• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Which Vista version best for a gamer?

D

Drift3r

Guest
Basically which version of Vista is best for gamer to get ? I don't want or care about a lot of the extra frills but I do want to be able to run games, watch movies, surf the web, type stuff up etc.... So which version would be good for a gamer?

P.S. What's the performance like with 64bit version vs 32bit version? Also do they sell the 64 bit version or do I have to send away for it?
 
For gaming and movies I recommend Vista Home Premium, if you want Fun as well as productivity (like programming) then go for Vista Ultimate...i use Vista Ultimate x64 retail...its 10X faster than XP and 5X faster than Vista 32bit. i ran several benchmarks in x64 version of vista and it runs faster than 32bit version, never going back to XP or 32bit OS again.

Make sure your system is compatible with x64, the drivers for my USB Headphones are not available for x64 version- not a big deal for me- i use default USB audio drivers

Edit:

Only Ultimate users get 64bit version DVD, Home Premium users must order a x64 DVD from Microsoft. It's not free, they will charge you 10 bucks and also you have to enter your product key.
 
Honestly right now for gaming, I would stick with XP. Drivers are still very lacking in Vista. The Nvidia drivers for example, still don't work right, missing resolutions, lower performance than XP drivers, SLI support lacking. A lot of hardware still has no drivers at all, my sound card doesn't even have beta drivers. Neither 32bit or 64bit. No direct-x 10 games yet, assuming that the drivers even support it yet. Gaming performance in Vista is lacking compared to XP.
 
Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
Home premium is probably what you want and stay away from the x64 unless you want driver and compatability problems.
Click to expand...

Please stop spreading FUD,there are a lot of happy Vista x64 users that game like myself,FYI have 22 games installed last count.

See this thread here on happy users.


I think Home Premium x64 if you have drivers for your hardware,driver support is good IMHO and getting better all the time.

One more thing, if you need to play very old 16 bit games then you have no choice but to go with Vista x68,due to no 16 bit support in Vista x64,personally this has never been a problem for me.
 
Originally posted by: Drift3r
Basically which version of Vista is best for gamer to get ? I don't want or care about a lot of the extra frills but I do want to be able to run games, watch movies, surf the web, type stuff up etc.... So which version would be good for a gamer?
Click to expand...

"Vista XP"

It's great if you like being on the cutting edge, with all the problems inherent to it - but if you just want usability and raw performance, stick with XP for now until Vista's drivers mature a little.

- M4H
 
Originally posted by: Aberforth
i use Vista Ultimate x64 retail...its 10X faster than XP and 5X faster than Vista 32bit.
Click to expand...

Do you have any screenshots or benchmarks to back up this somewhat unbelievable claim?



Originally posted by: Mem
Please stop spreading FUD,there are a lot of happy Vista x64 users that game like myself,FYI have 22 games installed last count.

See this thread here on happy users.
Click to expand...

Mem, as an advanced user, you should know that while it works for you, that does not guarantee it will work for others. There are enough people having problems with Vista to be able to give what is currently the best advice to a gamer, i.e. that as 2 posters have pointed out, XP is still the best for gaming.

No DirectX 10 games either. If there were, completely different ball game.

But while there aren't, *most* gamers would have a better gaming experience on XP right now.

That will change in the coming months, but is not the case now.

To the OP, why not buy Vista now and install later, or dual boot it now and see.

At least then you have an OS to go to *if* Vista doesn't like a particular game or driver.
 
Originally posted by: mancunian
Originally posted by: Aberforth
i use Vista Ultimate x64 retail...its 10X faster than XP and 5X faster than Vista 32bit.
Click to expand...

Do you have any screenshots or benchmarks to back up this somewhat unbelievable claim?



Originally posted by: Mem
Please stop spreading FUD,there are a lot of happy Vista x64 users that game like myself,FYI have 22 games installed last count.

See this thread here on happy users.
Click to expand...

Mem, as an advanced user, you should know that while it works for you, that does not guarantee it will work for others. There are enough people having problems with Vista to be able to give what is currently the best advice to a gamer, i.e. that as 2 posters have pointed out, XP is still the best for gaming.

No DirectX 10 games either. If there were, completely different ball game.

But while there aren't, *most* gamers would have a better gaming experience on XP right now.

That will change in the coming months, but is not the case now.

To the OP, why not buy Vista now and install later, or dual boot it now and see.

At least then you have an OS to go to *if* Vista doesn't like a particular game or driver.
Click to expand...



He asked about Vista not XP,FYI my gaming experience is solid in Vista,yes every user will have difference experiences but the same can be said for WinXP too(both good and bad).Put it this way, Vista is a lot more solid then what XP was when it was first released,with both ATi and Nvidia going to monthly updates I would not worry too much about video drivers,as to sound card drivers I'm using an Audigy 4 soundcard ,no problems to report.

I would say setting the sound to 24 bit rather then Vista's default 16 bit setting does sound better (where your soundcard supports 24 bit).

But while there aren't, *most* gamers would have a better gaming experience on XP right now.
Click to expand...
Depends what you mean by better gaming experience,most gamers won't worry about slight drop in speed in some games ie... 100 FPS rather then say 120FPS in XP.
Stability and graphic glitches will always be down to drivers and not the OS,personally I have only one game that has glitches (Dark and light) which I don't play anymore and was always buggy even in XP,anyway each to their own.
 
Gaming on Vista is iffy at best. Try it out for 30 days, load your games on it, but I'd have to say that for now :

XP > Vista for gaming
 
Originally posted by: Mem
Depends what you mean by better gaming experience,most gamers won't worry about slight drop in speed in some games ie... 100 FPS rather then say 120FPS in XP.
Stability and graphic glitches will always be down to drivers and not the OS,personally I have only one game that has glitches (Dark and light) which I don't play anymore and was always buggy even in XP,anyway each to their own.
Click to expand...

The most users who come asking here are not enthusiast level users with kick@ss rigs, otherwise they wouldn't be asking.

Such users will more likely be looking more at figures like 50 fps versus 35 fps.
 
While me loves me Vista I have to agree that, for primarily gaming, stick with XP.

The driver situation is pretty hit or miss right now (even though I'm sure that the likes of Nvidia, AMD/ATI, and Creative Labs had access to Vista code WAY befor I got a hold of Beta 2).

While Vista runs great for me I have an HP 2175 All In One and a Soundblaster X-Fi (talk about bloat...) collecting dust. HP support stated that the 2175 would have "limited" (translate to crappy) support in Vista gold but I should upgrade my All In One to one of these "all HP" models... MS took Directsound 3D support out so no EAX or 3D sound hardware acceleration with older games and the "Alchemy" solution did not work for me (COD2, Guild Wars etc...)

I did take SOME of their (HP's) advice and upgraded to a Samsung color laser which works great in Vista...

Sorry to spin off on an off topic rant... In short, for gaming, I would stick with XP, if you want to upgrade to Vista I would say a minimum of Home Premium (tho' Ultimate has some additional frills if you can afford it)...
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
i use Vista Ultimate x64 retail...its 10X faster than XP and 5X faster than Vista 32bit.
Click to expand...

Those are some pretty extreme numbers, do you have any way to prove them?
Click to expand...

I've already asked this and as yet, have received no response.

For the record, I really like Vista. I boot both Vista and XP.

It's just the question "what is better for gaming?"

Right now, that's XP.
 
I remember a similar question back when XP first came out; if Home or Professional was better. Turns out they were identical in performance. Then x64 came out and again, performance was relatively similar. It'll probably be the same with the flavors of Vista.

Between x64 and x86, I don't think you'd see any kind of benefit running x64 OS on x64 hardware when the vast majority of apps and games are still x86. Office 2007 will never come out in an x64 native version which just shows IMHO how dedicated Microsoft is to the X64 platform. Any performance benefit is probably placebo unless supported with benchmarks.

edit:

Forgot what I originally wanted to say. 🙂

Between Vista versions, there probably isn't a "best version" for games. If you're a gamer though, stick with XP for the time being. Eventually Vista will be faster than XP but for now XP is still the king. I switched back to XP because even with the latest drivers, performance of my GeForce 6800 was awful at any resolution or even when I turned off all features in a game that would work with full details and native res on my 1680x1050 LCD screen. IE, there really wasn't any way around the performance drop and there was essentially a software driver "ceiling" that I was hitting.
 
Office 2007 will never come out in an x64 native version which just shows IMHO how dedicated Microsoft is to the X64 platform.
Click to expand...

IMO it only shows that MS knows that there is absolutely 0 reason to release a 64-bit port of Office. The only part that has any chance of benefiting would be Access and if you get the point where an instance of Access requires >2G of VM you should start looking at using a real database instead.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top