Go Vista or not?

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pugsley1218

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
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I have a very nice system with SLI'd 8800GTXs, and an overclocked E6750. I REALLY don't want to go Vista. (Still using XP-32 bit) Is it really worth it to go to Vista for Directx10? What games are even using DX10? Is DX10 going to be released on XP eventually? What difference does DX10 make in a game such as Bioshock?
 
Vista is OK, not really necessary for now, not really useful but ok.
The only game that seems to really benefit from DX10 is Call of Juarez, and I haven't played it. Other then that Vista cripples my system.
Where in XP I can run oblivion at 1280*1024 with 4AA + 8AF all features maxed and get 30-100+ FPS, in Vista I get 10+ Fps in many scenarios.
Where in XP BioShock maxed is smooth as silk, in Vista I feel lags.
Where in XP My audigy sounds great and I enjoy crisp sound, in Vista it sounds like onboard.
Where in XP I'm happy coding VS2005 with SQL 2000, in Vista Im limited to SQL 2005.
So in short, I have Vista installed, I rarely use it, mostly for testing purposes.
I do encourage you to get Vista (your setup is killer), but have it on another partition till they sort out performance and companies sort out drivers....
 
You will need to dual boot for game as SLI does not yet work under Vista.
 
Hypernova said:
You will need to dual boot for game as SLI does not yet work under Vista.
Click to expand...

SLI doesn't work under Vista? Now I see no point of getting it... The only reason I would even consider getting Vista is for gaming purposes. I kind of feel like I'm "Wasting" my SLI set up by not having DX10.
 
Pretty much the best bet is to wait for the first service pack to come out, see what they fixed, then, maybe, go buy Vista.
 
Hypernova said:
You will need to dual boot for game as SLI does not yet work under Vista.
Click to expand...

Well, it doesn't work as desired. SLI Antialiasing, Quad SLI, or SLI mode for 6800 Ultra/GT cards flat out do not work. In other usage...YMMW.
 
Hypernova said:
You will need to dual boot for game as SLI does not yet work under Vista.
Click to expand...

This is incorrect. NVIDIA has released SLI-capable drivers for 7 and 8 series GPUs on Vista and Vista x64. I'm using dual 7900GTX cards in SLI under Vista x64. Yes, games are slower (some significantly, see which games perform how well or not before you upgrade) but because I only run 1280x1024 right now it doesn't really hurt me at all.

The point is, whether you should upgrade is a question that requires some research on your part. Is/Are there some feature(s) in Vista that you must have? Do you have some software that might not work? Are you willing to work with an OS that can be somewhat unstable at times?

Recall that Windows XP was like this when it first came out. Service Pack 1 usually cures most of the big (note: not necessarily security related) woes of a Microsoft OS.

Also I must object to the soundcard assertation. My X-Fi sounds great under Vista. Non-OpenAL games require ALchemy, but thankfully it is free for X-Fi owners.

If you haven't noticed, I like my Vista setup. Vista 32-bit is great on my laptop, haven't had any resume/sleep issues or driver problems. However, because the OS is still somewhat new, there are many problems that somehow affect some users but not others.

DirectX 10 is only "worth it" if you see a game that is released in DX10 that you must have in DX10 mode. Microsoft has repeatedly stated that DX10 is exclusive to Vista (forcing people to upgrade from a perfectly good OS to play games = bad...BAD M$!) however there are some projects that are attempting to make DX10 run on XP. However, I bet as soon as they get something working they will receive a Cease and Desist from Microsoft...

DX10 in BioShock makes a smaller difference than, say, Call of Juarez. It does look better, of course, but BioShock also shows how far you can stretch DX9 if you really put your mind to it.

If you really don't want to upgrade, you don't have to yet as most games still run on Windows XP and DX9. However, if you want to play around with a new OS you can still dual boot.
 
Given the stupid amount of money you're spending on a gaming setup for faster framerates, why would you install an OS, Vista, that runs games more slowly than it's predecessor?
 
general said:
Given the stupid amount of money you're spending on a gaming setup for faster framerates, why would you install an OS, Vista, that runs games more slowly than it's predecessor?
Click to expand...

OR

Why spend that much money for a system just to put an OS on it that can't fully utilize all it has to offer?

OR

Why spend that much money for a system just to not load an OS that will soon be the norm?

OR

Why load an older OS just because you see minimal performance decrease with the newer OS? The difference makes no matter because you will be running mostly anything high-end anyway.
 
Sovereign said:
This is incorrect. NVIDIA has released SLI-capable drivers for 7 and 8 series GPUs on Vista and Vista x64. I'm using dual 7900GTX cards in SLI under Vista x64. Yes, games are slower (some significantly, see which games perform how well or not before you upgrade) but because I only run 1280x1024 right now it doesn't really hurt me at all.

The point is, whether you should upgrade is a question that requires some research on your part. Is/Are there some feature(s) in Vista that you must have? Do you have some software that might not work? Are you willing to work with an OS that can be somewhat unstable at times?

Recall that Windows XP was like this when it first came out. Service Pack 1 usually cures most of the big (note: not necessarily security related) woes of a Microsoft OS.

Also I must object to the soundcard assertation. My X-Fi sounds great under Vista. Non-OpenAL games require ALchemy, but thankfully it is free for X-Fi owners.

If you haven't noticed, I like my Vista setup. Vista 32-bit is great on my laptop, haven't had any resume/sleep issues or driver problems. However, because the OS is still somewhat new, there are many problems that somehow affect some users but not others.

DirectX 10 is only "worth it" if you see a game that is released in DX10 that you must have in DX10 mode. Microsoft has repeatedly stated that DX10 is exclusive to Vista (forcing people to upgrade from a perfectly good OS to play games = bad...BAD M$!) however there are some projects that are attempting to make DX10 run on XP. However, I bet as soon as they get something working they will receive a Cease and Desist from Microsoft...

DX10 in BioShock makes a smaller difference than, say, Call of Juarez. It does look better, of course, but BioShock also shows how far you can stretch DX9 if you really put your mind to it.

If you really don't want to upgrade, you don't have to yet as most games still run on Windows XP and DX9. However, if you want to play around with a new OS you can still dual boot.
Click to expand...

I guess I should rephrase my comment to "Vista SLI does not yet work fully".

As it is now SLI users should stay in XP though, by the time SLI is supported enough their setup would have been superseded by a single card well into next year at this rate.
 
The sad thing is, this question will be coming up longer than the "should I switch to XP?" one, and there's still people I know on Win2K because they don't "trust" XP.
 
altcon said:
Vista is OK, not really necessary for now, not really useful but ok.
The only game that seems to really benefit from DX10 is Call of Juarez, and I haven't played it. Other then that Vista cripples my system.
Where in XP I can run oblivion at 1280*1024 with 4AA + 8AF all features maxed and get 30-100+ FPS, in Vista I get 10+ Fps in many scenarios.
Where in XP BioShock maxed is smooth as silk, in Vista I feel lags.
Where in XP My audigy sounds great and I enjoy crisp sound, in Vista it sounds like onboard.
Where in XP I'm happy coding VS2005 with SQL 2000, in Vista Im limited to SQL 2005.
So in short, I have Vista installed, I rarely use it, mostly for testing purposes.
I do encourage you to get Vista (your setup is killer), but have it on another partition till they sort out performance and companies sort out drivers....
Click to expand...

Not to say that you're lying but one of my friends has the exact same setup (Mushkin PSU though, FTW!) as you and Vista Ultimate works beautifully on it no matter what game.
 
I use Vista Ultimate on both of my systems and it works great.
My little brothers has the same specs as yours altcon and it works beautifully
 
CptFalcon said:
Not to say that you're lying but one of my friends has the exact same setup (Mushkin PSU though, FTW!) as you and Vista Ultimate works beautifully on it no matter what game.
Click to expand...

I am running Vista 64 Business with all the patches and updates and what nots. Where I played with fraps I stated FPS, otherwise I stated how the game felt.
If your friend feels thats "beautifully" when compared with the same games in XP under the same settings, then I'm not the one biased.
I've had Vista since the RC, and I am still waiting for stuff to be sorted to get onboard.
I have been dual booting for a long while now, and two weeks ago I finally got the 64 bit Version DVD. So please don't delude anyone. Vista does take a performance hit in mostly anything, some are felt (Like Oblivion) and some are not (Like CSS).
Hearing my Audigy sound like an onboard card (and anyone who contests this should have their hearing checked) and not supporting Creative's touted EAX, makes me hold back.
If I were you,I would dual boot with Vista, but always have my XP backup in case something doesn't work right or to my liking.
Your rig is very high end so you should have less problems then what I'm experiencing with Vista.
 
I think one of the odd/frustrating things with Vista is that, for users who have more or less the same hardware, the reported user experiences have widely varied. There still seems to be an overall "inconsistenciness" across the spectrum, which makes some of the debates like this difficult to resolve.

Back to the OP: At the end of the day - with the hardware you have, once anything comes out that really uses DX10 that you want to play, it's worth giving Vista a shot. As has been said - you should definitely set it up in a dual boot environment with XP whenever you do take the plunge, just in case things don't work out well for you. (They should...but one never knows.)
 
altcon said:
I am running Vista 64 Business with all the patches and updates and what nots. Where I played with fraps I stated FPS, otherwise I stated how the game felt.
If your friend feels thats "beautifully" when compared with the same games in XP under the same settings, then I'm not the one biased.
I've had Vista since the RC, and I am still waiting for stuff to be sorted to get onboard.
I have been dual booting for a long while now, and two weeks ago I finally got the 64 bit Version DVD. So please don't delude anyone. Vista does take a performance hit in mostly anything, some are felt (Like Oblivion) and some are not (Like CSS).
Hearing my Audigy sound like an onboard card (and anyone who contests this should have their hearing checked) and not supporting Creative's touted EAX, makes me hold back.
Click to expand...
I DL'ed for him OpenAL and nothing has gone wrong ever since. I'm sorry that your rig isn't running as it should be.

If I were you,I would dual boot with Vista, but always have my XP backup in case something doesn't work right or to my liking.
Click to expand...
I did do that a few months ago and over time I was using Vista more. I like Vista better than XP.

Your rig is very high end so you should have less problems then what I'm experiencing with Vista.
Click to expand...

My rig very high end? Thank you but high end to me is a C2D 6420, but the Brisbane is very powerful nonetheless. :)

Edit: Also I don't know if you were adressing the last two lines to me or to the OP. :confused:
 
So far I have not had any problems with any games in Vista Ultimate 64bit. All my games feel the same with all the eyecandy on. The only problem that I have had trying to Cisco VPN with Ultimate 64bit. It works fine on my Vista Ultimate 32bit laptop.
 
altcon said:
I am running Vista 64 Business with all the patches and updates and what nots. Where I played with fraps I stated FPS, otherwise I stated how the game felt.
If your friend feels thats "beautifully" when compared with the same games in XP under the same settings, then I'm not the one biased.
I've had Vista since the RC, and I am still waiting for stuff to be sorted to get onboard.
I have been dual booting for a long while now, and two weeks ago I finally got the 64 bit Version DVD. So please don't delude anyone. Vista does take a performance hit in mostly anything, some are felt (Like Oblivion) and some are not (Like CSS).
Hearing my Audigy sound like an onboard card (and anyone who contests this should have their hearing checked) and not supporting Creative's touted EAX, makes me hold back.
If I were you,I would dual boot with Vista, but always have my XP backup in case something doesn't work right or to my liking.
Your rig is very high end so you should have less problems then what I'm experiencing with Vista.
Click to expand...


ive got business 64 bit, and i also have longhorn beta 1 on a dvd around here. vista USED to be a performance hit... now its fine enough.
the audigy issue seems pretty real.. especially since open ALchemy is only free for x-fi users (works fine for me)
I agree though about dual booting. if you have nice graphics cards like that, you should have enough money for hard drives to support dual booting. I dual booted (with xp x64) until the actual release of vista. during which time i went with 32 bit to make finding drivers easier... but considering that my hardware isnt "omg why would we support that" kind of old... or "omg we cant figure out drivers for that yet" new... i went up to 64.

... a 10% performance hit on most games is going from 60 fps to 54 fps. oh nose, it still runs perfectly fine. I never checked xp to vista framerates. the only thing that mattered is games didnt stutter any more, or any less. and thats the bottom line pretty much. you may get slightly "lower" framerates, but the "highest playable settings" arent going to change.

its only going to be 2 months until crysis and other games start coming out. Maybe wait until then... cause then it will be a reason to upgrade... unless you are in a hurry to play Call of Juarez... I'd set it up now and start getting customization kinks out of the way for then personally
 
CptFalcon said:
I DL'ed for him OpenAL and nothing has gone wrong ever since. I'm sorry that your rig isn't running as it should be.
I did do that a few months ago and over time I was using Vista more. I like Vista better than XP.
My rig very high end? Thank you but high end to me is a C2D 6420, but the Brisbane is very powerful nonetheless. :)

Edit: Also I don't know if you were adressing the last two lines to me or to the OP. :confused:
Click to expand...
I was addressing all my comments to the OP, so you may ignore them.
You like Vista better.... well there you go everyone - hop on board.
My PC is running fine, I can tell since I'm having a blast playing everything I want at max settings for my 19" LCD ,coding, ripping and doing just about everything with it on XP.
I can also tell Vista is a performance hog, since the SAME apps run less adequately on Vista. Now I know Vista requires more processing power, but give me a reason, for now a new interface just doesn't cut it - for me that is.
I am also a PC Tech and have been running a PC store for the past three years.
Vista is not yet what it should be, Im sure when MS release the SP1 things will be better and maybe I'll even ditch my XP install (After I get more ram, since Vista64 uses 1GB of my Ram at IDLE).
I suspect if companies Like DELL, HP and ACER have said they will restart selling XP, and some are now offering an XP downgrades -there must be a good reason.
I know that some folks think there's nothing wrong with Vista for now, that's your right, just don't think your OPINION makes you right. If this were down to a majority vote - your OPINION would lose.
Even my wife can't take Vista for all its bugs, and she basically just surfs the net and uses office (on a 2GB Ram C2d Laptop with Home Premium).
All I said is DUAL BOOT and that Vista is not ready for the masses.
 
I'm not sure i can agree with the above poster. I haven't seen a terrible slow down in encoding or anything else, and business will start to switch over so you are just doing yourself a disservice by not running it. They will switch over because of Software Assurance and they will do it before they have to start paying for it.

I can run all of the games, and please refer me to those bugs that are so critical. The only one I have read about is the mp3 and network usage. Aside from that, something I never noticed, I don't really see any issues. The driver support gets better everyday, and the updates are released quite frequently.

As a pc tech who runs his own store, don't you think it would be wise to start familliarizing yourself with vista since it is what everyone will be using.
 
i was under the impression that vista uses a lot of ram at idle because it preloads commonly used programs. And if another program actually needs that memory, it will unload some programs. Just because the ram isnt listed as "free," doesnt mean it is unusable...

i still hold to: vista is as awful as people want to make it seem, but its not super necessary to upgrade now (even if there is no drawback unless you have old legacy parts that you cant find drivers for)
i upgraded so i dont have to later. cause eventually you will.
 
I wiped my vista 32bit/winxp 32bit partitions after I upgraded to 4 gigs of ram and installed vista 64bit. The newest x-fi driver from creative does not play well with 4gig ram/vista64 (heavy static sounds come out of speakers). I had to search for and install an older beta driver and it works fine now.
 
Nettwerk said:
I wiped my vista 32bit/winxp 32bit partitions after I upgraded to 4 gigs of ram and installed vista 64bit. The newest x-fi driver from creative does not play well with 4gig ram/vista64 (heavy static sounds come out of speakers). I had to search for and install an older beta driver and it works fine now.
Click to expand...

Again - a lot of things with Vista are hit or miss. I have absolutely no problems with Vista x64/X-Fi/4 GB of RAM.

Unfortunately, a lot of it boils down to "well, you'll just have to try it," which isn't very comforting :(
 
Personally, when i switched the from an athlon xp 1800 1 gig ram running windows xp to my Q6600 with with 4 gigs running vista 64 home premium i thought the performance gain was minimal, but after about 2 1/2 or 3 weeks i couldnt believe the difference. Vista is super fast at everything i am doing, and not hanging anymore. Granted my computer is on steroids compared to my old one, but with the old one to get it to be responsive i could only have about 25 processes on boot, now i running 70ish and i hardly see any spike on any of the CPU's. What else is funny is that typing now the system is using 58% of the ram and while i play BF2142 it uses at most 40%.

I think, and i have read, that it gets better after a few weeks of use
 
I tried Vista with a brand new system from AVA and have had one problem after another and I could no longer take it. I contacted AVA and they agreed with me 100% that Vista just isn't ready yet. It seems like a product that is only 50% completed. Vista has the right idea, it just isn't quite there yet. I have since switched back to XP with 0 problems and smooth play. I'm not going to touch Vista again until SP1 is released and then i'll get it another shot, but until then XP all the way. :cool:
 
I didn't like the way it worked, or the way it looked so I went back to XP Pro. I think it's a matter of personal taste as many seem to prefer it.
 
I'm still dual booting with XP Pro 32bit.

After I removed my X-FI Elite Pro, and retried x64 with 8GB of ram, I am seriously impressed.

Since I have so much memory, Vista can load almost everything I use into memory, and it loads instantly. Only issue I am having now is with World of Warcraft. Since almost everything is preloaded into memory, my hard drives are spinning down due to non use. When something unexpected occurs, I get a long lag while my drives spin up.. Think I am just going to turn off power managment on teh drives..
 
I have been using Vista so far and loved it. The only issue I have had is when I switched to this new mobo. Asus doesn't seem to concerned with getting finished drivers out for Vista. I still can't suspend, it will freeze the system, though oddly on a reboot it will come back up like a resume heh.

Other than that 0 issues and I like the way it looks/works a lot better. The only game/app I have noticed decreased performance in is Rainbow Six Vegas and that is a pretty poor port to begin with.
 
Spazilton said:
I'm still dual booting with XP Pro 32bit.

After I removed my X-FI Elite Pro, and retried x64 with 8GB of ram, I am seriously impressed.

Since I have so much memory, Vista can load almost everything I use into memory, and it loads instantly. Only issue I am having now is with World of Warcraft. Since almost everything is preloaded into memory, my hard drives are spinning down due to non use. When something unexpected occurs, I get a long lag while my drives spin up.. Think I am just going to turn off power managment on teh drives..
Click to expand...

Yeah, I too love the way it manages my 2GB of RAM. Coming from 512MB to 2GB was a big improvement for me. Can't wait to get a SSD and do a future upgrade to 8GB of RAM. :)
 
altcon said:
Vista is OK, not really necessary for now, not really useful but ok.
The only game that seems to really benefit from DX10 is Call of Juarez, and I haven't played it. Other then that Vista cripples my system.
Where in XP I can run oblivion at 1280*1024 with 4AA + 8AF all features maxed and get 30-100+ FPS, in Vista I get 10+ Fps in many scenarios.
Where in XP BioShock maxed is smooth as silk, in Vista I feel lags.
Where in XP My audigy sounds great and I enjoy crisp sound, in Vista it sounds like onboard.
Where in XP I'm happy coding VS2005 with SQL 2000, in Vista Im limited to SQL 2005.
So in short, I have Vista installed, I rarely use it, mostly for testing purposes.
I do encourage you to get Vista (your setup is killer), but have it on another partition till they sort out performance and companies sort out drivers....
Click to expand...

This guy hit it on the spot! I agree with what you said, I also noticed that sound with an x-fi card and an expensive 5.1 speaker setup sounds like onboard sound on vista, washed down and shitty, were as on xp the sound is perfect with excellent crisp mids and highs. Vista feels a lot slower, and less repsonsive compared to xp even with 4 gigs of ram, another disappointment. I still use the march x-fi driver, since the june one provides nothing but static as soon as windows loads, its horrible. Dolby Digital & DTS decoding is broken and not working under vista. Random BSOD"S at least once a day during gaming Process_Has_Locked_Pages due to ctoss2k.sys which is creative labs OS service driver.
 
Vista has only given me crap so far if you ask me.

Slower system performance.
Sound card drivers not released yet (m-audio revo 7.1), so I use onboard.
Internet explorer 7 bug (not connected to the net, try again.)
Palm software for vista sucks. All buggy and crap.

Basically, I should have waited, but I dont feel like reinstalling XP, and re-configuring everything. Takes alot of time, and I'm not willing to spend it all to go back.

I guess that once drivers will be out for everything, and everything will be compatible, it's going to be way better,
 
chaikovski2002 said:
This guy hit it on the spot! I agree with what you said, I also noticed that sound with an x-fi card and an expensive 5.1 speaker setup sounds like onboard sound on vista, washed down and shitty, were as on xp the sound is perfect with excellent crisp mids and highs. Vista feels a lot slower, and less repsonsive compared to xp even with 4 gigs of ram, another disappointment. I still use the march x-fi driver, since the june one provides nothing but static as soon as windows loads, its horrible. Dolby Digital & DTS decoding is broken and not working under vista. Random BSOD"S at least once a day during gaming Process_Has_Locked_Pages due to ctoss2k.sys which is creative labs OS service driver.
Click to expand...

Just a thought but if the Creative cards driver's don't work well why do you still use it? I'm using a cheapo generic one and it still sounds better.
 
CptFalcon said:
Just a thought but if the Creative cards driver's don't work well why do you still use it? I'm using a cheapo generic one and it still sounds better.
Click to expand...

Because I bought x-fi fat41ity champion 3 months ago for $150 and I don't feel like throwing it away just yet, sniff:(
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Because I bought x-fi fat41ity champion 3 months ago for $150 and I don't feel like throwing it away just yet, sniff:(
Click to expand...

And who's fault that the drivers are crappy? It's a shame that creative is trying to shove XP back up everyone's asses.
 
CptFalcon said:
And who's fault that the drivers are crappy? It's a shame that creative is trying to shove XP back up everyone's asses.
Click to expand...

I find it somewhat upsetting and somewhat funny, since on the box of the x-fi card it says its vista ready, apparently its not, oh well.
 
I'm using a X-Fi XtremeGamer/4GB/Vista 64 and no problems. I did download the drivers and didn't touch the driver CD that came with the card.
 
i dont see what all the problems are..... i installed vista ultimatex32, 2 months ago, and dont really game all that much, but i played cod2 and it ran awesome, all stuff on high, on high res. no lags.....
i just installed the bioshock demo, and on high res, something like 1280x960 (?) it runs ultra sweet on my system....... no lagging, good fps. its working well for me.
 
Hypernova said:
I guess I should rephrase my comment to "Vista SLI does not yet work fully".

As it is now SLI users should stay in XP though, by the time SLI is supported enough their setup would have been superseded by a single card well into next year at this rate.
Click to expand...

Once MS released the "compatibility and performance" patches my problems went away... I haven't had an SLI issue since.
 
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