Gaming on Vista: What it means.

Ajchampagne

New Member
The progression of software and gaming technology:
As times goes on, technology inevitably advances. Back in the 1980s, words like megabyte were considered to represent a large amount of space on a hard drive or in total system ram. In the mid 1990s, we began to see megabytes in mass numbers when it came to RAM. At present, we are in the midst of the first decade in the 21st century: Hard drives are just now begining to be meassured in terabytes and ram is being meassured in multiple gigs.

With the increase in horsepower and ranchspace that fuels PCs as they advance, software becomes hungrier and hungrier of these resources. If you try to run Windows XP on a PC built for Windows 95, you will note that the entire system may come to a hault. Likewise, if you attempt to run Windows Vista and DirectX10 games on a machine built for Windows XP, you will encounter similar results!

What does this mean?
This means that with each new installment of Windows that there is a new set of standards for system requirements to run the operating system. Windows Vista is more hungry than Windows XP when it comes to your system's resources. Everything you run will run slower on Vista due to the simple fact that Vista uses more of your system, so, do not post your frame rates and ask us, "why are they lower!?".

Windows XP was designed to run with a reccomended 512mb of ram and an optimal 2gb of ram for gaming. If you disagree with me, try running Battlefield 2142 in Titan Game Mode on a 64 person server with maximum detail if you think windows XP doesn't want 2gb of ram for optimal performance. When converting to windows vista it is important to note, Vista uses more of your base system, so, your system should be proportionately stronger in order to strong the performance dip!

My reccomendations!
To even run vista reasonably, you will want a minimum of two gigs of ram. If you intend to game on Vista, begin looking at the prices of directx10 videocards (that is, the Geforce 8800 series and the AMD/ATI r600 series) and invest in 6gb of ram.

A 64bit processor is going to become the industry standard within this new generation of Windows and as such, Windows Vista ships with both a 32x and 64x install disc. Take advantage of the 64bit version of Vista and invest in either an Intel Core Duo or an AMD 64 Athlon X2 or FX. Combine this with six gigabytes of ram and a DirectX10 enabled videocard and you have yourself a machine capable of gaming under vista.

Converting your PC that struggled with gaming under Windows XP to vista is going to get you no where! Upgrade your system to play games in vista! End of story!

What does Vista have in store for gaming that XP doesn't?: The Future
Unfortunately for Macintosh, the open source community, and Sony, Microsoft controls the gaming industry's standard technology of DirectX. DirectX is software that works as an interface between game developers through the medium of the operating system to gain direct control of the hardware's capabilities (such as that of Nvidia or AMD/ATI). DirectX is used and updated to match the ever so new special effects in videogames by giving them direct access to the hardware that creates these effects.

Suppose you stay on Windows XP and stick with DirectX 9.0c -- you will only play games and have hardware that operates the visual effects of that era (the era that just ended in January of 2007). Windows Vista on the other hand operates in a DirectX10 environment carrying with it the technology necessary to interface with the graphics cards and video games of tomorrow -- a technology that Microsoft owns and thus has the right to deny users of Windows XP access to, indirectly forcing any true desktop gamers to convert to Windows Vista or stay in the days of old school gaming.

You can fight and scream to defend your DirectX9 hardware and operating system, but, eventually you will have to make the switch if you intend to play the games of tomorrow.
 
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My Computer

Flawless Compatability:
World of Warcraft
Company of Heroes
Supreme Commander
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Battlestations: Midway
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Quake 4
Doom 3
Unreal Tournament 2004
Half Life 1, Half Life 2, Counterstrike, and all of Steam
Oblivion
Age of Empires 3
Civilization 4
Battle for Middle Earth 1/2

Performance dip but playable:
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield 2
Call of Duty 2

Unplayable:
 

My Computer

Driver problems in Windows Vista 64 bit: The Solution!
Hello, you may have been like me and purchased hardware within the past six months with an intend to upgrade to Windows Vista when it was released, worse yet, you might have ran into the same problem that I did after having installed the 64 bit edition of Windows Vista; the drivers for your hardware are not signed and thus disabled by Microsoft with no work around! Well, that is about to change, luckily, I've found a workaround that works quite well to disable Microsofts little annoyance!

The work around:
What the work around does is simple, it disables the function in Vista x64 that prevents unsigned drivers from loading. Consider it a security feature similar to the UAC, when disabling this feature you have to restart the PC for the changes to take effect -- you cannot simply install unsigned drivers in the same session that you disable the feature, you must disable the feature and then reboot in order to install unsigned drivers. Simple as that.

To Disable the feature:
To disable the feature follow these steps
  • Click Start
  • Open the "All Programs" sub-menu within the start-menu
  • Open the "Accessories" sub-menu within the "All Programs" menu
  • Right click on "Command Prompt" and select "Run as administrator"
  • Type this without the quotes: "bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS"
  • Reboot the PC and go on to install your unsigned drivers!
 

My Computer

No probs with any of my games

Performance dip but playable:
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield 2
Call of Duty 2

Acutally the performance dip is only if you have an Nvidia card, i have found no dip in performance with my ATi card, switching from XP Pro x64 to Vista Home Premium x64.

Toms Hardware did a review of running BF2 in Vista compared to XP also i think showed similar results. (i think it showed an 15% increase with some cards)
 

My Computer

Halo and Halo CE also run flawlessly on Windows Vista.
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Acropolis
    CPU
    Intel Core i7-6800k @ 4.0 GHz
    Motherboard
    ASUS X99-M WS
    Memory
    32GB Corsair Vengeance 2x16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q
    Screen Resolution
    2560x1440
    Hard Drives
    2x 256GB Samsung 850 Pro (RAID 0)
    1x 500GB Samsung 850 Evo
    2x Western Digital RED 4TB (RAID 1)
    50TB File Server (Multiple RAID 6)
    PSU
    Corsair AX1200i
    Case
    Corsair Air 240
    Keyboard
    Razer Blackwidow X Chroma
    Mouse
    Logitech G502
    Internet Speed
    250Mbps Down | 15 Mbps Up
Well i have noticed a severe performance dip in vista x64 to xp x86, with Battlefield 2142.
I got both os's as dual boot, so able to do a pretty good comparison.

In vista the graphics are no way as good. Everything set to high (as detected by the game), with max resolution. The outlines to the buildings are not as smooth and in titan mode, im sure it was using the pagefile for extra ram. As it lagged out i could hear the disk spinning!! Now i realise that i really need to get more ram to solve the possible use of the page file, as i only have 2 gig atm. But the graphics performance has really disappointed me.
My G/card is an ATi X800GTO2, which has been bios flashed to an X850XT. It runs stable at 580/587Mhz in XP and looks mint!!!! But same speeds in vista and :(
But ATi are also realesing new drivers at the end of each month as they try to stablise them. So dunno how much of an issue that is.
 

My Computer

My issues with graphic performance seem to have been resolved!!!
Yesterday i downloaded this months new driver release from ATi, installed and graphice were much, much better. Nearly the same performance as in XP.

Still a bit laggy, but that is more of a RAM issue. Cant afford anymore ATM so guess i'll be gaming on XP for the near future!!
 

My Computer

cna't get CnC 3 to wrk.... :

Flawless Compatability:
World of Warcraft
Company of Heroes
Supreme Commander
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Battlestations: Midway
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

I have 64bit vista n i can't run CnC 3 at all... it keeps comin up w/ the error that it need directx 9.... i'm running a ATI All in wonder x800 XT w/ all the current drivers n stuff necessary... ne suggestions?
 

My Computer

Even though vista x64 comes with direct x10 out of the box, the older games still need directx 9 to run.
When you installed CnC 3 did you install the version of directx that shipped with the game? Because there are directx 9 updates that could have been included with the game that you don't have installed.
 

My Computer

Flawless Compatability:
World of Warcraft
Company of Heroes
Supreme Commander
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Battlestations: Midway
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
Quake 4
Doom 3
Unreal Tournament 2004
Half Life 1, Half Life 2, Counterstrike, and all of Steam
Oblivion
Age of Empires 3
Civilization 4
Battle for Middle Earth 1/2

Performance dip but playable:
Battlefield 2142
Battlefield 2
Call of Duty 2

Unplayable:
Unplayable: Any NCSoft game!
 

My Computer

The original Tribes won't run under Vista 32-bit. I tried all the compatibility modes from XP SP2 on down to WIndows 95 with no luck. Worked fine with the real XP SP2. :cry:

Seems like I've been playing that game almost a decade now. :o
 

My Computer

Im still failing to see why people go to all the trouble of buying a brand new up to date PC and put the latest cutting edge 64bit OS on it......................and then want to install something like Castle Wolfenstien or Tribes, and furthermore are even indignant that it doesn't work?!?!?!

Saying that it was no different when we went from DOS based games to full windows, the outcrys were just as loud back then Even I shouted when i could no longer play Secret of Monkey Island! :shock:

They really need to remake that game. Exactly the same game all the same puzzles, but with nicer gfx. Awesome.
 

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