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Best of both worlds. Win XP+Driect x11

N

newmacnooby

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 21, 2010
104
0
hi i just bought my very first mac (imac quad i5 2010) and im planing on gamming on it, my concern comes to what version of windows should i install.

My problem is im going to be playing some older games (Neverwinter nights 2 and The witcher) as well as new ones ( mass effect 2, Fallout New Vegas, Fable 3...)

the problem is that i read w7 being better then xp but my older games (listed above) have a lot of problems running on w7, so i read i could install Direct x11 on xp and i would be gettig the best of it, wich i suspect is not nearly as good as it sounds?

My question is, what would i be loosing going this route?

Thaks a lot.
 
Windows 7 is a better OS. It has better protection, better memory management, better networking, and better multi-threaded processing. BUT XP is quite stable and been around for a long time, and if you're only gaming on it, shouldn't be much of an issue.

Just remember, XP really isn't supported any longer, thus you won't get much in terms of updates and / or patches.
 
Don't know about NWN2, but The Witcher ran fine on Windows 7 on my iMac. It was the Steam version, though.
 
For what it's worth, xp only supports dx9.

7 Professional as well as Ultimate supports "xp mode" which likely has hardware accelerated graphics... no promises though.

Microsoft, in many ways, crafted 7 to ween people off xp.

Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't abandon their customers. If you choose XP, you WILL receive updates for at least the next 4 years (would be surprised if not longer).
 
exabytes18 said:
Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't abandon their customers. If you choose XP, you WILL receive updates for at least the next 4 years (would be surprised if not longer).
Click to expand...

Uh... what are you talking about? Microsoft abandoned XP 2 or 3 years ago. The community blew up with complaints so they continued to "support" it.. I wouldn't say it will be getting updates for the next 4 years. But it will be getting updates for a while longer.
 
Im pretty sure Hell is still hot, so no way XP will support DirectX 11, it doesnt even support DirectX 10 does it? I thought that was reserved for Vista onwards.

Seriously go with Windows 7, Microsoft is definately abandoning it on the residential area, the new IE wont work in XP, the new Windows Live Essentials Wave 4 wont work in XP. I know people have a choice but clinging to a 10yr old OS in this day and age....
 
after some research i found that w7 pro supports xp mode (as mentioned above) so thats what im getting, hope everything runs fine and i wont have to install xp later on just to play NWN 2.

thanks a lot guys:D
 
Benjy91 said:
Im pretty sure Hell is still hot, so no way XP will support DirectX 11, it doesnt even support DirectX 10 does it? I thought that was reserved for Vista onwards.
Click to expand...

There are hacks that you can do that will allow you to install Direct X10/11 under XP; that is what I thought the OP was referring to.
 
VPrime said:
Uh... what are you talking about? Microsoft abandoned XP 2 or 3 years ago. The community blew up with complaints so they continued to "support" it.. I wouldn't say it will be getting updates for the next 4 years. But it will be getting updates for a while longer.
Click to expand...

I have Vista on my son's machine. It is an original Vista, no service packs. I went to install SP2 on it and got an error. So I sent the information to MS and got a message back, "Vista with no service packs is not supported; please install service pack 2 and try again." UHH?? I was TRYING to install SP2, and that FAILED! No idea what caused the failure, I guess I have to start the install over from scratch. Maybe I'll upgrade him to Windows 7, then again, maybe not, I don't like giving MS more money for crap like this.
 
Unfortunately, 90% of my game installers don't work in Win7 (64b). And they don't work in compatibility mode either.

They all worked great in XP, but they're "not compatible with my version of Windows" when run in Win7. So, yeah, going back to XP I guess.
 
lannister80 said:
Unfortunately, 90% of my game installers don't work in Win7 (64b). And they don't work in compatibility mode either.

They all worked great in XP, but they're "not compatible with my version of Windows" when run in Win7. So, yeah, going back to XP I guess.
Click to expand...

exactly what i mean, theres a lot of compability issues with some old games.
Can you install 2 winows in different partitions?
 
VPrime said:
Uh... what are you talking about? Microsoft abandoned XP 2 or 3 years ago. The community blew up with complaints so they continued to "support" it.. I wouldn't say it will be getting updates for the next 4 years. But it will be getting updates for a while longer.
Click to expand...

Yes, Microsoft tried to stop selling xp but the community still wanted it, so they continued to sell. I don't know if they still offer or not: if so, it might only be through oems.

I'm fairly certain that Microsoft plans to support it through 2014. That is, they will offer patches until then. There's an incomprehensible number of machines in the world running xp, it will be that long before people migrate away from it (i.e. DON'T GO AGAINST THE FLOW).

See: http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=9&y=8&C2=1173
 
There is no way to install DirectX levels higher than 9 on XP. Anyone claiming they've managed to 'make it work' in XP is lying. If you really MUST play those games, I would suggest just installing XP. Very few games actually utilize DX10 or DX11, and it's unlikely the visual difference is noticeable, or even there at all.

I agree that Windows 7 is the better operating system, but if those games mean that much to you, you might as well just install XP or find a way to make them work in 7. (I'm recommending 7 not because it supports DX10 and DX11, I'm recommending it because it's more up to date and able to properly utilize modern technologies, DirectX level shouldn't be a big problem for you, it's not going to make much, if any, difference at all).
 
VPrime said:
Uh... what are you talking about? Microsoft abandoned XP 2 or 3 years ago. The community blew up with complaints so they continued to "support" it.. I wouldn't say it will be getting updates for the next 4 years. But it will be getting updates for a while longer.
Click to expand...

Yes but you have to keep in mind that XP was released way back in 2001. And MS *still* releases security updates for it. Back in 2001 Apple has released.... OS X 10.1. Do you still see Apple supporting that? Apple only barely supports 10.4, and only with an occasional security fix. You can still get the latest drivers for everything under XP - its just as usable as it was nearly 10 years ago. The same can't be said for older versions of OSX.
 
Between Compatibility mode (and running games as an admin) and DOSbox for really old games I've not had any problems at all with games on win7 64bit, and I have a lot of titles. NWN and the witcher definitely run fine.

Even if you could get dx11 running well in XP I don't know what the point would be. :)
 
exabytes18 said:
Unlike Apple, Microsoft doesn't abandon their customers. If you choose XP, you WILL receive updates for at least the next 4 years (would be surprised if not longer).
Click to expand...

Microsoft's operating system strategy is essentially to guarantee backwards compatibility for each OS upgrade. Thus there's a DOS compatibility layer and now an XP compatibility layer in the latest OS (Windows 7).

The advantage to Microsoft is that more people will buy the upgrade as they know their current software will work. The disadvantage to Microsoft is that the OS code becomes extremely complex (as you need to replicate both the capabilities and bugs in the prior systems).

Apple's operating system strategy is to keep the OS code as simple as possible (of course the code is still very complex). Thus the move to Power PC left behind those with Motorola processors, and the move to OS X left behind the programs that ran on OS 9.

The advantage to Apple is that the code is easier and cheaper to maintain. The disadvantage to Apple is that they need temporary bridges (Carbon, Classic mode).

As a customer, in the short term I'd prefer the Microsoft way, as I could upgrade my OS without losing my old software. Longer term, I prefer the Apple way as the OS should be "cleaner".
 
newmacnooby said:
exactly what i mean, theres a lot of compability issues with some old games.
Can you install 2 winows in different partitions?
Click to expand...

I remember seeing that you can, however you need to partition the drive yourself as the bootcamp utility only makes one windows partition.

You might also need to use a different boot loader.

newmacnooby said:
after some research i found that w7 pro supports xp mode (as mentioned above) so thats what im getting, hope everything runs fine and i wont have to install xp later on just to play NWN 2.

thanks a lot guys:D
Click to expand...

XP mode is a virtual machine, similar to fusion or parallels, however i'm not sure if it supports 3d acceleration. So the game could install and run VERY slow. Check this!

mixel said:
Between Compatibility mode (and running games as an admin) and DOSbox for really old games I've not had any problems at all with games on win7 64bit, and I have a lot of titles. NWN and the witcher definitely run fine.
Click to expand...

As above you need compatibility and admin to get most old program to work. Most people just set compatibility but this doesn't give admin privileges so the game won't work.
 
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