New Gaming Computer - Vista Ultmiate or Xp Pro?

There is one advice I can give you, go 64 no matter what because you have 4GB of RAM.

One thing for sure, you have a great powerful machine. I would tell you to go Vista but XP is still the best for gaming today, but for how long?

I am using Vista 64 and playing games (my card is an ATI AIWX1900) and work fine. The problems I had was more of my unstable overclocking.

I was part of the few who jumped on XP once available and the gamers was all againts it. Look at today, same story. Vista will be king and SP1 should help it too.

Why don't you install Vista Ultimate 64 trial and test it for a month? You will never know if you don't try it. That my best advise I can give you.

What do you think?

Do you like how your Vista is with your game?


What do you think I should do?

I don't play hundreds of games.
I'm a BF2142 player and game is fine.
I tried Crysis Deom, Unreal Tournament Demo and both worked fine.

Find a CD of Vista from somebody, install it (no activation) and give it a try. I'm sure you will be more than happy. If yes, get yourself a copy.

For FPS, may be you will get a bit more with XP but from 55 to 50, who will see it anyway? Everybody agree that the minimum should be 30FSP. So test your games and see for yourself.

1. I'm not sure what you mean but a "correct copy". What comes to my mind is the restriction that during the install, you can choose not to put in a CD Key and install one for a 30-day trial. If you select, say Ultimate, to install without a Key then you buy a Home Premium License, you will have to re-install because you installed Ultimate, not Home Premium. If you buy the same version you installed, you can simply input the Key into the Computer Properties menu and activate it, no other install needed.

2. DirectX 10 is not really that big of deal right now but with time, it will become more so. I have actually tried playing Crysis (a true DX10 game) on DX9 and DX10 modes and the graphic quality difference is barely noticeable, you have to truly know what you're looking for to see the changes. Performance gain from DX10? Maybe but not my much, 1-2 FPS. I wouldn't upgrade to Vista just yet if you're ONLY concerned about DX10.

3. Vista does take a considerable amount of time longer to boot then XP does but once it's up, I see very little difference between the two. In games, you will lose <5 FPS, like Loneeagle said, but you generally wouldn't see much of a difference other then that.

4. This has nothing to do with what version of Windows you have installed. That is per-game specific. If it 2 comps with same game works in XP, it will work in Vista.

5. I did remember reading a year before Vista was released that they would be including some kind of tracking software in it to help prevent piracy but I have not found it and I've been running Vista since Launch.

6. That is more personal preference. I have gone back and used XP a few times since I've began using Vista but only because I had problems with drivers for devices. Over time, all the devices I use had drivers for Vista come out so I have switched back to Vista. The menus have changed, some pretty drastically, from XP so that may bug you for a while but I haven't found a real big disadvantage to Vista except the minor loss in performance (<5% loss).

i think the first guy is right, XP is really for the stubborn fanboi (who thinks MACs are great in there spare time), seriously dont build a PC with XP, fine if you wish to duel boot, but if you have the option go Vista

Stay with xp at least for one more year. Why upgrade to vista? in 2009 WIndows Vienna will launch. You have another alternative, Dual Boot xp and Vista. With vista you will loose about 10 to 15% game performance. Me and my 15 programming group we dont have to upgrade to vista to play Only Dx 10 games. We found the way to hack DX 10 from vista to integrate to XP and some other modification to play only Vista games into XP. Just like other group of programmers found the way to convert Xp pro to Media center. Soon we will post benchmarks xp Dx 10 vs Vista Dx 10, and a video of Halo 2 running on both OS. xp Dx 10 has a 13% increase than vista. Unfortunately we wont share our final software to the world due to illegal issues. The video will show the world is possible and has been done. It was a six month project. Our Next project is to run pc games in ubuntu without Cedega or other emulator. We will integrate Dx 10 and tons of Windows Xp files Direct X sources to run pc games native on linux. Will take us about 1 year 8 month to accomplish this. Will be open source. Anybody can be part of this creation. Our goal is to switch xp gamers to Linux, if successful done.

By The time Direct X 10 is actually worthwhile, all current GFX cards will be useless. Present cards already struggle in DX10, despite current games looking barely any better than their Direct X 9 mode.

I have had vista pre. home 64bit and I like it. I would go with it because like many say it is the future and it not that bad, they have fixed many of the bugs in it, and it has alot of new fetures I like. I have had it since my new build about two months now, I had xp in my old emachines for over 3 years and I do not notice anymore or less perfomance problems. Vista seems just as quick to me and looks much better. Whatever you choose go 64 bit. Good luck.

If Vienna makes it out in 2009 it will be late 2009. 2010/2011 is much more probable.

Also Vienna, like 95, 98, 98SE, ME, XP, and Vista will have growing pains for the first year+.

XP has had most of its holes patched up at this stage. I'd go with XP though, having to run everything as administrator will annoy you, not to mention all that UAC bullhonkey. Best of all, folks have been troubleshooting games on XP longer than vista, so finding solutions for XP quirks is easier. Vista is a bit more future proofed, but if you don't want to spend your gaming time trying to fix things, go with XP. They patched that 4gb RAM quirk, right?

Right click everything?

Run everything as Admin?

UAC can be annoying at first - But you can (a) shut it off or (b) leave it alone. It'll learn what you use, and the pop ups will greatly decrease.

The 4GB thing was an installation error related to certain types of memory controller, and had nothing to do with gaming.


Gaming performance has been corrected now that makers have figured out how to write proper drivers. As for the rest? Please spread your FUD elsewhere.

most newer games and video cards are coming out with some pretty mature drivers for vista, even in the 64 bit flavor, right now if your rig has enough horse power (which from your build specs it should)you won't really lose anything by going to vista

XP64 is great for speed but XP Has memory dump issues you can handle higher memory capacities with XP64 bit... then XP32.... As a developer I generally stick with vista due to XP's memory dump issues. But if you were using the system strictly for gaming and dont mind the occasional reboot... then use XP64

Vista Home Premium. . .

Forget Ultimate. . .

I got a dual boot system, XP is good for software that was released way before Vista, but for the new software stuff go Vista 64, I got ultimate 64 OEM and it is very stable. Supposedly when DX11 comes around Vista will work with it.