Vista or XP for gaming only?

[caseys]

Hi all,

Just bought a 2.8 8-core 2008 MP with 8gb of ram. I'm about to order a 4870 for it and bung the 2600XT. What OS would be better solely for gaming? bar grabbing updates most of the games I play aren't online games.

Will be running bootcamp so no VMs. I play a mixture of games, FPS, strategy, driving etc. Fallout 3, NFS, Civ4, Half Life etc spring to mind.

Also can anyone tell me where I could buy Vista or XP for a decent price in the UK?

Cheers

 

[Winni]

That's a no-brainer for your machine: Vista 64-Bit all the way. Don't even think about touching a 32-Bit Windows version.

 

[caseys]

That's a no-brainer for your machine: Vista 64-Bit all the way. Don't even think about touching a 32-Bit Windows version.

Ok, I take it to be able to address > 4gb then? Will most games even exploit > 4gb?

I just don't want to fork out the £210 for Ultimate 64! Seems horrendous value for money

 

[steveza]

More like £140 for the OEM version or even less if you get the business edition OEM

 

[thunderclap]

That's a no-brainer for your machine: Vista 64-Bit all the way. Don't even think about touching a 32-Bit Windows version.

I disagree with this statement. The vast majority of games don't take advantage of 64-bit so if you're looking to use Windows exclusively for gaming purposes it doesn't really matter.

As for Vista vs XP Vista has become a much more stable OS with the release of SP1. The advantage of Vista over XP is that it has DirectX 10. BUT... most games aren't designed for DX10 so, again, it's sort of a moot point. XP will run faster than Vista because it isn't as resource intensive.

 

[thunderclap]

Ok, I take it to be able to address > 4gb then? Will most games even exploit > 4gb?

I just don't want to fork out the £210 for Ultimate 64! Seems horrendous value for money

Don't get the Ultimate version. The cost outweighs the value. If you go the Vista route stick with the Home Premium edition.

 

[caseys]

More like £140 for the OEM version or even less if you get the business edition OEM

Ok I'm not a business, it'll be for home use. I'm trying to shy away from eBay and I can't find Ultimate for that price.

Can anyone give me a link to a UK retailer which sells Vista Premium or XP with SP2/3 for a reasonable price?

 

[steveza]

http://www.advancetec.co.uk/acatalog/Windows_Vista.html - Unless you have a need for Ultimate get the Home Premium 64 OEM @ £94.21 inc VAT

 

[ID_Field_Blank]

Do you really need Ultimate? It doesn't have any benefits to the home user.

I got Home premium OEM off of amazon for £70 last april and works flawlessly in bootcamp. I did recently install Windows 7 as well and that uses far less resources. If you can maybe you should wait until windows 7 and save yourself some money!

 

[Stridder44]

Vista64 Home Premium. The end.

 

[StGeorgesSon]

Help please

Hi all,
I am a first time poster on this forum, having read many threads and been impressed by the level of help and tips given.

I am about to purchase an IMac for the first time (the Imac 24, 2.93 GHz, Nvidia GeForce GT 120, 640 GB Hard Drive). Now I understand that you can Bootcamp Windows, which is what I intend to do. However I have two questions which will effect my purchase, so I really am after some good advice.

1. I have a clean copy with auth key of Windows Vista Business Ed, which I intend to bootcamp. Does this sound ok to everyone ?

2. I am a complete Total War enthusiast and love Empire Total War to bits, will the above system cope with it ?

If you can help its apprecaited, I am really keen to get into the Mac, however love my gaming aswell and in my mind, if I can get TW running my other games will run easily

Thanks

 

[Stridder44]

Hi all,
I am a first time poster on this forum, having read many threads and been impressed by the level of help and tips given.

I am about to purchase an IMac for the first time (the Imac 24, 2.93 GHz, Nvidia GeForce GT 120, 640 GB Hard Drive). Now I understand that you can Bootcamp Windows, which is what I intend to do. However I have two questions which will effect my purchase, so I really am after some good advice.

1. I have a clean copy with auth key of Windows Vista Business Ed, which I intend to bootcamp. Does this sound ok to everyone ?

2. I am a complete Total War enthusiast and love Empire Total War to bits, will the above system cope with it ?

If you can help its apprecaited, I am really keen to get into the Mac, however love my gaming aswell and in my mind, if I can get TW running my other games will run easily

Thanks

1.) Yes, Boot Camp is fantastic, will run at native speed (as fast as your machine can go), and is free.

2.) Yes, you'll be fine. Just be sure to get the latest video driver from the Nvidia site.

 

[Revelation78]

Download the Windows 7 RC and use that until Mar 2010, during this time put $10 USD per month aside and buy a copy of Win 7 after it's been released.

 

[Infrared]

Don't get the Ultimate version. The cost outweighs the value. If you go the Vista route stick with the Home Premium edition.

Vista64 Home Premium. The end.

Or not.

The OP's Mac Pro has two processors.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/system-requirements.aspx:

While all editions of Windows Vista can support multiple core CPUs,
only Windows Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise can support
dual processors.

 

[Stridder44]

Or not.

The OP's Mac Pro has two processors.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/system-requirements.aspx:

Good catch. I must admit fault on that one. *slaps face*

 

[Cromulent]

Download the Windows 7 RC and use that until Mar 2010, during this time put $10 USD per month aside and buy a copy of Win 7 after it's been released.

Do this .

Or not.



The OP's Mac Pro has two processors.



http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/system-requirements.aspx:

This is correct. Mac Pro owners need to get Ultimate or Business in order to take full advantage of their computers power.

 

[ColinEC]

Even though it is an incomplete operating system, I'd recommend using the Windows 7 RC 64-bit rather than Vista.

It feels a bit faster, and lighter. And once Windows 7 is officially released, you could just purchase it and upgrade.

I regret ever purchasing Vista for my iMac - I have found Windows 7 to be less troublesome.

 

[PoweredbyNorth]

For what it's worth: I'm a new Mac user that likes to play games on Windows (mainly Team Fortress 2). I have a new iMac 24" 3Ghz machine with an ATI4850 video card. I have installed Vista Home Premium 32bit with Bootcamp. This runs absolutely fine without any issues (except that booting the machine in Windows sometimes results in a blue screen of death). Game performance is absolutely ok.

I have been looking at the 64-bit version of Vista but understood that this is not supported with bootcamp. Also Windows 7 is not supported. Perhaps it's my newness to Mac, but I decided to go for the safe route, so far without regret.

As a sidenote:
I have tried to run TF2 on the Mac with Crossover Games, but this was disappointing. First of all Crossover does not support DirectX 9, so the graphics are not rendered as nicely as on a native Windows platform. Second, it was not very stable. TF2 crashed every other 10 minutes which makes it unplayable.

Then, as an experiment, I have purchased a Mac copy of C&C Red Alert 3. Although it runs ok on the Mac, the graphics are far from optimal. I thought I purchased a fast machine, but I had to set all the graphics details to the lowest levels. Apart from that, RA3 on the Mac is about 3 times as expensive as on the PC. I now intend to purchase a new copy but then for the PC. I'm almost certain the game will look much better.

My conclusion: Mac OS is not fit for gaming. If you want to run games you have to use Bootcamp.