vista in general for gaming

Im thinking of buying a new desktop for gaming. The comp i was thinking of buying has a intel duo core 2.3 GH, 2 gigs of ram, and a nvidia 8600 gt 256 mg graphics card. Is this enough for vista gaming? Also, a game that i wanted to buy was medieval total war 2, is vista direct x 9.0c compatibile? would this game be compatibile with vista, or should i go with xp?

I don't know if you have already made your computer purchase but that system should be able to handle medieval 2 total war. What I would suggest if you are getting the x64 version of Windows Vista, is adding 2 mor gigs of ram. This would give you plenty of juice to run almost all games. As far as going with Vista or XP, it doesn't really matter. But if you do go with XP just get 2 gigs or ram because XP doesn't support 4 gigs.

don't agree Aaron, My Vista 64 never used over 2GB RAM. That was with shiny sidebars, antivirus and Battlefield 2 running - 1.8 GB was the max I ever saw it at.

2GB should be plenty.

to each his own.

I believe the RAM limitation is a 32-bit v. 64-bit issue, rather than an XP v. Vista issue, and both OSes come in both flavors.

Personally, I've seen RAM utilization in the low 60% range (which translates to about 2.4G). Though I haven't seen 75%+, which is near the 32-bit barrier. In other words, running a 32-bit system with 4GB installed (though I am not able to see all of it) is still more than I have needed. So I haven't yet seen the benefit of 64-bit addressing when it comes to RAM.

But...I know I will eventually.

And to offer my advice on your original question...

I think the consensus is that if you want to sit down, turn on your rig, launch your game, and never worry about anything else, then XPx86 (32-bit) is probably your best bet. If you want the latest OS, and don't mind updating regularly to the latest drivers then Vistax32 is not a bad choice. If you want to be prepared for the future, and don't mind updating regularly to the latest drivers, and are willing to risk some compatibility or scrap some aging hardware and software, then Vistax64 is for you!

I just know there was a signifigant performance difference for my machine when I added 2 more GB of RAM in Vista x64. When I boot to XP I actually notice a decrease in performance.

The reason why you have 2GB memory installed, but Vista x64 only sees 1.8GB, is because although you have a x64 CPU, and supporting hardware, one or more hardware devices (probably integrated onto the motherboard) still use 32-bit memory architecture (even if they use x64 drivers), and maps some memory locations during POST, and this makes it unavailable to the system.

My machine has 4GB (4096MB) installed, but only has 3.25GB (3331MB) available for use by the operating system and programs. This is a limitation that is reported to me in the BIOS.

Until all hardware uses pure x64 tech, we're stuck with this problem.

I have 4GB hard RAM in the motherboard. Vista 64 showed all 4GB present.

With XP, it shows 2 GB with BIOS memory mapping, and 2.7GB with BIOS memory mapping disabled.