Choosing an OS for a gaming rig (Vista or XP?)

[amirisme]

Hey there,

I'm going to be building a new rig soon and i need help deciding on an OS to use. I've been using Vista on my laptop for a year now and I don't think i can go back to XP as a primary OS for a new computer (Just because its so sleek and shiny; call me a kid, but what the hey) . But with all the hullabaloola about games performing better on XP that i've been reading so much about, is XP a better choice for gaming? Or should i just stick with Vista?

Or better yet, should I just Dual Boot both OSes on my rig. I have a spare unused XP installation CD lying around and I don't mind buying a new Vista DVD. I plan to use dual WD 750GB hard drives; NOT in RAID though, just 2 seperate drives. IF I were to persue a Dual Boot option, should I put one OS on each drive or is it better to put the two OSes on one hard drive with seperate partitions? Also, before anyone points it out, YES i know that I would have to install those two OSes in a particular order (XP first, then Vista).

Any comments and suggestions appreciated!

 

[airblazer]

If you use VistaBootpro (free) you can install the OS in any order.
I'd Vista installed already and didn't fancy reinstalling. So I installed XP, installed vistabootpro in xp and selected the Add OS config, selected vista and bob's ur uncle. Easy peasy.
Is this rig going to be for games only? If so I'm finding that more and more games are now working on vista with no trouble. And performance is getting pretty close now to XP. I've been benchmarking COD4/Crysis/Medal of honour Airborne and I'm seen nearly idenitcal fps..XP is faster by 1 or 2 but that's the most.

 

[amirisme]

OOOO.... So THATs the case? Looks like I'm just going to stick with Vista then! Thanks!

 

[purplerat]

I've been using Vista since March and have yet to run into a game that I could play on XP but not in Vista. Since this is a new build performance should not be an issue between XP and Vista. Unless you have something specific in mind for XP I wouldn't even bother with with dual booting.

 

[joewho]

You guys must know what your doing. I found Vista to be a big pain in the as-. After 4 days of trying to get all my games installed and running right, I gave up and reinstalled XP.

 

[mtyermom]

From what I understand, the Vista SP1 beta has brought Vista gaming performance much more in line with XP.

 

[paq7512]

Looks to the left, looks to the right. Yells out 1 vote of XP.

 

[athuff]

And only Vista is Dx10 compatible right.. yeah.. it's all about run as admin to get xp games working

 

[ibleet]

Yep, as far as I know, DX10 only runs on Vista.

 

[hunter_green32]

Why no RAID? a pair of 750gb drives would smoke in a RAID 0, and stripes dont reduce overall capacity. The only downside is that if you lose either drive, the data is gone, but a responsible user backs up crucial data anyway.

 

[tlmck]

Just my two cents here, but after some "experimenting", I have determined the best version of Vista for gaming is Vista Home Basic. It has less "overhead" due to all the missing features included in the other versions, and therefore has performed ~30% faster than the other versions. Even the system requirements are lesser to start with.

Of course, if you must have Aero, and Media Center, then Basic will not do. Whichever version, just be sure to download the current performance related updates immediately after install. The one that gets rid of the hard drive churn is the most important.

Hopefully, as stated by another poster, SP1 will bring performance more in line with XP.

You can get the Vista Home Basic Upgrade for $45.99(incl. shipping) from Amazon(legit overstock from CompUSA clearance). http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000HCZ9AC/sr=1-9/qid=1195906155/ref=olp_tab_new/104-1755802-9961506?ie=UTF8&coliid=&me=&qid=1195906155&sr=1-9&seller=&colid=&condition=new
If you would rather do a clean install, you can use this trick. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_upgrade_clean.asp

The upgrade install works well also. It just takes your old copy of Windows and backs it up in its own folder called Windows.old.