The OS question

[HarvesteR]

hello again,

well, my new i7 system is underway... i'm expecting it to be here only next thursday, as it is carnaval here in brazil now and the word 'work' seems to lose all it's meaning during these days

[ozzy72]

Go with XP, Vista is dire!

[jwenham]

[quote]hello again,

well, my new i7 system is underway... i'm expecting it to be here only next thursday, as it is carnaval here in brazil now and the word 'work' seems to lose all it's meaning during these days

[slrman]

Hmm, another Brazil Boy on here.  I thought I was the only one.    I'm an American living in Jo

[HarvesteR]

so, the score is 3-nil for XP right now... i kind of expected this, but i've learned not to trust my own uninformed decisions  ;)

about the OC'ing, i'll see what i can manage with this board... since it comes bundled with the CPU, i couldn't change it for something else without increasing the price an awful lot... i heard it's not impossible... only harder than with an Asus board... and if i can get the CPU running at the mid 3's range, i'd be happy  :)

oh, and Slrman, you're not the only brazilian here  ;) ...there's me, my brother (Moach) and at least one other guy (although i haven't seen him in a long while)

Cheers

[Wingo]

I'm going to chuck my hat into the Vista ring here. For a beast of a system like yours running with that much RAM Vista will give you a performance boost over XP. You have to remember that a lot of people who have been burnt by ista are trying to run it on XP hardware. Your system is grade A vista material. I have an almost identical system and it runs Vista well. I have no performance issues, FSX is nice and smooth, had no crashes/instability and you can't forget DX10 which is what most new games are moving onto now. Don't go for an old OS that is past its uesd-by date, with that system you need something designed to make good use of that power.

[richardd43]

I too have to go with Vista. As your computer is not a dedicated FSX computer Vista will work great.

I have used vista since it came out and have never has a problem with it. I have one computer dedicated to Video processing and have had XP and Vista on it.

Vista was far superior for video processing.

[jwenham]

I'm going to chuck my hat into the Vista ring here. For a beast of a system like yours running with that much RAM Vista will give you a performance boost over XP. You have to remember that a lot of people who have been burnt by ista are trying to run it on XP hardware. Your system is grade A vista material. I have an almost identical system and it runs Vista well. I have no performance issues, FSX is nice and smooth, had no crashes/instability and you can't forget DX10 which is what most new games are moving onto now. Don't go for an old OS that is past its uesd-by date, with that system you need something designed to make good use of that power.

Vista will give no performance boost over XP that is if you are comparing x64 OS's

[SubZer0]

I would go with XP without a thought. Vista is too much of a hassle for some people and Windows 7 will come out later this year anyways

[Wingo]

Vista will give no performance boost over XP that is if you are comparing x64 OS's

Vista has two features that trump XP when you have a large amount of RAM available to the system. These are SuperFetch and ReadyBoost. Both of these cache regularly used files and applications either to RAM or a USB to improve every day performance of a PC. Here are two articles that explain the technologies and why Vista seems to be bloated and use so much RAM.

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/windo ... ows/?p=735
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archiv ... boost.aspx

Vista is deisnged to take advantage of today's high end systems and improve performance. As far as in game performance, they are equal and have variances depending on drivers. This isn't where the buck stops though. In day to day use Vista trumps XP, and as far as usability Vista is much easier to use and much more accessible. At least in my opinion. I have spent a lot of time on both OSes and I flatly refuse to go back to XP now that I have used Vista and understood how it works. With a brand new and powerful system like this one, do you go with the old OS whose support is slowly being wound down, or go with a current OS which is still in the prime?

On a little side note, does anyone remember when XP first came out? How everyone complained about it and trashed it alike the way everyone trashes Vista? Now everyone loves XP and hates Vista. There will be a similar situation when 7 comes out, everyone will trash and hate 7 due to poor driver compatability, bugs etc. and claim Vista is better and how the upgrade isn't worth it. It will happen every time a new OS is released. When the drivers are fixed and the bugs are worked out 7 will be better than Vista, as Vista is better than XP but people will still hold that grudge and hate the new OS even when its is fixed and better. Don't hold a grudge on Vista, and accept it as it is now.

[HarvesteR]

I'm worried about the driver issue... as it seems, XP 64 is known for lacking in drivers... i have a friend to had to switch from Xp to Vista 64 because he couldn't find drivers for what he needed... and given that he is in the same class as I, I assume that our needs are similar...

well... the bottomline is that i'm really just waiting for 7 to come out... but i the meantime, i have to find the right OS for me

Cheers

[NickN]

Vista will give no performance boost over XP that is if you are comparing x64 OS's

Vista has two features that trump XP when you have a large amount of RAM available to the system. These are SuperFetch and ReadyBoost..

and both are freaking jokes

period


even the private conversations I have with Vista devs and others at MS place Vista exactly where it belongs... the same place as their current stock value and they know it which is why they are scrambling to try and fix the mess, change the look and the name...

[stevehookem]

I've flown FSX now on Vista 64 and XP 64. There is no comparison in my mind---XP64 wins hands down. I do not get the crashes that Vista gave me on a regular basis. I have no scientific or engineering reason, it just works better and is more stable.

The boot time on the i7 is so fast that I don't even notice it. From boot to desktop is only a few seconds. Vista seemed to lag and try to run other processes before the desktop would appear.

On Vista, I would rarely get a full flight without a hangup or complete crash to bluescreen. Knock on wood but this hasn't happened at all yet on XP64.

I haven't had trouble finding any drivers for XP64. I did have trouble with Vista 64!

[HarvesteR]

so, score is 6x2 for winXP... yes i've been keeping track  ;)

cool... i think i know which way i'll be going  :) ...and i'll take my chances with the drivers

oh and thanks for the tip Nick, i'll apply that to my vista laptop  :)

Cheers

[HarvesteR]

So, today is the big day, the parts are on it's way (to the supplier) and i'm gonna take it down there for the procedure... i can't do it myself, lest i lose the warranty... but i don't care, today is new computer day and i'm happy  :D

and the timing couldn't have been better... my grandpa's computer completely died today... i've managed to get it back to life once before, but this time it seems we have hardware broken beyond repair (it's an 8 year old pc, so 'beyond repair' comes quite easily for hardware that old)

he's going to get my old parts, which are still good, only lacking the computing power for my games and apps, for what he needs they're more than fine

so, here i go now  :)
thanks for the help! i'll be going with XP 64 for now, and if things turn out bad, i'll move to vista later

Cheers