Vista: good or bad?

[mudlord]

I believe the main reason behind the dislike of vista, is based on the feeling that microsoft is going in the wrong way by being more and more demanding on the hardware.

Amen!

Read my signature.

That sums all my philosophies on software in a nutshell. Basically, software optimization is a need. Not a optional feature. Not optimizing, to me, is a utter sin. And sadly, more and more apps over time are requiring more and more insane system specs.

Its funny, Wirth noticed this phenomenon in 1995...Only now we are paying the price.

And Wirth is certainly not some crackpot if people don't beleive me. He invented Pascal, after all.....

[cottonvibes]

problem is that software developers are being lazy and relying on hardware to compensate for their lousy coding.

since M$ windows is the leading OS, you would expect them to at least come up with something a bit more optimized

hopefully the next windows won't be such a disaster...

[lord_muad_dib]

when xp come out, hardware vendors were a bit disappointed because it was demanding almost the same resources as win2000 did and users weren't forced to upgrade their hardware

microsoft got the message and vista was born
you know what? hardware vendors begun to give free downgrades to xp
because vista is too demanding on resources than expected for an average user/mid-line pc, drains the bactery just like you drink a glass of water

for people demanding for benches to prove that vista is not so crap as described by others.. no benches can actually prove that
benches can just test multimedia characteristics of the hardware, being graphical-wise, or cpu intense. it can't test the os UI rendering speed or its caching performance.
now, talking about other *nix OSes(linux or macos for instances) memory usage...
everyone that said that they drain ram, actually, doesen't know a crap about *nix memory management
in *nix there are 3 types of memory "statuses"
active= that is self explanatory, that's the ram allocated by current tasks
unused= that is the actual free memory
inactive= this kind of memory is a sort of cache used for future references and faster reload times
what's the diffrence then? inactive ram can be overwritten by other tasks if needed.
in windows the there's no difference between active and inactive caching, and all remains unusable by other tasks until it's freed by the original app

i hope it helped to understand hw usages a little bit

ps: a vista rig is great as thermal radiator in cold winter days!

[RPGW1ZaRD]

Totally agreeing with Squall-Leonhart.

I've got Windows XP SP3 slipstreamed and Windows Server 2k8 SP1 slipstreamed on dualboot but I still use XP as my standard OS to a numerous reasons but main reason is applications usually run slightly better in XP and for me application performance is most important.

[TheMaister]

Originally Posted by NexXxus

i don't have any problems with Vista since i got 4GB Ram.

but GSdx's DX9 Mode is slower than on XP, i wonder why...

Although DX10 mode under GSdx in Vista >> dx9 mode in XP, both speed and compatability. One of the reasons I actually have a partition with Vista on it, even though it's very rarely used.

[Squall-Leonhart]

its code optimisation and nothing more.
Gabest could milk the same performance with Dx9 if he was forced too, however with DX10, HE IS FORCED TO, DX10 doesn't expect any less then well written and optimised code (it will even fail to compile in the case that it is poorly written)

[RPGW1ZaRD]

For me PCSX2 runs sometimes slower and sometimes slightly faster and most often around same fps comparing DX10 in Server 2k8 vs DX9 in XP. If Vista was on the same level as XP for starters DX10 would run faster in Vista/2k8 but since it isn't it's mostly just covering up the gap it's behind XP in performance.

[gamefreak94]

problem is that software developers are being lazy and relying on hardware to compensate for their lousy coding.

I'd have to agree with that, I played Brian Lara 2007 on my old P4 and it gave really jerky and lousy graphics, though the game only demanded 256 MB RAM and 64 MB video memory, turned out that the game's ppor coding makes it extremely ineffecient at utilizing the PC's hardware.

[P_RePTiLe]

Originally Posted by cottonvibes

problem is that software developers are being lazy and relying on hardware to compensate for their lousy coding.

The tricky part is that the creators of software are too laid back and turns to hardware to make up for their poor coding.

[Spyhop]

Not to re-ignite the flamewar here, but I just checked and my Vista ultimate install, with indexing and superfetch disabled, aero enabled, is taking up 680 MB.

[Squall-Leonhart]

my computer with nhancer, creative tray, kaspersky, a windowblinds theme, process viewer, (i can't remember the rest, but with 60 processes open) its using 400MB.

if i take it back to defaults(35 processes) as you have it uses 180MB(leaving the aero glass window blinds them enabled).

[Spyhop]

Truly, the difference is epic.

[PCXL-Fan]

I'm suggesting to a coworker who has a preinstalled version of vista basic (im guessing) and a system with only 512mb of ram to spend 20-30 dollars and get an additional 1 gb stick of memory.

I'm curious how much memory something like even the most strip down version of vista would require.

[Spyhop]

Originally Posted by PCXL-Fan

I'm suggesting to a coworker who has a preinstalled version of vista basic (im guessing) and a system with only 512mb of ram to spend 20-30 dollars and get an additional 1 gb stick of memory.

I'm curious how much memory something like even the most strip down version of vista would require.

If he doesn't turn off superfetch and indexing, it will still chew up a lot of ram, at least that's what will show. The cached ram that superfetch eats is realeased right away when needed, but it still sucks to look at the amount of ram used and be like, "1.5GB, wtf"

Have him turn those off. UAC too, while he's at it.

[PCXL-Fan]

Heh's a 50 year old guy who didn't even know how to add email attachments or navigate through his folders in windows explorer. Double clicking was foreign to him until i taught him how to.

I've hardly used vista before so trying to guide him in baby step how to turn off superfetch and UAC without having vista infront of me won't work. I guess there is probably a step by step webpage I could link him to though.

But either way the additional 1gb of ram he will definitely see speed increases right? Particularily with loading apps and starting up windows. He doesn't do any intensive tasks besides watching a dvd on his computer.

[mudlord]

If he doesn't turn off superfetch and indexing, it will still chew up a lot of ram, at least that's what will show. The cached ram that superfetch eats is realeased right away when needed, but it still sucks to look at the amount of ram used and be like, "1.5GB, wtf"

Now you see my point in why I dislike Vista?

The memory usage is just.............................

I have no other words to describe it other than "pure bloat". That is utter insanity.

Sorry, but MS has lost the plot.

[Spyhop]

Originally Posted by mudlord

Now you see my point in why I dislike Vista?

The memory usage is just.............................

I have no other words to describe it other than "pure bloat". That is utter insanity.

Sorry, but MS has lost the plot.

The routine is getting old man. Superfetch uses up memory by design to cache frequently used programs. It releases it when needed. It's also a feature that can be turned off if not wanted. Do you rant and rave if a restaurant puts a side of parsley on your plate? No, you just toss it aside. I want MS to include everything they can think of in an OS. Anything that could possibly be of any use, throw it in there. Just give me the option to not use it, that's all I ask.

[mudlord]

The routine is getting old man. Superfetch uses up memory by design to cache frequently used programs. It releases it when needed. It's also a feature that can be turned off if not wanted. Do you rant and rave if a restaurant puts a side of parsley on your plate? No, you just toss it aside. I want MS to include everything they can think of in an OS. Anything that could possibly be of any use, throw it in there. Just give me the option to not use it, that's all I ask.

....I wish that option was there in the first place. Then I wouldnt be so pissed.....

[Spyhop]

Um, it is.

[Chaos_Blader]

If dx10 requires optimised code isn't that a good thing?

Also if he's 50 yeats old what does he need free ram for? What does anyone need free ram for? Disable superfetch, etc but why? Because it uses ram?

Unused ram is wasted ram. If you are not using the other 3.5 gb then what is the point of having it. I would prefer if the all of the OS's major files filled up my 4gbs ram. 100% usage that only goes down when other programs of higher prority come to fill it up. More files in ram instead of the hard drive = faster loading times.