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Should you upgrade your GPU or CPU for faster gaming? We tested many hardware combos to find out.
sailer
Splendid
- Apr 9, 2006
- 4,970
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Until Sony buys AMD, and they start putting DRM in the video card chipset, and motherboard bios.
Then besides boycotting Sony products, I'll boycot AMD/ATI products.
Just had a nightmarish thought. Might I be dragged into buying an Apple, since Steve Jobs pledged against allowing DRM into Apple? Shudder
vic20
Distinguished
- Jul 11, 2006
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I like it and it runs great.
ATi's drivers are damn near flawless. (Using 7.2 atm)
My WinTV-PVR 150 works great. Recorded lots of shows and burned to DVD with Media Center just fine.
Media Center works awesome. Not compatible with DiVX btw. Thumbnails on DiVX files make Media Center crash. Use Xvid instead, it's fine.
Fable: Lost Chapters, FEAR, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Prey, SpellForce 2, Command and Conquer 3 demo all work just fine.
EDIT: ZSNES and MAME work fine, even on TV-out
ATi's drivers are damn near flawless. (Using 7.2 atm)
My WinTV-PVR 150 works great. Recorded lots of shows and burned to DVD with Media Center just fine.
Media Center works awesome. Not compatible with DiVX btw. Thumbnails on DiVX files make Media Center crash. Use Xvid instead, it's fine.
Fable: Lost Chapters, FEAR, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Prey, SpellForce 2, Command and Conquer 3 demo all work just fine.
EDIT: ZSNES and MAME work fine, even on TV-out
knowsitall
Distinguished
- Dec 19, 2006
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so many damn'd xp fan boys. xp is vista's little sister. The only reason anyone would stick up for xp is because that is the operating system they have. Welp sorry to hear. i ll keep lookin threw my clear tool bars and my new clock. they rock. and also i can switch between windows in 3d mode. it is awsome. and big whoop my games play 2fps slower. my eyes cant notice 2 fps. Glad to knwo you guys can. Great superb.
knowsitall
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- Dec 19, 2006
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If your life depended on a computer, you'd be more careful with OS changes...but since maybe you only play games, write some sh!t in ms word and surf the internet for porn...yeah, go with vista now.
yah that is true i only use my computer for games/porn/and typin papers for school. i guess if you have business stuff on a pc or some kind of data you can run into issues when upgrading to vista. plus if u own a business with tons of pc's with xp why would one want to spend thousands upgrading all pc's to vista anyways. with these points i mentioned i guess its not worth the upgrade unless vista really is safer and crashes less. i guess then data would be protected and blah blah. Vista has directx10 thats all i know
!
yourmothersanastronaut
Distinguished
- Mar 23, 2006
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In my experience with it, it ran great. I actually didn't want to go back to XP when the beta ended.
I won't buy it until I upgrade to DX10, which could happen this summer, but probably later.
The games I tested with it ran great. WoW ran flawlessly. And while I didn't test the DivX converter or player, the codec worked great, so I could at least watch my .avis with WMP.
I won't buy it until I upgrade to DX10, which could happen this summer, but probably later.
The games I tested with it ran great. WoW ran flawlessly. And while I didn't test the DivX converter or player, the codec worked great, so I could at least watch my .avis with WMP.
pmr
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- Jan 4, 2006
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If your life depended on a computer, you'd be more careful with OS changes...but since maybe you only play games, write some sh!t in ms word and surf the internet for porn...yeah, go with vista now.
yah that is true i only use my computer for games/porn/and typin papers for school. i guess if you have business stuff on a pc or some kind of data you can run into issues when upgrading to vista. plus if u own a business with tons of pc's with xp why would one want to spend thousands upgrading all pc's to vista anyways. with these points i mentioned i guess its not worth the upgrade unless vista really is safer and crashes less. i guess then data would be protected and blah blah. Vista has directx10 thats all i know
!you're not following me. I'm talking about 3rd party software. not the OS itself. I won´t change until I know all my audio and video software is fully stable and compatible with vista. I wouldn't like to see a 10 hour render going down the drain.
PSYCHoHoLiC
Distinguished
- Oct 10, 2006
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divx isnt compatible with vista? I must be the luckiest guy alive as i have never had a problem with it.
Pre-bloody-cisely
I point blank refuse to upgrade to vista as a matter of principle until M$ stop trying to charge double what they do in the US.
Lame excuses I have heard from M$ so far on this:
"It's because of fluctuation in exchange rates" - BZZT, wrong answer, that would make it cheaper, not more expensive.
"It's because of regionalization costs" - BZZT, wrong answer again, you expect me to believe that? It's the difference between US English and British English. God damn, they steal our language, bastardise it and then expect US to pay???
NightlySputnik
Distinguished
- Mar 3, 2006
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I only have a minute, so I didn't read the other post... I'll do it tonight at home.
I'm very please with Vista Home Premium 64-bit. It's very responsive and performances when applications are started are also very good.
Well, I went fron 5286 3DMark06 to 5246, so I guess some poeple here will flame it for that 1% slow-down. Actually I don't really care that I went from 13.205 to 13.1FPS in one of the cpu test. That's where the difference was the strongest, going from 2676 to 2592 in the CPU test. 3.2% slowdown, what a shame. :twisted:
Irony aside, it's fast and beautiful.
The only problem is that some applications aren't compatible, but remember that I'm on the 64-bit version. Laugh at me if you want, I'll be the one laughing in 6 months when all these compatibility problems will be solved. Until then, I can still boot in XP to use these OLD apps.
To finish this off, I don't think it's worth upgrading unless you purchase a new PC. By the time applications will require Vista to work better, your current PC will most probably be unworthy of them :twisted: which mean too slow.
P.S.: For those wondering, I can still back-up my DVD collections (honest, I'm doing it right now in case of a fire or anything elses) using DVDShrink and DVDFab Decryptor without any problems.
I'm very please with Vista Home Premium 64-bit. It's very responsive and performances when applications are started are also very good.
Well, I went fron 5286 3DMark06 to 5246, so I guess some poeple here will flame it for that 1% slow-down. Actually I don't really care that I went from 13.205 to 13.1FPS in one of the cpu test. That's where the difference was the strongest, going from 2676 to 2592 in the CPU test. 3.2% slowdown, what a shame. :twisted:
Irony aside, it's fast and beautiful.
The only problem is that some applications aren't compatible, but remember that I'm on the 64-bit version. Laugh at me if you want, I'll be the one laughing in 6 months when all these compatibility problems will be solved. Until then, I can still boot in XP to use these OLD apps.
To finish this off, I don't think it's worth upgrading unless you purchase a new PC. By the time applications will require Vista to work better, your current PC will most probably be unworthy of them :twisted: which mean too slow.
P.S.: For those wondering, I can still back-up my DVD collections (honest, I'm doing it right now in case of a fire or anything elses) using DVDShrink and DVDFab Decryptor without any problems.
Pre-bloody-cisely
I point blank refuse to upgrade to vista as a matter of principle until M$ stop trying to charge double what they do in the US.
Lame excuses I have heard from M$ so far on this:
"It's because of fluctuation in exchange rates" - BZZT, wrong answer, that would make it cheaper, not more expensive.
"It's because of regionalization costs" - BZZT, wrong answer again, you expect me to believe that? It's the difference between US English and British English. God damn, they steal our language, bastardise it and then expect US to pay???
They are probably charging more in Europe to pay off thier EU imposed fines
AdamBomb42
Distinguished
- Dec 7, 2006
- 641
- 0
- 18,980
choirbass
Distinguished
- Dec 14, 2005
- 1,586
- 0
- 19,780
to add my $.02...
my experience using vista, the RTM version anyhow, has been pretty painless, on both x86 and x64 versions... the primary reason i believe being because i always do fresh installs of OS', instead of upgrades, no compatability problems and troubles that way from what ive experienced... nearly all hardware i have is supported, and whatever isnt, isnt really that necessary/critical to begin with... its also not a production work system either, so for anyone not relying on critical work related projects, or something essential that they know wont work just yet on vista, theres really no reason not to upgrade to vista, cost aside...
performance is almost identical, TBH (benchmarks dont count in this respect, IE, the difference between 60 and 70 FPS, unless youre going to nitpick that)... if a game plays fluidly, and exhibits no problems, then why is there a dilemma?, aside from people usually not liking change to begin with... SP1 however, should put performance at least on par with XP anyhow, its a more bloated OS, sure, but current hardware is fast enough to easily handle vista as an OS anyhow
the readyboost and superfetch 'features', actually start applications and boot times in less time than they would take in XP, on the same system, in my experience anyhow
the layout is slightly different, sure... but if vista was designed to look and operate the exact same as xp, there would probably be a lot less hesitance from people... disabling UAC for example, and the annoyance it is, really helps with that
anyhow, yeah
my experience using vista, the RTM version anyhow, has been pretty painless, on both x86 and x64 versions... the primary reason i believe being because i always do fresh installs of OS', instead of upgrades, no compatability problems and troubles that way from what ive experienced... nearly all hardware i have is supported, and whatever isnt, isnt really that necessary/critical to begin with... its also not a production work system either, so for anyone not relying on critical work related projects, or something essential that they know wont work just yet on vista, theres really no reason not to upgrade to vista, cost aside...
performance is almost identical, TBH (benchmarks dont count in this respect, IE, the difference between 60 and 70 FPS, unless youre going to nitpick that)... if a game plays fluidly, and exhibits no problems, then why is there a dilemma?, aside from people usually not liking change to begin with... SP1 however, should put performance at least on par with XP anyhow, its a more bloated OS, sure, but current hardware is fast enough to easily handle vista as an OS anyhow
the readyboost and superfetch 'features', actually start applications and boot times in less time than they would take in XP, on the same system, in my experience anyhow
the layout is slightly different, sure... but if vista was designed to look and operate the exact same as xp, there would probably be a lot less hesitance from people... disabling UAC for example, and the annoyance it is, really helps with that
anyhow, yeah
It's not bad or give you the WOW factor Gates was talking about, it still feels like XP with some add-ons. The gadgets are neat, taking up resources. Kinda PITA trying to look for things at first since they are shuffled around, but the search will bring it right up.
Overall, the $200 I spent on OEM 64bit Vista worth it? It hasn't given me any problems except my Sound Blaster Card is pretty useless as of now.
Overall, the $200 I spent on OEM 64bit Vista worth it? It hasn't given me any problems except my Sound Blaster Card is pretty useless as of now.
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