Windows Vista Rules.

[Oxides]

Readyboost has nothing to do with system memory, and if you are low on system memory (which everyone with 1G or less will be with vista) it will do nothing to help that.

All it basically does is add another layer of disk cache. You have 2 layers of disk cache already, normal system ram windows allocates and hardware on the hard drive.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Oxides
Readyboost has nothing to do with system memory, and if you are low on system memory (which everyone with 1G or less will be with vista) it will do nothing to help that.

All it basically does is add another layer of disk cache. You have 2 layers of disk cache already, normal system ram windows allocates and hardware on the hard drive.

When you're low on memory, and your memory becomes your disk, thats when you see the main benefit with low ram. So yes and no.

 

[code255]

Thanks for all the constructive (first few pages in particular ) comments about your Vista experiences, folks. I'm still using XP (x64), but I'll probably check out Vista fairly soon. I've got a dual core system, 2 gigs of RAM, and a decent GPU, so hopefully even Aero will run nicely. I usually prefer simpler GUIs, though, so I might turn off Aero anyway...

 

[Nothinman]

there is one thing i noticed here....all of you are super techy.....WOW.......

No doubt there's a handful of good people here, but if you want real hardcore geeks check out the Arstechnica forums.

in my institute they said i am better off with mac or linux for 3d apps ...is it true????

Well considering that only one of the apps you listed runs on Linux and 2 or 3 of them on OS X, I doubt you'd be better off.

When you're low on memory, and your memory becomes your disk, thats when you see the main benefit with low ram. So yes and no.

I.e. ReadBoost is a bandaid.

 

[rajasekharan]

Thanks for the reply . Yeah i use maya mainly . Well it runs on all o.s i guess . So considering the question i posted early . . Is vista the thing for me ?

 

[Nothinman]

Thanks for the reply . Yeah i use maya mainly . Well it runs on all o.s i guess . So considering the question i posted early . . Is vista the thing for me ?

If what you have works why change it?

 

[Penth]

I tried vista but it doesn't let me rotate my 2 20" monitors so I'm back to XP until nvidia comes out with new drivers. It did look shiny but I couldn't give it a few days when I only had 1/3 monitors to use.

 

[archcommus]

Benefits do sound nice, but...

I'm not really into plugging in my flash drive to use as extra memory/cache. Seems like such a band-aid and it's strange. I'm also not into creating a memory "hard drive" and plugging it into a PCI-E slot. Again, band-aid. I'll just use a nice HDD with a good amount of cache and 2 GB of decently fast memory and accept it as it comes.

I'll probably never use widgets.

The new UI is nice but I've realized I get used to those things pretty quickly.

I never search for things since I know where they are.

I don't use Task Scheduler, as my AV program schedules itself, I don't think drives need defragged much nowadays, and system restore points are created automatically.

I don't need Windows Backup at all. All one needs for backup is a good synchronization program, and I doubt Windows Backup's sync features match those of my current software, ViceVersa.

In short, Vista does offer a lot of good improvements, but I'm not interested at all in the "band-aid" features, and I'm in no hurry to get it. I'll probably make the switch when my university gives out the discs for free like they currently do with XP and Mac OS X.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: archcommus
Benefits do sound nice, but...

I'm not really into plugging in my flash drive to use as extra memory/cache. Seems like such a band-aid and it's just weird. I'm also not into creating a memory "hard drive" and plugging it into a PCI-E slot. Again, band-aid. I'll just use a nice HDD with a good amount of cache and 2 GB of decently fast memory and accept it as it comes.

It can only help...why wouldnt you bother with something so simple? It's nowhere near as important as having more than enough memory, but if you're bleeding, why wouldn't you put on a bandaid?

I'll probably never use widgets.

A few are pretty useful.

The new UI is nice but I've realized I get used to those things pretty quickly.

Same...but I've got the horsepower, so I don't see anything wrong with a little eye candy.

I never search for things since I know where they are.

100% agree. Of all the new features, the search interests me the least.

In short, Vista does offer a lot of good improvements, but I'm not interested at all in the "band-aid" features, and I'm in no hurry. I'll probably make the switch when my university gives out the discs like candy like they currently do with XP and Mac OS X.

Thats how I got it.

 

[archcommus]

BD2003, I added a couple more points if you'd like to comment on those, as well.

And...you did??? I have to see if my school has it already.

 

[kmmatney]

I've been using Vista at work for a few days to test out my software. My overall impression is very favorable. I'm running it with a Sempron 2800+ and 512 MB of RAM, and a Radeon 7000 and it is a bit sluggish. ATI doesn't have a driver for the 7000, so I don't get the fancy UI, either. However I still like the overall look and feel even using it without the fancy 3D interface.

I also had no issues with any of my software programs, which I was surprised at, as its written in Visual Basic 6.0, which was released in 1998. The new security features are much more transparent than I'd thought they'd be.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm not really into plugging in my flash drive to use as extra memory/cache. Seems like such a band-aid and it's strange. I'm also not into creating a memory "hard drive" and plugging it into a PCI-E slot. Again, band-aid. I'll just use a nice HDD with a good amount of cache and 2 GB of decently fast memory and accept it as it comes.

Well the caching to flash thing definitely seems like an ugly hack to cover up the fact that their VM tuning sucks, but PCI-E ramdisks can be very useful for volatile data. Imagine putting a squid cache or some other scratch area on one, you don't care if it's gone when you reboot and it'll be a lot faster than normal disk access.

 

[insomnio]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm not really into plugging in my flash drive to use as extra memory/cache. Seems like such a band-aid and it's strange.

I thought the samething. I have 2Gb of ram in my computer, and i can tell a different using ReadyBoost. Mostly in loading programs and such. Since its so simple I'll keep doing it.

Is it slow if I dont use ReadyBoost? No, but the speed up is appreciable. But it would not be a big deal at all if I were to not use it.

So far I like it a lot and will continue to use it. Its just too simple and easy not to.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: archcommus
I'm not really into plugging in my flash drive to use as extra memory/cache. Seems like such a band-aid and it's strange.

Your comment doesn't make much sense. The entire idea is that the flash drive is better at random access than a non-solid state disk. So it is populated with the type of data that is most likely to benefit from faster random access times. If this is a bandaid, it's a bandaid for hard drive inefficiencies.

 

[Nothinman]

Your comment doesn't make much sense. The entire idea is that the flash drive is better at random access than a non-solid state disk. So it is populated with the type of data that is most likely to benefit from faster random access times. If this is a bandaid, it's a bandaid for hard drive inefficiencies.

His comment makes perfect sense, yes most flash drives have faster random access than hard disks but in most cases it should never come to that anyway. On a machine with 1G or more of memory pagefile usage should be rare. The fact that MS had to put research into a mid-level cache somewhere between the pagefile and main memory just screams that their VMM isn't doing it's job well enough. The Linux machine I'm on now has 2G of memory and I don't think I've ever seen more than 200M of swap space used. And that's with my mail client using over 200M, my web browser over 200M, Xorg 100M, starting and stopping various VMs usually with 512M allocated to each VM and whatever other random crap I leave running and forget about. Looking at my 'free -m' output I've got over 900M used not including the filesystem cache and with no VMs currently running.

Obviously if you've got 1G of memory and then run something like BF2 that's gonna eat over 1G of memory itself you've got a problem, but it's your own fault that you have to wait for all of that paging to finish before the game starts and stops because you're pushing it outside of the limits that you designed it for.

 

[Quinton McLeod]

Guess what happens when you're using ReadyBoost and someone pulls the USB flashdisk from the slot...

 

[Jason04Vic]

nothing

 

[insomnio]

Either way, if your using Vista you can complain that it shows how the VMM isnt very good, but if you want a little boost, your still going to have to do it. Complaining wont boost performance.

 

[Mem]

The ReadyBoost feature is interesting,I'll be sure to test out games like Oblivion with my 2GB of main ram and USB 4GB flash drive.Guess it is better then having nothing.

I read you can set up how much memory for programs/cache the first time you use ReadyBoost?

 

[BD2003]

I don't use Task Scheduler, as my AV program schedules itself, I don't think drives need defragged much nowadays, and system restore points are created automatically.

Well, I do it cause I can. Why not defrag every night? The SR points ARE done automatically - through task scheduler.

I don't need Windows Backup at all. All one needs for backup is a good synchronization program, and I doubt Windows Backup's sync features match those of my current software, ViceVersa.

Same here - backup didn't have the control I wanted, which was why I used the synctoy, which seems pretty much identical to viceversa in functionality.

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Your comment doesn't make much sense. The entire idea is that the flash drive is better at random access than a non-solid state disk. So it is populated with the type of data that is most likely to benefit from faster random access times. If this is a bandaid, it's a bandaid for hard drive inefficiencies.

His comment makes perfect sense, yes most flash drives have faster random access than hard disks but in most cases it should never come to that anyway. On a machine with 1G or more of memory pagefile usage should be rare. The fact that MS had to put research into a mid-level cache somewhere between the pagefile and main memory just screams that their VMM isn't doing it's job well enough. The Linux machine I'm on now has 2G of memory and I don't think I've ever seen more than 200M of swap space used. And that's with my mail client using over 200M, my web browser over 200M, Xorg 100M, starting and stopping various VMs usually with 512M allocated to each VM and whatever other random crap I leave running and forget about. Looking at my 'free -m' output I've got over 900M used not including the filesystem cache and with no VMs currently running.

Obviously if you've got 1G of memory and then run something like BF2 that's gonna eat over 1G of memory itself you've got a problem, but it's your own fault that you have to wait for all of that paging to finish before the game starts and stops because you're pushing it outside of the limits that you designed it for.

But thats the thing - it doesn't always come to that. Pagefile usage IS rare with 1gb of ram or so, unless you game a lot, or run big apps. And I suppose it IS your own fault - but not everyone is made of money, or even KNOWS it's their fault.

Readyboost is kind of like AGP - it's better than nothing. The way I see it, the pagefile should be a just in case scenario. If you're going to have to hit the pagefile, might as well do it the best way you can.

It is in no way necessary - even without it, its faster than XP.

Guess what happens when you're using ReadyBoost and someone pulls the USB flashdisk from the slot...

Absolutely nothing. Your system returns to a HD only pagefile.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Quinton McLeod
Guess what happens when you're using ReadyBoost and someone pulls the USB flashdisk from the slot...

Originally posted by: Jason04Vic
nothing

LOL, I nominate you for Elite simply for registering to post that. :laugh:

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: loup garou

Originally posted by: Quinton McLeod
Guess what happens when you're using ReadyBoost and someone pulls the USB flashdisk from the slot...

Originally posted by: Jason04Vic
nothing

LOL, I nominate you for Elite simply for registering to post that. :laugh:

:laugh:

 

[kmmatney]

Originally posted by: Quinton McLeod
Guess what happens when you're using ReadyBoost and someone pulls the USB flashdisk from the slot...

All of the readyboost info on the USB stick is also copied to the hard drive, so apparently, nothing bad will happen. Of course if all the information is also copied to the hard drive, you wonder how it can possibly increase system speed...

My biggest complaint is that a lot of the new features I like in Vista (such as true backup ability) are only available in the ultimate edition, which is costly.

 

[Nothinman]

But thats the thing - it doesn't always come to that. Pagefile usage IS rare with 1gb of ram or so, unless you game a lot, or run big apps. And I suppose it IS your own fault - but not everyone is made of money, or even KNOWS it's their fault.

So? People don't blame Toyota when their car runs out of gas, it's up to you to figure out what's wrong when something doesn't seem right with something you own. And memory's not that expensive, sure it's not 1G flash drive cheap, but it's a much better purchase too.

Readyboost is kind of like AGP - it's better than nothing. The way I see it, the pagefile should be a just in case scenario. If you're going to have to hit the pagefile, might as well do it the best way you can.

AGP was a solution to something that wasn't fixable at the time, no one was going to pay the prices for video cards with 256M or higher memory on them back then. In virtually all cases this is fixable without ReadyBoost.

It is in no way necessary - even without it, its faster than XP.

Which isn't saying much, XP's VMM was terrible even compared to Win2K. Just starting one VM at work on my XP machine would cause disk I/O to go for no reason that I could figure out.

All of the readyboost info on the USB stick is also copied to the hard drive, so apparently, nothing bad will happen. Of course if all the information is also copied to the hard drive, you wonder how it can possibly increase system speed...

The stuff on the flash is just a copy of stuff in the pagefile just like the stuff in the pagefile is just a copy of some stuff in memory.

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

But thats the thing - it doesn't always come to that. Pagefile usage IS rare with 1gb of ram or so, unless you game a lot, or run big apps. And I suppose it IS your own fault - but not everyone is made of money, or even KNOWS it's their fault.

So? People don't blame Toyota when their car runs out of gas, it's up to you to figure out what's wrong when something doesn't seem right with something you own. And memory's not that expensive, sure it's not 1G flash drive cheap, but it's a much better purchase too.

Readyboost is kind of like AGP - it's better than nothing. The way I see it, the pagefile should be a just in case scenario. If you're going to have to hit the pagefile, might as well do it the best way you can.

AGP was a solution to something that wasn't fixable at the time, no one was going to pay the prices for video cards with 256M or higher memory on them back then. In virtually all cases this is fixable without ReadyBoost.

Those are all reasons to buy RAM instead of flash, which I certainly agree with, but it's also besides the point. Readyboost is a new, optional feature, that can only help, and never hurt. RAM is more expensive, harder to upgrade, requires opening the PC, and USB memory is cheap. Sure, it's not necessary, but whats there not to like? Why would I ever say no to a cheap performance boost?

It's not as if there is something wrong with windows that forces you to use these things to get acceptable performance. It's a bonus feature.

There will be loads of people who are not able to just upgrade ram, whether its because they lack the know how, or don't even know ram is needed in the first place. This is a cheap crutch that will provide an easy benefit.