Vista x64 or x86

[libtech]

i haven't foud that i get any performance hit. I can max out all games (cept for crysis, and those who have coding issues). then again my res is only 1440 x 900. someday i'll have 2560 x 1600 resolution

Hmm again gaming performance is a major concern. Have you actually tested this, like with fraps/numbers(or is this just a "feel" or speculation)? A lot of the websites coincide with the ~10% performance loss mentioned above, with minute gains here and there... But to have directx 10.1 is nice...

Uhk so much work to transfer my setup from xp to vista either way. Anyone done the "upgrade" option through vista yet? (I'm sure it ends up messy either way)

[logicaL!]

i haven't foud that i get any performance hit. I can max out all games (cept for crysis, and those who have coding issues). then again my res is only 1440 x 900. someday i'll have 2560 x 1600 resolution

Hmm again gaming performance is a major concern. Have you actually tested this, like with fraps/numbers(or is this just a "feel" or speculation)? A lot of the websites coincide with the ~10% performance loss mentioned above, with minute gains here and there... But to have directx 10.1 is nice...

Uhk so much work to transfer my setup from xp to vista either way. Anyone done the "upgrade" option through vista yet? (I'm sure it ends up messy either way)

Easier way would just be to format and start over. Never been a big fan of the upgrade method as it'll probably mess everything up.

IMO with a Radeon 4850... DX 10.1 > the incurred loss.

[mikehale]

fresh install takes like 30 minutes, upgrade takes like 3 hours. just nuke it and fresh install, imo.

[Mongoose]

fresh install takes like 30 minutes, upgrade takes like 3 hours. just nuke it and fresh install, imo.

haha classic, That's 30 min for OS install I think he is dreading reinstalling everything else and the backups oh the backups of personal files.  I would do a fresh install though if you're going to put a new OS on.

i haven't foud that i get any performance hit. I can max out all games (cept for crysis, and those who have coding issues). then again my res is only 1440 x 900. someday i'll have 2560 x 1600 resolution

You know I saw a commercial that was catered specifically to people like you, take your pc to a mac store and they will take care of all the hard work for you.  Tell him Latro!.
Hmm again gaming performance is a major concern. Have you actually tested this, like with fraps/numbers(or is this just a "feel" or speculation)? A lot of the websites coincide with the ~10% performance loss mentioned above, with minute gains here and there... But to have directx 10.1 is nice...

Uhk so much work to transfer my setup from xp to vista either way. Anyone done the "upgrade" option through vista yet? (I'm sure it ends up messy either way)

[dirrtyj]

I've been running vista 64 for about 8 months now... haven't had much problems other than 4 gigs of ram is a must for games and multi-tasking.  I only have 2 gigs at the moment and find that vista at the home screen is using about a gig of ram.  Now thats also the benifit of 64 that u can have more than 3 gigs of ram.  As with vista 32 you could only have 3.1ish of ram it would recognize.  I also had an issue with counter-strike source.  When i would run anti-aliasing at 4x msaa it would try to aa all the fence's and the hay stack on inferno... I found that running a 8x csaa would give me almost a 60 fps gain in those area's and higher in not graphic intensive parts of the maps.  I  Have Not had the performance hit most talk about... Doom 3, Fear, and Far cry actually run much better for me than my previous exprence with xp64.  Crysis would run on high settings if i had more ram... atm its unplayable because of all the precache it has to do.  I find that the dual core code is much more optimized in vista than xp even running the dual core fix. 

Ulitmate Vista 64
AMD 6400+ X2 Black Eidtion 3.2 ghz
2 - Corsair PC2-6400 Ram
EVGA 8800 GTS 320mb
1 - 250g WD IDE hardrive
1 - 200 Maxtor Sata hardrive
SoundBlaster Audigy 2
Acer 19" monitor 1280X1024 native.
Generic 19" monitor in Nivida Dual View

[libtech]

Right-on dirty... One thing to mention about the 1gb memory usage in windows vista. I think a lot of it isn't actually used but appropriated, for example:

I'm currently using a macbook pro with 2gb memory - in my IStat display my memory usage is as such:
Memory:
Wired: 260mb (not too sure here)
Active: 386mb (Actually in use)
Inactive: 994mb (appropriated)
Free: 415mb (completely free memory)

In the case that I would open adobe photoshop or another memory intensive program, I'm pretty sure Active memory will go up, and Inactive memory will go down. Maybe Vista learned a little from the Mac OS (We already know they took a lot from it) memory management.

The Used memory may not all be in use, but rather organized by vista in preparation for applications/games. It's like a reserve that can be more quickly tapped into??

Anyways correct me if I'm wrong, but I see the same pattern of memory management in both OS's.

[mikehale]

10% performance hit isn't really that much anyway. @60FPS that's 6 frames. @120 thats 12 frames. @30FPS that's 3 frames.

[Mongoose]

Ah but 10% hit for no reason other than to be on the newest coolest os would just make me feel like an apple fanboi who pays X% more just to have apple.  Better performance is better performance and without an upswing there's no point to take the hit.  Now my video card isn't a dx10 card so that makes a difference to me.  If I had a dx10 card I might consider that a trade off.  Just as I am considering the trade off of fps to gains in security, minimilisation of virus threats and of course leaving the grey area of my ms product license usage to go to linux.

[Duracell]

Right-on dirty... One thing to mention about the 1gb memory usage in windows vista. I think a lot of it isn't actually used but appropriated, for example:

I'm currently using a macbook pro with 2gb memory - in my IStat display my memory usage is as such:
Memory:
Wired: 260mb (not too sure here)
Active: 386mb (Actually in use)
Inactive: 994mb (appropriated)
Free: 415mb (completely free memory)

In the case that I would open adobe photoshop or another memory intensive program, I'm pretty sure Active memory will go up, and Inactive memory will go down. Maybe Vista learned a little from the Mac OS (We already know they took a lot from it) memory management.

The Used memory may not all be in use, but rather organized by vista in preparation for applications/games. It's like a reserve that can be more quickly tapped into??

Anyways correct me if I'm wrong, but I see the same pattern of memory management in both OS's.

You're correct on how this works.

[Latro]

Ah but 10% hit for no reason other than to be on the newest coolest os would just make me feel like an apple fanboi who pays X% more just to have apple.  Better performance is better performance and without an upswing there's no point to take the hit.  Now my video card isn't a dx10 card so that makes a difference to me.  If I had a dx10 card I might consider that a trade off.  Just as I am considering the trade off of fps to gains in security, minimilisation of virus threats and of course leaving the grey area of my ms product license usage to go to linux.

I don't pay more just to have apple.  I pay more because I feel like I get more for my dollar.  I don't assess my computer experience based on the configuration specs, or the extra 6fps I get in game. 

Ease of use, customization, security, hardware design, and the various applications that run on OS X that I prefer over Vista.   I have nothing against Windows machines, infact I own two of them, a linux box, and a few Macs.  And out of all of them, I enjoy using the Mac the most.  For me, I'll pay more for what I believe to be better. 

[libtech]

I don't pay anything to apple at all My work bought me my macbook pro