Re: Vista sux? (Was "Got a new sound card...!")

[wug]

I just picked up a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium.  Yeah, I hate Creative, but let's not go into that.  I finally have hardware 3D sound again in BZ2.  Over 100 channels of sound... yeah!

One of the worst things in Vista is being forced to use the software audio mixer.  Blah!

[Red Devil]

Why do you have Vista?

[wug]

Partly because of work, and partly because I wanted to try x64.  Windows XP x64 is just not well supported.  And DirectX10 does look good in games like Bioshock.

But I think people make too big of a deal out of XP vs. Vista.  Vista is really just an incremental upgrade to XP.  Once the extraneous stuff is removed or disabled, it's really a slightly more refined version of XP.

Man, Vista loads all sorts of crap by default.  It's understandable that for the average joe, Vista can be slow and frustrating.  Even techs that I've talked to complain about Vista... LOL.

[bigbadbogie]

Everyone that I know still has XP. Nobody will even consider upgrading to Vista.

[OvermindDL1]

And I still cannot get Bioshock to even install.  One of the worst installers of all time...
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[wug]

And I still cannot get Bioshock to even install.  One of the worst installers of all time...

Sorry to hear that.  It's a good game... not perfect, but worth playing IMHO.

I think PCs that are using XP should stick with XP, especially with SP3 now.  But a new PC, I'd definitely go Vista x64.

[Commando]

I read somewhere that the OS was bloated with DRM software.  If that is the case, I'll definately stick with XP for a while.

[Warfreak]

Yes, Vista is better when you get rid off all the crap..... quite sadly is that all the crap is in hidden folders and un-uninstallable without knowing the true side effects (You cant go into the task manager and expect to find all the programs in use........) Vista bogs down my pc to 0 free MB of Ram and 1531 of it Cached for god knows what...... and thats in the first 3 minutes after startup without pulling up any programs of my choosing.   

In August I'm gonna put XP on this pc and a guy I know is gonna show me how to get rid of the Vista OS correctly when i do.... so i hope that helps. 

[wug]

I think I'm going to have to write an article about this sometime.

The DRM part is only for MS's media player / media center stuff.  Most people use the software they like, so it doesn't change anything.

The extra hard drive space isn't a big deal... on a 500+ GB hard drive, it's nothing.  What's important is to stop all the services/processes that aren't necessary from running.  I had to do that with XP to make it more 98-like, so the Vista being XP-like is no different.  Vista still uses more memory, but maybe 100 MB or so.

I learned that the first thing to turn off is Superfetch, which is what uses up ALL the RAM.  It's suppose to help speed things up by pre-loading, but for a power user / gamer, pre-loading always picks the wrong programs.  I can only see a person who does only word processing and surfing benefiting from something like this.

The other biggie is Indexing.  It's suppose to make file searching much faster.  Yeah, it does, but it eats up CPU cycles and slows down the hard drive.  Turning those two things off also really helps battery life on laptops.

Vista seemingly uses a lot more memory even with Superfetch off because it caches aggressively.  And that memory isn't really "used/lost," and doesn't impact performance negatively.

There are real benefits to Vista (with SP1).  Faster network stack (much faster than XP), more stable video (especially switching out of full-screen game), better memory management (excluding Superfetch), DX10, better security (signed binaries).  Pretty much slight improvements over XP on most things.

So, it's too much pain to switch from XP for existing PCs, but new PCs I feel are better supported with Vista.

[OvermindDL1]

The only reason thus far I would consider upgrading to Vista is for its networking stack, the first real upgrade since 95's time period (how sad...).  I keep killing XP's network stack, thus killing every networked thing on the pc until I reset the network card (and yes, I have tried multiple network cards, it is xp...).
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[Ego - Nikolas]

I just picked up a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium.  Yeah, I hate Creative, but let's not go into that.  I finally have hardware 3D sound again in BZ2.  Over 100 channels of sound... yeah!

One of the worst things in Vista is being forced to use the software audio mixer.  Blah!

You can dissable windows integrated mixer, and start to use:
Creative Audio Console - enable crystilazer
Creative Console Launcher - use bass boost with dB and hardware EQ

And start to use max quality settings in sounds you can set 24 bit and 90 kilohertz sampling rate
Im a fan of vista audio olny and is well supported, can go at max quality on mp3 even far more then normal cd player.
I cant even lisiten on any crapy devices..., x-fi rox 100%

Shure vista sux and crash and all that, even if it is original or cracked, i try all that...
Vista owns Xp in moust of things but not on 3:
Stability
Slow vista
and
Memory

[Sonic]

I just recently upgraded to Vista Ultimate x64. Some initial thoughts are that I am getting more bluescreens than I have in an XP enviroment. By that, lets say twice a year to 5 times a week.

On the other hand, I need a 64bit system in order to utilize all my RAM. 64 bit XP seems to be 'less compatable' with games than Vista is...ironicly. For example, I have this old Win 95 game, "Incoming: The Final Conflict" by Rage. I can run it in Vista x64 WITHOUT using comptability mode, which in turns lets me actually have IP access and thus play online. If I run it in Compat mode (Win 98), it will run, but doesn't know what IP is. Windows XP 64bit can only run the game in Compat mode.

I am noticing there is some pain in the ass 'driver' security that Vista has implemented. Despite me actually having 64 bit drivers for some things, they have to be digitally signed or the Vista Kernel will reject them. I have "All Image", a program that images Floppies, Thumb drives, etc. It has a driver for a 'virtual drive' that can mount these images. It will not work in Vista. Reason?

Code integrity determined that the image hash of a file is not valid.  The file could be corrupt due to unauthorized modification or the invalid hash could indicate a potential disk device error.

File Name:   \Device\HarddiskVolume1\Program Files (x86)\All Image\vdd-x86.sys

On the other hand, I am enjoying the fact that any admin task requires me to actually type in my admin password in order to continue. Granted, it can be annoying at times, but at the same time, if I accidently leave my computer unlocked while going to the bathroom or such, no one else in my house can walk to my computer and attempt to open up computer managment or what not and tinker with stuff.

Sound card wise, I'm using a Creative X-Fi Elite Pro which does have Vista x64 drivers. The current one I'm using has a few issues, particuarly the sound is lower than what it normally was and my external box (with volume nobs, etc) works on and off from time to time. There are Beta drivers that actually fix this issue, but end up causing more instability in Vista when I game. The reason is because they are beta drivers, Creative has not done anything like put them through Code Integrity, so one of the dll files for the drivers is denied loading.

[Red Devil]

Some info on Windows 7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7#Features

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9951638-56.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5D43p4_qcY

[TheJamsh]

i use vista... its alright i guess. meh.

would explain why im not getting any more flaming channels out of my sound card... only 32. if vista is forcing it to use the software sound mixing doodah.

theres a console option though isnt there? to force hardware control on sound channels?

[Red Devil]

I have a USB headset that uses software and a Creative card that uses hardware.  I have to go into Control Panel to switch them, so maybe you could do that too?