Turn off Aero, it's a drag if you can in 7. I did in Vista but don't remember exactly how.
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XP,Vista or W7 ?
- Thread starter Kurrosh
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Turn off Aero, it's a drag if you can in 7. I did in Vista but don't remember exactly how.
XP or Win 7 for gaming?
Well, I don't have a lot of varied experience with gaming, but I've had decent exposure to XP/Vista/Win 7 running both natively and virtualized.
To the quick: I vote Win 7. It's nice, and why not change it up a bit? There's a decent chance you'd notice no difference between speed of Win 7 and XP, and Win 7 might even be faster.
Below is the long winded version, including a report of Neverwinter Nights 2 on XP and Win 7 Ultimate on my 2.2 BlackBook via Boot Camp.
XP is XP. It gets the job done, isn't fancy, is a little clumsy, and certainly has no frills. In Boot Camp and Virtualization, XP booted and shut down slower than OS X (10.5 or 10.6). I've used few computers with a fresh install of XP that would run as quick as XP via Boot Camp on my 2.2 BlackBook.
I only ran Vista virtualized on my MacBook. Ran fine, was quick. Remember it being a bit snappier than XP virtualized, but not as snappy as XP native on my MacBook. I never ran Vista pre SP2, and Vista SP2 seemed pretty darn stable. I had a Vista x64 SP2 Dell at work and can't remember if it ever crashed in 8 months. I would reboot it on average once a month.
Windows 7 definitely feels like a more refined Vista and is at least as quick. I installed Win 7 Ultimate via Boot Camp on my MacBook Wed. and it boots and shuts down fast, comparable to OS 10.6. Aero works fine without lag. Some nice features there, especially the quick look of windows in the Taskbar. Flip 3d is kinda goofy, but reasonably helpful actually and shamefully fun.
I ran the Boot Camp 3.0 installer without any issue (I've read reports some had trouble with pre-release versions of Win 7 and possibly Boot Camp 2).
I ran Neverwinter Nights 2 on my MacBook via BootCamp on XP and it was slow but playable. I read reports of trouble installing NWN2 on Win 7, but I didn't have any trouble. I had installed DirectX 11 before I installed NWN2 and got a failure when NWN2 installer tried to install Direct X. I ignored the warning and launched NWN2 and it ran without a hitch. Speed seemed the same as on XP. I had installed from a mounted .ISO I had made of my NWN2 DVD and it played like that without any issue as well. No disc required - sweet!
Good luck and enjoy your multitude of OS options!
Well, I don't have a lot of varied experience with gaming, but I've had decent exposure to XP/Vista/Win 7 running both natively and virtualized.
To the quick: I vote Win 7. It's nice, and why not change it up a bit? There's a decent chance you'd notice no difference between speed of Win 7 and XP, and Win 7 might even be faster.
Below is the long winded version, including a report of Neverwinter Nights 2 on XP and Win 7 Ultimate on my 2.2 BlackBook via Boot Camp.
XP is XP. It gets the job done, isn't fancy, is a little clumsy, and certainly has no frills. In Boot Camp and Virtualization, XP booted and shut down slower than OS X (10.5 or 10.6). I've used few computers with a fresh install of XP that would run as quick as XP via Boot Camp on my 2.2 BlackBook.
I only ran Vista virtualized on my MacBook. Ran fine, was quick. Remember it being a bit snappier than XP virtualized, but not as snappy as XP native on my MacBook. I never ran Vista pre SP2, and Vista SP2 seemed pretty darn stable. I had a Vista x64 SP2 Dell at work and can't remember if it ever crashed in 8 months. I would reboot it on average once a month.
Windows 7 definitely feels like a more refined Vista and is at least as quick. I installed Win 7 Ultimate via Boot Camp on my MacBook Wed. and it boots and shuts down fast, comparable to OS 10.6. Aero works fine without lag. Some nice features there, especially the quick look of windows in the Taskbar. Flip 3d is kinda goofy, but reasonably helpful actually and shamefully fun.
I ran the Boot Camp 3.0 installer without any issue (I've read reports some had trouble with pre-release versions of Win 7 and possibly Boot Camp 2).
I ran Neverwinter Nights 2 on my MacBook via BootCamp on XP and it was slow but playable. I read reports of trouble installing NWN2 on Win 7, but I didn't have any trouble. I had installed DirectX 11 before I installed NWN2 and got a failure when NWN2 installer tried to install Direct X. I ignored the warning and launched NWN2 and it ran without a hitch. Speed seemed the same as on XP. I had installed from a mounted .ISO I had made of my NWN2 DVD and it played like that without any issue as well. No disc required - sweet!
Good luck and enjoy your multitude of OS options!
Win 7 v. XP for gaming - hard drive space?
Oh, and for others that mentioned hard drive space, yes, my Windows directory for Win 7 Ultimate is just shy of 12GB, but in an age where a 500GB 7200RPM laptop hard drive is less than $100, is there really need to quibble over 10GB? My OS 10.6 System and Library folders total over 12GB as well. So, we can't claim Snow Leopard to be streamlined...
With utilities like Time Machine, Acronis True Image, and WinClone, swapping hard drives can be time consuming, but couldn't be much easier or problem free. And with WinClone, heck, install an OS, back it up, and try another one.
Anywho, I still vote Win 7...
Oh, and for others that mentioned hard drive space, yes, my Windows directory for Win 7 Ultimate is just shy of 12GB, but in an age where a 500GB 7200RPM laptop hard drive is less than $100, is there really need to quibble over 10GB? My OS 10.6 System and Library folders total over 12GB as well. So, we can't claim Snow Leopard to be streamlined...
With utilities like Time Machine, Acronis True Image, and WinClone, swapping hard drives can be time consuming, but couldn't be much easier or problem free. And with WinClone, heck, install an OS, back it up, and try another one.
Anywho, I still vote Win 7...
I'm using True Image v10 but it will not make an image of my C drive. Says it's a Windows Virtual Drive which it does not support. Maybe the latest version of TI would?
WinClone, a Mac program, I used it to make a clone of my Windows partition. After it was done, I had to repair the partition using my Vista install disk, but it was repairable. That makes me hesitant to use it again.
I'm still looking for a way to backup my Windows Partition with a restorative image.
It's more or less the same way in Windows 7.
To be honest, current windows just isn't windows without the Aero. I really like the Aero. But I get no lag in Vista... strange again. I suspect that this issue would be fixed by SP1 of Windows 7. Until then, I'm staying away from Windows 7. Besides, I only have 4.35MB free on the Vista partition... so not like I can update to Windows 7 anytime soon.
It's more or less the same way in Windows 7.
To be honest, current windows just isn't windows without the Aero. I really like the Aero. But I get no lag in Vista... strange again. I suspect that this issue would be fixed by SP1 of Windows 7. Until then, I'm staying away from Windows 7. Besides, I only have 4.35MB free on the Vista partition... so not like I can update to Windows 7 anytime soon.
Although I don't know for sure, I turned off Aero because it does uses system resources (a lot of them?), I read an article about how to speed up your computer and one of the things was turning off Aero. I wanted those resources available for the game I'm playing. I'm pretty used Vista now without it.
Huntn -- that sounds about right. I had TrueImage 11 and I was able to create a backup image when running in a VM but not when booted into XP. When booted into XP, TrueImage 11 said my HD was a dynamic disk, which it did not support. Running as a VM, it saw the C drive as a plain old drive/partition.
I recently upgraded to TrueImage 2010 with PlusPack. The PlusPack offers support for dynamic disks as well as hardware independent restore (I figured might be handy for taking a VM to actual hardware or vice versa). I also upgraded to Win 7 and booted into Win 7 (with aero, no lag at all, and that's with Intel x3100 integrated) and was able to create a full backup image (.tib). Haven't quite figured out how to work the hardware independent restore, though.
I have used Winclone a few times with XP and have backed up my Win7 Boot Camp partition. I haven't tried a restore of my Win 7, but I restored a few times with XP and no issues.
Best of luck.
You are right. I said Windows Virtual Disk, but True Image sees my C drive as a Windows Dynamic Disk. Is it because of the way bootcamp creates it, I wonder? It would just be nice to have an image of my C drive incase...
More or less. Having multiple OSes on the same hard drive creates multiple volumes with bits of space in between. It seems that True Image recognizes the fact that there are multiple volumes on the same drive, denoting it as a "Dynamic Disk" in Acronis's view.
When run virtually, the virtual computer sees a single, basic hard drive.
I don't understand why a program like True Image could not make a copy of a partition, if they would let it... Not requesting an answer but wondering. Thanks!