XP vs Vista - Gaming

[jägermonsta]

So I've decided to build another sick gaming PC when Intel releases their new X38 Chipset. A lot of cool things will be coming along with this chipset for those that don't know. To me the most interesting will be support for dual PCI-E x16 on an Intel Chipset. Anyhow... when this monster of a gaming system is complete I have to decide on an Operating System. I've honestly considered trying out Vista just to give it a chance and also to learn how to get around it quicker then I do now. I'm sort of sick of XP and wouldn't mind looking at something different. But the problem is I read a lot of horror stories out there when Vista and Gaming mix.

For those that are interested here is a review on XP vs Vista for gaming as of May 07

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTMzNCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

I'm not sure if new and better drivers have been released since then... but I'm hoping by the time I get around to completing my computer it will out preform XP.

For those that have Vista now, do you see any differences in your gaming experiences?

[Remedy]

jager I've gone to vista three times, along with it being really laggy doing multiple operations, when I open my q2 (although it is a touch smoother) the mouse speed is all messed up and anytime something in the background begins to take too much cpu power (even in home basic, the lightest package they make) my q2 lags, not real bad but still its lag, where in xp I can be downloading off a newsgroup, unpacking a dvd, playing my winamp and playing q2 all at the same time with no trouble

you might like it and it might run real smooth on that new intel chipset I dunno, I'm about to upgrade to a 6000+ and when i do I'm going to try it again, but I'm not holding my breath, besides everything is in a different place, it takes me so much longer to do simple things because I have to look around for what I need instead of getting right down to it

shits cool as fuck to look at though, the weather thing in the corner is badass and all of the fading in and out that the windows do rapes

as a comparison to your hardware I run a....

4200+ x2
2 gb ddr2 pc6400 800 ram
geforce evga 8600 gts

so yours I think would have to really outperform mine (which is totally possible, but I'm just not sure how much money you would have to spend to get a pc fast enough to run vista as stable as you run xp now)

my 2 cents :P

[X'tyfe]

old news vista = WinMe2

[MyDocuments]

I think X'tyfe may be right. I have both XP and Vista installed in a dual boot configuration on my PC. As much as I want to like Vista (because of how much it cost me). I find myself using XP and booting up Vista maybe once a month just to check if it's any better.

As far as gaming goes, I have run benchmarks and Vista is slower than XP according to them. However, the games I have installed seem to run without speed issues.

The biggest problem I have is with hardware support. My Audigy 2 sounds like crap in Vista, and that's very important to me. If you don't care about sound quality you may be ok, but for Vista it stinks. With no sound cards out there that are designed for Vista, I would rather use XP, which has turned out to be a pretty good OS after all of its troubles.

Being used to XP doesn't help either. The Vista Control Panel, Start Menu and Explorer don't seem to be logical to me, I have to actually think just to save something on the desktop. It seems like MS tried to move towards the Apple OS or Unix and I don't like that.

Another HUGE problem is that My Documents has been renamed and this makes me obsolete.

My recommendation: Stay with XP. Apparently the next version of Windows is due in 2009 anyway.

[MyDocuments]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Every time I boot Vista up (which, like I said before is about once a month) I have to call Microsoft because Vista tells me my key is already in use and I have a pirated version of Windows (which I do not). I don't know if this is a common problem, or if someone's got my key, but it's a pain in the butt to me.

And yes, Q2 is unplayable because of the mouse acceleration. I tried every hack and client I could find but to no avail. If I can't play Q2 on the OS then I'm not likely to use it.

[Robot]

MyDocuments, yes, I think that problem with the key is common.  I would concur that there is no good reason to move from XP to Vista currently, unless you want superfluous features like "Windows 3d flip".

[MyDocuments]

Yes Robot, no gains from going to Vista, only ReadyDrive, which seems to have made no difference to the performance of my PC. I also do not like IE 7, IE 6 is fine for me.

[Remedy]

And yes, Q2 is unplayable because of the mouse acceleration. I tried every hack and client I could find but to no avail. If I can't play Q2 on the OS then I'm not likely to use it.

yeah its gay, i remember when 2000 and then even later when xp came out, someone made a mouse fix prog for it, sux that we dont have that level of support within the community anymore

maybe something r1ch could help with?

I doubt id still use vista though, even with an m accel fix, I do so much shit with my pc that I don't have time to wait for a bandwidth hog to catch up with the speed of how I do things, maybe when the hardware side catches up (which I'm assuming will be when the next generation of cpus are released) with the vista requirements I'll try using it as my main os

man mydocs, how do you do a dual operating system on your machine? does it cause conflicts?

[Robot]

Maybe he uses a non-standard boot loader, and installed them to two different partitions.  That would probably work.

[jägermonsta]

so yours I think would have to really outperform mine (which is totally possible, but I'm just not sure how much money you would have to spend to get a pc fast enough to run vista as stable as you run xp now)

Well this is the computer I planned to build before I learned more about the Intel X38 Chipset being released suppsivly in September....

https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/PublicWishDetail.asp?WishListNumber=4905091&WishListTitle=NEW+PC

My budget is between $3,000 and $4,000.

I decided to pass on the NVIDIA 680i and just wait. So far I have own ordered the Case and Power Supply. Nothing else will be ordered until new parts are released.

Thanks for your comments and opinions. My rule of thumb is normally to wait till after the first service pack to upgrade to the newest Windows. But after reading your comments and other reviews it doesn't look like I'll be upgrading to Vista come the day my new system is complete. Annoying though that they are releasing things like new versions of DirectX that are only be compatible with Vista. Stinks because that sorta limits the use of DX10 video cards...

[reaper]

damit, if only windows apps ran seamlessly on *nix

 

[Remedy]

[quote author=j

[Remedy]

what case did you get?

I'm selling my 4200+ barebone to my brother and getting a thermaltake shark in black and a 6000+ like around the first of next month

[jägermonsta]

man honestly I wouldnt buy 2 8800 ultras unless you were planning on running vista (and planning on sticking with it too), lots of money when a single 6600 le pci-x card will keep xp running smooth, use that money to buy a new moniter or god knows what else u need around the house

not that you shouldnt get one 8800 ultra haha, but by the time you wanna run vista you could get one for like 200$ less

Yeah that is a ton of power. Could really only harness it with a 30" monitor. I don't know if I will go for two at first... the advantage of SLI isn't drastic enough to justify another $700, I see your point. However the 6600 is not going to perform even close to the benchmarks I want. Like say 'extreme graphic' settings for battlefield 2142... the 6600 would crawl like a baby. I want to be able to run extreme graphic settings on all games for the next 3 or so years. 

what case did you get?

I'm selling my 4200+ barebone to my brother and getting a thermaltake shark in black and a 6000+ like around the first of next month

I'm a fan of Antec cases. I like the PSU being on the bottom of the case, nice touch and the cases are just plan quality. It was between the Antec 900 and P182. I ended up going with the P182 because I didn't want to listen to a helicopter running in our bedroom. P182 is suppose to be real quiet and keeps cool according to people's reviews, I like the features it has. It will fit any 8800 card as well, so that works for me.

[Remedy]

[quote author=j