Vista vs XP

[Trowabarton756]

Well my Intel vs AMD yielded some awesome results, even though i personally buy AMD. Anyhoo, now its time for this XP vs Vista for performance all game wise. I got into an argument with a guy on the WoW tech forums because he claimed vista ultimate edition was better for gaming and WoW then Xp pro was, yet I look at all the benchmarking tests and XP pro wins, not by a lot, but it still wins...so, what do you guys think?

[geoffdavison]

I have Vista premium on my home computer and it works fine.. if you dial down the protection settings so it doesn't ask you everytime to do something.. it works fine.. i like some of the funtionality of it ie the window gadgets .. i don't ever use the aero interface since i'm always in windowed mode..



all together it seems to work well the key that i've heard is 2gig memory.. anything less than that and you are screwed.

[Trowabarton756]

What about gaming wise Geo what do you think?

[Eteocles]

I have to echo the "Vista is a steaming pile of shit" comment, poo isn't strong enough a word to describe it ;p While in the Intel vs AMD discussion I preferred AMD and think Intel would work just as well, in this case, I say FUCK VISTA. FUCK IT HARD. ;p XP is relatively stable for gaming, has been out long enough that any issue you might encounter will likely have a fix already. Though I hear XP's 64bit drivers aren't that hot, and Vista's 64bit works a little better, right now I run a 64bit dual-core processor but windows is a 32bit install I had prior to upgrading my machine, haven't had a single issue.

[geoffdavison]

No issues with it as far as games either... seems to run just fine.. i think that if its your initial install it should be fine..

the issues that seem to come up that i've seem is people who have upgraded from XP to vista and people who use it on laptops... both of those seem to be continuing issues (my son convinced his grandmother to upgrade her laptop to vista and it can barely run the thing)

[Boylston]

Fresh install of Vista 64-bit, and I have had absolutely no issues. I have heard laptop horror stories, however.

[Trowabarton756]

Hmmm thanks for the replies so far. I still think XP > Vista and you guys seem to echo that XD

[Sarduci]

Running Vista 32 bit Business at work since it came out, fresh install.
Running Vista 32 bit Home at home on my laptop, fresh install.
Running Vista 64 bit Business at home on my game machine, fresh install.

No issues doing technical work (network captures, programming, AD management, scripting and running virtual machines) or with any games (running Firefox for web games, non-administrative account for local games) on any of the systems. SP1 has awesome performance improvements for file system access; I'm waiting for the official release since both of my laptops are on the list for bad driver installers on the RTM version that will be fixed in the final version.

If UAC bugs you all of the time, you can choose to launch programs by default as an administrator by simply right clicking on the icon --> properties--> Compatibility tab --> Check the box under Privilege Level that says Run this program as an administrator. Issue solved. AUC is definitely worth the extra click or two for all the additional protection it gives you.

Good luck with whatever you pick.

[zanthor]

Single box single monitor gaming - XP will own Vista any day of the week. Lower overhead, better driver support.
Multiboxing matched monitors (identical resolution) with a video card that has drivers that support span mode - XP will own Vista any day of the week. Lower overhead, better driver support.

Introduce a 22" to a 19" monitor @ different resolutions. Vista will own XP any day of the week. Better driver MODEL and OS level support of multi-monitor hardware accelerated graphics. Limited driver support but if you build the system with a hardware compatibility list in mind, you won't have any problems.

My current system is an AMD Athlon X2 6000+ with 4GB of DDR2, and an 8800GT. I run a 19" 4:3 monitor at 1280x1024 and a 22" 16:9 monitor @ 1680x1050. Running under XP things run noticeably smoother as long as I keep it on the single monitor, if a single pixel drops over the 2nd monitor I lose performance. Running under Vista everything runs fine, after some tuning I have it running 5 clients, ventrilo with normalization enabled, and a web browser with no problems at all. I haven't tried raiding since I got the performance tuned up the way it is now, but I'd wager much more than a 10 man will tank it.

I did world pvp for a few hours yesterday though with much enjoyment and no latency issues.

Note: I run a hybrid single wow install with a 2nd framed install using virtual links (mklink in vista). This allows me to maintain ONE set of UI mods, ONE set of saved variables, and have every setting from every character available across all my accounts. There are some downsides to this (like UI mods that show me I have 27 hearthstones, one on each character in the tooltip) but the upside highly outweighs it. This is not possible under XP as far as I know.

[zanthor]

If UAC bugs you all of the time, you can choose to launch programs by default as an administrator by simply right clicking on the icon --> properties--> Compatibility tab --> Check the box under Privilege Level that says Run this program as an administrator. Issue solved. AUC is definitely worth the extra click or two for all the additional protection it gives you.If you aren't an idiot UAC really doesn't provide any protection you can't otherwise have by not surfing with an unsecure browser, etc... if you are an idiot, you'll say "Sure" anyhow and then your fucked.

The good news is, UAC can be disabled. A few clicks and a reboot, all done.

[Silly Gooooose]

Fresh install of Vista 64-bit, and I have had absolutely no issues. I have heard laptop horror stories, however.

That's rather odd, I have a friend who also just bought a new laptop with vista and he has had many problems, yet I have friends with vista on their desktops who swear by it.

He had an issue where it would not connect to any unsecure (all, lol) wireless Internet connections, no matter what he did. Even the geek squad kids couldn't fix it.

[Notes]

Bought Vista Ultimate 64 bit when it came out a year ago, only used it for 6 month due to poor(NO ><) drivers for my camera, soundcard, webcam..

When I installed it again, I also installed Windows XP as a Vitual PC. I now install stuff that won't install on Vista on my XP version, and then copy + paste it to my Vista ... And what do you know..: works for most programs .. 8|

Canon told me there will be no Vista 64 drivers for my 3000 dollar camera setup, only 32, and that I could not use it with my new Windows ><.... Lol using the method I just described I had it working in 2 minutes and been installing every 32 bit update they sent out since then without any problems... Offtopic, but I hate it .. It can and will work but it's just the installers who say HEY this isn't 32 bit so I stop working ...

Besides this stuff, I love Vista :thumbsup: I like the looks, the smoothness and I see no reason to get back to XP again :thumbup:

[thinus]

AUC is definitely worth the extra click or two for all the additional protection it gives you.If you aren't an idiot UAC really doesn't provide any protection you can't otherwise have by not surfing with an unsecure browser, etc... if you are an idiot, you'll say "Sure" anyhow and then your fucked.

And the frequent patches to plug securtiy holes in browsers is a clear indication of how secure they are, amirite?

[Knytestorme]

running Vista 64 Ultimate from a fresh install on the Q6600 based pc I built up recently.

Only issue I have had was caused by a faulty ram stick and since I worked out which one it was on the weekend have not had a single program crash or service stop working since. The driver support for my hardware is great, n52 works, Saitek x52 works, G15 works...recognised and installed drivers for my Xbox HDDVD drive, controller and guitar hero controller...ipod was recognised when I plugged it in before itunes was installed and could use it as an external hard drive, and my camera was auto setup as soon as I plugged it in via USB.

Only hardware I have that has no drivers is my Line6 PodXT Live and that's because Line6 wont make any for it.

At the moment with 3Gb ram and a single 7800GTX I have 5 instances running consistently all at ~20FPS with minor hitching now and then due to pageswapping (2 instances on one driver, 3 on another and swap partition on a 3rd) with the biggest issue I am finding appears to be a memory leak in something as after a few hours I will find that one instance of WoW will drop suddenly to 2fps and not rise above it until I exit totally and restart. Not sure if it might be an issue with keyclone (doubt it), WoW (again not really likely but always seems to happen if I zone or finish a bird ride just as I close talents tab) or a memory problem with addons in WoW (is it just me or did they get rid of the bit on addon screen to let you set amount of memorey to set aside for them?)

I can't see a reason for me to go back to XP now (ok, mayyyyyyyyyybe if I really need to record something through the PodXT or miss Aero while using PokerOffice) and think a lot of the flak it cops is from people that haven't used it since it stabilized (or used versions that are more likely to lead to faulty installs) but is UAC is the worst that can be leveled at it then it has done a lot right....and for the record, I hate UAC but still have it on

[MaltheMM]

i know you all hate vista but Vista Ultimate 64-bit > XP pro 64-bit (with the right configurations(no "are you sure?'s")

[Oathbreaker]

10 computers that come pre-installed with Vista. Turned each of them on and booted off of a Windows XP Pro CD. Nuff said.

[Oathbreaker]

i know you all hate vista but Vista Ultimate 64-bit > XP pro 64-bit (with the right configurations(no "are you sure?'s")Didn't see your post. My main is x64 and came pre-installed with Vista Ultimate 64-bit. It is included in the 10.

[Hippieman]

Vista is fine, it's just a matter of not going wireless with it (even with vinsta anti-lag AND WLANOptimizer it still gets a hickup every 30 seconds T.T), beside that I wouldn't even consider switching back to XP.

[pinotnoir]

I had XP pro 32bit and could not use multiple monitors without making a retarted span desktop that looked horrible. I upgraded to vista 64 bit and I now have 3 monitors running without a problem. So far everything is working fine.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Vista is fine for most people. If you never have problems, consider yourself lucky or pat yourself on the back for excellent planning with compatibility in mind.