laptop, desktop gets vista x64 because its got 4GB, like i said thats the only reason.
But gaming with vista on a 2GB system is a frickin drag. My laptop has 2GB and an 8600GT, yeah i know thats a garbage card compared with its higher end model, but its decent enough to game at medium/low settings. Heres my list of problems i had in gaming with the laptop over a period of 2 months with vista x64 ultimate installed on it:
1. I had to set most/all games to run as administrator, some games didnt work correctly unless this was set, most were fine, but to resolve any weird problems and prevent me messing around for ages trying to solve them i simply set them all to run as administrator. It dosent actually let you do this with UAC turned off, it does with a shortcut but the actual option is greyed out, why there are two options for the same thing i dont know but anyways yeah its a pita having to do this.
2. Supreme commander patched to the latest patch didn't work at all. Retail worked, latest patch didnt, works fine on XP.
3. Games can be run at higher settings in XP than on vista, they lag less. This is down to XP using less of the 2GB i guess.
4. I get no hassle from TDR errors anymore, also no random crashes that leave me wondering "is this vistas fault? what the hells the problem? this crap never happened in XP!" This was exclusive to a few games, most never had a problem, the ones that did were supreme commander, company of heros + OF, and there was one other that i dont remember. Still, i don't wanna buy a new game and not be able to play it because of these errors, or be harassed every few mins by them.
Heres my full laptop specs:
C2D E7300 2.0ghz
2GB ram
8600GT 256mb DDR2
160GB hdd
audigy 2 nx
Gaming on vista with 2GB is a drag, with 4GB i havent had any problems on the desktop that couldn't be solved. But that laptop is staying with XP until i need to put 4GB on it which is unlikely as its stuck with an 8600GT. So overall i conclude that some of those who adore vista either have 4GB of ram and a decent card or simply don't game or fall into one of the other categories i listed.
So in order to make use of vistas main selling point (which many arent because they're stuck with 32 bit, which i think is a bit pointless) you need to have either 4GB of ram, or to not play games. Its just not worth bothering with vista unless you need it for the 64bitness, which is a lousy reason for a new OS to be honest. How long has this thing been in development? What have they come up with? 64bit, superfetch, and increased security. Fantastic then.... Like i said before, i dont hate it, but i don't love it either and i don't understand how anyone else can love the thing its just not that much of an improvement over XP in my eyes.
