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Hello!

There is a chance that I may be getting Windows Vista before long. My only dilemma about this is whether to go 64 bit or 32 bit. The CPU I'm getting will certainly be some flavour of Core 2 Duo, so can support either.

From my limited understanding of this (I've never yet used Vista), the 64 bit version requires the majority of a driver to run in ring 3, and so requres specific drivers to be written. I have been told that the 32 bit version can sometimes even run XP drivers. This will all be on new hardware, so I can choose items that say 'Vista Compatible'.

I am in to OS Devving (of course), but the other big thing I want to do is online gaming.

For this, I need to know that I will be able to a) run my current games and b) be able to obtain hardware which does not crash every 5 minutes due to dodgy drivers. I rarely even play old dos games, but as Vista runs VPC 2007, that shouldn't be a problem as I have a separate Windows 98 licence which will let me install that on a virtual machine, which will be more than fast enough.

So - what would you do (and no, I'm not interested in Linux flame wars - I will be choosing a flavour of Linux for dual booting anyway)? Does anyone have experience of using 64 bit Vista for this already? If so, how does it cope? Or is the advice to stick with 32 bit at the moment (and possibly risk getting stuck in to a 32 bit upgrade path in the future - you never know with MS)?

Cheers,
Adam

AFAIK there should be decent graphics drivers written for both flavours of vista, as vista is the only directx10 compatible OS to date...

I've had 64-bit Vista for almost a year and I haven't had any major issues with it.

The recommended RAM for Vista Home Premium is 1GB, but I would bump that up to 2GB just not lose productivity as compared to XP.

As for 16-bit/DOS stuff, there is DOSBox along with various emulators.

Also, if you have Vista, invest in TweakUAC

I've had 64-bit Vista for a few months now, and I too have had no problems with it. Well, that is, except for the fact that my five year old graphics card didn't have drivers written for either version of the OS.

Every game I've tried on it runs flawlessly (even games made before 2000). The only exception, is that 16-bit apps no longer work. That's not a huge problem in my opinion though, and if you're running Windows 98 in a virtual environmnet it should be able to handle it.

I'd recommend no less than 2GB of RAM though. Mine typically uses around 45% of my 4GB, so 2GB should be a minimum. Processor wise, any Core 2 Duo is probably fine.

If you're going Vista, there's really no reason not to go 64-bit.

My experience with vista is that it is hit and miss with certain hardware configurations. I had problems with Audio (stuttering, clicking and massive processor load making other things lag), network (2-4MB/s copy speed on gigabit ethernet), disk IO and had graphical artifacting in certain apps I use. Eventually I got rid of it and put in on my media box where it has run flawlessly (even better than the flakey xp install it replaced).

SpooK wrote:Also, if you have Vista, invest in TweakUAC

Thanks for the tip - I have heard that UAC can be a pain in the backside!

Telgin wrote:If you're going Vista, there's really no reason not to go 64-bit.

Thanks for the advice - sometimes, for all the articles and web pages about it, what you really need is to hear from someone who has experienced it first-hand.

On the RAM thing, I plan to go for 4 gig anyway - just because I have found it makes so much difference in the past, and it really does make a big difference for running virtual machines. For running VM's, I would love to go dual display, too, if I can stretch to it.

Telgin wrote:I'd recommend no less than 2GB of RAM though. Mine typically uses around 45% of my 4GB, so 2GB should be a minimum.

That's interesting - I know that Vista tries to use all available RAM by caching data which is predicted to be loaded next (commonly used apps and so on). When it first came out, I remember reports of it running at 100% usage most of the time - perhaps that was from someone with a 1GiB system / they hadn't sorted out problems with the RAM display.

Every game I've tried on it runs flawlessly

Good to know. I always found this with older OS's too (I get a lot running on 2k that only say they work on 9x and XP) - but somehow thought this could be different with Vista 64 bit.

Thanks for the advice,
Adam

[Edit]..and hopefully if I'm getting all new hardware with appropriate drivers, I can avoid ucosty's experience with it...[/edit]

ucosty wrote:My experience with vista is that it is hit and miss with certain hardware configurations. I had problems with Audio (stuttering, clicking and massive processor load making other things lag), network (2-4MB/s copy speed on gigabit ethernet), disk IO and had graphical artifacting in certain apps I use. Eventually I got rid of it and put in on my media box where it has run flawlessly (even better than the flakey xp install it replaced).

Actually, now that you mention it, I have experienced slow file transfer in a way. I don't know if it's Vista or my craptastic RAID card / configuration thoguh. I can't say about network file transfers though, haven't tried it much with this computer. I have heard about the sound sometimes being retarded, but it's probably a driver issue. Was that a SoundBlaster card? I've heard that their drivers were horrid. The sound in this computer is an AC'97 chip if I recall, came built into the motherboard.

That's interesting - I know that Vista tries to use all available RAM by caching data which is predicted to be loaded next (commonly used apps and so on). When it first came out, I remember reports of it running at 100% usage most of the time - perhaps that was from someone with a 1GiB system / they hadn't sorted out problems with the RAM display.

That's true, and it's entirely possible that Vista is really using far less than that and is actually caching a lot. On the other hand, it seems to hover in the 35-45% range from boot up onwards. I still wouldn't go less than 2GB, but since you say you're going 4GB it shouldn't be a problem. I've yet to completely max it out. With Command and Conquer 3 (which needs a patch to run on 64-bit by the way, if you plan on getting it) running alongside BOINC (a number crunching program) it hasn't gone far over 70%.

...and hopefully if I'm getting all new hardware with appropriate drivers, I can avoid ucosty's experience with it...

It shouldn't be so hard. I think most video cards have decent drivers now (make sure it's supported in the first place though, fairly old cards usually don't have drivers at all). Sound can be flaky I think, but mine has been pretty much perfect (on board sound). The Intel ESB2 RAID setup came with drivers built into the OS, and that pretty much sums up my experience with drivers. If it's a big deal, you can try e-mailing the manufacturer of any hardware you've got a question about and see if they can reply on whether or not they make drivers for 64-bit Vista. I had some success with that.

Telgin wrote:I have heard about the sound sometimes being retarded, but it's probably a driver issue. Was that a SoundBlaster card? I've heard that their drivers were horrid. The sound in this computer is an AC'97 chip if I recall, came built into the motherboard.

Yep an Audigy 4. Still a perfectly good sound card imho.

...and hopefully if I'm getting all new hardware with appropriate drivers, I can avoid ucosty's experience with it...

I hear SP1 has solved most of the issues I had. Of course that leaves the crappy Audigy drivers and the rubbish software sound processing. I'm still convinced it's the new audio stack introducing a bunch of the weirdness.

I am running Vista Ultimate x64 edition on my custom machine, and I have had minimal problems.

I have 4 gigs of 1000mhz ram with an overclocked c2d e6600 @ 3.4ghz.

The only issue i did have was with a raid card I had from my old computer that I wanted to raid a couple of SATA2 drives with, there were no 64-bit drivers for it. but it was no big deal because my motherboard had onboard nVidia raid with the 64-bit drivers on the motherboard cd =)

as far as slow data transfers, I disagree. My two 250gb WD in striping RAID are blinding fast and have seen no obvious differences between them running on vista x64 or XP... or linux.. or solaris.. =)

I agree with the minimal requirement of 2gb of ram though. Vista by itself eats up a gig easy. If you game or do anything with large programs, get 3 gigs to be safe... I've noticed with Vista and office 2007 running together, you will deffinately be wanted more than 2 gigs of memory as they both come dangerously close to the 2 gig mark.

Other comments: My twin nvidia 7950GT's in SLI had no issues with drivers or anything else, nor did my DiamondGT Audio card. Most drivers were found on bootup the first time and the rest were easy to get.

The recommended RAM for Vista Home Premium is 1GB, but I would bump that up to 2GB just not lose productivity as compared to XP.

Wow. Why does windows need this much? I'm sittin here with Linux, and on my computers it can run 256MB and be fine.
Sorry to post a question in this thread, but....I'm confused.

-JL

piranha wrote:

The recommended RAM for Vista Home Premium is 1GB, but I would bump that up to 2GB just not lose productivity as compared to XP.

Wow. Why does windows need this much? I'm sittin here with Linux, and on my computers it can run 256MB and be fine.
Sorry to post a question in this thread, but....I'm confused.

-JL

3D/DirectX Driven GUI (optional, yet common), heavier reliance on .NET and other higher-level languages, UAC, more/heavier background services running, file indexing, etc...

Memory demands are high because of the 3D pre-rendered Icons and other little things that add up immensly when Vista starts up. Also, as stated before, the heavy reliance on the .NET frameworks and DirectX deffinately plays into the memory consumption. Among other things, it takes alot of code to maintain backwards compatibility and emulation for the command prompt and compatibility mode for applications. The windows API is insanely large, and thus the compiled binaries and programs made for vista will in-turn be large.

Linux on the other hand does not require as much because their API is not as large, also, most *nix distrobutions are a form of monolithic kernel architecture. This requires less kernel code to create ease-of-use for later software developers, and allows the code to remain much smaller.

I wouldn't recommend Vista though; except if you like the whole 3-D desktop... Its security is weak, it crashes almost every time, everytime it needs "your permission to continue" (the worst thing is, i've played on sister's laptop and Microsoft Word and suddenly whoah - the system shut down with message "Installing updates" - if it weren't for auto-save function, your work is trashed down ), the interface is very messy - I had some problems finding volume control in the tray bar , it slows down the whole PC, needs more RAM and CPU speed compared to XP, a lot applications from WinXP aren't working in Vista,.... ....and I could continue with the list. Yes, Vista supports DirectX 10, and so what? I've never seen much games that could support this interface...

My opinion: Windows Vista equals Windows ME + Windows 98 + Windows NT 4.0 + 3D shiny visuals.
Vista, the third Microsoft's failure apart from Microsoft BOB and Windows ME.

Windows Blista. Say LOL.

and that's why all new computers on the market ship with vista pre-installed.

haha righto.

01000101 wrote:Memory demands are high because of the 3D pre-rendered Icons and other little things that add up immensly when Vista starts up. Also, as stated before, the heavy reliance on the .NET frameworks and DirectX deffinately plays into the memory consumption. Among other things, it takes alot of code to maintain backwards compatibility and emulation for the command prompt and compatibility mode for applications. The windows API is insanely large, and thus the compiled binaries and programs made for vista will in-turn be large.

Linux on the other hand does not require as much because their API is not as large, also, most *nix distrobutions are a form of monolithic kernel architecture. This requires less kernel code to create ease-of-use for later software developers, and allows the code to remain much smaller.

Thats the thing, though. Vista's shinier GUI is not that deep. The icons are no heavier than XP era icons and the OS contains as little .NET code as XP does. Ironically, I suspect, a stock Ubuntu install contains more .net code than Vista.

My opinion: Windows Vista equals Windows ME + Windows 98 + Windows NT 4.0 + 3D shiny visuals.
Vista, the third Microsoft's failure apart from Microsoft BOB and Windows ME.

Windows 1.0 was enough of a failure that they got rid of the entire dev team.