THE GREAT DEBATE

Vista

both

XP

So far... Vista.  I haven't had any issues, and quite frankly, I'm tired of XP.  It's old, used and been the pair of underwear that needed changing for a long time.  I didn't have many issues with XP other than the blue screen of death on occasions and that was due to more hardware issues than OS issues.  Just nice to see something new and fresh.

Both

I've had VISTA now for 48 of the most frustrating hours of my life.  I wish I'd gone with dual boot now because I can't get a single game to play.  F.E.A.R. goes as far as the Sierra splash screen then locks up every time.  BF 2142 keeps kicking me out for Punkbuster even though I've only installed the game and the patch.  I don't believe in mods.

VISTA's turning out to be just like my girlfriend - very good looking but a complete pain in the ass...

Originally posted by Solo Originally posted by Monstromo I was stuck in the same place. I just kept worrying and worrying: what would happen if I chose Vista. My games won't work! I will be downloading drivers and uninstalling, vice versa. I will get a blue screen. After all so many people said 32 or 64 bit Vista wasn't ready. Well, I took the plunge and went with Vista 64bit Ultimate. It has run without a single problem. Go with Vistal. The concerns are over rated. Of course, guys that are really XP experts probably don't want the change. As it is a whole new ball game. But unless you are a super OS tweaker, go with Vista and don't look back. Vista is the operatoring system for no and tomorrow. Why pay for an old OS? Vista runs my games fast! Intel Quad 6600 680i Revision 4GB Dominator 74GB Raptor 10K 250GB 7200K Ultra 8800 768 X-Fi Fatal1ty 22" Samsung Vista 64 Ultimate         Your high end computer runs games fast not vista :P   I switched from XP to vista and personally i hate it,  there is a small performance hit on everything and several of my older games will not install on a vista computer.  Vista has this neat thing where you can open properties of something and click install in compatibility mode, and you can choose the OS it would normally install on, and it would install on vista perfectly!   This option never has and probably never will work.  I am buying a new computer with XP.   my 2 cents

Sorry that it is not for you. But you can't tell me about me and I can't you about you. I have a MacBook Pro and have used Parallels to install Vista and the compatibility mode for xp programs worked perfectly.

Without an OS my computer could not run a single game. So telling me that my high end computer runs games fast not Vista is non-sense.   How fast does XP run a DX10 game? Answer, not at all. So, there is a word game for you to ponder.

Just like there are Mac people and windows PC people, now there are XP and Vista people. However, I use it all. I have XP on my XPS laptop. Parallels on my Mac. And Vista on the fastest gaming PC I have ever had.

Not really having all those Vista troubles you Vista haters told me I would have.

Perhaps you need some tech support? Or stick with XP. If you are happy and you know it clap your hands.

XP only gained so much popularity because it has been on the market for 6 years. Vista hasn't even been on the market for a full year.

Vista is no different from when XP was first released. There were some improvements in exchange of slower performance.

If you don't like Vista, the chances of you liking Windows 7 is like 0.0001%.

ed, since you can't seem to understand what I meant, I will try and say it again, constructively: Vista runs DX10 games, XP does not. That means that Vista is my OS of choice for the future.

The reason I said Vista hater was because I was responding to a peron who said he hates Vista. Here's why I like it (in addition to the fact it is not causing me such performance anxiety as it is causing you and others):

What DirectX 10 will do for gaming:

1) Standardized hardware requirements: PC's have come a long way from the MS-DOS dark ages, where gamers painstakingly set up the correct IRQ and DMA channels for their Soundblaster cards, and endlessly tinkered with autoexec.bat to free up conventional RAM. Most of those heartaches have long since been remedied, but DirectX 10 is taking that a step further. DirectX 10 imposes strict features requirements for video cards, so there will be less of a disparity between different GPU makers.

Most importantly, it also means those annoying GPU hardware crashes will likely be gone, as the Unified Driver Model standardizes how video cards operate. Greater stability means no more reverting back to ancient Catalyst drivers.

2) Less bottlenecks in game execution: It's not as though Shader Model 2 wasn't technically capable of a lot of the glitzy effects shown for Shader Model 4--they just came at significantly larger performance hits. One of the most noteworthy advances for DX 10 is less computational overhead for the API. In layman's terms, that's less time spent on the CPU trying to render objects into the game--which allows for more objects (whether it be trees, textures or characters) to be on the screen at once. This also frees up more CPU resources for developers to use on better physics, character animations, or AI.

3) Better shader effects: DX 10 adds Geometry shader, which opens the doors for more sophisticated visual effects including real-time Displacement Mapping, Motion Blur, Point-Sprite generation from points, and Stencil Shadow Extrusion.

4)Unified GPU architecture : Current-gen video cards (and DX 9) have separate pixel and vertex processors, which cannot be processed simultaneously. For example, you could have the computer caught up on processing vertex units while the pixel unit processors in the video card are idle, which needlessly bottlenecks performance. With a united GPU architecture and DX 10, the GPU will be able to handle vertex, geometry and pixel shaders all at once, instead of having to wait for one process to finish to start the next.

Although only the latest video cards (basically only the Nvidia GeForce 8800 series of video cards) have a unified architecture, older cards also benefit from unified architecture; the GPU for DX 10 becomes more generalized in handling tasks, allowing it to handle physics, animations, and other processes not generally reserved for GPU's.

Any moron can search the net and find information to pass off as their own. That is mostly what goes in these forums. I am just as qualified as anybody else to comment on my experience with Vista and XP.

And I won't be stopped by some computer science wanna be in my right to comment here or anywhere else.

Oh, and try and not take this negatively.

Anybody remember when Windows 98 was king for gaming. The geeks all screamed "demand your new computer for gaming only run on 98!" Don't use elite, don't use 2000, don't use Professional, don't use XP!

Well, SOS. Here we go again. I shopped the net and found an article that I particularly enjoyed on regardng the Great Debate.

Perhaps, some of you will too. But I won't pass it off as my own work as many, many are doing here.

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_110a.html

I love the opening paragraph...

OS Shootout 2007:
Windows XP Professional vs. Windows Vista Ultimate

by John Reynolds

"When Windows XP was released, SimHQ did an extensive test series of popular sims comparing the new OS with tried-and-true Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000 Professional, and the Windows 98 SE hybrid, "98lite". A new age of simulations, new hardware and new OSes bring us back to the testing lab.'


And, ed, I have been around PC gaming for quite a while. So, my knowledge base is a bit broader than you think. It is pretty rude of you to tell me I have nothing constructive to contribute. Then, you have the audacity to claim that you are now taking the high road.

I don't think you have a clue what anthropomorphizing actually means. That term makes no sense without a clear context.

However, I think there is a term that fits you better: Pseudointellectual.

From Wikipedia:

Pseudointellectual is a pejorative term used to describe someone who engages in false intellectualism or is intellectually dishonest. The term is often, though not always, used to describe one who regularly critiques the work of professionals, while lacking the requisite background knowledge and experience to have an informed opinion. Synonyms for this character include sophist, and in medical terms, mountebank and quack.
A pseudointellectual may affect traits that he stereotypically associates with persons of intellectual privilege, such as the display of books, classical music and art or the use of complex language, for the purpose of seeming intellectual.
Someone who comments on, or is knowledgeable of, disciplines outside his or her own field of study is not a pseudointellectual, as long as he or she is intellectually honest and does not misrepresent his or her own background and understanding of the subject. For example, polymaths are not considered pseudointellectuals.


Again, I like Vista. That is all I have been trying to say. I also like creamy Jiff not crunchy. Sometimes I like Skippy, but never Adams. Peter Pan, I have never tried it, but I am sure I would like it better than any natural type peanut butter. Do you think I am qualifed to constructively discuss peanut butter, ed?

I hate you both. Just kidding. LOL.

Like you did say before to another, I don't know you. We only know each other from what we have said here. I have read every post you have made since being here and judging from those posts it seemed to me that you were inexperienced.

DX10 is already being replaced anyway by DX10.1  I really wished more devs would give it a chance.

Anyway everyone knows what arguing on the net really is... no high road, not being condecending...  we are wasting more effort than what its worth.

What is being done right that I have been keeping a close eye on is the "vista 64 experience" thread... That more than anything has, at the very least given me a better feeling about the 64 bit OS. When my rig gets here either today or tomorrow. The first thing I will do (besides bench the hell out of it) will be drop another raptor in it, install both vista 32 and 64, and then shove another couple gigs of ram into it.

Once I have all 3 OS's in it, I can then do some real world tests of all 3.

My psychiatrist would beg to differ. He says I suffer from low self-esteem. However, I will take the compliment. I am working on it.

I also bought the Wave keyboard... love it!  Although, I bought a separate G5 Logitech mouse... awesome!

I used to have a Logitech Blue Tooth keyboard and mouse setup until I realized that all the popping and cracking coming from my speakers was caused by the blue Tooth.  After I ditched that setup, I had zero issues with the interference.  The G5 mouse is a great mouse.  It's USB and has zero lag, and I'd recommend it over wireless any day.  I've had many wireless setups and they all have had a certain amount of lag in the game.    

I have Vista installed now. So far task manager dosn't want to start properly on Vista and I'm having a problem with Office 2007 on Vista but I don't know if it's Vista related. I'm still learning about Vista. Good news is, I'm able to play the few games I've installed on it. If I have any problems with installing or playing any games, then I'll probably install XP.

bump the system get vista..

Vista doesn't really seem to different from XP unless I'm missing a few things. I mean it has a black taskbar and the gadgets panel which is a waste of ram if you're a gamer. But besides that and some of the file searching techniques it's relatively the same, also it seems to want to make sure your aware of all the programs/.exe's that you're opening as well.