Is Vista really this bad?

All right gang, hang with me on this one. It's kinda long but I would really appreciate some input.

I currently have two systems. My first is my Frankenstein system that I built in 2004 with these specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Processor at 2.16 GHz
1.50 GB PC3200 DDR 400MHz RAM
1-Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT
Western Digital Caviar 80 GB Hard Drive
Running Windows XP SP3

My other systemthat I bought in 2007is as follows:

Alienware Aurora M9700 Mobile Laptop
AMD Turion 2.4 GHz ML-44 Processor
2 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
2-Nvidia 7900 GS with 512 MB video memory each
2-Seagate 100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drives
Running Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit

I could probably supply more details about each, but for the purposes of my forthcoming question, this should suffice.

So, I've never been happy with how the laptop performs. For being marketed as such a powerhouse gaming machine, it's just never lived up to that title. Frequent slowdowns and poor performance have plauged nearly every game I've played on it. Even five year old WoW starts and stutters quite a bit. Not to mention the constant nightmare of trying to find updateddrivers for the seemingly unsupported video cards.

Now I know most of you have probably been shaking your heads at the fact that I got the Laptop with Windows Vista, but I plead innocent on that. When I ordered it, Vista was just coming out and none of the bad reviews had hit yet. I thought I would be ahead of thingsa little bit by getting it but all I gotwas screwed. Such is my luck in these matters. And now that Microsoft is basically dumping it, I'm ready to as well, but we'll come back to that a little later.

So here's what prompted this question. I played through Mass Effect once on my Laptop, and it worked well enough even with all the frustrating slowdowns especially during combat. I would love to play it without the stuttering so instead of hoping for a PS3 version which will probably never happen, I got a wild hair to try installing it on my aging but ever faithful and well performing Frankenstein. And to my frustrated surprise, it actually ran better, even with all of the graphical options nearly maxed. At that point I didn't know what to feel. Should I be mad at Alienware for screwing me on poor components? Should I be even more mad at Microsoft over the Vista debacle? Should I just once again resolve to chuck this whole PC gaming thing once and for all?

You can answer any and all of those questions if you like, but what I'd really like is an opinion on what I've decided will be my next move. I'm thinking that since the warranty is expired on the Alienware and I really have nothing to lose, I will get an OEM version of Windows XP and install that and see if it will run games the way it was advertised. Since XP still seems to be abetter OS than Vista ever hoped to be.

So thats where I stand. Any thoughts will be heard, but spam telling me how stupid I am for getting any or all of the above systems or components will besummarily ignored, so don't waste your time. Thanks in advance for any quality input!

well i would advise you to not buy any so called "gaming laptops" especially not alienware.

the release vista was plauged with problems but it has smothed out alot since service pack 1 and the 64 bit drivers and support have been added formost everything you can possibly install for all the 64 bit users.

id say your best bet is to junk the laptop atleast try to get some cash for it. and invest in updating your frankenstein if not just building a new one outright.

Xp is pretty cheap now for an OEM disk of home edition, and maybe you could justhold off till windows 7 is out and any issues are resolved before upgrading/buliding a new PCwould probly be even better

Actually it's probably due to the 7900GS. I'm sure it's the mobile version, meaning it's about the equivalent of a 7400GT, if that. The 6800 is actually a more powerful card. It's not a Vista issue it's a mobile video card versus a Tower video card issue. It's the same with the 9800GT versus the 9800GT m huge difference in the cards themselves, even though they have the same basic name. :)

Interesting, id just sell the alienware laptop for a small fortune, and getting a laptop for a gaming system is the worst thing u can do and any body will tell u the same, u cant upgrade the graphics drivers and its just a waist of money. especialy alien ware lol u can get a 3x better desktop for half the price in most online storesxxscottjonesxx

try windows 7 on the laptopferret-gamer

[QUOTE="xxscottjonesxx"]Interesting, id just sell the alienware laptop for a small fortune, and getting a laptop for a gaming system is the worst thing u can do and any body will tell u the same, u cant upgrade the graphics drivers and its just a waist of money. especialy alien ware lol u can get a 3x better desktop for half the price in most online storesxxscottjonesxx

try windows 7 on the laptopferret-gamer

[QUOTE="xxscottjonesxx"]Interesting, id just sell the alienware laptop for a small fortune, and getting a laptop for a gaming system is the worst thing u can do and any body will tell u the same, u cant upgrade the graphics drivers and its just a waist of money. especialy alien ware lol u can get a 3x better desktop for half the price in most online storesxxscottjonesxx

try windows 7 on the laptopferret-gamer

i agree with ferret gamer, windows 7 has all of the strengths of vista, all of the cool features, and the compatibility of xp. idk what you're talking about it but I've been using it since it was released and the only crashes i get are from my cpu way to overclocked and low voltage, and bad Nvidia drivers when i overclock my video cards to like 760mhz:P

so i would say go with it, btw, I'm using the 64bit version, and my buddy has a laptop from late 2006, and it's running windows 7 like a champ.

oh yea, and it uses like half of the resources that vista did, right now i have like ~45 processes, and only using ~1.2 gigs of ram, with word, itunes, and many Internet pages open.

I think instead of is Vista really this bad? which it isnt since sp1, it performs very well, its fast and everything on my setup great new stuff in comparison to XP, gaming in Vista for me is great tbh. Windows 7 is a step past Vista, 7 is an overhauled Vista with focus being put on every aspect of the OS which improves what Vista brought, and making great additions all around, theres plenty of sites and youtube videos to see how they've improve stuff especially the new UI style, and its more scalable when it comes to resource management.

It should really be "Are these 2 systems enough for Vista gaming?"

Indeed, but a good one at that?

Vista Second Edition is what it is ;)X360PS3AMD05

Complete **** Have you even bothered to do research into windows 7?

All right gang, hang with me on this one. It's kinda long but I would really appreciate some input.

I currently have two systems. My first is my Frankenstein system that I built in 2004 with these specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Processor at 2.16 GHz
1.50 GB PC3200 DDR 400MHz RAM
1-Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT
Western Digital Caviar 80 GB Hard Drive
Running Windows XP SP3

My other systemthat I bought in 2007is as follows:

Alienware Aurora M9700 Mobile Laptop
AMD Turion 2.4 GHz ML-44 Processor
2 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
2-Nvidia 7900 GS with 512 MB video memory each
2-Seagate 100GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drives
Running Windows Vista Ultimate 32-Bit

I could probably supply more details about each, but for the purposes of my forthcoming question, this should suffice.

So, I've never been happy with how the laptop performs. For being marketed as such a powerhouse gaming machine, it's just never lived up to that title. Frequent slowdowns and poor performance have plauged nearly every game I've played on it. Even five year old WoW starts and stutters quite a bit. Not to mention the constant nightmare of trying to find updateddrivers for the seemingly unsupported video cards.

Now I know most of you have probably been shaking your heads at the fact that I got the Laptop with Windows Vista, but I plead innocent on that. When I ordered it, Vista was just coming out and none of the bad reviews had hit yet. I thought I would be ahead of thingsa little bit by getting it but all I gotwas screwed. Such is my luck in these matters. And now that Microsoft is basically dumping it, I'm ready to as well, but we'll come back to that a little later.

So here's what prompted this question. I played through Mass Effect once on my Laptop, and it worked well enough even with all the frustrating slowdowns especially during combat. I would love to play it without the stuttering so instead of hoping for a PS3 version which will probably never happen, I got a wild hair to try installing it on my aging but ever faithful and well performing Frankenstein. And to my frustrated surprise, it actually ran better, even with all of the graphical options nearly maxed. At that point I didn't know what to feel. Should I be mad at Alienware for screwing me on poor components? Should I be even more mad at Microsoft over the Vista debacle? Should I just once again resolve to chuck this whole PC gaming thing once and for all?

You can answer any and all of those questions if you like, but what I'd really like is an opinion on what I've decided will be my next move. I'm thinking that since the warranty is expired on the Alienware and I really have nothing to lose, I will get an OEM version of Windows XP and install that and see if it will run games the way it was advertised. Since XP still seems to be abetter OS than Vista ever hoped to be.

So thats where I stand. Any thoughts will be heard, but spam telling me how stupid I am for getting any or all of the above systems or components will besummarily ignored, so don't waste your time. Thanks in advance for any quality input!

AceInTheHole24

[QUOTE="X360PS3AMD05"]Vista Second Edition is what it is ;)edd678

Complete **** Have you even bothered to do research into windows 7?

[QUOTE="xxscottjonesxx"]Interesting, id just sell the alienware laptop for a small fortune, and getting a laptop for a gaming system is the worst thing u can do and any body will tell u the same, u cant upgrade the graphics drivers and its just a waist of money. especialy alien ware lol u can get a 3x better desktop for half the price in most online storesxxscottjonesxx

try windows 7 on the laptopferret-gamer

Trying it as a secondary OS is GOOD ADVICE. Furthermore it doesn't crash, no matter how hard i have tried, and its a demo, and is explicitly stated that your license only lasts 1 year. If your primary OS is giving you problems its not everyday that you can try another better one, for free.

You are giving the bad advice, not Ferret.

[QUOTE="xxscottjonesxx"]Interesting, id just sell the alienware laptop for a small fortune, and getting a laptop for a gaming system is the worst thing u can do and any body will tell u the same, u cant upgrade the graphics drivers and its just a waist of money. especialy alien ware lol u can get a 3x better desktop for half the price in most online storesxxscottjonesxx

try windows 7 on the laptopferret-gamer

I agree with the above poster i nthat you are talkign complete ****. Ive got windows 7 on one of my pc's and it runs perfectly, hasnt crashed once and detected all the drivers i needed straight away.