Vista or XP?

[migulic]

I would like to play a few games on my iMac (mid 2007 Alu, with the HD 2600 Pro, 2.4 GHz C2D and 3 GB RAM). I'm mostly looking at The Orange Box, though I might get some other titles like Mass Effect and Bioshock, some older games as well as Starcraft 2 in the future. I can buy Vista Home Basic 32-bit, Vista Home Basic 64-bit and XP Home Edition 32-bit for exactly the same price and I've been wondering which one I should get. The Windows installation will only be used for gaming for now, although I might use it for some light Windows-only tasks like video chat over Windows Live Messenger.

So, which of those three versions of Windows will give me the best gaming performance?

 

[costabunny]

I would like to play a few games on my iMac (mid 2007 Alu, with the HD 2600 Pro, 2.4 GHz C2D and 3 GB RAM). I'm mostly looking at The Orange Box, though I might get some other titles like Mass Effect and Bioshock, some older games as well as Starcraft 2 in the future. I can buy Vista Home Basic 32-bit, Vista Home Basic 64-bit and XP Home Edition 32-bit for exactly the same price and I've been wondering which one I should get. The Windows installation will only be used for gaming for now, although I might use it for some light Windows-only tasks like video chat over Windows Live Messenger.

So, which of those three versions of Windows will give me the best gaming performance?

If pure performance is all you want (fps) then XP. BTW starcraft 2 will launch on Mac and PC so no need for bootcamp there

Personally I use Vista64 for gaming and haven't had any issues with it (but I only play COD2, COD4, Lego Starwars, Crysis and Stalker)

 

[Stridder44]

If pure performance is all you want (fps) then XP. BTW starcraft 2 will launch on Mac and PC so no need for bootcamp there

Personally I use Vista64 for gaming and haven't had any issues with it (but I only play COD2, COD4, Lego Starwars, Crysis and Stalker)

Ditto. Using Vista x64 here too, and no issues. I don't even think XP is any faster than Vista anymore. I would say go for 64-bit. Being able to use more than 3 GB of RAM (among other things) is very nice.

 

[migulic]

Ditto. Using Vista x64 here too, and no issues. I don't even think XP is any faster than Vista anymore. I would say go for 64-bit. Being able to use more than 3 GB of RAM (among other things) is very nice.

The thing is, I only have 3 GB of RAM (not planning to upgrade, it's fast enough ) and I'm afraid that some games might not work on the x64 version of Vista. Is this possible?

Also, will my iMac, and more specifically the HD 2600 Pro (the CPU and RAM are alright for current games right?), run the games I mentioned above (The Orange Box, Bioshock, Mass Effect, GTA IV if it ever gets a PC release, Starcraft 2)?

Thanks

 

[5855997]

There are still several issues with some games. Some which aren't that old. I for my would go for XP, except if you want to play all the new things like Crysis which shoould look better with DirectX 10.

I wasn't happy with Vista at all. So my gaming PC has two Partition, XP for most of the things and Vista for the newer games. Nothing else.

But I am not a big gamer anymore anyway, so I switched to a MacBook for college.

 

[Infrared]

I would like to play a few games on my iMac (mid 2007 Alu, with the HD 2600 Pro, 2.4 GHz C2D and 3 GB RAM). I'm mostly looking at The Orange Box, though I might get some other titles like Mass Effect and Bioshock, some older games as well as Starcraft 2 in the future. I can buy Vista Home Basic 32-bit, Vista Home Basic 64-bit and XP Home Edition 32-bit for exactly the same price and I've been wondering which one I should get. The Windows installation will only be used for gaming for now, although I might use it for some light Windows-only tasks like video chat over Windows Live Messenger.

So, which of those three versions of Windows will give me the best gaming performance?

It's hard to say anymore. Sometimes Vista outperforms XP,
and sometimes it's the other way around:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1775&page=2

It's the same for 64-bit vs 32-bit, though generally 64-bit code
will run faster if it's written properly.

If it were me, I'd go with Vista x64. XP has peaked now and is
fading away. The future has 64 bits, and I don't want to be a
curator in a museum of ancient operating systems

 

[Siron]

I have XP Pro 32 and Vista Business 64 and Crysis runs much better on Vista because of DX10. All new games for Windows will run DX10 so get Vista 64.
Alan

 

[migulic]

OK, thanks, I'll get Vista Home Basic 64 bit. As for my other question, will the HD 2600 Pro/3 GB RAM/2.4 GHz C2D run modern games (especially: The Orange Box, Mass Effect, Bioshock, maybe GTA IV if it ever gets a PC release, COD 4, in the future Starcraft 2 and maybe Spore)?

 

[0098386]

That MBP will run all them games flawlessly my 2 year old (almost) iMac runs Orange Box games at 1440x900 with everything turned up and it performs beautifully. A MBP will walk all over that!

 

[migulic]

That MBP will run all them games flawlessly my 2 year old (almost) iMac runs Orange Box games at 1440x900 with everything turned up and it performs beautifully. A MBP will walk all over that!

But I have an iMac . The computer in question is an Alu iMac, mid-2007. And thanks for the confirmation about Orange Box, but I would also like to hear about some of the more demanding games (Bioshock, Mass Effect).

 

[jerryrock]

But I have an iMac . The computer in question is an Alu iMac, mid-2007. And thanks for the confirmation about Orange Box, but I would also like to hear about some of the more demanding games (Bioshock, Mass Effect).

Please note that if you purchase Vista 64bit with SP1 DVD, it will not install on your iMac. This version is only supported on 2008 models of MacPro and MacBook Pro.

If you can find a pre-Sp1 version of Vista 64, you may be able to install with an elaborate software hack that is posted in various places on the internet.

 

[migulic]

Please note that if you purchase Vista 64bit with SP1 DVD, it will not install on your iMac. This version is only supported on 2008 models of MacPro and MacBook Pro.

If you can find a pre-Sp1 version of Vista 64, you may be able to install with an elaborate software hack that is posted in various places on the internet.

Thanks for warning me, I was just going to buy it. Why is that?

Would Vista 32 bit work then (SP1 version) or would XP be a better choice?

 

[Stridder44]

It's hard to say anymore. Sometimes Vista outperforms XP,
and sometimes it's the other way around:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1775&page=2

It's the same for 64-bit vs 32-bit, though generally 64-bit code
will run faster if it's written properly.

If it were me, I'd go with Vista x64. XP has peaked now and is
fading away. The future has 64 bits, and I don't want to be a
curator in a museum of ancient operating systems

Bingo. Couldn't have said it better myself. Sometimes it can be fast one way over the other, but when I say "faster" we're talking like 2-3 fps. Not a big deal. XP is dead no matter how you look at it, and Vista, despite what many somehow ignorantly like to forget, actually has a lot of good under the hood changes.

And as far as 64-bit not working, that's only because the install DVD that came with your Mac doesn't have the 64-bit drivers on them. You could very easily (and legally) download the drivers and it would run perfectly.

 

[jerryrock]

B
And as far as 64-bit not working, that's only because the install DVD that came with your Mac doesn't have the 64-bit drivers on them. You could very easily (and legally) download the drivers and it would run perfectly.

This statement is NOT true. The Vista 64bit SP1 DVD will NOT boot a Mac that is not a 2008 MacBook Pro or MacPro. It does not matter what drivers you download, if you can't boot the DVD, you can't install the program.

Pre 2008 models need a firmware update (not yet released) to boot this DVD.

 

[Infrared]

This statement is NOT true. The Vista 64bit SP1 DVD will NOT boot a Mac that is not a 2008 MacBook Pro or MacPro. It does not matter what drivers you download, if you can't boot the DVD, you can't install the program.

Pre 2008 models need a firmware update (not yet released) to boot this DVD.

Apple really needs to sort out their EFI firmware. It's pretty
much half-baked at the moment. If you're not dual-booting,
it won't be an issue. But for people who are, there's a whole
range of weird/broken/non-standard implementation issues
that are surfacing.

We're entering an age where it should be possible to have
countless OSes installed on a machine, on any media, in any
order, with no arbitrary limitations. EFI makes that possible.

But somehow Apple have made a mess of this. It was forward
thinking of Apple to go for EFI, and I applaud them for that.
Now is the time for some follow-through.

 

[Siron]

I recently purchases Vista Business 64 bit OEM and it came with a second disk (SP1) taped to the outside of the box - that I installed (I have a MP). I guess if that's what you have, you could hold off on installing the SP1 disk for a while. You may want to check with the online retailers to see if they're shipping Vista this way.
Alan

 

[Stridder44]

This statement is NOT true. The Vista 64bit SP1 DVD will NOT boot a Mac that is not a 2008 MacBook Pro or MacPro. It does not matter what drivers you download, if you can't boot the DVD, you can't install the program.

Pre 2008 models need a firmware update (not yet released) to boot this DVD.

Ouch, really? You can't just install Vista 64, then run the Boot Camp 2.1 installer? It just plain refuses to install?

Can someone explain to me why Boot Camp wasn't 64-bit compatible from the beginning?

 

[Infrared]

Ouch, really? You can't just install Vista 64, then run the Boot Camp 2.1 installer? It just plain refuses to install?

Can someone explain to me why Boot Camp wasn't 64-bit compatible from the beginning?

Apple's EFI effort is shockingly feeble.

Especially when you consider they didn't have to do very
much work. A lot of reference code was already out there.

 

[gyumilly]

Please note that if you purchase Vista 64bit with SP1 DVD, it will not install on your iMac. This version is only supported on 2008 models of MacPro and MacBook Pro.

If you can find a pre-Sp1 version of Vista 64, you may be able to install with an elaborate software hack that is posted in various places on the internet.

I have to disagree. I'm running Vista 64 with SP1 (from one DVD) without any issue on my macbook SR. It took a while to find Mac Pro drivers to get it going, but everything works fine. There is a bit of manual process, but worth doing it.

 

[Stridder44]

I have to disagree. I'm running Vista 64 with SP1 (from one DVD) without any issue on my macbook SR. It took a while to find Mac Pro drivers to get it going, but everything works fine. There is a bit of manual process, but worth doing it.

Yeah, see, I thought it was possible. I knew I had read posts before that have successfully installed Vista 64 with the "Mac Pro" 64-bit drivers.

 

[retrofraction]

vista, if you arn't going to play games as old as cod 2.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

If you don't have a copy of vista 64x with out sp 1 installed, and don't mind being asked 5 times if you want to open up something, and don't mind it taking forever to load up. Just so you can see more stuff going on in the environment of a newer game, then get vista 64x, but if you want to have a nicer experience with windows go XP.

 

[migulic]

Thanks for all the responses. I have one more question: will Vista 32-bit SP1 install on my iMac, or is the problem with the SP1? (SP1 is all I saw lately).

If anybody wants to know more details, this is the choice I have:
http://forcom.be/?cat=113&sub=OPS
I'll buy one of the EN or NL versions, the cheapest there is.
(that shop is close to where I live, has good prices and customer service and I don't like ordering online, especially when I can get the same thing locally)

 

[jerryrock]

I have to disagree. I'm running Vista 64 with SP1 (from one DVD) without any issue on my macbook SR. It took a while to find Mac Pro drivers to get it going, but everything works fine. There is a bit of manual process, but worth doing it.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846

Please tell us how you installed the Vista64 SP1 DVD on your MacBook. There are many interested in the process.

 

[Stridder44]

Thanks for all the responses. I have one more question: will Vista 32-bit SP1 install on my iMac, or is the problem with the SP1? (SP1 is all I saw lately).

If anybody wants to know more details, this is the choice I have:
http://forcom.be/?cat=113&sub=OPS
I'll buy one of the EN or NL versions, the cheapest there is.
(that shop is close to where I live, has good prices and customer service and I don't like ordering online, especially when I can get the same thing locally)

No no, if anything SP1 will make things easier. I hope Apple fixes the stupid 64-bit installation problem for "older" Macs. It's ridiculous that you guys aren't able to simply install it. It should have been enabled from the beginning.