Xp or Vista for gaming?

[HazRutter]

Right, so I have searched everywhere for this, I am thinking of installing a boot camp partition of windows (for games and the other windows apps I cant use on mac) but I was wondering, what would be better to use Vista (32bit or 64bit) or XP?

I think im veering towards Vista as I believe it has some sort of cross compatability with XBox Live so you can play PC games and it to go on to your Xbox Live "GamerTag" and you can earn achievements on it etc.

Any advice would greatly be appreciated..

Thanks, H.

 

[Zortrium]

If you search there are a million topics on this. The short version is either 32 bit XP or 64 bit Vista -- not too much difference for gaming (you get DX10 with Vista but that's not too important, performance differences between Vista and XP have pretty much disappeared). I went with Vista 64 myself.

 

[HazRutter]

I could not find any threads on this? I read somewhere that Vista 64bit will not work on VMWare or something? Can you link your gamertag to your boot camp partition, what version of Vista do I need?

 

[Ariez]

Vista is faster when you have the hardware to run it.

 

[steveca]

I would still go for XP for the time being. This will make sure (as much as possible) that you dont find yourself fighting a new bug. A friend of mine installed vista with the latest updates and still prefers XP for stability issues...

As pointed out if you do have fast hardware you can use Vista but whatever you have XP will run faster (as it needs less resources) so for gaming at this particular time I would choose XP.

Then wait a little for Windows 7. I have a feeling it will be good this time...

 

[Stridder44]

XP is dead. End of story. You can cling to it as long as you want but the truth of the matter is there is absolutely ZERO reason to purchase it now for a modern computer. Windows Vista has been good since SP1 was released but people are too thick and stupid to get over their grudges, but even at this point in the game it would be silly to buy Vista seeing as Win7 is slated to be released soon.

Windows 7 is everything that is awesome about Vista, improved upon. Get Windows 7 64-bit and prepare to be surprisingly delighted. It's VERY stable and fast. I too have been running it on my MBP for a while (for gaming).

 

[Infrared]

XP is dead. End of story. You can cling to it as long as you want but the truth of the matter is there is absolutely ZERO reason to purchase it now for a modern computer. Windows Vista has been good since SP1 was released but people are too thick and stupid to get over their grudges, but even at this point in the game it would be silly to buy Vista seeing as Win7 is slated to be released soon.

Yes to all of that.

To the OP I'd say try the Windows 7 beta (RC is due soonish) and keep
using it until the new OS is released. It is unfortunate, but now is not a
good time to buy an OS from Microsoft.

 

[RickR WIN-TEAM]

Hello HazRutter, my name is Rick, and I work with the Windows Outreach Team. Although I am not fully familiar with the “Bootcamp” experience, I do have some advice on choosing a version of Windows for gaming. There are a couple of reasons why Vista is a great choice for Gaming.
1.Vista has proven itself to be an excellent OS for gaming, as it can be run more efficiently and with 64bit, can utilize more ram. There are a lot of misinformation and false rumors surrounding Vista that are incorrect. With a bit of tweaking and tuning, Vista can be a fast, efficient, and stable OS that is superb for gaming.
2.Direct X10. Keeping up with DirectX games allows you to play to newest games and games that will arrive in the future.
3.Easy upgrade to Windows 7. Although I cannot comment on pricing for Windows 7, I can tell you that you will be able to easily upgrade from Vista to Win7 where-as you will have to do a clean install from XP, when the time comes.
There are a lot of articles around the web talking about Vista’s Game performance. Here is a great article from Extremetech .com, that covers gaming performance of Windows Vista, click the link: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2090571,00.asp I invite you to read it over, and make the decision best for your situation.
Rick, Windows Outreach Team

 

[apfhex]

Vista has DX10, which few games use and it really doesn't make much of a visual difference. XP takes up a lot less space and games might run a little faster. You can install Games For Windows Live on either.

 

[HazRutter]

You can install Games For Windows Live on either.

Is that the thing that allows you to earn achievements on your XBox tag ?

 

[LtRammstein]

I run all of my Steam games in Vista x64. It works wonderfully and I don't need to wait for a long time that I got in XP.

Vista does use DX10, which a lot of newer games will be using soon. The other thing is a lot of graphics companies are starting to focus on Vista and Windows 7 upgrades. This means XP will start to be unsupported by those companies, so driver updates will be less and less frequent.

The only downside I have to Vista x64 right now is that whenever my pfSense box releases a new DHCP license, Vista drops internet. Can anyone tell me why this occurs? I have fixed the issue for my wireless, but when I'm plugged in it does it.

 

[Infrared]

I run all of my Steam games in Vista x64. It works wonderfully and I don't need to wait for a long time that I got in XP.

Vista does use DX10, which a lot of newer games will be using soon. The other thing is a lot of graphics companies are starting to focus on Vista and Windows 7 upgrades. This means XP will start to be unsupported by those companies, so driver updates will be less and less frequent.

I think as time goes by there will still be XP drivers, but they'll
be less thoroughly optimized than the Vista/Win7 ones.