Ok everyone, I'm in a serious bind. I'm about to drop $1500 on new-everything from TigerDirect and that includes Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) and an nVidia 8800GTX card (you all know the questions that are coming, about drivers and will I be able to run Eq2, Vanguard, Planetside, SWG and soon Tabula Rasa and Gods & Heroes). I have XP already so if Vista gives me trouble that's not my concern, I can always go into dual-boot mode (however that's done) or simply shelve Vista altogether for a few more months. My real question is this...Vista IS very important because like most ppl now (or soon) I'll be running over 3GB of RAM (which XP can never, ever recognize or utilize). So, that's my bind. If I do end up reverting to XP on my super new quad-core system with 8800GTX card, 4GB of dual-channel DDR2-800MHz RAM and so forth, I'll be screwing myself out of some cash. I already have 2GB of DDR2-400 RAM and a sweet Radeon X800 Pro with P4 overclocked to 3GHz running on Home XP SP2 just fine (although it can get semi-laggy under heavy use in Eq2 but it's fine, although certainly the new games I mentioned above that come out next month will burn my current 4yo system to the ground).

Upgrading now to a completely new system from top to bottom is both crucial and proper (including the Vista OS, memory, hard drive, motherboard and video card...heck I'm even getting a new case and 700w power supply). Please someone tell me that as of today, the 19th of September, 2007 that my first-ever EvGA nVidia card and motherboard (I was an ATi fan and rightfully so until the 8800) will run fine in Vista for SOE games, because I want and need and deserve the 4GB of RAM that XP just simply can't recognize!!! Thanks so much for the elite, World Class feedback (which is what I'm hoping for). Ideally those that respond will know first-hand via their experiences with Vista 64-bit running over 3GB of RAM (like XP can't) using nVidia video cards and playing Sony Online Entertainment games or similar, especially EverQuest2.

Folks I'm all set! I reposted this in the Pub and got a ton of GREAT answers, thanks!

Damn and I was about to make a comment about SOE Programmers being incompetent because SOE doesn't know how to hire good ones.

lol, you need to be quicker next time.