Once and for all... Is Vista fine?

[tigersty1e]

So, I'm getting ready to buy Vista Home Premium 32 bit, but I'm not so sure with all the driver issues people have been having.

Once and for all, is Vista fine?

 

[fierydemise]

Yes Vista is fine, the only driver issues that exist are either with soundcards (although your X-fi should be fine) or old (pre XP) peripherals. Vista has been very stable for me and probably the majority on these forums who have been running it, its a great OS.

 

[n7]

Yes.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: tigersty1e
So, I'm getting ready to buy Vista Home Premium 32 bit, but I'm not so sure with all the driver issues people have been having.

Once and for all, is Vista fine?

You are worried about 32 bit driver issues?.....FYI I'm using Vista x64 and have all my 64 bit drivers,zero problems in general use or in gaming.

 

[bucwylde23]

It's fine for me

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: n7
Yes.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: spherrod

Originally posted by: n7
Yes.

For the billionth "once-and-for-all" time...

 

[Mursilis]

My (similar) question regarding Vista is, why upgrade? Even if it's stable and most hardware is fully supported, is there a compelling reason to go Vista? Granted the interface is cool, but from what I've read, lots of games run slower in Vista as compared to XP. Since I use my main machine primarily for gaming, is there any advantage to upgrading to Vista now?

 

[fierydemise]

Originally posted by: Mursilis
My (similar) question regarding Vista is, why upgrade? Even if it's stable and most hardware is fully supported, is there a compelling reason to go Vista? Granted the interface is cool, but from what I've read, lots of games run slower in Vista as compared to XP. Since I use my main machine primarily for gaming, is there any advantage to upgrading to Vista now?

At release when AMD and nVidia were still trying to get their act together Vista did tend to be slower by a few FPS than XP however now that drivers are better there is a minimal performance hit at best and in some cases better performance. One of the common misconceptions is that all Vista is is a pretty interface, this couldn't be further from the truth, Vista has a large number of important features, search, superfetch, and the assorted security improvements just to name a few.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: fierydemise

Originally posted by: Mursilis
My (similar) question regarding Vista is, why upgrade? Even if it's stable and most hardware is fully supported, is there a compelling reason to go Vista? Granted the interface is cool, but from what I've read, lots of games run slower in Vista as compared to XP. Since I use my main machine primarily for gaming, is there any advantage to upgrading to Vista now?

At release when AMD and nVidia were still trying to get their act together Vista did tend to be slower by a few FPS than XP however now that drivers are better there is a minimal performance hit at best and in some cases better performance. One of the common misconceptions is that all Vista is is a pretty interface, this couldn't be further from the truth, Vista has a large number of important features, search, superfetch, and the assorted security improvements just to name a few.

I agree.

To anyone who thinks Vista is nothing but XP with a skin pack, I suggest he/she read this article. It's a bit on the technical side but really clears up what's new in Vista and why Vista is worth the upgrade.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

FUD!!!!....Try Vista for yourself,there is a lot of false information on the NET about Vista,nothing beats first hand experience.

I'm glad I tried Vista for myself,personally I think its the best OS Microsoft have made so far,as to Vienna I be very surprised if you see it in 2 years, you not heard of Microsoft delays and testing?..They still got some improvements/upgrades to do with Vista ie SP1/ DX10.1 etc....

Also they don't need to rush out Vienna,since they have a new OS out called Vista in various packages,unlike XP which is now getting long in the tooth and showing its age ,so Vista was needed to get released to the public ASAP.

 

[soonerproud]

It is amazing the number of people who bash Vista across the web that have never even used it first hand.

 

[stash]

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

LOL. Yes, because the requirements for the Beijing Olympics Committee are the same requirements that everyone else has. :roll:

 

[swtethan]

so far, vista is great for me.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

FUD!!!!....Try Vista for yourself,there is a lot of false information on the NET about Vista,nothing beats first hand experience.

I'm glad I tried Vista for myself,personally I think its the best OS Microsoft have made so far,as to Vienna I be very surprised if you see it in 2 years, you not heard of Microsoft delays and testing?..They still got some improvements/upgrades to do with Vista ie SP1/ DX10.1 etc....

Also they don't need to rush out Vienna,since they have a new OS out called Vista in various packages,unlike XP which is now getting long in the tooth and showing its age ,so Vista was needed to get released to the public ASAP.

pfff... I've seen Vista up, close and personal, and I'm not impressed.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2082569&enterthread=y

I agree with only one part of your post - despite the time it took M$ to release, Vista still has a "rushed" feeling about it. IMHO, not worth the hassle.

fanbois will be fanbois, no matter what. Bling, bling!

 

[Canterwood]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

FUD!!!!....Try Vista for yourself,there is a lot of false information on the NET about Vista,nothing beats first hand experience.

I'm glad I tried Vista for myself,personally I think its the best OS Microsoft have made so far,

I've tried it first hand and have decided its not good enough for me to use at this point in time.

However, before i get accused of trolling, I'll say no more.

 

[Schadenfroh]

As long as you have the drivers for your hardware.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Canterwood

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

FUD!!!!....Try Vista for yourself,there is a lot of false information on the NET about Vista,nothing beats first hand experience.

I'm glad I tried Vista for myself,personally I think its the best OS Microsoft have made so far,

I've tried it first hand and have decided its not good enough for me to use at this point in time.

However, before i get accused of trolling, I'll say no more.

At least you tried it and there's nothing wrong if you don't like it,however does not mean its a bad OS,personally XP is sub class compared to Vista IMHO.
What's the betting we see same sort of opinions/arguments when Vienna is released .


As it stands right now Vista stability is excellent in my experience,tigersty1e asked about Vista drivers,nothing to fear in that area and its easy to check compatiblity with your hardware etc...

I always feel Vista x64 is way to go rather then Vista x68,however I understand hardware/drivers and even some software may play a factor in Vista x64 with some people depending on their needs etc...,personally I'm very happy in all of those areas with my Vista x64.
Btw my backup PC has XP and it only gets used for XP updates.

fanbois will be fanbois, no matter what. Bling, bling!

I call it as I see it with first hand experience over 6 months of use ,nothing wrong with that,also XP has its fair share of fanbois too,I just come right out and say what I prefer,honestry and truth as they say.

 

[Arkaign]

I have Vista on two of my systems, but boot to it very rarely. Is Vista okay? Yep. Is it compelling enough to upgrade to on an existing machine? Not for me, or for most general use.

I recommend Vista for the type of user who gets a bunch of spyware on their XP systems frequently. I recommend Vista for new hardware builds so long as the specs are up to par (I recommend Dual-Core + 2GB ram + Vista 64 to start with). Vista 32-Bit suffers from the primary weakness that XP32 also exhibits : low future ram upgrade path. It won't be that long before you'll NEED 4 or 6 or 8GB of ram to run the latest software at reasonable performance levels. Just wait until the media-centric user is playing with 50GB video images for HD-DVD or BD drives. Or when EA poops out another performance-hog like BF2 was at the time.

After exhaustive testing with the pre-release versions, the RTM 32 and 64-bit versions, OEM loads on HP/Dell/Compaq/etc systems, and so on, I personally don't like very much about Vista in terms of how the OS looks and feels. I recently upgraded my bench PC to 4GB of DDR2-800 CL4, and Vista still feels notably more sluggish than my XP load on the same system, even though the XP load is on an older, slower, smaller hard drive. The performance-related patching helped some, but not enough to get me to use it more than I am absolutely forced to. Of course, the time will come when ram/DX10/driver concerns will force me away from XP, but I hope that will be at least a year off.

Bleh, anyway, if you have a C2D build, just load 64-Bit Vista. Drivers are fine for all major current hardware, performance is decent, and you'll have a lot longer lifespan on that load vs. the 32-Bit version.

Above all, keep a close eye on these forums, as Smilin, Stash, Bsobel, and other valiant and knowledgeable forum members will assist you freely in getting the best Vista experience possible, which is quite decent really. They are very nice guys, and though I certainly don't see eye to eye with them all the time on matters of subjective opinion, I concede their objectivity, knowledge, and integrity with the highest regard.

Cheers

 

[gizbug]

Vista is ok. Nothing to write home about.
Quick fix for windows xp.

 

[osage]

I ran vista on 2 diff systems of mine for about 6 months, still installed but I found I booted into it less as time went on. I don't see much benifit to me personally in running vista.
I ran vista pretty much exclucively the first couple months, but I just didn't care for it. I have been running it again for a few days since the reliablity and compatibility updaes, but I'm still not too impressed.
XP works very well for me, and I just feel more comforable with it.

I do think MS put more effort into protecting content for the music/film industry than they did into making a OS that would be a real improvement for the ppl using the OS.

Yes vista works with modern hardware, but if I had to shell out $400. of my own money for vista ultimate, or continue with XP for the next few years.....well that's a no brainer for me.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Not worth it.

The Beijing Olympics Committee and Lenovo have shunned Vista, announcing they'll stay with XP, a stable, tried-and-true operating system:
http://www.networkworld.com/ne...ess-kept-off-core.html

Like I've said elsewhere, I'll skip this OS generation, and I'll wait for Vienna - only two years away!

FUD!!!!....Try Vista for yourself,there is a lot of false information on the NET about Vista,nothing beats first hand experience.

I'm glad I tried Vista for myself,personally I think its the best OS Microsoft have made so far,as to Vienna I be very surprised if you see it in 2 years, you not heard of Microsoft delays and testing?..They still got some improvements/upgrades to do with Vista ie SP1/ DX10.1 etc....

Also they don't need to rush out Vienna,since they have a new OS out called Vista in various packages,unlike XP which is now getting long in the tooth and showing its age ,so Vista was needed to get released to the public ASAP.

Couldn't disagree with you more. I've had nothing but sluggishness since getting a brand new system with vista. I remain unimpressed.

 

[Noema]

I've started to suspect superfetch is the reason some people hate Vista. Why?

1) Upon boot, it loads up the cache. Since superfetch is so aggressive compared to XP's prefetch, people get disconcerted...after all people aren't used to seeing a HDD being thrashed so much, specially on top of the line hardware. The fact that the I/O is low priority is irrelevant; people see the HDD LED as solid read, hear the thrashing and assume something is wrong, or that Vista is a hog. And the more memory you have, the bigger the cache, and the longer the thrashing lasts.

2) Superfetch uses available memory as a cache, thus greatly increasing Vista's memory footprint. In my rig with 4GB, I have memory usage of over 2GB with just Firefox and WMP running. The result however is that pretty much every app I run on a regular basis is pre-fetched, which means little to no HDD access during usage. Meaning: Vista flies, and it's faster than XP. I can't use XP now because it feels so clunky. I firmly believe in the 'unused memory is wasted memory' motto, and that's why I got 4GB in the first place. But a great deal of people don't think this way; for some strange reason they want the OS to use just 200MB on boot so that they can have 3.8GB free at all times. What for? God knows; but they react negatively to high memory usage.

This is the only explanation I can think about; so much Vista hate boggles my mind

 

[Cutthroat]

Originally posted by: Noema
I've started to suspect superfetch is the reason some people hate Vista. Why?

1) Upon boot, it loads up the cache. Since superfetch is so aggressive compared to XP's prefetch, people get disconcerted...after all people aren't used to seeing a HDD being thrashed so much, specially on top of the line hardware. The fact that the I/O is low priority is irrelevant; people see the HDD LED as solid read, hear the thrashing and assume something is wrong, or that Vista is a hog. And the more memory you have, the bigger the cache, and the longer the thrashing lasts.

2) Superfetch uses available memory as a cache, thus greatly increasing Vista's memory footprint. In my rig with 4GB, I have memory usage of over 2GB with just Firefox and WMP running. The result however is that pretty much every app I run on a regular basis is pre-fetched, which means little to no HDD access during usage. Meaning: Vista flies, and it's faster than XP. I can't use XP now because it feels so clunky. I firmly believe in the 'unused memory is wasted memory' motto, and that's why I got 4GB in the first place. But a great deal of people don't think this way; for some strange reason they want the OS to use just 200MB on boot so that they can have 3.8GB free at all times. What for? God knows; but they react negatively to high memory usage.

This is the only explanation I can think about; so much Vista hate boggles my mind

I couldn't agree more.

Just today I upgrade to 4GB RAM, I really haven't had much time to play with it, and I have my overclock turned down while I get everything worked out again. But just now I decided to see how much faster Vista seem s to move along. Here's some examples of opening programs...

MS Outlook - 3s
Windows Media Player - Instant
Firefox - Instant
iTunes - 6s
MS Word - 2s
FSX - 20s+ (no change)
Stalker - 6s (no change)

It would appear that it's not caching any games, but in general Windows and other apps are a lot faster than with 2GB.