Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit SP1 - My Thoughts

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boss67

n00b
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Jan 10, 2009
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Hi there guys...

Few weeks ago i posted a thread with several issues i had with my pc as i was still a windows xp user. Well i read quite a few answers and thanks for quick responses. I've installed the Vista Ultimate 64bit sp1 now on my rig and yeah it works now 4gb of ram is being read perfectly of my Corsair Dominator 8500c5 ;) plus my eVGA 295GTX has plenty of space to move its enormous 1700whatever memory.

I found a few drawbacks though. This damn thing uses like 1.00gb of ram while its idle ?!?!?! :p i got rid of that sidebar as well. Is there any way to free off anything? Not that it affects my performance at all.

Another one is that my oldy Quake3 arena (i just cant get rid of my fav.game) its really dark and i cannot adjust the brightness.

Other stuff pretty damn good even my Fatality usb gaming headsets perform much better and louder than using xp sp3.

Thanks for this help for those who recommended this system but it uses LOADS of memory ! :eek:
 
it uses more memory because it likes to cache everything. load times for things will be quicker in general (especially waking from sleep), and that's why it uses so much RAM.
 
You sound like someone that's totally new to Vista and someone that needs to do some research about how Vista works with respect to RAM in your system. In the old days, the less the OS required to run, the better.

Things are different now.

Now, the more you have, the better (within certain parameters) your system will perform overall compared to the "old" way of doing things. Vista isn't XP, so don't get all huffy and puffy about tweaking it. There's one recommendation above all for most people with respect to Windows Vista:

Leave it alone.

It can and does take care of itself better than any previous version of Windows, sooo... leave it alone, seriously. Stuff that worked for XP and previous versions doesn't do Jack Shit© in Vista and can actually hamper it's performance considerably so... leave it alone.. :D

The Quake 3 issues are primarily related to your video drivers and OpenGL rendering which is somewhat crippled in Vista in many respects. There are lots of references to gamma and OpenGL issues with Q3 engine powered games in Vista; a Google search should locate the necessary variables you alter to get it a bit brighter.
 
It's not even a 64bit thing, it's a "OS made in a day where 4GB of RAM costs as much as a meal at a decent restaurant." The OS takes advantage of the large amount of RAM found in modern PCs. It's not a behavior unique to Vista.
 
Joe Average knows what he speaks of. Listen to him.

Also, wiki SuperFetch.
 
Here's a rule of thumb to go by in modern computing: if RAM is not being used for something, it's being wasted. The more efficient OS uses the RAM more efficiently without creating waste. This is so for Vista, for <distribution name> Linux, for Leopard (OS X), and any other modern OS.

Example: I have 4 GB of RAM and my system actually runs snappier now than it did shortly after I installed the OS, though it's consistently got hold of more RAM at any given time. The reason why has already been mentioned a few times in this thread, and it's an example of what the OS is doing right.

By the way, forget benchmarks on a 64-bit system. Instead, run the CS4 suite or another 64-bit software and compare its performance like that. Even on a 2GB machine the difference is pretty noticeable.
 
I think that sometimes computer folks get too technical and don't employ enough logic and common sense.

What is the main purpose of RAM? To run code and access data plain and simple. But the code and data have to be loaded from disk and that process is very slow compared to accessing RAM. Free RAM is great, but if its free, its has to loaded with something to actually be useful. If you have enough RAM, why not load apps and data into that you might use ahead of time so that you don't have to take the hit to load it from disk when you need it?

That's all any caching scheme does and when done properly it can have a dramatic effect on performance.

That said, smaller is generally better when it comes to apps and data because they not only load from disk faster because they are smaller you can also load more. Windows 7 does have a smaller foot print be default for the same level of features than Vista and this is important so help 7 run better on things like netbooks.

So free RAM is wasted but bloat is still bloat. I think that with Vista some of the high RAM usage is bloat relative to 7. 7 is getting the job done with a smaller default foot print it would seem.
 
heatlesssun

yes thats where im trying to get on....do why are they releasing that win7 so quickly and make it use less ram...something isnt that correct with vista...despit its nice appearance.

Few other things with my system ive noticed much better compatibility with games on win XP especially with physX enabled. Also under winXP games loaded bit quicker....
I tried FEAR2 on vista and i think the game just released few days ago doesnt care about diectx 10 in which ive seen no improvement in graphics(i tried Bioshock).

Also another problem with VISTA is not really good in networking. I had to reinstall my Realtek network adapters and disable all v6 stuff as it took like a minuite for IE7 to load a webpage.
So for me VISTA is just great appearance and oh yeah it can read my 4gb of ram :D
 
boss67 said:
heatlesssun

yes thats where im trying to get on....do why are they releasing that win7 so quickly and make it use less ram...something isnt that correct with vista...despit its nice appearance.

Few other things with my system ive noticed much better compatibility with games on win XP especially with physX enabled. Also under winXP games loaded bit quicker....
I tried FEAR2 on vista and i think the game just released few days ago doesnt care about diectx 10 in which ive seen no improvement in graphics(i tried Bioshock).

Also another problem with VISTA is not really good in networking. I had to reinstall my Realtek network adapters and disable all v6 stuff as it took like a minuite for IE7 to load a webpage.
So for me VISTA is just great appearance and oh yeah it can read my 4gb of ram :D
Click to expand...


Xp was the exception and not the norm for windows releases. 2-3 years is the normal time frame in which MS releases a new OS. Which has gone by already. As far as Win7 and RAM, they tweaked it a little bit, so that it uses a little less RAM. It still is superfetching and I think they may have fixed or altered how Win7 shows what ram is in use. The rest is YMMV. I have only had problems in Vista with Bioshock and FO3. And after a few weeks all of my regularly used apps launch nearly instantly, including TF2.
 
Who cares how much it uses at idle, if it wasn't the memory would just be sitting there. As long as it's faster and free's the memory for programs when it's needed, then I'm happy.

As for the 'leave it alone' comments, I don't think anyone should be afraid to turn off sidebar and adjust system restore resources etc. I think leave services alone is a good stance on Vista.
 
Leave it alone is a concept that applies to your average Joe (not me, I assure you) or average Mary that gets that itch to start tweakin' Vista or Windows 7 just because he/she could do such things with Win2K or XP and it actually made a difference, sometimes a big difference. Because Vista and Windows 7 (with Windows 7 handling things even better) can take care of themselves, the general idea of leave it alone means:

There's no reason to do all that crap anymore since the OS will self-tune on its own over time. All you're doing is giving yourself a good warm feeling that "Hey, I own this thing, it does what I want" when in reality every time (ok, so most every time) someone tinkers with a default setting in Vista or Windows 7 that ends up having negative performance effects - it's basically shooting yourself in the foot.

But, the nature of some people is to always tweak this, tweak that, etc. Tweaking doesn't mean don't change the background image or wallpaper. Tweaking doesn't mean changing the system sounds, etc. Tweaking means tweaking the "guts" of the OS hoping for better performance, and straight outta the box - not Compton - Vista and Windows 7 already perform as well as they are most likely going to, and then they get to work on making themselves better.

That's the point most people don't get: these OSes really do self-tune over time and get faster - but when people don't leave it alone and tinker with the guts they end up having a bad attitude towards the OS like some zealots that hate the fact that "It's my damned OS and I can't do <insert whatever they're trying to do but can't here since Windows ain't open source and they can't see or edit the source and recompile to their little bastard heart's content>".

So, leave it alone is the advice I started giving out around September of 2006 or so... it's meant for your average Joe (not me, I assure you) that thinks they've got to install 15 "Optimizer" applications they have, or 3 defraggers, or a whole host of other "performance enhancing software" they picked up at a register (impulse purchase items) just because "Hey, wow, this looks good, and it's only $5..." because we all know the packaging on such products conveys absolute truth.

Not.

The OS, a good browser with scripting management ability, some good AV software, and that's it. Nothing else is required to have a fast stable machine in reality.

If there's one thing that consistently fucks Windows up more than any and all the virus or malware crap that's been floating around since computers were invented, it's the consumer's ignorance of how these devices function - and on the flipside the greed of stupid people that will come up with some piece of shit software that makes those ignorant consumers think "Hey, wow, this looks good, and it's only $5..."

'Cause when they believe that crap, everything just goes to Hell in a handbasket quickly afterwards. :(
 
bigdogchris said:
and adjust system restore resources
Click to expand...

i agree with this. vista uses way too much space for system restore files. i had to adjust mine down - i don't really need more than 3 or 4 restore points at most (i think at first it was allocating something like 45GB)
 
boss67 said:
yes thats where im trying to get on....do why are they releasing that win7 so quickly and make it use less ram...something isnt that correct with vista...despit its nice appearance.
Click to expand...

I don't know where you got the idea that Win 7 uses less RAM than Vista. It has improvements that allow the OS to run faster-- in fact it runs faster on my Macbook Pro than OS X-- but its RAM and VRAM management is built off the same codebase that Vista was. It pretty much works at utilizing as much RAM as possible while still keeping free enough space to open programs and files up in.

boss67 said:
Few other things with my system ive noticed much better compatibility with games on win XP especially with physX enabled. Also under winXP games loaded bit quicker....
I tried FEAR2 on vista and i think the game just released few days ago doesnt care about diectx 10 in which ive seen no improvement in graphics(i tried Bioshock).
Click to expand...

I don't know much about games since the only one I occasionally play is SupCom. Games just aren't on my radar. I haven't noticed any performance differences between XP and Vista for SupCom, though.

boss67 said:
Also another problem with VISTA is not really good in networking. I had to reinstall my Realtek network adapters and disable all v6 stuff as it took like a minuite for IE7 to load a webpage.
So for me VISTA is just great appearance and oh yeah it can read my 4gb of ram :D
Click to expand...

I doubt that either of those two things you mention-- the driver or the IPv6 stuff-- had anything to do with your problem. Are you sure it wasn't instead something to do with the phishing filter or something similar? Vista does have an new netwoking stack compared to XP, and Win 7 has the same. Driver support on the launch of Win 7 is going to be far better than the Vista launch, which really crippled the product two years ago and contributed heavily to the bad press that followed.
 
I find it funny that people freak out how much system memory is used at idle or when not in use by a current running program, and the fact the person has no idea why and blames the falt on something bad that VIsta is doing.

I been Running Vista almost from day one across 2 system types. I think I have a good handle and understanding of Vista.

IMO Vista is a hog, not in regards to it's memory usage for superfetch and other metheds, but in general, I do think Vista is the best that it's even been in the pass, but I don't see it getting much better and really awate Windows 7. Windows 7 really does seem hold some promise more so then Vista ever did and I for one bleave that Vista is kind of like another Windows Me in some regards and will prolly die out quick.
 
Vista has been great for me ever since I started using it.........never had any problems but then again I don't have any nVidia hardware either........... :p
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Vista has been great for me ever since I started using it.........never had any problems but then again I don't have any nVidia hardware either........... :p
Click to expand...

My sig rig is full of nVidia hardware and I've not had any real problems with Vista either. There is something a little flaky with SLI and dual monitors, I've noticed that certain applications with BSOD my box every now and then like the Zune client and CAM Studio.
 
Well ok just wate all the mem then for win vista ;p wot to do ...

One thing ive also noticed....is when installing drivers for chipset and graphics card on win vista ;p it takes like 3-4 mins to install them whereas in win XP bam less than 1min ....but anw....ill have to accept new technologies from ms....although its not as good as reviews say in games...much slower than xp especially NFS undercover which freezes all the time :p !!
 
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