Legit Reviews

Hello everyone;

I'm about to finally get my new machine and I'm having a hard time deciding whether if I should install XP or Vista. My primary concern is gaming.

I want to get the best performance, while at the same time get the best image quality. So, this is hard for me because I know that games perform better on XP, while XP can't activate DirectX10. To help you help me, here I also post some of my new machine's specs:

4GB OCZ Reaper PC6400 CAS4 800 mhz
(2x) Geforce 8800GTS Pcie 512MB GDDR3 3PORT Dual Dvi Tv Out Oc SLI
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card ( 70SB073A00000 )
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor, 2.40GHz, 8M L2 Cache, LGA 775
Nforce 680I Lga 775 Dc MAX-8GB DDR2 Atx 4PCIE 2PCI X-fi Aud Esata

Since my machine will have far more memory than what a 32 bit OS supports, I would need a 64 bit OS. I have heard that the support for XP 64 bit OS is terrible.
So I really need your help to decide the best OS for my machine considering my primary concern.

Thanks a lot.

one vote for Vista Ultimate 64-Bit. you already have a DX10 card, why not?

stopthekilling77 wrote:one vote for Vista Ultimate 64-Bit. you already have a DX10 card, why not?

Yeah, if you don't have a dx10 card already then I really wouldn't bother switching to vista, so make that 2 votes for vista.

+1 vista

I've been running Vista 32-bit for a good while now, no problems, Aero gives a wonderful feel. Your system will run vista with no problems.
Now on 64 bit 32 bit, M$ is expecting all new systems to be shipping with 64-bit OS' by 2009, well they hope. But all the concerns about 64-bit vista are BS, reading I've seen loads of people running 64-bit not one problem, no lack of support. The odd program may not work, but 99% of programs will be fine.

I'm sticking with XP for a while...you can use 4GB of RAM on XP 32bit but it will only take advantage of 3.2- 3.5GB

The choice is quite obvious with the 4GB of memory you'll be using and since you are starting from scratch you might as well use Vista but make sure you use a x64 version.

bandieramonte wrote:I have heard that the support for XP 64 bit OS is terrible.

It is, if you need 64-bit and gaming on the same computer, go with Vista.

If you can afford it, you should install both.

It is not very complicated, you just have to install XP first, and afterwards install Vista on a different partition. After the installation of Vista you will see a menu where you can select your OS every time you boot.

If the driver support for XP 64bit is too bad for your system, you can use the 32bit version instead, because you will still have about 3.2-3.5GB available. Because Vista uses very much RAM, the RAM available for apps in 32bit XP will be nearly the same the same as in 64bit Vista (The 32bit Version of Vista uses about 600-700MB including a few background apps on my mother's Sony Vaio Laptop, XP would use only about 200-300MB from my experience).

I would use Vista for the DX10 games and XP for all other games, because most DX9 games run about 5-10% faster under XP the in Vista.

Also XP is more stable and has a better (althought less beautyful) interface than XP and I also hate a few other features of Vista, like the poor compatibilty w/ Win XP apps, the User Account Control (but the UAC can be turned off) and that you cannot access the whole hard drive over the network (even if you share the whole HDD, you can still not access folders like C:\, the Window installation Folder and all of its subfolders, the Program Files Folder and subfolders).

Overall I think XP is the better OS, the only advantage of Vista is DX10. I think this is also the reason, why DX10 is Vista exclusive, because otherwise no gamer would buy Vista.

go with vista,but I would not put my hopes up in the creative drivers for the x-fi.They still do not run properly...but if you have a strong CPU,I guess it does not really matter

With the speed of your new system Vista Ultimate 64 will be fine.

I haven't had any issues with the last batch of 64-bit Creative drivers (driver only install) and the only game I have any performance issues with is Hellgate London and I am pretty sure that's the game itself and not Vista.

If you are using "mainstream" periphs the drivers should not be an issue with Vista 64, for instance I use a Line6 Toneport UX2 for guitar and mic recording and it isn't supported for 64 bit systems, but works fine under Vista 32 on my old Gateway laptop, make sure to check for available 64 bit drivers for all of your periphreals (e.g. printers, scanners, game controllers) before going 64 bit for Vista.

All in all I'm very happy with Vistas performance on all 4 of my home computers (2 gaming systems and 2 laptops) and have no desire to return to XP and no need to dual boot.

DaddyRabbit wrote:With the speed of your new system Vista Ultimate 64 will be fine.

I haven't had any issues with the last batch of 64-bit Creative drivers (driver only install) and the only game I have any performance issues with is Hellgate London and I am pretty sure that's the game itself and not Vista.

If you are using "mainstream" periphs the drivers should not be an issue with Vista 64, for instance I use a Line6 Toneport UX2 for guitar and mic recording and it isn't supported for 64 bit systems, but works fine under Vista 32 on my old Gateway laptop, make sure to check for available 64 bit drivers for all of your periphreals (e.g. printers, scanners, game controllers) before going 64 bit for Vista.

All in all I'm very happy with Vistas performance on all 4 of my home computers (2 gaming systems and 2 laptops) and have no desire to return to XP and no need to dual boot.

you dont happen to run Logic or ProTools do you?

stopthekilling77 wrote: you dont happen to run Logic or ProTools do you?

No, I'm not that good at it, I use mainly Guitartracks Pro and Acid.

ahh just wondering, i'll be using my pc for those programs here soon but i'm pretty certain i'll have to keep a dual boot in order to be able to use them

stopthekilling77 wrote:ahh just wondering, i'll be using my pc for those programs here soon but i'm pretty certain i'll have to keep a dual boot in order to be able to use them

Protools LE 7.4 is Vista32 compatible, Logic Studio is Mac OSX only now I believe since version 6 correct?

I haven't tried direct MIDI from my GR-20 guitar synth yet so I'm not sure how my MIDI to USB adapter works. Either way nothing I have plays nice with 64-bit Vista (which is sad because this box would rock as a DAW) but it all works as well with Vista 32-bit as it did with XP, my needs are pretty simple however.

Sadly yes, especially if you have the software already, then this is a dual boot situation.

Sorry for the thread hiijack. Now back to our regular programming

Thanks a lot everybody for posting. Your replies have helped me a lot.

So far so far, analyzing all of your replies, I have two concerns now, which are:
1) Does Vista 64 bit has a good support for the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound Card ( 70SB073A00000 ) ?
2) Is the performance reduction between XP and Vista really an average of 10% in games? Will I really experience this decrease with my machine? Will I even feel it? Does this decrease in performance occur with DX10 games or with DX9 games too? Maybe I should go dual boot and play DX9 games in XP 32 bit and DX10 games in Vista 64 bits? What do you all think??

Thanks -
Bandieramonte.

bandieramonte wrote:2) Is the performance reduction between XP and Vista really an average of 10% in games? Will I really experience this decrease with my machine? Will I even feel it? Does this decrease in performance occur with DX10 games or with DX9 games too? Maybe I should go dual boot and play DX9 games in XP 32 bit and DX10 games in Vista 64 bits? What do you all think??

Thanks -
Bandieramonte.

you shouldn't see a huge difference in performance, and vista's major drawback is the fact that it's such a resource hog, but you can easily disable a lot of features you don't need (aero, crappy background services), even so, it's the core of the OS that's the worst, so even if you do disable all that stuff, stripped down XP will perform better than stripped down Vista.

So the only reasons you would pick XP over Vista (in my opinion) is the fact that as of now, vista isn't as secure, and crashes more frequently, or if you like the interface of XP over Vista's.

I've used vista for about 5 months, and I dont see myself ever going back to XP . +1 for vista.

bandieramonte wrote:2) Is the performance reduction between XP and Vista really an average of 10% in games? Will I really experience this decrease with my machine? Will I even feel it? Does this decrease in performance occur with DX10 games or with DX9 games too? Maybe I should go dual boot and play DX9 games in XP 32 bit and DX10 games in Vista 64 bits? What do you all think??

DX10 games dont run under XP, when they run, they run under DX9 and have eighter worse graphics quality or run slower, because DX10 has a better arcitecture.

For DX9 performance under vista you can find benchmarks like this one or this one.

I understand now that generally speaking, Xp will always perform better than vista in games, on an average of 5-10% better.

I've been doing some research comparing Vista Vs Vista SP1. Some websites say that Vista performs better than Vista SP1 on games, and others say the opposite. So I need your help: on games, which one performs better, Vista or Vista SP1?

I don't know about Vista/Vista SP1 but I run dual boot on different hard drives, about the only thing I run on Vista is DX10 games. I've disabled a lot of back ground services and don't have crash problems or issues with it. 32 bit supports my Sound Blaster X-Fi extreme music fine, 64 bit no clue. I do find myself spending 90% of my time in XP.

A lot of classic games like Command and Conquer won't run in Vista, no version of it, so dual boot for me.