Hi!  I am a PC gamer and I run the usual pc aps.  I would like to know if win 7 is worth upgrading?  The backstory is that I have just rebuild my PC to a phenom x4 9950 (quad core) and I carried over 2 gig of  pc2 6400.  I don't play MMORGs at this time but if I did, would win 7 be an advatage?

I can't find the link to the benchmark right now, but Windows 7 and Vista(the former being marginally better) have shown to perform better when using multicore processors(and again on dual graphics cards). If you have older hardware then stay with XP.

Windows 7 would only be an advantage if the game supports DX10 or DX11.  To the best of my knowledge, there are no DX10/11 MMOs out there, yet.  It has been documented that Windows 7 feels faster than Vista, but in reality it is not even 1% faster execpt in games.  With on 2GB of RAM I doubt you would see anything other than a slug should you install Windows 7.

Originally posted by kzaske

  To the best of my knowledge, there are no DX10/11 MMOs out there, yet.

None that are built from teh ground up to support it...well maybe AoC, but who plays that crap anyway...hehe  Also LOTRO and D&D Online both have DX10 options built into them now and look amazing if you can run them in DX10!  My guess is either EQII or EVE will be next up for the DX10 additions...

With XP getting the boot soon after Windows 7 releases, DX10+ will become standard with more games/MMOs I'm sure! 

Originally posted by Khrymson

Originally posted by kzaske

  To the best of my knowledge, there are no DX10/11 MMOs out there, yet.

 

None that are built from teh ground up to support it...well maybe AoC, but who plays that crap anyway...hehe  Also LOTRO and D&D Online both have DX10 options built into them now and look amazing if you can run them in DX10!  My guess is either EQII or EVE will be next up for the DX10 additions...

 

With XP getting the boot soon after Windows 7 releases, DX10+ will become standard with more games/MMOs I'm sure! 

I forgot about AoC defaulting to DX10.  My bad.  I think WoW has some DX10 via update but I have heard from a few friends that it is not good.

If DirectX 10 hasn't caught on yet, it isn't going to.  DirectX 11 is an entirely different matter, though.  Of course, DirectX 11 will only matter if you have a video card that can run it, and you probably don't, since the first one came out just last week.

If I were you, I'd probably just keep Windows XP until you get a new computer, unless you can find some particular Windows 7 feature that you want.  The better multi-core processor support of Windows 7 is important for a Core i5/i7 processor that will try to shut down some cores and overclock others for single-threaded applications, but not if the processor forces all cores to run at the same speed.

Note also that, like Vista, Windows 7 needs a lot more memory than Windows XP.  If you only have 2 GB, you're probably fine for Windows XP, but that's cutting it tight on Vista for some games.

I've tested both the RC and the TechNet RTM of Windows 7. It's handsdown worlds better than Windows Vista. While XP had a great run I think that Windows 7 will finally lay XP to rest as the most dominant consumer operating system. It's far snappier and responsive than Vista was and I've encountered a lot less problems with it over all. They revamped the UAC settings to make it so that it doesn't pop up every other second which cuts down the annoyance factor immensely. You can also adjust it with a slider to make it as sensitive as however you like.

My setup is by no means a beefy gamer rig as I'm only running an AMD x2 550, but I have yet to encounter any serious slowdowns due to the OS going crazy and not letting me input anything.

Now of course this is talking about every day OS use, which is made a bunch easier with UI tweaks and improvements. In terms of gaming I've read that the benchmarking under Windows 7 is better than Vista, but still not quite as good as XP. Now this may be due to the fact that Windows 7 drivers are not perfectly optimized yet, but I'd probably bet that Windows 7 has more overhead than Windows XP. The disparity between Windows XP and Windows 7 should minimize over the next couple months as people start taking up the OS and companies start producing more optimized drivers for it. Personally, I think that if you can afford it, by all means upgrade as this OS is what Vista was supposed to do, revolutionize the Windows Operating System.

For a new computer, I'd say, sure, get Windows 7, not XP.  But for an old computer, is it really worth paying $100 or whatever, as well as wiping your hard drive and reinstalling everything, and trying to track down drivers and hope that all your old hardware does have Windows 7 drivers?  Not unless there's something in Windows 7 that you particularly want, rather than just getting the new thing for no real reason in particular.

Well like other say before me, stay with xp unless you want a special feature that windows 7 has. Seriously if you run xp now and you dont have probs why you want to changed things?

Originally posted by kzaske

 To the best of my knowledge, there are no DX10/11 MMOs out there, yet. 

AOC and LOTRO both support DX10. And yes, Windows 7 is superior over XP. I automatically allocates unused RAM and VRAM to other resources like graghics. For example, I have a 256mb video card in my system, but 4 gigs of ram. because I am not running 64bit processors, Windows 7 is only using 3 gigs of that RAM. Because Windows 7 is only using about a gig of RAM for the operating system, it automatically borrows 1.2 gigs of that unused RAM and give it to video giving me a total of 1533mb of RAM twards video. Games don't necesarily look better, but the higher end graghics process faster than if I had just a straight 256 megs of RAM, therefore drastically improving video performance, i.e. improving game performance. Of course this applies to all other programs as well. In the end, it is inevitable that you will probably want to upgrade to Windows 7 anyway, so you might as well do it now. Not every system works perfectly with every OS and every software out there, but I am almost certain that if you gave Windows 7 a try, you will be pleasantly surprised. Windows 7 installed for me in about 20 minutes. Might take a little longer or install a little faster on your machine. My basic specs are 4 gigs-DDR2 memory/ 3.2 gig Intel Celeron processor/ (didn't have a video card installed when I installed Windows 7).

Windows 7 installed for me in about 20 minutes.

Geez 20 minutes for real? man you have a nuke not a pc.........

Windows 7 is a definite upgrade if you are on Windows XP.  Windows XP is no longer supported by Microsoft as its a 2002 OS.    You will be missing out on a good 64-bit Operating system, many programs are going to be switching to 64-bit soon if they haven't already.  Also gaming will be standard as 64-bit.  There is no use holding out because of percieved performance issues.  If you had a machine made in the last 3 years, you won't have any issues.  I gauruntee you if you run Windows 3.1 you will have a ton of performance headroom.  However, its probably not something you want to work with.

Also you shouldn't have to track down drivers on Windows 7.

Thanks for the opinions.  As mentioned, I replaced my mobo due to the last one dying and I carried over my memory.  I am debating whether I want to upgrade this machine further or wait till spring (maybe black thrusday) to buy a win 7 machine.

Buying individual parts as an upgrade is not a problem, I bought this mobo + proc for $200 and I will, If I keep this hardware, buy a vid card that is more expensive... 

If I were to upgrade to win 7, I would buy the retail version and buy a new hard drive.  Then I would keep my old drive as  a back up...  Also, I would buy more memory...

Is 64bit worth going to?  I was reading the memory limitations for a 32 bit system and it is 3gb where 2^32 is 4gb.  Is there a down side to buying a 64 bit OS?  Is it worth a bit extra to go with a 64bit os?

As a side note, a co worker was trying to get a 64 bit driver for an HP plotter.  The plotter is not made any more and XP 64 bit was the last OS to provide the driver on the disk... He has vista...  Will games not funcion or other support not be there?  Also, will win 7 use 8 Gigs of memory?

I read through this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

It appears that each app can have 4 gig of memory allocated to it.  Does this mean that a 64 bit OS could allocate 4 gig to the vid card with PCI express?

Thanks for your comment!

Originally posted by kb2tvl

Thanks for the opinions.  As mentioned, I replaced my mobo due to the last one dying and I carried over my memory.  I am debating whether I want to upgrade this machine further or wait till spring (maybe black thrusday) to buy a win 7 machine.

 

Buying individual parts as an upgrade is not a problem, I bought this mobo + proc for $200 and I will, If I keep this hardware, buy a vid card that is more expensive... 

If I were to upgrade to win 7, I would buy the retail version and buy a new hard drive.  Then I would keep my old drive as  a back up...  Also, I would buy more memory...

 

Is 64bit worth going to?  I was reading the memory limitations for a 32 bit system and it is 3gb where 2^32 is 4gb.  Is there a down side to buying a 64 bit OS?  Is it worth a bit extra to go with a 64bit os?

As a side note, a co worker was trying to get a 64 bit driver for an HP plotter.  The plotter is not made any more and XP 64 bit was the last OS to provide the driver on the disk... He has vista...  Will games not funcion or other support not be there?  Also, will win 7 use 8 Gigs of memory?

I read through this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

It appears that each app can have 4 gig of memory allocated to it.  Does this mean that a 64 bit OS could allocate 4 gig to the vid card with PCI express?

Thanks for your comment!

For now if you dont buy a new rigs i see no point of upgrading with windows 7. I use 64 bits to get my fully 4 gig of rams and for more stability with some applications i use like zbrush and maya but for all my daily things like game, net movie etc i use a xp 32 bits for its convenience.

But if you buy a new rigs than yes i would suggest windows 7 64 bits.

Almost forgot yes win7 64 bits can use 8 gigs, if i dont mistaken 64 bits can go to 128 gig of ram.

why not get it when you can get it for 30 bucks =D

got win 7 pro for only 30 dollars if you get a valid .edu email addy.

Originally posted by Quizzical

For a new computer, I'd say, sure, get Windows 7, not XP.  But for an old computer, is it really worth paying $100 or whatever, as well as wiping your hard drive and reinstalling everything, and trying to track down drivers and hope that all your old hardware does have Windows 7 drivers?  Not unless there's something in Windows 7 that you particularly want, rather than just getting the new thing for no real reason in particular.

You don't have to wipe, you can just upgrade from an old version of windows straight to 7 and it keeps everything: settings, drivers, and installed programs.

Video cards can use system memory as extra video memory.  Integrated graphics does that as its only source of video memory.  The problem with this is that, like everything else about integrated graphics, it's slow.  The Intel i740 video card tried to do this as its only source of video memory with a real video card, and it was such a disaster that Intel hasn't released another video card in the nearly 12 years since then, though they're now working on making a real video card again with Larrabee.

The advantages of a 64 bit operating system are the ability to run 64 bit software and the ability to have more than 4 GB of memory.  The latter is the big one for now.  Note that the 4 GB limitation of a 32 bit operating system is the total amount of memory in the system, including system memory, video memory, and a bit for other things.  If you put 4 GB of physical memory into the machine, it will give you less than 3 GB of main system memory available, which is enough now, but won't be in the future.

The disadvantages of a 64 bit operating system are compatibility.  First, it will not run 8 bit or 16 bit software.  For a home user, this usually isn't a big deal, though it might be a problem if you have some old games from the mid '90s or earlier that you want to run.  This is more often a big problem for businesses that need to run very old proprietary software, for which they can't just buy a new version.  The other disadvantage is that a 64 bit operating system can only use 64 bit drivers for hardware.  If you buy a brand new computer, this is not a concern at all.  If you're going to grab some old components for which no 64 bit drivers exist, they simply won't function on a 64 bit operating system unless they're something simple that can use generic drivers.

Originally posted by Czargio

Originally posted by Quizzical

For a new computer, I'd say, sure, get Windows 7, not XP.  But for an old computer, is it really worth paying $100 or whatever, as well as wiping your hard drive and reinstalling everything, and trying to track down drivers and hope that all your old hardware does have Windows 7 drivers?  Not unless there's something in Windows 7 that you particularly want, rather than just getting the new thing for no real reason in particular.

You don't have to wipe, you can just upgrade from an old version of windows straight to 7 and it keeps everything: settings, drivers, and installed programs.

You can do an upgrade in place from Vista to Windows 7, but not from XP to Windows 7.  Well, you could do one from XP to Vista and then from Vista to Windows 7, if you want to buy a Vista license in addition to a Windows 7 license, but that's silly.  And that assumes you stay at 32 bit all the way; if you want to go to 64 bit, you have to wipe and reinstall.  And even if you can do an upgrade in place, it's really better to wipe and reinstall everything, as there are too many things that can go wrong if you don't.

Personally I am upgrading to Win7 to upgrade my PC to a 64 bit. Was my mistake to get a 32 bit version of Vista. Was also a mistake to even get any version of Vista! I have heard nothing but praise about Win7, so to me makes sense to upgrade to the newest OS rather than sticking to an unsupported older OS.

 nha dont upgrade as of now xp and 7 are same speed and when vista is tweaked a bit its very close 

if you ever play just add 2 more gig of ram and you ll be good i got an older system and when i upgrade 

i ll change my athlon x2 4600+ for an athlon 7850,wont be as fast as i7 but it doesnt mather

7850 proc is less then 90 $ and will be very close to any proc out there

the problem is rarelly the proc ,its always the video card

like soon we will get direct x 11 open cl,open gl3.1 or sutch

those standard will be avail in basic form on older graphic card but the new feature will only be on new card 

the rest of comp is so fast it doesnt need to be upped

if you planned on making game or cad design or playing of bunch of screen then i would say yes go w7 but i would also say 

take the 64 bit version because the 32 bit version now is only good for office computer  and such 

for gamer in 5 years all game will be made for 64 bit OS