Computer Upgrades + Vista

At last, I have 'taken the plunge' as it were, and got Vista. As well as various computer upgrades. We upgraded the family comp rather than me installing Vista on my mac.

Here's the spec after upgrades (items in bold are new)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3GHz
Inno3d nVidia 8800GT 512MB Overclocked
2GB OCZ 800MHz RAM
MSI Motherboard
250GB SATA HD + 160GB SATA HD
1280x1024 monitor
Windows Vista Ultimate

Initial impressions of Vista were, of course, rather bad. It wouldn't install drivers for my DVD drive right, and there were some ludicrous instabilities, some of which were down to the motherboard not liking the processor, some relating to Vista not interacting with the gfx card correctly. It now works, though (mostly).

I got Crysis a few days ago as well, and while it is a fantastic game, I cannot really see much difference between DX10 and DX9 when the settings are set the same. However in DX10, to run the game at any decent framerate, I have to use medium quality, whereas with DX9 i can use high quality, meaning I actually get higher quality out of a supposedly inferior technology. Well done, Microsoft.

Vista isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. I disabled UAC as soon as I logged on for the first time. There are various things about Vista that I still think are completely crap - for example the new games explorer is completely counter-intuitive. While it's a nice feature, the fact I couldn't find any newer games in the start menu annoyed me. I've also disabled the sidebar, since it annoyed me.

The integrated search functions in Vista are certainly faster than in XP, but still be no means as useful or fast as the search in OS X Tiger or Leopard.

For those of you who have Vista, what do you think of it overall? And in relation to gaming, what do you think of DX10 over DX9?

How much have you paid for the laptop?

Pumping out 3ghz on a laptop would be quite insane..Same with two Sata hard drives.

At any rate, I've got Vista Business. Can't say it's too bad, but I've been having "issues" recently, and I can't pinpoint the source. For whatever reason, some of my external devices fail to function (one in the literal sense, though the other is still working, just is sort of random.) I'm planning on a fresh install of Vista once I get home for spring break, but I want to make sure my registered programs will re-register once I re-install them. I'll need Vista to work (duh) but I'll also need MS Office, as well as a program I use for school (MATLAB) to work.

I dunno, I was impressed with Vista when I first started using it - Nowhere near as bad as others say it was. Maybe it was because I didn't get right when it came out, so drivers were already out for everything I need to use. Visualization is 'neat' but I don't know if it should really use as much system resources as it does. At any rate, going back to XP makes me cringe. I suppose that's the mark of something you like.

Jaden, ReadyBoost is designed namely for lower-performance PC's. By adding more RB when you have 2GB + of ram, it does less and less. However, it does help extend the life of your battery if you're on a laptop.

I've got a pretty nice laptop, and I do use ReadyBoost. I can't say I notice a difference with 3GB ram, but I do think it helps increase the battery life. I've used 512MB, 2GB, and 4GB of ReadyBoost flash memory, and I can't say I've seen a difference in performance with any of them.

And in regard to DX10 vs DX9 (which I forgot to address earlier) I don't think there's a huge difference. Then again, I don't know if I've played any DX9 games, but the DX10 games I've played are amazing. Crysis runs great (even at high detail w/ everything enabled), same with TimeShift, BioShock, and COD4.

To say that your computer isn't running well with DX10 is strange, considering the specs. I've only got a 2.2Ghz core2 duo processor, so you'd think a desktop with more power (and probably a better cooling system ) would run better. I'm guessing that somewhere a setting isn't at peak performance..

The only reason I'm sticking with XP at the moment is for performance and functionality, since Vista hasn't impressed me enough on the performance side to convince me to switch. Having said that about the interface, I admit it is a much more pleasant operating system to use... I just really hope they hurry up with Windows 7. Until they release that, I think I'm waiting it out.

You can get these DX10 graphical effects to work in DX9: http://mpan3.homeip.net/?crysis

So you can dual-boot XP and Vista, install Crysis on XP, and do the above "hack."