WinXP->Win7 for DX10/11?

[TheJTrain]

I built my first rig in 2001 and bought a full-price OEM copy of WinXP at the time - it has treated me very well over the past 9 years. That rig is no longer recognizable and I believe the only two things about it that are the same as the original is the DVD drive (haven't made the Blu-ray leap) and the installation of WinXP. Love it. Never considered upgrading to Vista, and my feelings towards Win7 started out the same way.

Last year I finally upgraded my video card from a 7xxx series to a GTX260, and I anticipate playing a few games in the near future that will (or may) support DX10 (or DX11) features. That, and the things I've read & heard about how Win7 is unplagued by all the problems Vista had, is actually making me consider getting Win7.

Games I'm playing and will play in the near future:
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Mass Effect 2
- Battleforge
- Riddick: Dark Athena
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Bioshock 2
- Splinter Cell: Conviction
- Max Payne 3

Game I've always wanted to play but couldn't 'cause it's Vista-only:
- Shadowrun

So if I can play Shadowrun on Win7, and I might get some cooler eye candy out of DX10 (I know my card isn't DX11), do ya think it's worth upgrading? Looks like Win7 Pro is going for ~$100 on eBay, which strikes me as fairly reasonable (no way I'm paying $200 like MSFT wants).

Jason

 

[Spoooon]

I had XP Pro for the longest time and decided to make the switch because of the half-price preorder deal.

I really like all the little things in the UI and the extra eye candy.

 

[crownjules]

Consider that:

A) Only more games are going to come out in the future requiring DX10 or greater to run

and

B) You're not getting the full value out of that card by not running games in DX10

Granted, the differences might be minute for you. But Win7 is a solid OS and there's not many reasons to not go to it if the price is acceptable to you.

 

[crazylegs]

Looks like u've got a great lifetime out of your copy of XP, like others have suggested Win7 is a decent OS.

I'd be amazed if you were in anway disappointed, really is a case of nothing to lose, lots to gain.

 

[Mem]

I built my first rig in 2001 and bought a full-price OEM copy of WinXP at the time - it has treated me very well over the past 9 years. That rig is no longer recognizable and I believe the only two things about it that are the same as the original is the DVD drive (haven't made the Blu-ray leap) and the installation of WinXP. Love it. Never considered upgrading to Vista, and my feelings towards Win7 started out the same way.

Last year I finally upgraded my video card from a 7xxx series to a GTX260, and I anticipate playing a few games in the near future that will (or may) support DX10 (or DX11) features. That, and the things I've read & heard about how Win7 is unplagued by all the problems Vista had, is actually making me consider getting Win7.

Games I'm playing and will play in the near future:
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Mass Effect 2
- Battleforge
- Riddick: Dark Athena
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Bioshock 2
- Splinter Cell: Conviction
- Max Payne 3

Game I've always wanted to play but couldn't 'cause it's Vista-only:
- Shadowrun

So if I can play Shadowrun on Win7, and I might get some cooler eye candy out of DX10 (I know my card isn't DX11), do ya think it's worth upgrading? Looks like Win7 Pro is going for ~$100 on eBay, which strikes me as fairly reasonable (no way I'm paying $200 like MSFT wants).

Jason

I never had any problems with Vista in gaming and believe me I had loads of games installed over the years,anyway I also have Win7 as well and to be honest its a lot better then XP so you know my answer,XP is just too old now ,poor security compared to Vista/Win7 and coming towards the end of its life span,Win7 as you know has plenty of life left and a very good OS in general with lots of nice features.

 

[shortylickens]

I have two machines right now. One with Windows 7 and one with Windows XP.
The only thing cool I can find in 7 is the eye candy, and its annoying so I disabled most of it. Until I see some cool games that REQUIRE Direct X 10/11 I will be using XP for my gaming system.
In fact I am only looking forward to Deus Ex 3, so depending on its requirements and how much I like it, I may not ever upgrade my computer with gaming in mind again. My consideration will be how well I can edit photos and videos.

 

[TheJTrain]

Thanks for the responses guys, but I guess I was really looking for specific reasons TO spend $100+ on it, not assurances that it'll be fine and that XP is too old to be considered a competitor. What am I really going to GET for upgrading? $100 is $100 and if it's better spent on a faster CPU then until games start coming out REQUIRING Win7 that just won't run in XP, spending $100 on an OS needs some justification.

Obviously one 2-year-old game that is probably pretty sparsely played is not a good reason for spending $100+ to upgrade your OS, likewise a little bit of DX10 eye candy in one or two other games. But if most of the upcoming releases that I mentioned will be noticeably better with DX10 (and if I understand correctly, my GTX260 is NOT DX10.1), then maybe it might be worth it at this point. What I really want to know is what games coming out will BE DX10 - seems like they're all over the map.

For example, I'm pretty sure Mass Effect 2, which just came out this week, is not, but Battleforge which came out last year, is DX11. DA:O I don't think is DX10 but I'm not sure. Will BF:BC2 & Bioshock 2 & SC:Conviction be DX10? Who the heck knows?

Sorry, I guess I'm being wishy-washy - want my cake & eat it too.

 

[zerocool84]

Well that's up to you to figure out if it's worth it to you. Better security, your general computing will be faster since it loads up your programs infinitely faster, more streamlining, better support for current products, and many more things.

List of games with DX10:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_10_support

List of games with DX11:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_DirectX_11_support

 

[Skott]

I've had XP since it came out as well and never had a problem with it. Never tried VISTA because of all the negative press. I don't feel I have missed anything. I recently upgraded to W7 and I'm happy with it. the only reason I migrated to W7 is because I upgraded my rig. My personal feelings about going from XP to W7 is don't do it unless you are doing a full upgrade (cpu, mobo, ram, hdd, gpu, etc.,). X10/11 in of itself is not worth it. XP is a great O/S and will be around for some time to come despite what MS may think or want. There is only one exception I can think of that you would want to go from XP to W7 without a full upgrade and that is if you want to go from 32bit to 64bit or run more than 3GB of RAM.

So, in my opinion the average user/gamer should wait until they do a full PC upgrade or need/want to go from 32bit to 64bit. DX10/11 is not enough in of itself in my opinion. Again that's just my opinion.

 

[Arkaign]

Win7 is much better with new hardware, IIRC the windows process scheduler for multitasking is greatly improved.

Another biggie : 4GB or more memory requires 64-bit. 64-Bit XP is pretty much unsupported.

As you have a GTX260, I'd assume (?) that you have 4GB of ram. If not, it's worth it 1000%.

Trust me, I was a looooongtime XP holdout, but Win7 is as good as it needs to be, and any current gamer should have it. DX10 was a big waste of time, but it appears that DX11 is hitting pretty hard.

Another significant probability is that drivers will just get more and more difficult to get on XP, and most development/optimization will be taking place on Vista/Win7.

 

[Udgnim]

I'd personally stay with XP until you get a DX11 card or DX9 is no longer supported. this is coming from someone that has not used W7 and staying with XP though.

 

[biostud]

I went from winXP to win7 on my rig, but while it's to slow to run most of the new games, win7 is just faster and more slick than winXP so I would recommend the upgrade.

 

[zerocool84]

I went from winXP to win7 on my rig, but while it's to slow to run most of the new games, win7 is just faster and more slick than winXP so I would recommend the upgrade.

What do you mean by slow to run most games?

 

[TheJTrain]

The "wait until a 64-bit & DX11 simultaneous upgrade" approach is ringing true after reading the recent replies. But there is one thing that MIGHT make me go for it. Some folks have said "better security" as a point in Win7's favor. How so? I'm relatively technically literate (I'm in that weird space where I can build & troubleshoot so my extended family thinks I'm some kind of uber-genius but I know that there are so many people out there who know tons more than me) so I tend to take all the security out of WinXP's hands and handle it myself (other than the regular security updates that MSFT sends our way, obviously I let those happen). Windows Firewall is off, I use Avast, Ad-Aware, Search & Destroy, and Hijack-This, my wireless router is as secure as a layman like me can make it (no SSID broadcast, static IPs only, MAC address filter, WPA2 encryption, etc.). I can't really think of a time when my main gaming rig had a problem due to lax security (my wife's WinXP laptop is another story, but who knows what the heck she clicked on to get as infested as it did).

What, security-wise, will Win7 really give me over WinXP?

 

[zerocool84]

The "wait until a 64-bit & DX11 simultaneous upgrade" approach is ringing true after reading the recent replies. But there is one thing that MIGHT make me go for it. Some folks have said "better security" as a point in Win7's favor. How so? I'm relatively technically literate (I'm in that weird space where I can build & troubleshoot so my extended family thinks I'm some kind of uber-genius but I know that there are so many people out there who know tons more than me) so I tend to take all the security out of WinXP's hands and handle it myself (other than the regular security updates that MSFT sends our way, obviously I let those happen). Windows Firewall is off, I use Avast, Ad-Aware, Search & Destroy, and Hijack-This, my wireless router is as secure as a layman like me can make it (no SSID broadcast, static IPs only, MAC address filter, WPA2 encryption, etc.). I can't really think of a time when my main gaming rig had a problem due to lax security (my wife's WinXP laptop is another story, but who knows what the heck she clicked on to get as infested as it did).

What, security-wise, will Win7 really give me over WinXP?

Here's a basic rundown of all the major security enhancements:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/171979/a_guide_to_windows_7_security.html

 

[Arkaign]

What do you mean by slow to run most games?

He has an old X2 @ 2.5ghz w/2GB DDR1, that's what I took his comment to mean. His system is slow for modern gaming, but he thinks Win7 is good and worthy of the upgrade.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

The "wait until a 64-bit & DX11 simultaneous upgrade" approach is ringing true after reading the recent replies.

^ That's exactly what I did. Had been using an nLited XP SP3 install for the longest time and just recently switched over to Win7 x64.

 

[TheJTrain]

Thanks all. From the reading I've done (and finding out that my E6600 could indeed support 64-bit), I'm kinda leaning now toward going to Win7 later this month (which will give me DX10 with my GTX260), upgrading my C2D platform to i5/i7 later this year (which will take me to DDR3 & 3+GHz), and then upgrading to a DX11 video card when the bang-for-buck becomes reasonable (I typically wait until the card I want is ~$200-230 before going to a new generation). That's three solid improvements over time that will let me space out the expenditures so I'm not in the doghouse with the Mrs.!

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I have both XP x64 and Windows 7 64-bit set up as a dual-boot and don't see any reason to switch completely to Windows 7 aside from the nicer windows interface. I have run into some issues with games in Windows 7 that don't exist in XP x64. Don't know how things will change with the new DX, but so far having access to DX10 in Vista/7 has't changed anything for me.

 

[boran]

I too switched to W7 simply because I needed 64 bit (XP 64 bit is really not something you would want to have)

So I would say, get by for a bit longer, but once you need over 3,5 gb mem, grab w7 64 bit.

 

[kalrith]

I had XP Pro for the longest time and decided to make the switch because of the half-price preorder deal.

I did the same thing. I made the switch for two reasons: DX11 on my gaming PC and MCE on my HTPC. I got in on the preorder deal for 3 copies.

OP, I'd make the jump to Win7 if I were you. You should be able to find a copy for less than $100. If you have a .edu email address, then I think you can still get it for $30.

 

[ayabe]

Win7 is just a great OS period, the only caveat is that you cannot have a shit machine.

 

[TheJTrain]

If you have a .edu email address, then I think you can still get it for $30.

I found the promo site that led me to where the "Student Store" is, but it says it closed as of 5 January - waited too long!
Clicky

 

[kalrith]

I found the promo site that led me to where the "Student Store" is, but it says it closed as of 5 January - waited too long!
Clicky

If you follow the link on that page, you can get Win 7 Pro for $65:

Please visit http://www.ultimatesteal.com to re-validate and purchase Windows 7 Professional!

 

[TheJTrain]

Hmm - I actually did go that far and it said something about "Click Buy Now" but I didn't see anything that said Buy Now. Thought it was just outdated/deprecated. The big empty white space in the middle of the page now makes me think maybe my company's firewall is hiding something from me. I'll check when I get home - thanks kalrith!