Vista, Worth getting yet?

I have a high spec pc capable of dx10 but am currently still using XP. All the negative posts i read on vista and gaming are a little old now so i wondered if Vista is worth buying Yet. Should i hold out until games such as crysis or take the plunge now.

I spend alot of time playing games such as Stalker, Company of Heroes and Medieval 2 so if Vista does not like these games would really like to know. Thanks in advance.

What are the benefits for you to upgrade?

If DX10 is the only thing, then there's no need to upgrade yet, since there isn't a real DX10 game out there.

There are tons of benefits that has nothing to do with games. They are more than worth it imo. Deihmos

Absolutely agree with Deihmos. There are numerous benefits to using Vista other than DX10. After using it for the past several months, I actually find it a tad painful to go back to XP.

[QUOTE="Deihmos"]There are tons of benefits that has nothing to do with games. They are more than worth it imo. Ein-7919

Absolutely agree with Deihmos. There are numerous benefits to using Vista other than DX10. After using it for the past several months, I actually find it a tad painful to go back to XP.

I have a high spec pc capable of dx10 but am currently still using XP. All the negative posts i read on vista and gaming are a little old now so i wondered if Vista is worth buying Yet. Should i hold out until games such as crysis or take the plunge now.

I spend alot of time playing games such as Stalker, Company of Heroes and Medieval 2 so if Vista does not like these games would really like to know. Thanks in advance.

Frozzik

I have Vista and I've grown to love it - for everything EXCEPT gaming. Not having EAX support in games SUCKS, and there are a lot more incompatibilities on Vista than XP.

[QUOTE="Frozzik"]

I have a high spec pc capable of dx10 but am currently still using XP. All the negative posts i read on vista and gaming are a little old now so i wondered if Vista is worth buying Yet. Should i hold out until games such as crysis or take the plunge now.

I spend alot of time playing games such as Stalker, Company of Heroes and Medieval 2 so if Vista does not like these games would really like to know. Thanks in advance.

Jack_Summersby

I have Vista and I've grown to love it - for everything EXCEPT gaming. Not having EAX support in games SUCKS, and there are a lot more incompatibilities on Vista than XP.

EAX wasn't removed. Creative waited til the last minute to start working on their Vista drivers and has totally dropped the ball.

The preferred accelerated sound API has simply changed to OpenAL so games that use HAL wouldn't provide EAX. Most games use OpenAL but those that don't can download the Creative Alchemy program to regain EAX.

No need to list since you can always find it on the internetThere will be some that will continuously say "Vista sucks" and some will say it's much better than XP. It's better to find out for yourself because no one on any forum can do it for you. Deihmos

The Gamespot forums are part of the internet (try it out for yourself). If anyone here says Vista has many benefits, especially for gaming, then here's your big chance to share your experience with other gamers around the world. . . on the internet. Otherwise, I'll just dismiss all claims as empty. Just as empty as anything I could find on google.

I would say wait and buy it when they come out with EAK support and all that jazz. Give it a year or so to fix all the bugs and whatnot, and everyone who was saying it sucked will all move on to it and be like "OMGITSSOAMAZING!!!"

But that's my opinion. I haven't tried Vista out yet.

Benefits? I see nothing substantial that I can do on Vista that I can't do on XP.

Ok, so you get windows defender, more power features, and a pretty interface. Big flippin deal. The folder security is a pain in the rear, and so is the user account control garbage. My computer should not be protecting itself from me.

Folder security and account control can be easily turned off.

I love my windows vista, but it feels more like a medium sized addon pack than a fully fledged operating system. Ultimate is definately not worth more than 250 bucks. Bang for the buck: no.

Hey, but if you got a lot of money to blow off, buy it. You wont regret it.

[QUOTE="Deihmos"]No need to list since you can always find it on the internetThere will be some that will continuously say "Vista sucks" and some will say it's much better than XP. It's better to find out for yourself because no one on any forum can do it for you. Qixote

The Gamespot forums are part of the internet (try it out for yourself). If anyone here says Vista has many benefits, especially for gaming, then here's your big chance to share your experience with other gamers around the world. . . on the internet. Otherwise, I'll just dismiss all claims as empty. Just as empty as anything I could find on google.

Do your own research and stop relying on random forum posts since many of them don't know much. You can easily find benchmark tests online if you are interested. That is something I don't do...all I know is everything works fine inlcuding EAX.

Do your own research and stop relying on random forum posts since many of them don't know much. You can easily find benchmark tests online if you are interested. That is something I don't do...all I know is everything works fine inlcuding EAX.

Deihmos

So what exactly do you come to this forum for anyway? I would imagine any information you read here you can find by googling. That leaves only 2 other things you could be doing here: randomly posting or telling everyone to google for everything.

[QUOTE="Jack_Summersby"][QUOTE="Frozzik"]

I have a high spec pc capable of dx10 but am currently still using XP. All the negative posts i read on vista and gaming are a little old now so i wondered if Vista is worth buying Yet. Should i hold out until games such as crysis or take the plunge now.

I spend alot of time playing games such as Stalker, Company of Heroes and Medieval 2 so if Vista does not like these games would really like to know. Thanks in advance.

Deihmos

I have Vista and I've grown to love it - for everything EXCEPT gaming. Not having EAX support in games SUCKS, and there are a lot more incompatibilities on Vista than XP.

EAX wasn't removed. Creative waited til the last minute to start working on their Vista drivers and has totally dropped the ball.

The preferred accelerated sound API has simply changed to OpenAL so games that use HAL wouldn't provide EAX. Most games use OpenAL but those that don't can download the Creative Alchemy program to regain EAX.

EAX 2.0+ is no longer hardware accelerated directly. X-Fi can make use of the Alchemy wrapper to allow interpreted-acceleration (an oxy-moron, I know). AUdigy 1/2 users like me (and maybe 70% of Creative's customers) have to pay $10.00 to for Alchemy.

[QUOTE="Deihmos"]No need to list since you can always find it on the internetThere will be some that will continuously say "Vista sucks" and some will say it's much better than XP. It's better to find out for yourself because no one on any forum can do it for you. Qixote

The Gamespot forums are part of the internet (try it out for yourself). If anyone here says Vista has many benefits, especially for gaming, then here's your big chance to share your experience with other gamers around the world. . . on the internet. Otherwise, I'll just dismiss all claims as empty. Just as empty as anything I could find on google.

Vista Benefits:

1. SuperFetch - INCREDIBLE - this is why everyone thinks Vista needs a lot of RAM and uses up all your resources, but in fact it's Vista's way of pre-loading your files so they load faster (from RAM and not the HDD). On the exact same PC (dual-booting), FEAR: Combat levels load nearly-instantaneously on Vista, but take 10 - 20 seconds on XP. SuperFetch speeds up a ton of applications.

2. DX10 for Crysis, Bioschock, and Alan Wake is great (assuming you have the hardware)

3. Better user interface - more context-sensitive options

4. Built-in search engine (Google desktop does this too)

5. In the long-term, the audio subsystem is better than XP's, in the short-term the Vista sound card control panel is already far better than XPs'

6. It's shiny and new and fun to play with!!!

[QUOTE="Deihmos"][QUOTE="Jack_Summersby"][QUOTE="Frozzik"]

I have a high spec pc capable of dx10 but am currently still using XP. All the negative posts i read on vista and gaming are a little old now so i wondered if Vista is worth buying Yet. Should i hold out until games such as crysis or take the plunge now.

I spend alot of time playing games such as Stalker, Company of Heroes and Medieval 2 so if Vista does not like these games would really like to know. Thanks in advance.

Jack_Summersby

I have Vista and I've grown to love it - for everything EXCEPT gaming. Not having EAX support in games SUCKS, and there are a lot more incompatibilities on Vista than XP.

EAX wasn't removed. Creative waited til the last minute to start working on their Vista drivers and has totally dropped the ball.

The preferred accelerated sound API has simply changed to OpenAL so games that use HAL wouldn't provide EAX. Most games use OpenAL but those that don't can download the Creative Alchemy program to regain EAX.

EAX 2.0+ is no longer hardware accelerated directly. X-Fi can make use of the Alchemy wrapper to allow interpreted-acceleration (an oxy-moron, I know). AUdigy 1/2 users like me (and maybe 70% of Creative's customers) have to pay $10.00 to for Alchemy.

EAX works if it uses the OpenAL API but the games that used HAL will need Alchemy. The only game that I currently play that has EAX is Battlefield 2142 and EAX works fine since it used OpenAL. Some older games used HAL so you will need that Creative program.The program is free for mebut probably not for Audigy users.

Creative said the Vista sound engine is a lot faster than XP and there are some higher requirements. You will notivce that Vista certified computers and mother boardsship with High Definition Audio.

I just hope it has backwards compatability and it wont remove my existing programs.

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

gozalo

Man stick wit 32bit. If 64bit applications become popular you can always upgrade and 2GB is more than enough. The only benefit of using a 64bit OS is being able to use 4GB of ram which isn't needed. That is just my opinion. The license will work with both versions so you can always give it a try....to me there are too many problems with some applications and video codecs.

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

gozalo

32 bit. No need for 64 bit - it's less well supported, and 4 GB should be plenty for at least three years.

Well one reason vista pisses me off is HL2 cinematic mod doesn't work on it. And when Vista was installing my pc restart at 85% and then that partiton got corrupt so all my xp files got deleted. Duno what caused the restart though...DarkRecruit

I've built a ton of PCs and I am a computer programmer, etc. etc. - and it was a NIGHTMARE for me getting Vista installed ( on MY PC - YMMV). It wouldn't work with my RAID chip, it wouldn't download updates before the install (which would have helped compatibility if it could) and there were many other problems as well. But once I was up and running, I enjoyed it :-)

[QUOTE="gozalo"]

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

Jack_Summersby

32 bit. No need for 64 bit - it's less well supported, and 4 GB should be plenty for at least three years.

http://64-bit-computers.com/windows-vista-32-bit-vs-64-bit-benchmark.html

64bit is faster

Oh yea and when my xp files got deleted I lost alot of game saves and lost my BF2 account because I can't find my cd or manual with the serial code....would've been awesone if bf2 was apart of steam.

Well one reason vista pisses me off is HL2 cinematic mod doesn't work on it. And when Vista was installing my pc restart at 85% and then that partiton got corrupt so all my xp files got deleted. Duno what caused the restart though...DarkRecruit

I was goign to try that mod again since I couldn't remember if I had Xp or Vista at the time.The requirements are high andIf you don't have at least 2GB of ram and dual core it will lag regardless.I was downloading it but it was super slow so I cancelled.

If you are using 64bit that could be the problem.

[QUOTE="DarkRecruit"]Well one reason vista pisses me off is HL2 cinematic mod doesn't work on it. And when Vista was installing my pc restart at 85% and then that partiton got corrupt so all my xp files got deleted. Duno what caused the restart though...Deihmos

I was goign to try that mod again since I couldn't remember if I had Xp or Vista at the time.The requirements are high andIf you don't have at least 2GB of ram and dual core it will lag regardless.I was downloading it but it was super slow so I cancelled.

If you are using 64bit that could be the problem.

Nah have 32 bit. It just doesn't work with vista, I have 2 gigs ddr2 800Mhz and a dual core (amd x2 4800)

From the creator himself (FAKEFACTORY):

"To round up the vista case...

Tested more with Vista x64 and x32.

With 2 GB RAM the game is nearly unplayable on several scenes (framerate drop down to 5 fps, where XP runs the same scene with 50+ frames)

Disabling Hires-Textures completly (just by renaming the materials folder) gives me crashfree playing even with just 1 GB RAM installed. This is strange, because this would mean, the crashes are texture-amount related. Either the Vista memory managment does some things, the source engine don't like, or the current vista chip drivers are crap.

I'm still investigating several constellations (hires-lores material, high ram low ram environment) and will keep you updated. i hope, i can figure out, what is going on with vista and CM4."

"After extracting the complete sporce-engine, building a (non legal) "ripped" version of HL2 and setting the LARGE_ADRESS_AWARE flag on all DLL's and the hl2.exe the crashes on vista are completly gone.

technical background: the datacache.dll tries to allocate ram, but fails, because the needed memblock doesn't fit into the limited 2 GB userspace. With the flag LARGE_ADRESS_AWARE it can allocate memory beyound the 2 GB limit, therefore no crashes.

BUT:
1. Its illegal to rip the engine
2. It needs a 64 bit Vista or a 32 Bit vista with modified USERVA value
3. It needs minimum 4 GB RAM.

So, currently CM4 is a now-go for VISTA users. I hope, VALVE is coming out with a updated 64 Bit engine soon.
"

" About vista: After weeks of support emails with valve i came to the conclusion: Vista is a POS. i'm sorry for all the vista-only users, but this os has serious problems. Even valve told me, vista isn't ready for source-engine (or vice versa... depends of the point of view)"

http://halflife2.filefront.com/file/FakeFactorys_Cinematic_Mod;77368x#1188707

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

gozalo

If you want to use 4gb of ram you NEED to go 64 bit. 32 bit can only support 3.2 Gigs of memory... as far as differences in performance or otherwise, you won't see any.

There are recent posts that say otherwise.

So, tried this mod about 2 months or so ago on my Vista pc (had used the previous mods on my XP pc without any problems) and just wouldn't run. Mostly black screen and moving along at about 1 FPS. The Vista hotfix didn't work either so I had to uninstall. Anyway, after numerous driver updates from nVidia (running an 8800GTX), updates from MS inc. the new 2 "major" update fixes, Creative drivers (using an X-Fi) and maybe some Source engine updates I finally decided to try and install again today. Well, it now runs like butter (1680x1050). Looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Everything is so smooth. Smoother than the previous mods on XP. However, during some level loads I would get "hl2.exe has stopped working". So, I check some forums and apparently one problem can be from codecs in particular ffdshow. I added "hl2.exe" to the excluded list within ffdshow settings and since then, fingers crossed, no more crashes. Played for 2 hours solid today no problem. So, after all the updates to date, looks like Vista is finally up to the challenge of playing this mod. Nice work FakeFactory.

There are recent posts that say otherwise.

So, tried this mod about 2 months or so ago on my Vista pc (had used the previous mods on my XP pc without any problems) and just wouldn't run. Mostly black screen and moving along at about 1 FPS. The Vista hotfix didn't work either so I had to uninstall. Anyway, after numerous driver updates from nVidia (running an 8800GTX), updates from MS inc. the new 2 "major" update fixes, Creative drivers (using an X-Fi) and maybe some Source engine updates I finally decided to try and install again today. Well, it now runs like butter (1680x1050). Looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Everything is so smooth. Smoother than the previous mods on XP. However, during some level loads I would get "hl2.exe has stopped working". So, I check some forums and apparently one problem can be from codecs in particular ffdshow. I added "hl2.exe" to the excluded list within ffdshow settings and since then, fingers crossed, no more crashes. Played for 2 hours solid today no problem. So, after all the updates to date, looks like Vista is finally up to the challenge of playing this mod. Nice work FakeFactory.

Deihmos

Yea I looked at that post and installed those vista updates and beta drivers then the low FPS drops stopped, even with multiple high res characters on screen. But then sometimes while loading it says "hl2.exe has stopped working". This guy says someting about adding it to excluded in ffdshow but what does ffdshow have to do with this? It's just a media player codec. And I dont even have any ffdshow application.

Dude post this in the PC section of the forums....This is system wars. Look at the stickies...

[QUOTE="gozalo"]

To add to the debate, i am building a new PC, and i plan on getting Vista on it, home premium to be exact, also i plan on getting 4gigs of ram, for all you vista users, what do you recommend, 64 bit or 32 bit?

Iwas going for 64 bit to be able to use up all my RAM, but i was wondering about the driver support and games/programs compatibility.

delirin

If you want to use 4gb of ram you NEED to go 64 bit. 32 bit can only support 3.2 Gigs of memory... as far as differences in performance or otherwise, you won't see any.

Yes, i KNOW this thank you, since i am going to get 4gigs i know i need 64 bits to use them all, i thank everyone for their opinions and information, but I think what I'm going to do is go for Vista 64 bit and if all else fails i have my Xp 32 bit here with me.

[QUOTE="Qixote"][QUOTE="Deihmos"]

Do your own research and stop relying on random forum posts since many of them don't know much. You can easily find benchmark tests online if you are interested. That is something I don't do...all I know is everything works fine inlcuding EAX.

Deihmos

So what exactly do you come to this forum for anyway? I would imagine any information you read here you can find by googling. That leaves only 2 other things you could be doing here: randomly posting or telling everyone to google for everything.

I don't come here for information on an operating system that I know. There are plenty better websites dedicated to that sort of thing. Check out Neowin.

Is this forum not dedicated to PC gaming? OP was looking for some pros/cons to gaming on Vista, don't see how that doesn't fit here.

As for the original topic, I don't have it but I've heard bad things.

[QUOTE="DarkRecruit"]Well one reason vista pisses me off is HL2 cinematic mod doesn't work on it. And when Vista was installing my pc restart at 85% and then that partiton got corrupt so all my xp files got deleted. Duno what caused the restart though...Jack_Summersby

I've built a ton of PCs and I am a computer programmer, etc. etc. - and it was a NIGHTMARE for me getting Vista installed ( on MY PC - YMMV). It wouldn't work with my RAID chip, it wouldn't download updates before the install (which would have helped compatibility if it could) and there were many other problems as well. But once I was up and running, I enjoyed it :-)

Heh, I had the same experience installing the Zune software (ended up having to boot into Safe Mode to do it). My dad installedVista on his Mac though and said he was pretty happy with it. I have heard of many people, though, having trouble upgrading from XP. Doing a clean install with Vista (possibly on it's own partition in case you ever want to bounce back and forth from XP to Vista) seems to be the recomended way to go.

I haven't made the leap myself to Vista but plan on doing so soon. I've had some time (on my dads computer) to mess around with it and I really rather enjoyed it. The interface felt friendlier, and I also experienced some faster load times on some games.

There are recent posts that say otherwise.

So, tried this mod about 2 months or so ago on my Vista pc (had used the previous mods on my XP pc without any problems) and just wouldn't run. Mostly black screen and moving along at about 1 FPS. The Vista hotfix didn't work either so I had to uninstall. Anyway, after numerous driver updates from nVidia (running an 8800GTX), updates from MS inc. the new 2 "major" update fixes, Creative drivers (using an X-Fi) and maybe some Source engine updates I finally decided to try and install again today. Well, it now runs like butter (1680x1050). Looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Everything is so smooth. Smoother than the previous mods on XP. However, during some level loads I would get "hl2.exe has stopped working". So, I check some forums and apparently one problem can be from codecs in particular ffdshow. I added "hl2.exe" to the excluded list within ffdshow settings and since then, fingers crossed, no more crashes. Played for 2 hours solid today no problem. So, after all the updates to date, looks like Vista is finally up to the challenge of playing this mod. Nice work FakeFactory.

Deihmos

After downloading ffdshow and putting hl2.exe in excluded it still crashes. It loads fine into one lvl, but then when it loads another lvl it always crashes.

...I have heard of many people, though, having trouble upgrading from XP. Doing a clean install with Vista (possibly on it's own partition in case you ever want to bounce back and forth from XP to Vista) seems to be the recomended way to go.

elemental_drago

Odd, i found that upgrading worked fine. Well, the first time it took a while and it appeared to stall once, but i just left it (went to bed) and it worked itself out. Certainly, upgrading from a clean install of xp works fine, as youd expect.

Is vista worth getting? Depends on how much you care about your os. The gaming performance is very similar, tends to be ever so slightly lower but sometimes maybe a little better. So, it doesnt really matter in that respect, the only dx10 games dont run very well at all in dx10, but theyre either xbox360 ports or patches for dx9 games that look great anyway, so meh.

First thing about vista, is that its pretty. DONT SAY THIS DOESNT MATTER! IT DOES! Cmon, were all gamers here, the better stuff looks, the more we like it. I dont mind xp, but i will never go back simply because vista looks soooooooooo much nicer. Also, the os games (freecell, solitaire etc) look really nice, unlike in xp. Its actually painful to play freecell in xp once youve played it in vista. Of course, not everyone cares about those games, but i surely do! Its worth playing them once just to see the pretty animations you get when you win.

Vista 'requires' 2gb of ram. By that i mean you can do fine with 1gb but 2gb is better. But, for current gaming 2gb is standard.

Vista has some annoyances, for sure, like the user acount control and stuff. Its far too easy to turn them off to use that as a big argument against the system. Apparently theyre good to have on if you dont install things regularly, since it means things you dont know about cant do it without you noticing. Again, if you dont like it, turn it off.

Only one more thing - if you want vista, dont pay full retail. Its not worth that much. The upgrade version works fine, the oem is very good value if you dont plan to change your motherboard for a long time - even 2 of them is cheaper than retail. On the other hand, dont get home basic, its so basic i suspect that many of the people who think vista is just a small upgrade to xp got home basic. Home premium is the way to go.

Vista is a good os, more stable than xp (since its release, i might add, ive had it since then), and with bioshock due very soon, and other dx10 games only a couple of months away, its worth it.