I am adding 2 more gigs of memory to the computer in my sig. I have xp 32bit now and since 32 cant see all 4GBs I am going to reinstall windows. I mostly play games L4D, Crysis, GTA4 and do some photo editing. My girlfriends laptop has vista on it so I have used vista quite a bit, just not on gaming desktop. What should I go with?
ok thanks. I will proly have to find the hacked creative drivers since my Audigy 2 won't do EAX in vista.
That's no longer entirely true.. there's plenty of driver support for x64 for all the major brands. I ran an XP x64 gaming rig for the last year with great hardware and didn't have a single problem, and that's including a ridiculous amount of Crysis and GTA4. Hell, even setup several CAD machines for clients running XP x64. Many of the workstation-level apps in that field are optimized for it. Though If this was 2005, I'd agree with ya The only thing you're getting with Vista over XP is DirectX 10. And at the very least for Crysis, there are tweaks you can do in it's config file that allows you to access the higher detail settings that normally only appear on DX10 machines. On the other hand, if you don't mind sticking with DX9 for a while, XP x64 screams along on the new hardware If Vista did anything, was give the manufacturers a kick in the ass to develop a wide range of reliable 64-bit drivers.
Go Vista 64. It's well supported, and to put it simply, it's the next-generation of operating systems (bar Win7). Nothing is really being designed with XP specifically in mind anymore. Or wait until you can get 64 bit Windows 7.
All very good points. I was running Win7 for a bit but got extremely annoyed while playing games like L4D, my sound for the game kept getting turned down by windows! So I have gone back to my XP. I would really like to switch to 7 full time but there are some bugs that I cant get past ATM. Maybe I will open a poll to see what I should switch to. Thanks for all the info guys.
Vote Vista 64bit, as it has a lot better support than xp64 ask me again once win 7 fully released then ill prolly vote that. Just dont see much point installing beta right nows as a main os when it will expire in a couple of months, then beforced to do a reinstall.
if your computer is used for work and stuff that needs to meet a deadline (projects) NEVER install an operating system that is under test (aka, Beta or RC) so that rules out Win 7 for now. Vista 64bit got my vote because it's most supported at the moment, as many have said.
yea i trip boot all three in x64 and vista or xp are good imo, i feel like xp might be a shade faster but dealing with some of the sever 2003 drivers suck. 7 beta was amazingly fast and seamless transition, until i had to fix the uninstall/install issue and it eventually began to "lock-up" and became useless.
XP x64 - Last time I tried it (a few years back) it was verging on useless. Many apps/games wouldn't install and drivers were hard to come by. But this may have changed. Vista x64 - Can't fault it, everything I have tried runs on it and drivers are easy to find. 7 x64 - Its beta, end of story. It seemed fine on my laptop for a while, then it started blue screening with (presumably) driver issues. At the end of the day its for testing purposes.
i am using vista 64bit ultimate and had problems finding drivers for my audigy2 zs .. look on creative,s site the drivers are there ... and funnily enough there the same ones for xp64 bit (and work fine)
I found this. Daniel K unlocked the drivers to work with the audigy 2. i used it with windows 7 and it worked great. LINK
Alright I'm going with vista. Closing the poll and hope install goes smooth. Thanks for all the help again.
