General Discussion

I'm currently playing LOTRO and will most likely buy AoC when it comes out.  I'm considering upgrading my machine to Windows Vista.  I currently have an E6600 dual core processor, 8800GTX graphics card, and am running 2 Gigs of RAM though I'd upgrade to 4 with the Vista upgrade.

So my question is, did SP1 improve Vista enough to make it the best choice for gamers or should I just stick with XP Pro?

Thanks to anyone who can give me a little informed advice!

Honestly Vista SP1 really doesn't improve anything that I notice.

Speed is still the same but a few functions do seem to appear a bit more snappy.

I however am running vista 64 and the only thing that really sucks is the 64bit browser in internet exploder will not do flash but that's due strictly to Adobe.

Vista is like Windows ME in ways.

So I recommend that if you Must have Vista get it...

Try a Dual boot and judge for yourself which you like better....might seem a tad expensive though.

And if you use your box as a cruncher..then by all means the 64bit version gives that extra RAC.

Although there isn't really an advantage other than the better vista UI, you will definitely want to upgrade to vista as Lotro now supports Directx 10 (which is not available for XP). Your 8800GTX supports DX10 and your CPU will love vista.

The lotro DX10 support (you will need to select it in the options) adds much better water (smooth shorelines) as well as better shadows and lighting.

If you are going to run vista 32bit, 2GB ram are enough. For vista x64 you will need 4Gb ram, as this definitely speeds the system up compared to 2Gb, due to the better caching.

I have been running vista x64 for 1 year now. It works great and the SP1 has made the overall system feeling snappier.

I added Firefox to my internet as my browser and seems to run my 64 bit vista very well and im not haveing any apperant problems with it.

Is there a feature you really need from vista?  At the moment it is not even close to the same speed as xp.  My friend has a dual boot and he never uses vista since all his games lag on it and theres really no features he even wants.  Its especially horrible for those not computer literate because of all the garbage they throw onto your computer that can be tricky to get rid of.

If you had been using vista I would tell you to upgrade to XP.  Anyways check out youtube and search for vista vs. XP, that would be the best thing to look at imo.

Originally posted by Whacko

I however am running vista 64 and the only thing that really sucks is the 64bit browser in internet exploder will not do flash but that's due strictly to Adobe.

Actually in vista x64 the 32bit browser is the default one. The 64bit browser is never used, unless you start it manually. Anyway, there's not much point in running the 64bit browser as many extensions still don't work on the 64bit platform and 64bit for a web browser is just wasted ram, there's no need for it.

If you are frustrated over this you really don't understand how 64bit works and what its advantages are. 64bit won't make your browser run faster. It will just use more ram, that's all.

Originally posted by turnipz

Is there a feature you really need from vista?  At the moment it is not even close to the same speed as xp.  My friend has a dual boot and he never uses vista since all his games lag on it and theres really no features he even wants. 

Yep, the feature I need the most in vista is the new UI. The XP UI was so sucky with its awful colors, I never liked it. The new vista UI is a real refreshment for me. And today I couldn't live without the vista gadget bar. I have my clock, my weather, my CPU, ram and network speed stats right there always on my desktop. This is a feature I use daily, every minute. It seems like a small thing, but there aren't any decent XP equivalents (the XP bars all have problems when maximizing windows).

As for the speed, that's only a problem for older computers. If you have a dual core you won't even need to think about it anymore. And anyway, the same discussions were all over when MS introduced windows XP. People were saying windows 98 was much faster and blah blah blah... Same speech all over again. And a couple years later everyone was on XP...

No really, I have no problems with games and I have played the latest FPS, MMOs, etc... But of course, vista was not made for PCs that were designed to run properly on XP to begin with. Yes, it needs a lot of power; but hardware is so cheap today... (-> it was the same with win98/winxp).

And anyway, the OP inquired about a 8800GTX, a multicore CPU and LOTRO and AoC. And both games support DX10.

Originally posted by Vrika
Deathstrike2:

XP is overall better and works faster and more reliably.

Let me rephrase this to my experience:

XP looks overall uglier, if you have a current spec computer (as the OP does) there won't really be a speed difference, and regarding reliability I have been running vista x64 for more than 1 year and it has been rock solid.

BigMango..

ummm I am far from frustrated with it...

Hell it's something to mention.

I use firefox anyways so to me it doesn't matter.

For crunching Seti it does it's job fairly well.