RPGs on Vista?

[Elwro]

But have you tried Wine 1.1? It's clearly a better tool now than e.g. a year ago.

 

[Jasede]

Vista is more stable than XP? I haven't had XP crash on me in I think 2 years.

I have built this computer I am posting from from single, new parts all by myself three years ago or so, installed XP (Home) on that, and now, prepare:

I have never, ever had to reinstall or format. It's the same HD, and the same XP installation. For almost three years.


Now go tell me Vista is more stable.

 

[jaylittle]

Why are you getting Vista when it has like no advantages? Not going to rant or trying to change your mind, but very curious.

I'm curious, have you used Vista? Sure it's UAC functionality is annoying as shit, but to say that it brings nothing good to the table is a bit off in my book. There are some great utilities that ship as part of Vista (Performance and Reliability monitor). The new Start Menu totally kicks ass once you realize that you can open it and start typing to search for what you want in the menu rather than clicking through a maze of fly-out menus as you would in older versions of Windows. Things like Desktop Search and Superfetch annoy the shit out of me, mostly because I'm on a laptop though and those things tend to incur a lot of IO which increases heat and decreases battery life. But you can turn those things off.

I use Vista right now at home for the most part, because I legally own more licenses for it (and I got all of them for free at various Microsoft launch events I attended) than I do XP. However with some tweaking Vista 32 bit can be made to work with most of the games that you played on XP (I even got Wizards and Warriors running on there). In VIsta 64 bit, the story is similar with the exception of 16 bit installers as mentioned above. I'm not a Vista fanboi on anything, just somebody who has been satisfied with the Vista experience for the most part.

 

[Jasede]

I don't need fluff; I have Norton Commander.

 

[Binary]

Guys just to clear something here as there were too many mistakes above.

As much as I would love to have here another rant against Windows, the truth is ANY 32bit operating system on a PC cannot use more than 3.2Gb memory.

This has to do with internal PC architecture (yeah, PC architecture sucks, gimme my Amiga back) and the way it does MMIO (Memory Mapping Input/Output)

Anyway as it was said... build your own PC without an OS

And regarding the screen, get the largest of the cheapest brand you can find. Technology moves too fast in that department, so don't invest a zillion to get something of a famous brand but that will be outdated soon. Most screens themselves are made by LG anyway... I recently bought a Digimate 24'' for 250 eur

 

[jaylittle]

As much as I would love to have here another rant against Windows, the truth is ANY 32bit operating system on a PC cannot use more than 3.2Gb memory.

This simply isn't true. The varying level of memory restrictions in XP and Windows in general when you get near the 4 gigabyte level have to do with how Microsoft has decided to implement virtual addressing in Windows. Other 32 bit OSes, such as Linux are fully capable of using 4 gigs of RAM and also having a graphics card installed with 1 gig of it's own ram. That's because their design is superior. Microsoft has ventured to fix this issue in the past in the original release of Windows XP. Pre SP2 XP would let you use a full 4 gigabytes of RAM, regardless of how much RAM your graphics card had because the virtual addressing ranges for that RAM were placed above the 4 gigabyte physical RAM limitation.

The problem that this caused was that the people writing graphics card drivers tended only to use 32 bit pointers for their virtual addresses and this in turn caused instability. So rather than force the driver writers to write better code, Microsoft reverted back to the old way of doing things as part of the XP SP2 installation.

This is entirely a Microsoft issue. Linux doesn't have the issue nor does OS X. Microsoft decided to bet on people moving to a 64 bit OS before this became too much of an issue. Prior to Vista I found that amusing because driver support in XP 64 bit was total shit. However Microsoft has cleaned up their 64 bit act when it comes to Vista. In order to be certified, you now have to produce both 32 bit and 64 bit drivers, so Microsoft is effectively forcing reputable hardware manufacturers to support the 64 bit platform.

Here is a good overview of it:

Click Here for More Info on Windows Memory Limites

So again, feel free to thank Microsoft for a shitty implementation.

 

[LCJr.]

Here's my thing. My PC is basically a toy. I use it mainly to surf the web and play games.
Now if I go to the store and pick up a game and look at the system specs Vista takes x2-x4 the amount of RAM and video memory. Someone please enlighten me as how this is an improvement? If I was in the business of manufacturing RAM and/or video cards I'd say it was a great step forward. But being the poor schmuck that has to pay for that hardware I'm not seeing the advantage.

 

[Binary]

This simply isn't true.

U R WORNG!

http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

The explanation for the three-to-four-gigabyte problems is that modern computers include an arrangement conceptually similar to the old Upper Memory Area one. Many of the original Upper Memory Area MMIO reserved areas still exist today (for backward-compatibility reasons - otherwise you couldn't install DOS on a new PC), and a few more little ones sprouted above 1Mb as PCs went through their growing pains. Those are preserved today as well.

(...)

Large areas of the memory between three and four gigabytes are cordoned off for system devices in exactly the same way that chunks of the Upper Memory Area were purloined in the old days. Once again, the processor (and other system components) can talk with some devices by reading and writing memory addresses up above 3Gb.

(...)

If I had a video card with 512Mb or 768Mb of memory on it, it'd take up even more space in the 3Gb-to-4Gb memory map.

(...)

I should add a note about the /3GB, /4GT and /PAE Windows boot.ini switches, too, because they often come up when people are talking about 4Gb-plus Windows PCs.

They are all useless to you. You do not want them.

 

[Circuitbreaker]

Some time ago I did a dual boot setup of Windows 2008 Server x64 next to the Vista installation that came standard with my new PC.

You basically get an OS that has all the benefits of Vista but none of the annoyances. I had no problems running games like The Witcher, Gothic 3 or Drakensang to name a few. As for older games, why not simply keep your trusty 4-5 year old XP machine around for those ?

 

[JarlFrank]

As for older games, why not simply keep your trusty 4-5 year old XP machine around for those ?

Or install XP on a seperate partition?
Or just format the hard drive right after buying a new PC and then installing XP? Nothing would be lost as when you buy a new PC all the pre-installed programs come on DVD so you can restore the original state when your system fucks up, so...

 

[Ander Vinz]

If it was up to me solely, I would spend all day every day in OS X.

How true for me.
The funny thing is that it's so addictive I keep trying to access dashboard and spaces when I happen to use someone's pc. Do they have 25th frame or something?
It's so convinient to work with it I even abandoned pc gaming. What a tragedy.

 

[sportforredneck]

Just remember that Vista doesn't have Maxis Pinball, which makes Vista worthless.

 

[Lesifoere]

Here's my thing. My PC is basically a toy. I use it mainly to surf the web and play games.
Now if I go to the store and pick up a game and look at the system specs Vista takes x2-x4 the amount of RAM and video memory. Someone please enlighten me as how this is an improvement? If I was in the business of manufacturing RAM and/or video cards I'd say it was a great step forward. But being the poor schmuck that has to pay for that hardware I'm not seeing the advantage.

The only advantage I can think of is Direct X 10, and even then it's not much of an advantage if you're playing a game that's not been made recently enough to incorporate DX 10.

 

[racofer]

And even the DX10 ones suck (performance wise) compared to their DX9 mode.

 

[MetalCraze]

DX10 effects are possible with DX9

 

[Nedrah]

Some time ago I did a dual boot setup of Windows 2008 Server x64 next to the Vista installation that came standard with my new PC.

You basically get an OS that has all the benefits of Vista but none of the annoyances. I had no problems running games like The Witcher, Gothic 3 or Drakensang to name a few.

Well, that got me interested. When you say you get all the benefits of Vista without the annoyances, are you also talking about performance? Because, like LCJr, that's my main problem with Vista. Also, seeing how this is supposed to be a server OS, what would one be missing compared to XP?

Edit: Ok, looked it up myself. Seems like it's 10-17% faster than Vista. However, in order to get a real Desktop OS, you have to add a whole lot of optional stuff. I could not find any benchmarks that compared a "desktopified" version of Server2008 to Vista sp1

 

[drexciya]

Well, that got me interested. When you say you get all the benefits of Vista without the annoyances, are you also talking about performance? Because, like LCJr, that's my main problem with Vista. Also, seeing how this is supposed to be a server OS, what would one be missing compared to XP?

At the Minasi forums there's a thread about this with some additional links with resources for those interested Link. Note however that you need a technet/MSDN subscription since a normal W2k8 license is rather expensive. Then again for the subscription fee you get lots of other MS apps and OS'es as well.

I'm seriously starting to think about getting such a subscription for myself as well (I know that Circuitbreaker has one as well).

 

[Slylandro]

How does Windows Server 2003 compare? There seems to be a trial image.

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/649

 

[racofer]

Windows Server 2003 is the shitz. This OS is simply too good and will make you not look back at XP or forward to Vista (a.k.a. ME II). I use this one as my main OS but I just tell people I use XP because there are many morons that say "wah wah itz a SERVER OS!!11 IT SUKCS FOAR GAMMIN!1!11""

If you can get a hold on this OS then just pick it NOW. It can run for months without a reboot and does not degrade performance over time. It uses less resources than XP does with all the compatibility.

However, notice this: you need to enable and configure a few services/settings in order to even run games and depending on which version you pick (there are 4 versions of this OS: Standard, Webserver, Datacenter, Enterprise) even sound will be disabled, so research how to configure it prior to saying it sucks. If you need any help to set things up on this little beast just ask. The simple fact you are look at the possibility of running win2k3 already states you are capable of getting the most from it, which is rare.

 

[jaylittle]

This simply isn't true.

U R WORNG!

I'll admit to it as soon as you can explain why Linux and OS X on the same 32 bit hardware can access all 4 gigabytes of that memory whereas Windows cannot without disqualifying the nonsensical crap you just posted. Apparently those hardware limitations only apply to Microsoft's short-sightedness, eh?

You know people, just because Microsoft pawns off some bullshit to explain away their stupidity, that doesn't make it true. While hardware devices do need to be mapped in a particular way, it is possible to work around the limitation. Linux has done it. OS X has done it. What the hell excuse does Microsoft have? Oh wait - they did do it in Windows XP pre-SP2. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the reason Windows has this problem and no other 32 bit OS does is because Microsoft didn't have the balls to force the driver writers to write decent code.

 

[King Crispy]

- If you own a motherboard that supports Dual-Channel Interleaving for the memory then there's almost no reason to go beyond two matching sticks of 1GB RAM in a 32-bit environment (XP or 32-bit Vista) unless you're somehow starved for memory. The performance benefit of Dual-Channel outweighs having between 3 - 4GB RAM, IMO.

- Yes, DX10 effects are possible with DX9 but DX10.1 will not be available under XP. Remember when DX9.0c came out? Remember how DX9.0-compatible video card owners were screwed out of getting the new effects 9.0c provided? It'll be the same scenario with 10.1. Jury's still out on some of this, though, and there's now talk of DX11 which is supposed to be (I believe) XP-compatible.

- Vista 64-bit is extremely stable and surprisingly compatible with most everything I throw at it. Other than that, though, there's really no other reason to switch to Vista besides being able to enjoy the nifty Aero interface. Bottom line, if you're going with a new PC that has Dual or Quad Core, has plenty of RAM and a nice video card, there's really no reason not to just dive into Vista. You can always dual-boot like others have pointed out. But if you have an older system without enough oomph, just stick with XP.