Vista, XP and Gaming

[Hannibal]

I'm building a new rig. And while I've eyeballed a couple of the older Vista threads here, I am wondering if there is a general consensus at present about whether one should opt for XP or Vista 'out of the box'. Is Vista (and the relevant drivers for nvidia, ATI, etc) at a point where the performance loss in gaming (vs XP) is nearly insignificant for today's popular titles? Does 32 vs 64 Vista make any difference running games from say 2000-present in terms of compatibility or performance?

Bottom line: Is there any compelling reason to avoid Vista for gaming purposes RIGHT NOW?

A small performance drop for Vista doesn't matter to me...waiting for functional drivers/patches from vid card vendors and game developers DOES. So Houston, are we there yet?

[AmIdYfReAk]

i didnt have a single driver issue, a little slower yes, but all was well in the driver front.

680I chipset, 8800GTS, SB audigy 2 ZS.

[shadd_]

no problems with vista64+sp1.

p-35, 8800gt, audigy and x-fi

i did have some problems before sp1 with some programs not working or installing.

[Hannibal]

Thanks. Is it possible to strip the living shit out of Vista (background shit, aero, other inessential stuff) so that gaming performance is better...and would I be right in assuming that this tweaking is essential? (using something like Vlite for example).

And other than future-proofing is there at least one salient advantage/disadvantage for using Vista 64 vs 32 (does 64 require more resources, gaming wise, when it emulates 32 bit for 32 bit games)? Anyone who has used both 32 and 64 for gaming...what did you find?

[Foo]

No tweaking needed, works fine.

The only problems I've found have been with legacy games. A lot of the bestseller budget stuff doesn't work correctly.

Suggest dual-booting XP and Vista but you'll do 95% of everything with Vista. If you don't care for old games or keep an old rig for them, Vista will do 100% on your new PC.

There is 0 reasons to get Vista 32 over 64. Get 64.

[Hannibal]

Foo, have you used the Vista 'compatibility mode' for older games? The one with XP works fairly well for Win95/98 games..after some fiddlin...but will Vista tell me to fuck off and die?

edit: are you running 3+ gigs o' memory on vista64?

[AmIdYfReAk]

i was running 4 gig's with vista, and it was 64-bit.

and foo is right, there are no real drawbacks with the 64-bit vir of vista.. other then ram consumption...

[E:v:O]

I've been usin vista ultimate 64 now for about 4 months, pretty satisfied too.

Drivers have come along nicely, though they didnt get off to a good start they have matured nicely, but vista STILL has bad rep for this.

It's on my server comp too. (Core 2 Quad 6600, 4gb ddr2). not updated to sp1 as there are major software incompatibility issues, but critical updates are fine at the mo.

So long as you turn off the unneccesary resource hogs such as the sidebar...which 'personally' I have no use for, it skyrockets my cpu usage...and if you set up the indexing so that it doesnt index EVERYTHING and its mother, then it's great.

I keep aero turned on as it makes zero impact on gaming (with direct x) unless you're running in windowed mode. Besides, Vista usually detects if there are going to be issues running with aero turned 'on' and automatically disables it whilst the game/app is running.

The compatibility mode is pretty good too, I've managed to install Windows 95 Games (besides legacy i.e 16-bit) no probs and thats on 64!

64bit also has the advantage of having 32-bit and 64-bit versions of regularly used windows programs built into it, such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player.

If you plan on using Windows Media Center (which I do use) , I'd look towards 64-bit as this is also compiled as a 64-bit app...and it does make a difference, if only slight.

[Foo]

Foo, have you used the Vista 'compatibility mode' for older games? The one with XP works fairly well for Win95/98 games..after some fiddlin...but will Vista tell me to fuck off and die?

edit: are you running 3+ gigs o' memory on vista64?

You may get them to work, I haven't put much work into fixing things yet.

And yeah, 4Gb on vista ultimate (cheap when bought OEM). Runs quite well.

[Hannibal]

I appreciate everyone's input.

[Hannibal]

Another question.

What's the friggin deal with Vista and soundcards (whether 32 or 64)? Has onboard audio progressed to the point where soundcards, at least just for gaming, are redundant? Most newer mobos have onboard sound (realtek or some shit), and since vista doesn't allow sound accel thru soundcard, I'm wondering if I need to bother with one.

I've read that the hit on higher level duo or quad when using onboard sound is minimal to nonexistent....is this true in your experience?

[SoM]

the last sound card i had was soundblaster live or someshit like that, been using onboard sound ever since and i've had no problems ( 4 yrs ) with PC's being fast as shit these days who cares if i lose 2-3 fps, all the latest games play at high settings flawlessly

[Foo]

since vista doesn't allow sound accel thru soundcard

?????????

As for onboard... seperate cards always sound better. There are a few counterexamples (a few motherboards with soundblasters onboard) but apart from that, no contest.