Just built a rig

[suryad]

Like I said in my post that yes Vista has usability advantages but I could care less. Performance is of higher priority to me and you can look at gaming benchmarks that will prove XP is still faster than Vista whether it be because of drivers DX 10 etc etc. Bottomline Vista has better usability? Sure. Is Vista slower? Yes. Performance is more important for me than usability. If I wanted usability I would have gone the OS X route.

Edited November 28, 2007 by suryad

[Zxian]

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nv...ormance_update/

You'll gain a couple of FPS by using XP, while sacrificing part of your RAM and a significant portion of your security. To quote from the conclusion:

Considering all this, we’d recommend our readers opt for the 64-bit version of Vista if you’ve got a 64-bit CPU. It runs just as fast in games with the added advantage that it’s more secure and can address considerably more memory (4GB max in 32-bit Vista versus 128GB in 64-bit Vista Ultimate).

[ripken204]

yay zxian is with me on this one

zxian, when u were talking about your friend and opera, i was like, "wtf is a home button"?

then i opened IE and FF and realized that they did have home buttons, not like i would ever use those buttons tho..

i've been using opera since the day it went free, best choice i ever made.

[weEvil]

Vista has far better x64 support than XP ever did. 64-bit systems have a built-in speed boost over 32-bit systems, just from the fact that there are 16 registers in use under x64, while only 8 are used in x86.

What about XP Pro x64? Its not fair to compare 32-bit XP vs 64-bit Vista.

The problem with getting people to switch from one OS/Program to another is that the new program is often unfamiliar. Just last night, I told a friend to install Opera on his laptop - he then asked me "where's the home button?". I said there was none, and that with Opera, you just open a new tab. His immediate reaction - "Well this is getting uninstalled..."

You need to give Vista a chance. Yes, it might not stack up in some benchmarks, but overall in useability I find it much better than XP.

Its not just about usability. Vista makes too many sacrifices. Its slower, its bigger, it takes more ram, its more expensive, its got all this flashy crap by default (with XP you can install your own if you want), and the interface is more complex and annoying.

Besides DirextX 10, there is absolutelly no reason to use Vista.

What does it do better than XP? Besides DX10, and the pointlessly flashy interface.

Edited November 28, 2007 by brucevangeorge

[ripken204]

xp x64 is better than xp 32bit, also it is built off of server 2003.

more snappier for me also.

i just dont understand why suryad bought such a great computer but doesnt want to but an OS on it that will take advantage of the power.

[suryad]

But I am putting XP 64 bit in. Just not Vista x64 yet. I am waiting for SP1 to be out, more driver optimizations to be out, more vLite performance and bugs to get squashed. Basically waiting for XP and Vista to be virtually on the same playing field before I go for it. My rig will be fast yes and it will have a great OS on it...XP 64. Just not Vista yet. That is not to say that I wont upgrade to Vista in the future...there is plenty of chance i will and by that time it will have benefited from plenty of optimizations just as XP has so far. I am in rush basically. 64 bit XP is prob what I am going to go with until it goes EOL or Windows 7 comes out or Vista becomes compelling enough because the performance delta in EVERY app is negligible and DX 10 games are just toooooooo enticing.

[Zxian]

What about XP Pro x64? Its not fair to compare 32-bit XP vs 64-bit Vista.

I was actually referring to 64-bit XP when comparing the two earlier. 64-bit computing for XP was an afterthought - not a design criterion. Vista x64 was built from the start.

Its not just about usability. Vista makes too many sacrifices. Its slower, its bigger, it takes more ram, its more expensive, its got all this flashy crap by default (with XP you can install your own if you want), and the interface is more complex and annoying.

What does it do better than XP? Besides DX10, and the pointlessly flashy interface.

Search, security, the improved Explorer interface (once you learn how to use it properly - address-bar, tags, etc), re-written network stack, better stability...

There are TONS of examples of how Vista has improved on XP.

Bigger - sure, but can you name one modern OS where new versions are smaller than previous versions? This certainly isn't the case with OSX updates or mainstream Linux. Besides - it's a whole 7GB... whoop de do. Disk space is cheap these days. If the OS took up a significant portion of modern drives, then yes, we'd have a problem, but 7GB...

Takes more RAM - unused RAM is wasted RAM. Vista will pre-cache programs that you often use in memory. Linux caches just about everything you do. When I run 'top' on my Fedora workstation, I see a total of 50MB of free RAM (out of 2GB). Freeing up cached memory is quick, and the performance benefits of having it there in the first place are huge.

Expensive? Have you looked at what a retail copy of XP Professional will set you back these days? When Vista was first released, the retail version of Vista Ultimate cost about $500, while XP Pro would set you back $450. Vista Home Premium OEM is about $20 more expensive than XP Home OEM - a small small cost for the extra features you get.

Slower - did you read the article I linked to? You loose a couple of FPS in games... is it really that big of a deal if you get 92 FPS instead of 95? Vista drivers were the initial cause of performance drops, but after a year of being on the market, they've greatly improved.

Flashy stuff? Just switch to the Windows Classic theme. Hmm... I remember people complaining about the "big and flashy" Luna when XP first came out...

[weEvil]

Slower - did you read the article I linked to? You loose a couple of FPS in games... is it really that big of a deal if you get 92 FPS instead of 95? Vista drivers were the initial cause of performance drops, but after a year of being on the market, they've greatly improved.

3 FPS difference? Not likely. I like to look at a bunch of different sources, or try it for myself before I make an opinion.

I've run XP, then Vista on my PC. Official drivers. Big difference. Even in the regular system interface, without the Aero.

[ripken204]

aero is disabled when playing games..

when was the last time you tried this?

btw, there is something called google

http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&...-8&oe=utf-8

Edited November 29, 2007 by ripken204

[suryad]

I was actually referring to 64-bit XP when comparing the two earlier. 64-bit computing for XP was an afterthought - not a design criterion. Vista x64 was built from the start.

Search, security, the improved Explorer interface (once you learn how to use it properly - address-bar, tags, etc), re-written network stack, better stability...

There are TONS of examples of how Vista has improved on XP.

Bigger - sure, but can you name one modern OS where new versions are smaller than previous versions? This certainly isn't the case with OSX updates or mainstream Linux. Besides - it's a whole 7GB... whoop de do. Disk space is cheap these days. If the OS took up a significant portion of modern drives, then yes, we'd have a problem, but 7GB...

Takes more RAM - unused RAM is wasted RAM. Vista will pre-cache programs that you often use in memory. Linux caches just about everything you do. When I run 'top' on my Fedora workstation, I see a total of 50MB of free RAM (out of 2GB). Freeing up cached memory is quick, and the performance benefits of having it there in the first place are huge.

Expensive? Have you looked at what a retail copy of XP Professional will set you back these days? When Vista was first released, the retail version of Vista Ultimate cost about $500, while XP Pro would set you back $450. Vista Home Premium OEM is about $20 more expensive than XP Home OEM - a small small cost for the extra features you get.

Slower - did you read the article I linked to? You loose a couple of FPS in games... is it really that big of a deal if you get 92 FPS instead of 95? Vista drivers were the initial cause of performance drops, but after a year of being on the market, they've greatly improved.

Flashy stuff? Just switch to the Windows Classic theme. Hmm... I remember people complaining about the "big and flashy" Luna when XP first came out...

It really does not matter if XP 64 bit was an afterthought or not. It is improved more so than XP and thats good enough for me. It does not matter Vista x64 was not an afterthought. Not a good enough argument.

Also lets see...you said search functionality in Vista is great and a bonus to using it over XP Even in Xp I dont use it dont care for it dont need it. In fact I turn off Windows Indexing on all my machines. I know where the heck I stored my stuff. Useless performance sapping crap. So dont care.

Newer explorer interface. I am doing fine with the current one thanks.

Re written network stack has yet to prove itself. Its not like network performance has gotten any better. Rather it has gotten worse according to what i have read http://blogs.technet.com/MarkRussinovich/ Check out that site...you will see how many bugs Vista has and this is from a Microsoft MVP!

Better stability you said next...hmm when the heck was the last time my XP install BSODed or crashed? Err cant remember.

Here let me add some more 'pros' for Vista...uhh improved task scheduler? It is in fact so improved that if you read the 3rd article on the link I posted thats what happens haha.

Aero...yeah that is brilliant and shiny and pretty and all that cool 3d stuff wow! What were the requirements for it again? Compiz? Beryl? What? For Linux and it can do it with a tenth of the hardware that you need for Aero?! Say it aint so!

UAC...http://pcworld.about.com/od/longhorn/Two-step-Windows-Vista-UAC-hac.htm son of a ....! According to Mr. Mark Russinovich "However, Mark Russinovich, a Technical Fellow in Microsoft's Platform and Services Division, already answered all such criticisms back in February by explaining that UAC is not to be considered a security mechanism. Rather, it is a way of prompting developers to build more secure applications, he said.

"Vista makes tradeoffs between security and convenience, and both UAC and Protected Mode IE have design choices that required paths to be opened in the IL wall for application compatibility and ease of use," he wrote."" Hmm I wonder how OS X and Linux have been doing it all these years! Oh right they are so unpopular that hackers dont try to hack them. hehe when was the last time I got a virus or got hacked in my XP install? Lets see...I honestly cant remember and i dont even run anti virus!

DX 10 vs DX 9 hmm...http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/bioshock_directx10_performance/page7.asp this is just one article really but I get bored of posting long posts.

So in conclusion I would like to say as I have stated before...XP is perfect for my uses especially since I give performance much more value over anything else. I know what I am doing on my machine so I dont need a nanny...I mean Vista for me. Vista does not suck. Its just a bit less optimized, a lot fatter (for no reason) and a bit slower than what I care for. And I have countered all that you posted.

[ripken204]

for UAC, i have been using Leopard a little bit and they actually have a form of UAC that requires you to enter the admin password whenever you try to perform an admin level task. same thing as UAC in vista.

btw that link you posted, alot of those errors are because of things that the user has done. not because there is a major bug in vista. only a small percentage of people would have this problem. of course a guy from MS would know these bugs because he was problem told about them.

Edited November 29, 2007 by ripken204

[Zxian]

@Brucevangeorge - I ran Vista Beta 2 on my laptop (P-M 1.86GHz, 1GB RAM at the time) and I didn't notice any significant slowdowns compared to my XP installation. I moved back to XP because some of the software I had purchased didn't run on the Beta at the time (Hamachi, NHC, Smart. They've now been updated, so when I get the chance over christmas, I'll be moving my laptop to Vista and Office 2007 (searching through 800MB of emails is getting to be a pain).

@suryad - You haven't "countered" anything I've said. You've just said that you don't care about improvements. Do you have any proof that Vista is "less optimized" than XP? Have you looked at whatever optimizations are made at the code or compiler level? If you're really crazed about all out performance, why don't you just run command-line Unix? It's got all the straight raw-power performance you could ask for, and none of the "fancy crap" that comes with Vista (or XP for that matter).

People are never satisfied with anything new. 98 was crap compared to 95 when first released (98SE fixed that). XP was crap compared to 98SE/2000. Now Vista is crap compared to XP... Let me make a guess - when Microsoft releases Windows7, it'll be crap compared to Vista.

[Idontwantspam]

Calm down, y'all!

If he wants to use XP, let the poor man use XP! Use what you want to use; whatever works for you!

I still say buy Vista and do a downgrade installation, as is permitted under the EULA, so that you can have Vista when you need it in the future.

[suryad]

You still dont get it do you Zxian? XP is faster than Vista right now. That was my argument. and I just took all that you said that were good about Vista and showed you that was not the case. That is why I am going with XP. The improvements are cosmetic in Vista. Pretty sparkly stuff. It just looks great on paper. ANd if UNIX would play games I would be using it now Thats why I have not installed Linux on my machine.

[puntoMX]

ANd if UNIX would play games I would be using it now Thats why I have not installed Linux on my machine.

You can, more and more games are released under it, sure not with DX 10 or so but OpenGL based .

For me XP by the way; I got scared when I saw 1.2GB more RAM used when Vista just stated up, leaving me less space for my games, and yes, I know Vista clears RAM when needed, but still not enough to make up with the 1.2GB. My comuter has only 2GB by the way, If it had 4GB Vista was still installed. (Sold the whole computer and Vista by the way ).

The eye-candy I have installed, just one theme, one pack for login/logoff screens / sounds / icons and a program that gives shadows behind the windows…