Vista gaming

elrasho

elrasho

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OK Creative have released some drivers for Vista that solve all known issues with the XFI sound card. Because of this im going to finally install Vista

Whats the gaming like on Vista? I know when it first came out thre were performance issues, but whats it like now?
 
Surround sound becomes a pain in vista... I just ran into this problem this past weekend when my wife bought me a surround sound system for my computer. I have an audigy 2 zs platinum (which isn't supported in Vista, I know), but I had to download some completely different 3rd party drivers just to have access to a utility that would let me configure the sound levels for each channel. Even then I still don't get any sound out of my center channel. I'm pretty sure something like that from creative doesn't exist even for the x-fi right now.

Also, I did a fair bit of reading on various forums during my quest to get working surround sound, and the general consensus is that even for x-fi, which is "supported" in vista, creative support for it sucks.

My advice is that if you use your computer primarily for gaming and you're happy with your set up as it is, don't bother upgrading to Vista.
 
I was hoping you wouldnt say that. Its just that eventually we will all use Vista and I need to get comfortable with it. I could do a dual boot system and have XP for gaming. Im due to get a 8800GT soon, so I want to use DX10 which only Vista uses.

I thought things had changed since its release, looks like we have to wait until SP1 in January
 
well its a little more tricky than vista being "ready enough" or not.

the underlying reason is that, as I'm sure you've heard, vista no longer has the HAL for directsound that XP does. As a result, creative is throwing a hissy fit and providing spotty support for its devices in Vista. At least that's what I understand. So, its not really a matter of Vista itself getting any better, its waiting for Creative to get its crap together and figure out what they're going to do for Vista and how.

However, if you'd like to try the dual boot approach, look into getting alchemy/openAL (creative's workaround for Vista not having a directsound HAL i think). I'm still not entirely clear on how those fit together. If that fails, the 3rd party drivers I mentioned in my previous post are the kx drivers, which I've pretty happy with so far. I suppose its worth a shot if you've got the patience do dual booting... and who knows, maybe you'll have better luck with your x-fi than I did with my audigy.

EDIT: It looks like the kx drivers are for SB Live and Audigy/Audigy2 cards only... looks like you're limited to alchemy for the x-fi.
 
Well those are for the X-Fi... I've only got an audigy2 :\ Looks like that might be good news for you though. I'd definitely think about doing a dual-boot now were I you.
 
I used Vista on my Dad's laptop and it's a horrible OS.
 
-Psycho- said:
I used Vista on my Dad's laptop and it's a horrible OS.
Click to expand...

Elaborate, pls.

Cause right now the only thing I know for sure, is that it's a resource hog, which is IMHO enough reason not to switch from XP.
 
It's incredibly slow to do pretty much anything. :/
 
Runs everything perfectly, don't know about these peoples experiences but for me it was a much better choice than staying with xp.
 
-Psycho- said:
It's incredibly slow to do pretty much anything. :/
Click to expand...
is that vista or the laptops fault? Vista is more demading. The laptop couldn't keep up. Does that make Vista a bad OS? No. This guy has great hardware, Vista will run very smooth.

I ran Vista Ultimate with most of my games. It ran most of my games incredibly well. There was only one game that wouldn't work, which was KOTOR. That was due to secrurom though. Every other game ran at similar speeds with Xp.

To simply put: If you have great hardware and up-to-date drivers nearly all your games should run like if the OS was Xp. The OS should run even better if you use flash drives to allow Vista to cache programs and use it as memory. All of my old applications ran as well. The only ones that will have a hard time is anti-virus programs, but thats due to major kernal changes.

Also, because Vista puts more into memory it's a lot more responsive. Vista puts a lot more information in memory so there are no minor hangs or hitches. It's a much more fluid experience. Thankfully when your game or heavy application needs that memory Vista will set it aside onto the HD or flash drive and give more memory to that program.

Remember: Turn off UAC. It's annoying.
 
elrasho said:
I was hoping you wouldnt say that. Its just that eventually we will all use Vista and I need to get comfortable with it. I could do a dual boot system and have XP for gaming. Im due to get a 8800GT soon, so I want to use DX10 which only Vista uses.

I thought things had changed since its release, looks like we have to wait until SP1 in January
Click to expand...

Yes, we're eventually going to use Vista and maybe we won't (Microsoft is working on their yet next installment of Windows) but it will be mighty long time before Microsoft force us to switch.
Vista is so bloated and refuses to fly for the lack of hardware support and VISTA being nothing but a good looking hog.
beside memory; you'll also need 600MHz more just to load a game.

IMHO XP is still as solid as rock, stable and economic (resources-wise) and DX9 does not look bad, matter of fact it looks just great.
 
this what I dont understand.... some people say VISTA will run games just like XP and some say it wont. Looking at some benchmarks which use top spec machines, VISTA seem to lag behined XP in games
 
Vista can run games fine, how it runs, compatibility and efficient, is where the tricky questions are.

basically most games are optimized around XP, except, Halo. You will need more resource than XP to load and run a game in Vista environment; example: A game may recommend; 2.8GHz 2GB system resource in XP environment, while (On the other hand); the same game may recommend 3-3.2GHz 2.5GB system resource in VISTA environment.
Also, unsigned component drivers won't probably have any issues in XP based platforms while; Vista is another case.

[edit] Most of all; users hate that they have to authorize every single task, execution, launch at every single time. Vista (Looking pretty and all) is still too dumb to remember frequent used apps.[/edit]
 
DEATHMASTER said:
UAC? You can turn that crap off.
Click to expand...
indeed. You can turn of everything you may find annoying about vista and pretty much turn it into XP. It is slower in gaming but i was an early adopter of vista when it first came out and subsequent driver releases have improved things dramatically with each driver release. My vista performance in supreme commander used to be absolutely dire compared to when i had it on XP but i now get more than double the FPS i did on vista thanks to recent driver releases. It now run pretty much the same as it did on XP. Ive had similar driver improvements in my other games also so expect things to improve further.
 
As I write this Im using Vista Ultimate! So far so good, havent played any games yet though. Might install Timeshift aand see how it runs on Vista. Oh and download the UT3 and COD4 single player demos and see how they run too. If all is well a full format and fresh install of Vista is on the menu.... bye bye XP thee served I well
 
Played the COD4 demo and it runs just like on XP but actually launches alot quicker
 
aye loading times do seem quicker under vista but if you benchmark your system under both operating systems xp will still bne slightly quicker. The performance gap is closing however with each driver release :) I dont have any issues with vista these days.
 
just wondering, Im currently duel booting Vista and XP. XP on the C:\ partition and Vista on the D:\. How can I remove Vista? Would I have to format the D:\ partition?
 
Cool, see how Vista goes for now. Takes time to get used to the layout but it a nice change
 
-Psycho- said:
Yesss.
Click to expand...

WRONG, you gotta fiz the bootconfig for XP otherwise youl keep getting the vista boot screen coming up.

I booted from the XP cd and in the recovery console typed FIXBOOT or summat like that and it fixed it
 
I've seen benchmarks where Linux beats out Vista in games! It was for Doom 3 only though!

XP is the best for games.
 
Just trying out Vista after a complete XP crash.
Luckily I've had a Steam backup just a week ago...
Anyway, it looks fine so far, maybe a bit slower than XP but not much ( I have AMD64 3000, 2GB Ram and Gforce 8600gts)

Anyway, one thing I really would love to know is how to turn off the Fuc.... window keys on the Keyboard.
I 've had a way for XP but this does not work with vista anymore.
Anybody knows?

cheers
magu
 
I absolutely hate Vista. While it looks pretty, it runs very slow. When I built my computer I wanted Vista Home Premium. So I got a quad core, 8800GTX, 2GB or RAM. Really great hardware. Then I also got Halo 2 with the build and tried to play. The intro scenes were incredibly laggy. The drivers are all up-to-date. It really runs poor for some reason. It takes 5 sec to make the Start menu pop-up. It takes nearly a half an hour to just install 3 updates. My dads computer has a good video card, a P4 3.0GHz, and 4GB of RAM. It runs so slow it starts to lock-up. It's a terrible OS and I always wonder how people have no problems with it. I have the hardware to make Crysis run at max with DX10 but I can't because Vista is terrible. I think the main problem is the RAM precaching function. It constantly uses all the RAM and CPU power. I don't want it to load common apps ffs into the RAM! There is no way to turn it off neither.
 
1.)Hool, vista is not preloading anything into memory when you are in a full screen application. In fact it dumps a lot of pre-fetched memory to make room for heavy-ram intensive applications.
2.)You simply have a bad hardware combination for Vista. Thats what it all comes down to. My guess is your motherboard could use some driver updates for Vista. Either that or your ram is shit.

I ran vista with a 7800GTX, A8N-SLI Mobo, Amd Athlon 3500+. Ran perfect. All my games ran nearly as good as they did on Xp. Everything about Vista ran perfect for me.

Vista uses memory to its absolute fullest. Unused memory is wasted memory, so Vista keeps your memory to good use. However it of course can cause problems as applications and games wern't designed to take it into account. This will probably help you a lot. TO DISABLE SUPERFETCH:
Navigate to: control panel - administrative tools - services Find superfetch, right click on it, click properties. Click the Stop button. Then change the startup type to disabled.

That should help you out.
 
All I gotta say is im sure Microsoft is happy they control directx because the second games became available in Linux - goodbye VISTA
 
Killing2Live said:
All I gotta say is im sure Microsoft is happy they control directx because the second games became available in Linux - goodbye VISTA
Click to expand...
Why would a gamer switch from Windows to Linux EVER? Microsoft gives product support, Linux doesn't.
 
Unfocused said:
Elaborate, pls.

Cause right now the only thing I know for sure, is that it's a resource hog, which is IMHO enough reason not to switch from XP.
Click to expand...



every time you open a window/execute a file it asks you a trillion times:"ARE YOU WANT TO DO DIS???"



its ****ing annoying.
 
golden_fang said:
every time you open a window/execute a file it asks you a trillion times:"ARE YOU WANT TO DO DIS???"



its ****ing annoying.
Click to expand...

It's been said you can turn that off. Anyway to the fools that say we are all going to be using Vista at some stage you're funny guys. Especially considering MS are quite far into their next version of the damn thing.

99.vikram said:
Why would a gamer switch from Windows to Linux EVER? Microsoft gives product support, Linux doesn't.
Click to expand...

MS gives horrid support you're better off asking the community. You may have noticed linux also has a community which is usually more than enough to help fix any issues you have.
 
Vista in a nutshell is nothing more than some shinier GFX, I/O performance increases, totally rewritten audio stack (not a good thing) and some other misc crap common users will never notice. Why would anyone consider using Vista whilst XP is still supported is beyond me.
 
I quite like Vista over XP. There are lots of little refinements - nothing to write home about individually, but added up they make for a much better experience. Performance is fine, even with my aging hardware.
 
Sorry for bumping this thread but I'm now a Vista believer! :O :bounce: It does run as fast as XP and it does work now! One or more of the 38 updates I installed must have done something to the OS. So now I have officially switched from XP to Vista as I type this. :cheers: *No problems with any games now, nor Steam.
 
Sorry for double posting but this is pretty cool too. I didn't turn off prefetch neither only the UAC. ReadyBoost constantly uses my thumbdrive so I know it works as well.
 
hool10 said:
ReadyBoost constantly uses my thumbdrive so I know it works as well.
Click to expand...

Man I need to get a sizable flash card so I can use that... I've got one of those 7-in-1 or whatever card readers too.
 
Im gaming on Vista, and loving it!! Supports all the games Im playing at the moment...I hope to check on backwards compatibiliy on older games soon (like Jane's USAF)...

Like I said in another thread, playing Flight Simulator 2004 on XP, I was getting around 55fps...same settings on Vista showed me ~59-61fps...
 
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