bikerdude on 5/7/2008 at 18:57

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Hi D'Arcy

As a computer engineer I will have to say DONT go to Vista and here is a list why:-

# Vista still isnt stable enough, even with Sp1 something breaks, useal in only after a few weeks.
# File transfers are still very slow, in some case vista still sits there thinking about it and only a ctrl-alt-tab and start the copy again fixes it.
Some function in the OS are hideously over complicated - try connecting to a wifi router for example.
#Compatabilty with a lot of programs dosent work, even forcing winxp sp2 mode.
# 50%+ of games out there still dont run correctly with vista, there is still bugs with DEP and DRM, which incedentally prevents a lot of old games from running period (eg, Dungeon keeper 2)
# To run vista you need to allow for 25% over what your new pc comes with, for example:
CPU - Core2Duo E6300/Amd X2 5000+
Motherboard - 1yr old or newer (intel/Amd)
Memory - 3GB recommended
Hard drive - 16mb cache with 90MB/s transfer (or raid)
Graphics - Ati HD 3870/nVidia 8800GT series or higher

I have a very fast system E8400, 4gb ram, 3xHDD raid0, X38 mobo, 8800Ultra, and yes even on that vista runs slower than it should.

That's my professional 2 cents

biker

redrain85 on 5/7/2008 at 20:26

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I agree with Bikerdude on a lot of points. But I'd just like to share my experience with Vista, since I started using it about half a year ago. I built a new system with the following components: Athlon X2 6400+, 2GB DDR-800 RAM, ATI Radeon 3870, and AMD 790FX chipset mobo.

When I first tried installing Vista Ultimate x64, it was a nightmare. Vista didn't work well with the SB600 southbridge on the mobo, and required a hotfix in order to work properly. Then after it was installed, it exhibited very flaky behaviour. It was slow, there was way too much hard disk activity, and it used way too much CPU time.

But then, a few months ago, I reformatted the drive and started over. I also took the opportunity to then install SP1. Wow, what a difference SP1 made! Suddenly the flaky behaviour disappeared, CPU time was greatly reduced, and hard disk activity was also noticeably reduced. My experience went from being a miserable one, to - dare I say - an enjoyable one.

I still think Vista is a bit too much of a resource hog, and there's still a bit too much disk activity for my liking. But that's due to more background processes running automatically by default: like defragmentation, for example. Compared to XP, Vista is set up to defrag the hard drive automatically during idle periods. Then there's also Windows Defender, which will automatically scan on a set schedule. And Superfetch is also a culprit here. These things can be disabled, of course.

So far, there's been only one game I've tried that won't work on Vista, without requiring some hassle on the user's part. Thief: Deadly Shadows won't work at all, unless you disable DEP. Disabling DEP is a bit of a pain, because you can only do it from the command line in Vista. There's no way to do it in the GUI.

All the other games I've tried, including Thief Gold, Thief 2, System Shock 2, NOLF 1 and 2, Tron 2.0, and Stalker, all work perfectly with very little effort if any. I was amazed to see Thief work so well in Vista, particularly in a 64-bit environment.

I don't think Vista will become an "ideal" replacement until SP2. But as of SP1, Vista has become pretty decent. I'd also recommend installing the 64-bit version: as in my experience, it has not been a major factor affecting compatibility, at all. Unless you want to install a really old game or application (e.g. System Shock 1), that uses 16-bit code. For that, you'd definitely need DOSBox.

D'Arcy on 6/7/2008 at 11:58

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Yes, I was considering that possibility, and that's probably what I'll end up doing. Thanks for that guide, it should prove to be very useful :thumb: