XP or Vista?

[vampyr]

(first off, I know this has been discussed before, but still haven't found a good answer on benchmarking)

I have a iMac 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD, and the 8800GS video card.
I currently am running XP, but I'm wondering if moving to Vista may be better.

I use windows for Quicken 2009, and mostly to play PC Games.
Some of the games I play (or plan to play) are... Oblivion, Flight SIM X, NWN2, Fallout 3, CIV4, Warhamer Online, Bioshock, WoW, and possibly any games that come out in the next year, such as Starcraft II and Diablo III... along with some Microsoft Office and maybe some light programming.
My concern with the gaming is that I'm losing the DirectX 10 capability.

Why I am trying to determine is:
A.) Is there any reliability issues between Vista vs. XP
B.) Is there a performance issue between Vista vs. XP (I currently use the latest Nvidia drivers 175.xx, will I be able to do this in Vista)
C.) When I had a 2.8GHz iMac from Dec 07, it had sound issues in Vista, is this still a problem for the 2008 3.06GHz versions?

What are your real world experiences? What deciding factors made you choose 1 or the other?

 

[cg165]

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(first off, I know this has been discussed before, but still haven't found a good answer on benchmarking)

I have a iMac 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD, and the 8800GS video card.
I currently am running XP, but I'm wondering if moving to Vista may be better.

I use windows for Quicken 2009, and mostly to play PC Games.
Some of the games I play (or plan to play) are... Oblivion, Flight SIM X, NWN2, Fallout 3, CIV4, Warhamer Online, Bioshock, WoW, and possibly any games that come out in the next year, such as Starcraft II and Diablo III... along with some Microsoft Office and maybe some light programming.
My concern with the gaming is that I'm losing the DirectX 10 capability.

Why I am trying to determine is:
A.) Is there any reliability issues between Vista vs. XP
B.) Is there a performance issue between Vista vs. XP (I currently use the latest Nvidia drivers 175.xx, will I be able to do this in Vista)
C.) When I had a 2.8GHz iMac from Dec 07, it had sound issues in Vista, is this still a problem for the 2008 3.06GHz versions?

What are your real world experiences? What deciding factors made you choose 1 or the other?

well, you definitely have a good machine. I would put vista home premium or ultimate 64 bit on there, but that's my opinion. You would get full use of the 4gb ram too. Of course if you aren't having any problems with xp you might want to wait for windows 7 (if you don't mind waiting about a year or a little more). I'm running 64 bit vista ultimate on my unibody 2.53 ghz mbp with 4gb ram to play games and it's definitely fast. If you want directx 10 you've got to get vista also. You have the machine for it, I would go for it =)

Sorry I don't have benchmarks but I know vista got a lot better after sp1, and sp2 is in the works. I'm almost positive now you won't get really any worse performance now than with xp and apps actually written for 64 bit will be pretty snappy.

 

[mathcolo]

(first off, I know this has been discussed before, but still haven't found a good answer on benchmarking)

I have a iMac 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD, and the 8800GS video card.
I currently am running XP, but I'm wondering if moving to Vista may be better.

I use windows for Quicken 2009, and mostly to play PC Games.
Some of the games I play (or plan to play) are... Oblivion, Flight SIM X, NWN2, Fallout 3, CIV4, Warhamer Online, Bioshock, WoW, and possibly any games that come out in the next year, such as Starcraft II and Diablo III... along with some Microsoft Office and maybe some light programming.
My concern with the gaming is that I'm losing the DirectX 10 capability.

Why I am trying to determine is:
A.) Is there any reliability issues between Vista vs. XP
B.) Is there a performance issue between Vista vs. XP (I currently use the latest Nvidia drivers 175.xx, will I be able to do this in Vista)
C.) When I had a 2.8GHz iMac from Dec 07, it had sound issues in Vista, is this still a problem for the 2008 3.06GHz versions?

What are your real world experiences? What deciding factors made you choose 1 or the other?

Short answer: If you have a choice, ALWAYS XP.

Long answer:

A.) XP will be much more reliable than Vista. XP is quicker with less crud. It will run everything better. Period.
B.) XP will be fast. Regarding the drivers, there should be XP drivers available for your graphics card.
C.) Not sure... I had a friend who recently told me about sound issues in BootCamp with his iMac. He however did also tell me that by downloading the latest Boot Camp drivers that the problem was fixed. I've had no problems with my MacBook.

 

[cg165]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F136 Safari/525.20)

(first off, I know this has been discussed before, but still haven't found a good answer on benchmarking)

I have a iMac 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HD, and the 8800GS video card.
I currently am running XP, but I'm wondering if moving to Vista may be better.

I use windows for Quicken 2009, and mostly to play PC Games.
Some of the games I play (or plan to play) are... Oblivion, Flight SIM X, NWN2, Fallout 3, CIV4, Warhamer Online, Bioshock, WoW, and possibly any games that come out in the next year, such as Starcraft II and Diablo III... along with some Microsoft Office and maybe some light programming.
My concern with the gaming is that I'm losing the DirectX 10 capability.

Why I am trying to determine is:
A.) Is there any reliability issues between Vista vs. XP
B.) Is there a performance issue between Vista vs. XP (I currently use the latest Nvidia drivers 175.xx, will I be able to do this in Vista)
C.) When I had a 2.8GHz iMac from Dec 07, it had sound issues in Vista, is this still a problem for the 2008 3.06GHz versions?

What are your real world experiences? What deciding factors made you choose 1 or the other?

Short answer: If you have a choice, ALWAYS XP.

Long answer:

A.) XP will be much more reliable than Vista. XP is quicker with less crud. It will run everything better. Period.
B.) XP will be fast. Regarding the drivers, there should be XP drivers available for your graphics card.
C.) Not sure... I had a friend who recently told me about sound issues in BootCamp with his iMac. He however did also tell me that by downloading the latest Boot Camp drivers that the problem was fixed. I've had no problems with my MacBook.

I'm sorry, but you are telling the op with false information. Vista is very fast and very reliable. When it first came out this wasn't true, but now that service pack 1 and other updates have happened it's fine now. Have you used vista after service pack 1 or are you telling him what you heard? Most people on these forums that actually use vista will tell you it runs
fine.

It's hard to understand some people when they complain about the size of the operating system also. Sure vista is bigger than xp, but so are todays hard drives. If you want to take advantage of the latest hardware, you'll need the latest software plain and simple.

 

[bengal85]

XP I mean its the best OS windows has made yet unlike apple who has kinda succeeded with every OS they made.

 

[cg165]

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XP I mean its the best OS windows has made yet unlike apple who has kinda succeeded with every OS they made.

xp is the best is not a fact or anything. I use xp at work and have for years and call tell you vista is better and faster. If the op had older hardware I would tell him to wait until he has a new computer, but he has one and with 4gb ram I would recommend 64 bit vista as it blows xp out of the water with speed. Actually vista 64 bit seems a tad bit snappier than leopard to me but of course that's just my opinion. Aero is really lame though haha, it's useless IMO.

 

[vampyr]

Well, I would install 64 bit... but as I stated, it isn't fully supported on the iMac... and I really don't feel like hunting for 64 bit drivers.

As for the XP is better than Vista debate, I've been using Vista 64 Ultimate on my HP laptop without any issues at all. In some respect, it is actually more stable than my XP Pro install. But I don't understand some of the functionality of Vista... and I'd like to learn more about it.

What I'd also like to know is if Apple updates any of their drivers for XP or Vista. TO add the my original questions... Does anyone know if Apple's drivers are updated more on either OS? (It would make it an easier decision to know that Apple dedicates more time to Vista drivers than XP drivers)

Thanks all!

 

[Yooper39]

Vista Sux

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I'm sorry, but you are telling the op with false information. Vista is very fast and very reliable. When it first came out this wasn't true, but now that service pack 1 and other updates have happened it's fine now. Have you used vista after service pack 1 or are you telling him what you heard? Most people on these forums that actually use vista will tell you it runs
fine.

It's hard to understand some people when they complain about the size of the operating system also. Sure vista is bigger than xp, but so are todays hard drives. If you want to take advantage of the latest hardware, you'll need the latest software plain and simple.

Vista is the reason why I now use an Apple after being a faithful Windows user for 15 years. I used it after SP1 and it was still buggy, slow, and prone to BSODs on the PC I was using, which was a new Sony Viao laptop with 2GB Ram and a 250Mb HDD.

I run XP in Parallels on my Blackbook with 4GB Ram. It's trouble free (but I hardly ever use it because OS X is so much more pleasant to use than any Windows OS).

My advice: USE XP and wait until Windows 7 to upgrade. Avoid Vista like the Plague. I might be wrong but that's my experience.

 

[mathcolo]

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I'm sorry, but you are telling the op with false information. Vista is very fast and very reliable. When it first came out this wasn't true, but now that service pack 1 and other updates have happened it's fine now. Have you used vista after service pack 1 or are you telling him what you heard? Most people on these forums that actually use vista will tell you it runs
fine.

It's hard to understand some people when they complain about the size of the operating system also. Sure vista is bigger than xp, but so are todays hard drives. If you want to take advantage of the latest hardware, you'll need the latest software plain and simple.

Is that really false? Sorry for spreading it if it is. The only I still thought Vista is clunky and annoying is because of lots of reviews from other people.

I stand corrected.

 

[cg165]

Vista is the reason why I now use an Apple after being a faithful Windows user for 15 years. I used it after SP1 and it was still buggy, slow, and prone to BSODs on the PC I was using, which was a new Sony Viao laptop with 2GB Ram and a 250Mb HDD.

I run XP in Parallels on my Blackbook with 4GB Ram. It's trouble free (but I hardly ever use it because OS X is so much more pleasant to use than any Windows OS).

My advice: USE XP and wait until Windows 7 to upgrade. Avoid Vista like the Plague. I might be wrong but that's my experience.

I admit, my only experience with it extensively is on my 2.53ghz mbp with 4gb ram (64 bit) and it flies. I'm not sure why you didn't have the same experience on your sony.

I'm not trying to say OS X isn't great, I'm just trying to inform the OP that windows vista isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I'm glad you've actually tried it to be able to give your thoughts though instead of just guessing it's bad. Maybe apple sprinkled magic on these machines? haha I don't know. It could have to do with 64 bit, I've heard people say 64 bit is much better than 32 and that with 4gb ram to go for 64 bit so I did.

 

[cg165]

Is that really false? Sorry for spreading it if it is. The only I still thought Vista is clunky and annoying is because of lots of reviews from other people.

I stand corrected.

Well, I would say it's false at this point. No need to be sorry, I'm sure it was true before they added all of these updates to it. I honestly wasn't sure either. I didn't have a copy of XP so I thought if I'm going to order something I don't want to order an old OS so I went for vista 64 bit and don't regret it.

I think anyone that has a new machine now should get it unless you already have a copy of XP and feel like waiting a year (or whenever they release it) for windows 7. Windows 7 is said to run on much less demanding hardware, and Snow Leopard looks awesome.

 

[XianPalin]

My opinion has always been: If you have the machine to do it and the memory that requires it (4GB+), Vista 64 bit (I'm running it on a Mac Pro). Otherwise XP 32-bit. In your case, XP 32-bit.

 

[freewareking101]

XP or Vista

Until now I would say XP Pro SP3.
When it comes to Hardware and Software compatibility its really XP. I might say that I'll skip windows vista and go for windows 7 directly.

I hope this help.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Vista is the reason why I now use an Apple after being a faithful Windows user for 15 years. I used it after SP1 and it was still buggy, slow, and prone to BSODs on the PC I was using, which was a new Sony Viao laptop with 2GB Ram and a 250Mb HDD.

I run XP in Parallels on my Blackbook with 4GB Ram. It's trouble free (but I hardly ever use it because OS X is so much more pleasant to use than any Windows OS).

My advice: USE XP and wait until Windows 7 to upgrade. Avoid Vista like the Plague. I might be wrong but that's my experience.

You don't happen to be this Jermey guy I read about a months ago:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=383

Are you?

Ever stumble across this?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=429&page=1

Perhaps your anger shouldn't be aimed at MS, but at Sony for including so much crap with the computer, it's darn near unusable? Even uninstalling the crap can leave undeleted files all over the HDD, a messy registry, a problem with bad drivers being supplied with the laptop, and other problems that are of no fault of MS's.

 

[Infrared]

XP I mean its the best OS windows has made yet [...]

This is the best OS Microsoft has ever made:



Not for your average consumer, though.

 

[Infrared]

Vista is the reason why I now use an Apple after being a faithful Windows user for 15 years. I used it after SP1 and it was still buggy, slow, and prone to BSODs on the PC I was using, which was a new Sony Viao laptop with 2GB Ram and a 250Mb HDD.

[...]

My advice: USE XP and wait until Windows 7 to upgrade. Avoid Vista like the Plague. I might be wrong but that's my experience.

Windows 7 is heavily based on the Vista codebase.

Maybe in another 5-10 years, you'll be able to upgrade.

In the meantime, have fun in the museum

 

[MacDawg]

Gee, lots of hate here... either one will do what you want just fine.

If you already own a copy of XP and will use Windows only occasionally, don't bother to upgrade to Vista. If you have to purchase one or the other, go ahead and get Vista.

I run Vista occasionally with Boot Camp and Fusion with no issues (other than all of the constant updates to AVG, Defender, etc. sheesh)

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[vampyr]

ummm... no flame wars please

I didn't really want to argue over whether XP is or isn't better than Vista.

Again.... some of you are stating that the 64bit Vista is the way to go. But as I mentioned, it is not supported on the iMac.

I have both Windows XP Pro and Vista Ultimate, so I can install either one. I currently have XP Pro running in Boot Camp. I just want to know if I will have any problems running Vista before I blow away my XP partition and start all over.

 

[MacDawg]

I didn't really want to argue over whether XP is or isn't better than Vista.

Again.... some of you are stating that the 64bit Vista is the way to go. But as I mentioned, it is not supported on the iMac.

I have both Windows XP Pro and Vista Ultimate, so I can install either one. I currently have XP Pro running in Boot Camp. I just want to know if I will have any problems running Vista before I blow away my XP partition and start all over.

I would say "no", you will have no problems running Vista
Will you like it better?
Hard to say... part of that will be personal preference with the interface, etc.

Some say XP is faster, others say Vista
It may just be perception or the specific apps

I run Vista
I have no problems on my MBP

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[nick9191]

Vista 64 is supported on the iMac.

Many people on here run it and love it on there iMac.

 

[KítscheñÇinqµe]

i'd lean toward vista. it'll be supported** farther into the future. also, i think we can assume you will up the mac's ram to 16gb or so in a couple years.

disclaimer: i haven't used vista as much as I've used earlier win (win32). I've never run any other OS thru mac OSes. I've never VM in any OS.

(**also, i expect that as xp only approaches it's official execution date, ms will begin kicking it in th' nadz.)

 

[OllyW]

Vista 64 is supported on the iMac.

Many people on here run it and love it on there iMac.

Vista 64 may work on an iMac, but it isn't supported by Apple.

 

[Stridder44]

Short answer: If you have a choice, ALWAYS XP.

Long answer:

A.) XP will be much more reliable than Vista. XP is quicker with less crud. It will run everything better. Period.
B.) XP will be fast. Regarding the drivers, there should be XP drivers available for your graphics card.
C.) Not sure... I had a friend who recently told me about sound issues in BootCamp with his iMac. He however did also tell me that by downloading the latest Boot Camp drivers that the problem was fixed. I've had no problems with my MacBook.

Spoken like someone who has never used Vista 64 before.