Should I install XP or Vista

[drfp25]

My 2.8 ghz, 8800s imac should be arriving within the next couple of days.
I plan to use a Windows OS strictly for games. I was going to stick with XP but a friend pointed out that if I go with Vista, then I will be able to play all of the made for windosw/DirectX10 games. But what is the state of the drivers for the 8800gs in vista, are there any known issues?

 

[Stridder44]

My 2.8 ghz, 8800s imac should be arriving within the next couple of days.
I plan to use a Windows OS strictly for games. I was going to stick with XP but a friend pointed out that if I go with Vista, then I will be able to play all of the made for windosw/DirectX10 games. But what is the state of the drivers for the 8800gs in vista, are there any known issues?

It depends on how old the games are. I've been running Vista x64 since SP1 came out and have had no problems (even Oregon Trail played fine!) There is a LOT of BS and FUD about Vista, why? I have no idea. The drivers are solid too. I'd say go for Vista x64.

 

[drfp25]

if i want to pay games such as bioshock, gears of war, halo 2, crysis, (and other such games)

will they run better on xp or vista given that I upgraded to the 8800?

 

[brian9271]

There is a LOT of BS and FUD about Vista, why? I have no idea.

This may not be true, but a couple of my classmates say that some programs on Windows Xp doesn't work with Vista, but I'm using Vista and its fine, I like the look of it, there may be some things that don't run, but I have not overcome that yet.

 

[MacsRgr8]

Newer games like Crysis will run gr8 on a Mac Pro 8800 GT with Vista. nVidia's drivers for Vista (x86, x64) are fine, and you'll be needing Vista to play games in DirectX 10 mode.

But.. older games have issues on Vista. So it really all depends on what type of games you want to play. In my case I split one of my internal drives into 2 partitions so that I can run both XP and Vista.

 

[allbrokeup]

Newer games like Crysis will run gr8 on a Mac Pro 8800 GT with Vista. nVidia's drivers for Vista (x86, x64) are fine, and you'll be needing Vista to play games in DirectX 10 mode.

But.. older games have issues on Vista. So it really all depends on what type of games you want to play. In my case I split one of my internal drives into 2 partitions so that I can run both XP and Vista.

I had an issue on Vista with an older game - Titanic: AOT - and I remedied it by selecting the executable to run in Windows 2000 COmpatibility and it fixed the problem. I tried with Sim City 3K and 4, the same option, made both of them run smoothly (Except 4 needed XP Compatibility Mode).

Cheers!

allbrokeup

 

[Infrared]

It depends on how old the games are. I've been running Vista x64 since SP1 came out and have had no problems (even Oregon Trail played fine!) There is a LOT of BS and FUD about Vista, why? I have no idea. The drivers are solid too. I'd say go for Vista x64.

I agree. And there's a lot of herd behaviour coming
from these critics .. moo moo!

Some benchmarking:

http://winbeta.org/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=34&t=9186
http://www.imagebam.com/image/9786675364575

 

[Stridder44]

I had an issue on Vista with an older game - Titanic: AOT - and I remedied it by selecting the executable to run in Windows 2000 COmpatibility and it fixed the problem. I tried with Sim City 3K and 4, the same option, made both of them run smoothly (Except 4 needed XP Compatibility Mode).

Cheers!

allbrokeup

See what I mean? Titanic: AOT was having "issues" (which was solved with a simple fix). Titanic: AOT, while I'm sure is an exciting on-the-edge-of-your-seat game , is one of the few among the problem titles (with an easy fix). My point is you won't really find any major issues.

The only one I've come across is installing Quake 3 Arena. The game installed/ran fine, but when I tried to install the 1.32 update (which came out in like 2003 by the way), it gave some error (pretty sure it wasn't Windows' fault though). Let us know what you end up doing, and if you need any help.