Finally Vista does not suck for me ! know what it took ?

[UndertheOcean]

Just 3Gb's of Ram !


wow

[southpaw]

1. Good to hear

I'm totally in the market for a new computer, and unless I bite the big one and spring for an Imac, I'll be venturing into the uncertain world of Vista.

So your saying that 3gb of RAM is what it takes, or did you have to increase your RAM by 3gbs?

[UndertheOcean]

2. 3 Gb's is what it takes , the puter came with 1.9 Gb's and it was

Slooooowww

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. I found that out the hard way...but now I'm kind of liking Vista.

But I'll deny it, given all the really crappy things I've said about it in the past.

It's kind of cool to be administrator of something...even if it is only my computer.

[ghostsofgiants]

3. Yeah, Vista uses close to a gig idle.

[Pierre.Suave]

5. I dont want to boot into Vista to check...

but I have 4Gbs of ram in my Mac Pro and I KNOW OSX uses all of it, but can Vista even use all 4Gbs or does it have that silly 3GB limit that XP did?

I have Vista Home Premium if that makes any difference.

[ghostsofgiants]

7. The 3gb limit is related to 32-bit limitations, not XP itself.

I installed XP 64-bit last night and it recognizes all 4gb that I have.

What I meant though is that if you have 1gb of ram and are running vista, the ram is 80% in use even when the system is just idle.

[Pierre.Suave]

8. So

is my Vista 32 bit or 64 bit?

I also know there was a hack that would allow XP to address ALL 4GBs of ram.

[ghostsofgiants]

9. You're probably talking about PAE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

Vista comes in 32-bit and 64-bit versions so I dunno which you'd have.

[Pierre.Suave]

12. I have Vista Home Premium

that is all I know. And I have it for one reason, and one only, DX10.

[Kutjara]

13. Up until about three or four months ago...

...almost all new PCs came with the 32 bit version installed, regardless of whether they were 64 bit capable. The reason for this was that it took more than a year for some of the hardware manufacturers to write 64 bit drivers for their gear. Now, however, I am seeing an increasing number of machines advertised with 64 bit Vista as standard.

My guess would be that you're running 32 bit Vista. I think there is some process by which you can ask M$ to send you a 64 bit dist for the cost of P&P. Details should be on the M$ website.

[Pierre.Suave]

15. I am running it on a Mac Pro

in a dual boot set up and the one reason is for gaming. All the real stuff I do with the computer is on OSX. But more ram never hurt.

Any idea what the availability of 64bit drivers would be for Vista running on a Mac Pro? LOL...

[Kutjara]

16. I'm running Vista 64 on my MacBook and MacBook Pro.

You'll have no problem running it on the Mac Pro. The Mac Pro version of Boot Camp has all the 64 bit Vista drivers built in.

I had to do some fiddling around to get it working on my MB and MBP, because their versions of Boot Camp only come with 32 bit drivers (at least they did at the time I did the installation). I had to get ahold of the Mac Pro version of Boot Camp and extract the 64 bit drivers manually. It was a bit of a pain, but once I got them, the rest of the installation was smooth sailing. That's how I know that Boot Camp for the Mac Pro has the 64 bit drivers. You won't have any of this hassle.

[Pierre.Suave]

17. Awesome

thank you.

I may have to do it then.

[Kutjara]

20. Check to make sure the games you play...

...will work with 64 bit Vista. As Angleae points out below, some haven't been properly tested in that environment. If your primary reason for using Vista is gaming, you may want to stay 32 bit a while longer.

[Deja Q]

23. Why buy a MAC if you're going to run WINDOWS on it?

Save the few hundred bucks and just get a Windows PC, surely?

[Kutjara]

24. Because I prefer working in the OS X environment, but...

...a few of my clients run specialized applications that require Windows. When I need to access these apps (which is mercifully infrequently), I switch over to the Windows partition. I also use Windows for gaming (although rarely these days, since most of my gaming is confined to the PS3/360/Wii).

Actually, most of my machines have three or more OSes on them, because I work with Linux and BSD as well. One of the first things I do with a new laptop is crack open the case and shove in the biggest drive I can find. With a 320GB disk, running multiple OSes is practical.

That said, a couple of my PCs are running OS X, so I guess I'm just weird.

[Pierre.Suave]

26. because if it were not for the games

I would not have winblows. Games are not my primary concern and infact are quite secondary to the primary role which is to assist in mathematical/scientific/chemical research...as well as my love of music.

The fact that it will always work without the problems of running a winblows computer is also quite an added bonus.

I rarely play games on it...

Your mac attacks are getting pretty old...

[Angleae]

10. But it was only available in the server OSs.

[Kutjara]

14. There is a hack to make non-server versions of Vista....

...address 4GB, using PAE, too. It isn't recommended, however, because it can make the OS unstable. Vista blocks out about one GB of RAM for use by "devices." The PAE hack frees up this space for use by the user. If, however, the user then runs a task that takes up more than 3GB of RAM and happens to also use a device (such as the printer or DVD drive) that needs to access its "reserved" piece of RAM, the two system calls can conflict, leading to an error or crash.

PAE is ok for people who make only moderate demands on their PCs. For power users, however, going 64 bit it the best choice.

[Angleae]

18. 64 bit does have disadvantages.

Some games don't run on 64-bit as the manufacturers don't test for such a small audience and don't offer support for same. Also if you rely on some 16-bit apps, as I understand you lose them totally.

[Kutjara]

19. Very true. Gamers are probably still better off...

...with 32 bits, particularly if they use any wild and whacky peripherals (such as flight sim rigs) that don't have 64 bit drivers yet.

The 16 bit issue is less of a problem, because there are a few 16 bit emulators around that will let you run old apps under Vista 64.

[Orsino]

6. I'm running it fine with 1.5 GB.

I never knew any more was required for decent performance.

[Deja Q]

22. SuperFetch is whazzup with Vista and RAM

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=735


When Vista sees RAM, it's going to use it.

The reason for this difference is that Windows XP treats RAM as a resource to be used only when needed while Vista treats RAM as a cache and uses almost all of it as soon as it becomes available.

[Mojambo]

11. That's just ridiculous.

Fuck Microsoft.

[Xithras]

25. Why?

You can buy 4Gb of RAM for under $100 nowadays. When RAM is so cheap and plentiful, why NOT design your operating system to use it? Vista uses a lot of RAM because it has a lot of cra^^^features loading up with the system.

Memory optimization may have been a big deal seven or eight years ago when a single gig of memory would set you back $250+, but I don't think it's really an issue today.

[Deja Q]

21. I have 8GB

Never seem to use more than 4GB of it; and that's why FSX or Photoshop CS3 running.

Using both, I can use up to 6GB...

Heck, I can run Prime95 and FSX at the same time and still get beautiful results...

[Pierre.Suave]

27. so FSX works under the 64 bit OS?

? Do you have any peripherals attached to your computer, for example a yoke/stick/throttle or rudder pedals? Does Falcon 4.0 AF work as well?

[CRF450]

28. I just bought a new HP laptop with Vista. doing pretty good too!

Has a AMD Turion X2 TL-60 cpu, 3 gigs of ram, and a 120 gi hard drive. Its was originally $730, but I got a lucky deal of $550 for it. I may upgrade to 64bit Vista, add another gig ram, and also get a bigger hard drive that runs at 7200rpm instead of the usual 5400rpm drives.

I'm about to build a new gaming rig to replace my older one which also has Vista, its been running that just fine. BTW, do the Geforce GTX 260 vid cards run in tri-SLI? Thinking of doing a tri-SLI setup, along with a C2D E8500 cpu!

[Occam Bandage]

29. Vista doesn't suck for me either! Know what it took?

Not upgrading to Vista!