OS decision (yes another XPvVista ) - but please read, its a little more complicated

[alexp999]

Okay, I know posts get posted like this everyday, and you are probably all sick of them, but this one isnt just a single case of which is better, I kinda know which is better, I just want peoples advice on my situation.
Okay, I had my system all setup nicely and had vista on it, and i was getting a bit dissapointed with performance in some games and incompatibility with older ones. So a couple of months ago I decided to reformat and create a XP vista dual boot. I wanted to compare gaming performance of my Vista OS with norton 2007, and all my non-gaming stuff on it, compared to Vista clean, compared to Xp clean (when I say clean I mean just games and avg).
Now, I have found that XP has given me far better performance than either vista setup (about 10 - 20FPS!), and tbh, both vista setups performances were roughly the same. BTW this comparison is using all the latest drivers.
So my question is whether there is any point me keeping Vista on this machine as a dual boot, or whether it is worth having just xp but loaded with norton and my non gaming stuff. As standard I noticed XP uses half the amount of ram and has about half the amount of background processes too (even after tweaking!).
I checked my games after a few hours of play and they all use about 1gb of ram. (as a process)
My games:
Half Life 2 (all of them!)
EVE Online (running New DX9 Trinity Engine)
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (1)
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (plus Soaked and Wild)

So going back to a compare vista to xp thing everyone hates, if my mem never gets maxed out, is xp just a better gaming platform regardless of hardware? And would it still cope better with antivirus, office apps, etc, than a clean vista?

Cheers.

(and sorry to post another newbie Xp/Vista question, but hopefully you get why I am a little more lost here)

[sneekypeet]

I believe your biggest hurdle is the lack of a chipset driver for the VSTA version of your mobo to work with vista. Just looked earlier today and only the SATA2 version has the driver needed for the chipset!

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

I believe your biggest hurdle is the lack of a chipset driver for the VSTA version of your mobo to work with vista. Just looked earlier today and only the SATA2 version has the driver needed for the chipset!

how do you mean?
I have the latest chipset driver from VIA and it says it supports VISTA.

[sneekypeet]

could be I looked at the ASrock site and the last driver posted wasnt for Vista ....my bad.

If this is in fact true, your system will handle Vista just fine. With all its glory it is a memory hog tho. In the realm of gaming it will be about the same as you dont list any games that use DX10 .

User interface takes a bit to get used to, but i did the switch based on DX10 , and I havent had any reason yet to go back to XP!

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

could be I looked at the ASrock site and the last driver posted wasnt for Vista ....my bad.

If this is in fact true, your system will handle Vista just fine. With all its glory it is a memory hog tho. In the realm of gaming it will be about the same as you dont list any games that use DX10 .

User interface takes a bit to get used to, but i did the switch based on DX10 , and I havent had any reason yet to go back to XP!

Cheers, but you thnik you miss read a bit, I have had vista since before it was realeased, I joined thier beta program, lol!
I am basically trying to decide whether or not to DOWNGRADE!!!!

[alexp999]

Prob shoulda made this clear.
My two choices I have come up with are:

Dual Boot Vista and XP, have vista for office apps, mail, net etc. and have XP just for gaming.

Or

Just have xp, but have gaming and office apps, mail, net, etc,

Trying to work out how xp would cope with games and all my norm stuff together, cus have worked out for myself that Vista is useless for gaming on my setup compared to XP. Or any other suggestions?

Cheers.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

How many FPS do you get in your games in Vista compared to that of XP? And dont say a 10-20FPS difference. I want the max number.

Sure Vista is a memory hog, but since 2GB is pretty much the standard for gamers regardless if they use XP or Vista, you wont ever use all of it. The more memory you have for Vista, the more it will use. I have 4GB and idle it eats over a 1GB. Again, I never use all of it anyway.

I get 50-100 FPS in Vista depending on teh games I play. I play them all maxed out (full AA and AF etc) at 1680x1050 and I get great FPS. I have been using Vista well over a year now and I love it. I have since the first time I installed RC2. Been using it ever since. I refuse to go back to XP now.

Depending on yoru answer to me on how many FPS you get in Vista compared to XP, then I will tell you what I think you should stick with.

[alexp999]

Well i havent gotten them written down, will go through and write some down tomorrow.
But just as a guide, in XP I have Vsync on all the time, and my Refresh Rate is 60Hz, and it never drops below that
In vista I had to turn it off to get playable frame rates.

But as I say, will have another compare and write some stuff down for tomorrow. Could the difference be due to all the games I play were written in the ERA of XP?

Cheers.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by alexp999

Well i havent gotten them written down, will go through and write some down tomorrow.
But just as a guide, in XP I have Vsync on all the time, and my Refresh Rate is 60Hz, and it never drops below that
In vista I had to turn it off to get playable frame rates.

But as I say, will have another compare and write some stuff down for tomorrow. Could the difference be due to all the games I play were written in the ERA of XP?

Cheers.

I play games that were made in the "era" of XP and they run just fine. Fear for example, I get 80-100FPS fully loaded at 1680x1050.

[AphexDreamer]

2 Lazy to read what above posts, but based on the threads title.

Vista has been great for me, no problame at all since I first installed it.

All my games and I have a lot of games from Half Life to Crysis run great!

So anyone capping on Vista, back off. You must be using out of date stuff, cause if Vista gives you issues its most likely your hardware ain't there to hold it up.

[alexp999]

In reponse to the other things you said crash:

I also love vista, just from my experience so far, hate it for gaming.
On a retail install of vista ultimate after a while it idles using about 45%ram, the HDD is usually always being accessed and the CPU never drops below 5%.
So I used to go through the processes and disable some, then I vlited it, lol! Got it onto a CD for my laptop!!! but two for the PC.
Lowest I have ever got vista to use is about 650mb. but XP is sitting here after several hours of gaming and surfing using 400mb, usually after boot it is using about 300mb!
And I have done very little in the way of tweaking XP.
What could Vista possibly need nearly a gig of ram for on idle???
I have always wanted to know.
on my dad's rig, We got Vista Basic cus it is literally gaming and he has a 8800, he has his laptop for everything else, and after tweaking that, it still uses a gig of ram and he has 4 gig too!!! seems that the more ram u give vista the more it eats up!!! what is it doing?

Cheers.

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

I play games that were made in the "era" of XP and they run just fine. Fear for example, I get 80-100FPS fully loaded at 1680x1050.

Thing is tho, you are running an 8800. I am running a 2600XT, so I need every bit of performance I can get if I want to run games full spec.(or as highas poss) and I just found that using Vista brought it down enough to effect the gameplay.
Just wondering if the way Vista is coded, that DX9 games run slower, than the way Xp coded, more complicated OS in terms of gaming or something?

Cheers.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by alexp999

In reponse to the other things you said crash:

I also love vista, just from my experience so far, hate it for gaming.
On a retail install of vista ultimate after a while it idles using about 45%ram, the HDD is usually always being accessed and the CPU never drops below 5%.
So I used to go through the processes and disable some, then I vlited it, lol! Got it onto a CD for my laptop!!! but two for the PC.
Lowest I have ever got vista to use is about 650mb. but XP is sitting here after several hours of gaming and surfing using 400mb, usually after boot it is using about 300mb!
And I have done very little in the way of tweaking XP.
What could Vista possibly need nearly a gig of ram for on idle???
I have always wanted to know.
on my dad's rig, We got Vista Basic cus it is literally gaming and he has a 8800, he has his laptop for everything else, and after tweaking that, it still uses a gig of ram and he has 4 gig too!!! seems that the more ram u give vista the more it eats up!!! what is it doing?

Cheers.

Im not 100% sure on what it uses it for but so long as I dont have any slow downs, I could care less. My guess is that it piles shit into RAM so that way you have quicker access times and load times for things.

Vista has a shit load of features packed into it that XP doesnt have. Users always complain to Microsoft to add more features and when they do, it eats up disc space and uses more RAM. But when Microsoft doesnt comply people bitch. So its a lose lose situation.

I have never had luck using nLite or vLite for either XP or Vista. It always manages to fuck up the install in one way or another. Last time I tried to slim down Vista, I couldnt right click on my computer and do properties and the overclock seemed to be a bit unstable which was a weird thing.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by alexp999

Thing is tho, you are running an 8800. I am running a 2600XT, so I need every bit of performance I can get if I want to run games full spec.(or as highas poss) and I just found that using Vista brought it down enough to effect the gameplay.
Just wondering if the way Vista is coded, that DX9 games run slower, than the way Xp coded, more complicated OS in terms of gaming or something?

Cheers.

You have a lower end card so it will do that. If you had the 2900XT, things would be different.

When I was on my single core 3200+ with 2GB and a 6800GS, I wasnt able to max out the game. However, I was still able to play it with 30-50FPS which is more than enough.

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

You have a lower end card so it will do that. If you had the 2900XT, things would be different.

When I was on my single core 3200+ with 2GB and a 6800GS, I wasnt able to max out the game. However, I was still able to play it with 30-50FPS which is more than enough.

Well i'm off from uni for a bit over xmas so I'm gonna get a bit extensive on testing my sytem and decide which is best, will post in case anyone else is interested. will try:
Xp with nothing
Xp with norton, office 2007, cad apps, etc.
Vista with nothing
Vista with norton, office...etc.

And see how it compares. Thanks for all you help tho.

[Scrizz]

I use vista and haven't had any problems with older games (Tribes 1, quake, CS1.6, CSS, liveforspeed)

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

I have never had luck using nLite or vLite for either XP or Vista. It always manages to fuck up the install in one way or another. Last time I tried to slim down Vista, I couldnt right click on my computer and do properties and the overclock seemed to be a bit unstable which was a weird thing.

I had that, I had the whole control panel disappearing on me aswell! the first version did not hide enough essential services when you select which to remove, the new version worked great though, have had no problems so far!

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by Scrizz

I use vista and haven't had any problems with older games (Tribes 1, quake, CS1.6, CSS, liveforspeed)

You got quake going? i.e the original? nice! Only game I cannot get working on Vista is the original Tomb Raider (got all other going fine), but with Anniversary on my 360 now I'm not as worried.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Question...Why use Norton? Its a pile of shit.

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Question...Why use Norton? Its a pile of shit.

Dont norm use it cus of that reason but i want to see how it effects things.
usually use avg.

[alexp999]

Okay, I take it all back, I have compared Vista with all my stuff on it, including antivirus, office 2007 ultimate, load of cad programs, stuff for my phone and camera running. And I can say that so far Vista in this state has actually bettered a clean XP!!!
Now so far I have only tested eve online with the new graphics engine, but I was watching what vista did in the background too. On idle, vista was using about 800-900mb of ram. When I first laucnhed EVE, there was a 5fps drop compared to XP. But after about 5mins (I suppose it gave superfetch a chance to do its job, I am actually getting higher framerates, an increase from about 50-70 (low and high in station) on XP to 65-90 (low and high) on Vista. I have to admidt, I switched to XP before the new client came out.
Also I had task manager open in the background on both Xp and Vista, and after the same amount of game time, Vista was using 100mb less of the total memory compared to XP. I guess that superfetch thing works then. What does it do, just shove loads of stuff into your ram it thinks you need? So it technically isnt using it it is preloading stuff ready to be used? Then clears out what is not needed when you start a game?
In any case, got HL2 to try now. BTW I am using the latest ATI driver (8-43-1-1-071113a-05558(8/9)E) (where 8/9 is xp and vista driver respectively)
The other thing I was going to ask was whether or not the fact that I have a x4 speed pci-e slot, is the header for some games bigger in Vista so getting a x16 speed slot would solve the problem? Also do games run faster if they are on the same HDD as the OS or on a different HDD?

Cheers.

[alexp999]

Okay just ran Hl2 and the two run with identical frame rates (70-250fps), even though xp is clean and vista has loads of mystuff and other apps on it!!!
Sorry vista, cant beleive I ever doubted you, lol!!!
But seriously, ATI must have put in some work with these latest drivers cus there was a clear difference between vista and xp a few months ago, but now, just shows vista is ahead!!! nice one ATI and vista!!!
Also vista does not seem so bothered about vsync as it used to be, enabling it no longer crucifies the frame rate!!!

Cheers for everyones help, but if anyone does have any ideas bout the questions in my last post I'd be really greatful.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by alexp999

Cheers for everyones help, but if anyone does have any ideas bout the questions in my last post I'd be really greatful.

Only thing I can say is give overclocking another go.

[alexp999]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Only thing I can say is give overclocking another go.

How do you mean?

Cheers.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by alexp999

How do you mean?

Cheers.

I mean install Vista and try to overclock again.