Author Topic: Vista question (Read 1114 times)

Maverick · « **on:** November 01, 2007, 05:59:48 PM »

It's been a while now so I thought I'd ask those who have experience with it. Does it work or is it a problem still? I'm talking in general here, not specifically to AH.

I'm looking at getting a new system and vista is all that's in them but I could do a clone with XP for a while. I know it will be inevitable that I'll have to upgrade the OS too.

Irwink! · « **Reply #1 on:** November 01, 2007, 06:12:24 PM »

I have three different machines with three different versions of Vista; Ultimate, Buiness and Home Premium, and they all work fine with AH and everything else. The poorest performing of the three running AH is the one with Home Premium and that's because it's a laptop. AH -WILL- run faster under XP on the -SAME HARDWARE-. If your hardware is pretty up to date though it doesn't matter unless you run with vsynch off and want to see the absolute highest fps number you can get. There's a lot of fud circulating still about Vista.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #2 on:** November 02, 2007, 06:20:35 AM »

Vista really does nothing better than XP does except eat up resources. What you could no nicely in 1GB of RAM with XP will take at least 2GB of RAM in Vista.

As XP Professional will be supported until 2014, why bother with Vista right now? Oh, and Microsoft still has over 400 applications listed which will not run under Vista, but work fine under XP.

I deal with poeple everydau who simply cannot get Aces High II to run under thier hardware combination and Vista. Yes, it is costing us customers. For every person that says they have no troubles with Vista, there is probably another one who cannot run the game at all. Whether it is driver related or Vista itself, is irrelevant. There are problems and inconsistencies with Vista.

Then there are those who will simply not do anything to hgelp improve the performance they lost when they went to Vista. They blame us for the performance loss. Aero is the biggest boondoggle of all time.

The other day my Vista box decided to drop itself and everyone else off my network neighborhood. Everyone can still me on the nework, but my box cannot see itself on the network, much less anyone else. That's some robust stuff right there, lemme tell ya whut.

The only marketing tool MS has forced upon everyone is DirectX10. If games are the main reason you have a PC and there are DX10 only games (there are a couple of titles) you simply must have, then you are stuck. Vista is your only recourse.

eskimo2 · « **Reply #3 on:** November 02, 2007, 10:09:57 AM »

I have a Vista machine at home and 30 student PCs in my lab at school. I also have an older XP machine that was converted to Vista that is designated for my (teacher) use. The converted one has had all kinds of issues. Overall, Vista is working better than I expected. I miss a few things about XP, but generally, Vista is easier to teach and learn. We are still having some issues, but it’s difficult to figure out because we are using newly donated servers, a new network, accounts, lab PCs, OS and some volunteer server admin. It’s just hard to nail down the cause of each issue.

The bottom line is; I don’t think that Vista is all that bad but I would NOT recommend jumping to it unless you have to or are new to PCs. If you work with Vista machine at work of school or wherever, then it probably would be a good idea to use the same OS at home (That’s the only reason why I did). I also would recommend Vista to folks who are pretty new to Windows computers. If you already know XP even moderately, however, you won’t really gain much by switching to Vista but you will have to adapt and you will be giving up some stability, power and quite possibly, according to Skuzzy, the ability to run AH.

Irwink! · « **Reply #4 on:** November 02, 2007, 10:45:29 AM »

I totally agree that there is no reason to switch from XP to Vista solely for the reason of changing. But switching to Vista will likely be forced on people, some sooner than others for obvious reasons. I am aware that some people have problems. Some people still have problems with XP. Some people will always have problems with whatever os they're using. A question was asked and I answered with what has been my experience.

To the original question I should have mentioned I'm using Intel processors on my machines and Nvidia vid cards on the two desktops as well as Realtek audio.The only real software problem I can think of at the moment involves Windows Movie Maker on the two desktops. As soon as I import some video and start to edit it Movie Maker crashes. It works fine on the laptop. The desktops are not oem machines pre-configured with Vista. It's no big deal to me as I was only doing comparitive testing anyway. Otherwise I don't use WMM. If I did I'd probably be really po'ed. But then again Id have looked for a fix by now too. Lacking any real incentive I haven't.

wabbit · « **Reply #5 on:** November 02, 2007, 12:05:38 PM »

I'm with Skuzzy on this one.

I'm currently running a test system with vista ultimate on it. It's slower then my XP system in many areas. I've disabled UAC, Defender, and other so-called 'features', just to name a few, just to make vista run 'ok'.

I'm sure you've all seen the ads poking fun at vista's UAC, with the man-in-black guy. Well, in reality it ain't funny at all when you have to deal with it yourself.

It runs Aces ok, although I don't have a joystick/throttle hooked up and haven't really tested it that extensively. I have noticed that my XP system seems to run better (ie faster), with aces then the vista system.

I've had problems finding drivers for some of my hardware and there STILL is a large list of programs that won't run under vista.

I do a lot of video editing, and have noticed that it's a lot slower rendering video with vista, using Adobe Premiere and Encore then with XP. That's probably a feature of all the drm garbage in vista... Heaven forbid, I should be able to play the vids and music I've paid for...

I still play some older games, like Doom II (internet multiplayer -Skulltag), and although the game will run under Vista, the Server portion won't at present.

Yeah, for someone new to computers, it might be a bit easier to learn, but for those used to XP, it's a real pain-in-the-butt initially, because microsloth decided to move everything around, just to make it seem different, (ie; improved. Yeah right...). Things I used to do in one window are now in completely different areas.

Networking is noticeably slower then with XP. Network file copy under vista moves at an snail's pace as compared to XP. Microsloth has realeased some patches to fix this, but it's still a lot slower.

Once you take the time to tweak, (ie; disable/restrict), things in vista, like aero, UAC, etc, etc, it seems to run ok.

For all the hype microsloth put out, 'ok' isn't saying much, specially when you throw in the high cost of buying vista.

If you've got a game you really really like, (one of the very few out there), that needs DirectX 10, then switching to vista is probably the way you'll want to go. Or, like eskimo said, your job/office is running vista and you want to run the same Os. Personally, I would still run XP at home.

All this comes at a price significantly higher then XP. But then again, when you have a monopoly, you can jack up the pricing all you want, eh?

I haven't found ANY redeeming features of vista that would make me want to switch. I HAVE found a number of disappointing and annoying features that will keep me away from vista for as long as possible.

About the only thing I can say about vista is this:

It's pretty...

If you don't absolutely have to, then stay with XP. You can always buy vista later on and upgrade your OS then. Who knows, maybe microsloth will reduce the price someday... (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha).

Wabbit

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #6 on:** November 02, 2007, 12:56:37 PM »

The DX10 marketing bubble was burst bigtime with Crysis DX10 effects being enabled on XP through tweaking of 5 lines in config.

Same happened to 2-3 other game titles that were 'DX10 only'. They were hacked to work in XP in a couple days with no loss in image quality.

All DX10 does is bring programming benefits to developers but cost so much in performance that no consumer display card can run the titles at playable speeds. DX10 marketing has been hugely misleading and borderline criminal.

Do _NOT_ get Vista based on DX10. You will not gain anything by it, you will only get trouble. The net is filled with Vista users fighting with the simpliest of things on new hardware. Imagine buying a state of the art computer only to find out it doesn't work because of the new and expensive OS.

Maverick · « **Reply #7 on:** November 02, 2007, 08:26:34 PM »

At this time I am looking at buying a "box" computer. I simply don't have the physical resources available to be building a system any more while we are on the road. By having to buy all the components at a place like Fry's or Best Buy, I simply cannot build one as cheaply as I can buy a set up system. Money is an issue after retirement.

I'm looking at an AMD 5600 cpu, 3 gigs of ram (4300), 400 gig HD with a good quiet case for $660. It has "on board video but since I am playing older games now it's not an issue. The onboard nvidia or GE Force video is at least as good as the old ATI card I am using now and likely better. Unfortunately it will come preloaded with Vista.

I suppose I can wipe the old system and load my copy of XP on the new system and register it. I am not looking forward to Vista. Hell, I had to be dragged into windows to begin with. It wasn't until I couldn't get things to run on DOS that I switched. XP has been more stable than anything I have ever used.

Boroda · « **Reply #8 on:** November 02, 2007, 10:05:18 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Maverick
I suppose I can wipe the old system and load my copy of XP on the new system and register it. I am not looking forward to Vista. Hell, I had to be dragged into windows to begin with. It wasn't until I couldn't get things to run on DOS that I switched. XP has been more stable than anything I have ever used.

Be careful! Make sure you have all the drivers for XP and not Vista only.

On many new systems XP needs special HDD-controller drivers to install, and it requires a copy of this drivers on a floppy so you should supply them by pressing F6. So check if you have a floppy drive in a new system, or try to use an FDD from an old system to install XP on a new one. There is a way to integrate hard-disk controller drivers into an XP setup disk, but I never tried it (so I guess I can do it

).

So again: be careful! There is a chance to ruin a Vista setup without an opportunity to easily install XP.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #9 on:** November 03, 2007, 05:57:51 AM »

The only time you need an external IDE/SATA driver is if you have configured for RAID. And, depending on the the RAID chip, you would need an external driver for Vista as well.

Just because it might be built in for one chip does not mean it is built in for all.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #10 on:** November 03, 2007, 08:38:41 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
The only time oyu need an external IDE/SATA driver is if you have configured for RAID. And, depending on the the RADI chip, you would need an external driver for Vista as well.

Just because it might be built in for one chip does not mean it is built in for all.

Well yes and no, pre-sp2 XP installation won't necessarily boot using serial-ata harddrives. I mean it boots but then hangs when trying to detect the available hd space. Errors out with no hd found.

wabbit · « **Reply #11 on:** November 03, 2007, 01:28:48 PM »

Is this a brand-name system? Call whoever built/sells it and ask if there are drivers available for the version of windows XP you're thinking of installing, ie; xp pro, etc, etc.

If they say yes, then you're looking at some time spent in installation but should be ok.

You could also ask if they can sell the system with XP installed instead of vista. A few, (very few) companies are starting to do that on selected systems.

Wabbit

Boroda · « **Reply #12 on:** November 03, 2007, 05:08:01 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
The only time oyu need an external IDE/SATA driver is if you have configured for RAID.

Failed and had to install using F6 and a diskette on some ULI-based systems configured as non-RAID. Used XP SP2 Russian disc, absolutely legal.

BTW, does anyone know if there is such thing as an English MUI for XP Pro? When I install an English XP and then need Russian user interface - I just install the Russian MUI pack, but is there is a way to turn some other language XP version into English?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #13 on:** November 04, 2007, 05:30:45 AM »

I was going to say, the only other reason for the failure would be for a non-standard IDE/SATA interface or chip, or it is a laptop.

Yes, old copies of XP would have an issue with SATA drives. Pre-SP2 copies of XP would have a lot of problems with other things as well.

I cannot find a late model motherboard, with an Intel chipset, that will not install using the current OEM version of XP Professional.

TOMCAT21 · « **Reply #14 on:** November 12, 2007, 07:16:36 AM »

The only problem I have with Ah2 on my laptop with vista is the headset I use on my desktop, which has XP, will n ot work. I have tried the settings and it still dont work. Does anyone know of a vista compatible headset ?