Vista, XP, or just wait?

[boozie]

I have a decent computer right now, 2.4 ghz 1 gig ram(maxed out) and a ok agp gfx card. I'm looking to buy a new computer to give this one to my gf and was wondering how vista has been treating games lately. If it's in my best interest to just get vista 6 months from now and wait on buying something that's fine by me. I really don't like troubleshooting w/ computers so I'm hesitant to buy a new one and get vista on it. I don't ahve a problem w/ getting a new computer w/ xp just worried i'll be left in the dust in a year or so.

Right now I play mostly WoW and some BF2 which both run fine on my current computer, just looking to kick it up a notch.

 

[theMan]

If you want to play games, I would stay away from Vista for AT LEAST 6 months, maybe more. The driver support is terrible, especially with Nvidia. I had vista for a week, and games kept crashing to the desktop, or the computer would just freeze and I would have to hit the restart button. So, sure get a new computer, but wait on vista for a while.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: theman
If you want to play games, I would stay away from Vista for AT LEAST 6 months, maybe more. The driver support is terrible, especially with Nvidia. I had vista for a week, and games kept crashing to the desktop, or the computer would just freeze and I would have to hit the restart button. So, sure get a new computer, but wait on vista for a while.

Sorry I disagree,I have 16 games installed on my Vista x64 all work great,stability is excellent for me.If you have soundcard drivers for Vista then go for it ,but in you case I would wait for your upgrade,down the road DX10 will be here so you'll have to upgrade sooner or later.

Games I have installed.

KOTOR
KOTOR2
Steam,tfc,cs etc...
Silverfall
Morrowind with exp packs
Oblivion
Baldurs Gate with exp pack
Baldurs Gate2 with exp pack
Starcraft with exp pack
Vanguard
UFO-afterlight
UT2004
Jedi Academy
Jedi Outcast
Space Rangers 2.
Might and Magic 8.

I don't overclock and check that I don't have any incompatible third party software for Vista, maybe that is why I have excellent stability.

I really don't like troubleshooting w/ computers so I'm hesitant to buy a new one and get vista on it. I don't ahve a problem w/ getting a new computer w/ xp just worried i'll be left in the dust in a year or so.

Just wait until you upgrade or buy a new PC down the road ,then use Vista if you are worried etc...

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: theman
If you want to play games, I would stay away from Vista for AT LEAST 6 months, maybe more. The driver support is terrible, especially with Nvidia. I had vista for a week, and games kept crashing to the desktop, or the computer would just freeze and I would have to hit the restart button. So, sure get a new computer, but wait on vista for a while.

That's unfortunate - but many people are gaming without an issue on Vista (either 32 bit or 64 bit). Maybe there was some other issue with your build?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: theman
If you want to play games, I would stay away from Vista for AT LEAST 6 months, maybe more. The driver support is terrible, especially with Nvidia. I had vista for a week, and games kept crashing to the desktop, or the computer would just freeze and I would have to hit the restart button. So, sure get a new computer, but wait on vista for a while.

Too busy playing games on Vista (including the OPs choice: WoW) to post a detailed retort...


Cya!

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: boozie
I have a decent computer right now, 2.4 ghz 1 gig ram(maxed out) and a ok agp gfx card. I'm looking to buy a new computer to give this one to my gf and was wondering how vista has been treating games lately. If it's in my best interest to just get vista 6 months from now and wait on buying something that's fine by me. I really don't like troubleshooting w/ computers so I'm hesitant to buy a new one and get vista on it. I don't ahve a problem w/ getting a new computer w/ xp just worried i'll be left in the dust in a year or so.

Right now I play mostly WoW and some BF2 which both run fine on my current computer, just looking to kick it up a notch.

BF2 will not run good at all !!!! Dont listen to someone telling you it runs better or as good cause that is a lie.

BF2 runs awesome on all high at 1280 x 1024 in xp but in vista rans terrible on 800 600 med

so until you get killer system i would wait for vista ... though i am going to reformat everything soon and i may only install vista 🙁

i am going to see if i can get BF2 to run good on any settings first

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: boozie
I have a decent computer right now, 2.4 ghz 1 gig ram(maxed out) and a ok agp gfx card. I'm looking to buy a new computer to give this one to my gf and was wondering how vista has been treating games lately. If it's in my best interest to just get vista 6 months from now and wait on buying something that's fine by me. I really don't like troubleshooting w/ computers so I'm hesitant to buy a new one and get vista on it. I don't ahve a problem w/ getting a new computer w/ xp just worried i'll be left in the dust in a year or so.

Right now I play mostly WoW and some BF2 which both run fine on my current computer, just looking to kick it up a notch.

BF2 will not run good at all !!!! Dont listen to someone telling you it runs better or as good cause that is a lie.

BF2 runs awesome on all high at 1280 x 1024 in xp but in vista rans terrible on 800 600 med

so until you get killer system i would wait for vista ... though i am going to reformat everything soon and i may only install vista 🙁

i am going to see if i can get BF2 to run good on any settings first

I hear BF2 likes 2GB plus,not sure how great it runs in Vista,however I know WoW from what I read runs fine.

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: KeypoX

Originally posted by: boozie
I have a decent computer right now, 2.4 ghz 1 gig ram(maxed out) and a ok agp gfx card. I'm looking to buy a new computer to give this one to my gf and was wondering how vista has been treating games lately. If it's in my best interest to just get vista 6 months from now and wait on buying something that's fine by me. I really don't like troubleshooting w/ computers so I'm hesitant to buy a new one and get vista on it. I don't ahve a problem w/ getting a new computer w/ xp just worried i'll be left in the dust in a year or so.

Right now I play mostly WoW and some BF2 which both run fine on my current computer, just looking to kick it up a notch.

BF2 will not run good at all !!!! Dont listen to someone telling you it runs better or as good cause that is a lie.

BF2 runs awesome on all high at 1280 x 1024 in xp but in vista rans terrible on 800 600 med

so until you get killer system i would wait for vista ... though i am going to reformat everything soon and i may only install vista 🙁

i am going to see if i can get BF2 to run good on any settings first

UPDATE:

After a hour or so of playing BF2 in vista ...

It doesnt run well at all on my system 3500 , ati 850 xt pe, 1 gig 2-3-3 timings at med 1024 x 768

I experienced slower frame rates and massive performance drops at times. Where in XP it runs great at high settings. I felt my score was lower (usually in top 3) due to the performance drop. I am not sure what i will do at this point but if you dont have a system better than mine I would wait till you upgrade.

Will also try some extra ram 2gb later with roommates ram. Though i will not update old ddr ram. Also something i find very interesting is this whole new 2GB is the sweet spot. My vista uses less memory then xp so i would be curious to know why 2gb would help in games when they run awesome in xp with 1gb? I guess it could be due to all the memory being held by vista as pre fetch stuff (which should be released at gaming time)????? Any ideas?

 

[Arkaign]

Plenty of problems with Vista ATM, most of the dust should settle by SP1.

As for now, all current games run great on XP.

I'd recommend :

Get new PC built, run XP MCE or XP Home (unless you need domain access).

Check back with Vista after the first service pack, then you can go ahead and get a clean SP1 install of it. I always seem to get better results with clean installs of the OS with the SP already integrated, rather than taking say XP to SP2 from SP1 or original.

Oh, and anecdotal comment on Vista performance :

I have purchased and configured two notebooks recently for clients in the area. Both were hardware setups that run exceptionally well on XP. Configuration as follows :

Toshiba Satellite A135-S4400 series
T2060 Dual Core Intel Processor @ 1.6Ghz
1024MB PC4200 DDR2 Memory (2x512MB Modules)
120GB Notebook Sata HDD
15.4" 1280x800 WS LCD
Intel PCI-Express Video
Vista Home Premium
Various other irrelevant stats

Anyway, when first booted, the notebook ran like total garbage, simple things like going to system properties, opening the start menu, opening desktop properties were agonizingly slow. After uninstalling a mountain of Toshiba crap, turning the graphics settings down, it ran a lot better, but still responded about how you'd expect a P3 with 256mb to run WinXP. Ditto with an HP a week or so later with nearly identical parts. Seems like Vista needs either Readyboost or 2GB+ of memory to not be excruciating.

 

[KeypoX]

UPdate 2: more testing of BF2 ... i have found that when i alt tab out of the game and look at used resources vista still keeps all the memory cached !!!

This seems like it maybe the major problem for BF2 ...????

So bf2 has about 700mb and vista is caching the remaining 100 or so for what ever reason... i do not like this idea because at any moment BF2 may need more any way to fix this?

 

[DasFox]

Vista does not have good support at this time for games, and drivers, this is a FACT!

Doesn't matter what people say, agree, or disagree on, PLEASE let's stick to facts, and those are simply, driver support for many things is not mature enough right now.

If you're going to game, then buy XP Pro right now.

ALOHA

 

[KeypoX]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Vista does not have good support at this time for games, and drivers, this is a FACT!

Doesn't matter what people say, agree, or disagree on, PLEASE let's stick to facts, and those are simply, driver support for many things is not mature enough right now.

If you're going to game, then buy XP Pro right now.

ALOHA

so you believe in time that vista will perform as well as XP in games? I dunno i am not convinced its all the drivers fault. Though i could be wrong... as such i did just do a full reinstall to vista 🙁 prob a bad idea but i can reisntall xp on dual boot if need be