Save XP!

[sailer]

Where Vista has an advantage is that it's 64bit version is a legit OS comparared to XPx64. Going from Vista32->Vista64(Ultimate comes with both versions) is a seemless transition. In my experience XP Pro -> XPx64 is a nightmare.

I find this strange. I've had XP 64 Pro on my business computers for a long time and have found no problem with it. I'm ordering another copy before they run out because I like it so well. There were some early driver problems, but those were all cleared up as Vista approached its launch. During the past year, all the driver problems disappeared completely. Now I like it better than 32 bit XP Pro.

 

[theworminator]

Purplerat,

My bad, I seem to assume everyone uses 32 bit, because that's the only type I've ever used .

Right now, it's still based on who needs what. Hardcore gamers will want Vista because of DX10, but otherwise you can still stick with XP. Hell, people still use Win95 because if you only surf the net and use MSN, you don't need anything more. I just wish that XP Pro didn't suddenly drop out of store shelves like it did, I have to order a copy online if I want to install it on a new computer now.

 

[purplerat]

I find this strange. I've had XP 64 Pro on my business computers for a long time and have found no problem with it. I'm ordering another copy before they run out because I like it so well. There were some early driver problems, but those were all cleared up as Vista approached its launch. During the past year, all the driver problems disappeared completely. Now I like it better than 32 bit XP Pro.

Thats why I noted "in my experience" which I admit is limited. But if you say that it's much improved then why the fears(not necessarily your's) about Vista? Wouldn't it reason that the same will happen? Actually it already has but many are too ignorant to know better. I feel the biggest drawback to XPx64 as a 64bit Windows OS is that if you were to be purchasing it from here on out you'd be spending a lot of money on software that is, like it or not, at the end of it's life cycle - assuming you can find it. XPx64 may be a great OS, but based on availability, compatability and support it's closer to Linux then Windows.

 

[Zorg]

Have to disagree with you there, and on the intent as well. Actually, ReadyBoost is intended to serve as an inexpensive (less expensive than ram) way to provided disk IO caching, it is separate from SuperFetch. Admittedly, sometimes an article pops out here and there that does not make a clear distinction there, but that is not the case.

I'm glad you disagree with me because you said exactly what I did. I suggest you read my post again. I think you are confused that I believe Ready Boost and Super Fetch are the same thing, but that's not what I said. I said that the Ready Boost was a poor attempt at adding RAM, mostly for those that have the max RAM installed on their machine (or are too cheap to buy more). The additional RAM was needed to support the new Super Fetch feature because it is a RAM hog. Additionally my concern is the relative speed of the USB flash RAM in relation to the hard drive that it is supposed to be replacing (disk caching), because flash RAM thumb drives can be very slow and the reduced seek times are not enough to compensate for the low throughput. With 4meg of RAM installed, the Ready Boost USB flash RAM isn't needed anyway, and may even slow things down depending on how Vista allocates the RAM and flash RAM space.

Does that make more sense?

 

[sailer]

Purplerat- In and of itself, I personally have no fears of Vista and I do have a copy of Vista 64 Business on one of my computers. The problem that I have with Vista, as well as my does my daughter-in-law, is that none of our medical programs run on it. There are a number of other programs that we use which won't run on Vista as well. There are a couple programs which we use that will run on Vista, but only through emulators that slow things down to a crawl. These problems with Vista may be fixed in the future, or the companies may hold out until the next OS from Microsoft (Windows 7?) comes out. I don't know the answer to that. But for now, I'll stick with XP64 Pro for serious computing.

 

[russki]

I'm glad you disagree with me because you said exactly what I did. I suggest you read my post again. I think you are confused that I believe Ready Boost and Super Fetch are the same thing, but that's not what I said. I said that the Ready Boost was a poor attempt at adding RAM, mostly for those that have the max RAM installed on their machine (or are too cheap to buy more). The additional RAM was needed to support the new Super Fetch feature because it is a RAM hog. Additionally my concern is the relative speed of the USB flash RAM in relation to the hard drive that it is supposed to be replacing (disk caching), because flash RAM thumb drives can be very slow and the reduced seek times are not enough to compensate for the low throughput. With 4meg of RAM installed, the Ready Boost USB flash RAM isn't needed anyway, and may even slow things down depending on how Vista allocates the RAM and flash RAM space.

Does that make more sense?

Well, no. I didn't say you thought ReadyBoost and SuperFetch were the same. I said that ReadyBoost is meant to provide a way to cache disk IO. SuperFetch serves an entirely different purpose. ReadyBoost does not replace RAM or adding RAM. It addresses the limitation of the IO interface, not lack of RAM. Further, they are smart about implementation and are selective with when they read cache from the ReadyBoost media vs. the disk drive. If the request is for small chunks of data in non-sequential patterns, they use the flash because random seek blows low-spindle HDDs out of the water. If the request is for a larger chunk that is sequential, then it goes straight to HDD without even trying to do a cache lookup. So you really get the best of both worlds. This is nothing more than larger HDD cache (adding HDD cache vs. adding RAM in your example), if you will, and again, not a replacement nor a supplement for RAM. That's the part of your post I was addressing. Plus the sustained transfer rate limitation of flash.

By the way SuperFetch is not a memory hog - it is a memory user. It does not have an exclusive allocation of RAM and having SuperFetch use it does not prevent apps from using it when needed - if an app request comes for memory, it is quickly allocated to the app and SuperFetch data is purged, I think.

 

[grieve]

True, but try gaming on Vista. So far DX10 is just BS.

I recently formatted my PC and removed XPpro32 which I used to have dual booted with Vista64Ultimate.

Now I just have Vista64 which runs nice, games run smooth, and pretty… There is a small speed factor however on my machine it is milliseconds, nothing really even worth mentioning. (but I did anyway)

I have not found a program that I can’t make run in some way or other. The only issues arise due to Vista64 not 32, sometimes I have to get a little creative…like using symbolic links or installing apps in a different folder then the program files .DIR
-I can give you a hint on resolving issues WWW.GOOGLE.COM

So far all issues have been resolvable by the user (in this case me) they just took some effort.

In the future after more updates and a little more time Vista will surely surpass XP in every category.

Let’s not forget a VERY important detail, Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001.
I feel that Vista will surpass XP shortly as the OS of choice, a spot which XP has had reserved for 7 years.

Imagine Vista in 7 years? … how about 2?

 

[Zorg]

OK were talking semantics here. If you have enough RAM then there will be no need to write to the HD, at least in theory. I know that is BS with XP, because even though I have 1.5G free it still pages to the HD. Adding more RAM is better than adding Ready Boost flash RAM because it is faster and would also limit the need to write to the HD. Any decent drive will give you 60MB/sec read throughput, and many thumb drives will give you 2-10MB/sec. So I don't agree that the reduced latency of the thumb drive will compensate for the reduced throughput. The write throughput differential is even larger. I do agree that if you have POS notebook 5400 RPM drive with a throughput of 15-20MB/sec it could be useful, but more RAM is still preferable.

I know that Super Fetch will give up it's RAM for other processes that need it, and have posted same here before. But the idea of Ready Boost is to provide additional RAM albeit slower flash RAM to minimize disk page writes/reads. I would imagine that this would include, when not used for other programs, space to write additional programs for Super Fetch.

ReadyBoost does not replace RAM or adding RAM. It addresses the limitation of the IO interface, not lack of RAM. ..... This is nothing more than larger HDD cache (adding HDD cache vs. adding RAM in your example), if you will, and again, not a replacement nor a supplement for RAM. That's the part of your post I was addressing. Plus the sustained transfer rate limitation of flash.

This is from Windows Vista: Features Explained: Performance

Impromptu memory expansion.

Windows ReadyBoost introduces a new concept in add-on system memory. You can use nonvolatile flash memory devices, such as universal serial bus (USB) flash drives, to improve performance without having to add memory "under the hood." The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard disk drive.

 

[notherdude]

The real problem is that over the years XP became more and more refined and then sp 2 came out which was a major overhaul and by this time pretty much all the foot draggers had come over from 98 and 2k and all this time countless hardware and software was made to work on it and more time passed and what we ended up with was a very mature and stable OS that was deeply entrenched.

Vista was such a major change that it broke a lot of hardware and software. Lacking any terribly compelling reason to switch to Vista who can blame those who would rather avoid the expense and the trauma? I don't. You gotta come strong with a new product if you want people to make BIG changes in their expenditures and habits.

MS isn't waiting 7 years for Vista to take hold. They publicly announced before the Vista launch that they were switching back to a three year cycle. Before Vista has killed XP 7 will be out and it may take 7 to finally kill off xp. But 7 will in all probability just be Vista SE in disguise. So in a way Vista will win in the end.

Personally I like Vista better than XP. I understand why others may feel differently. It's a close call really. I take exception to those who say Vista is trash and sucks and all that. There is an odd sort of reasonless anger in that sentiment I just don't get.

I hate to say it but it's just fanboyism. I guess people tend to get emotional about their favorite technology.

 

[russki]

OK were talking semantics here.

Yeah, kind of semantics, I guess. But no, RB does not prefetch SF - way too slow for that (particularly since much of SF is sequential in pattern. And yes, if you have enough RAM, it will do its caching there, but really, ReadyBoost was designed for the slower spindle notebook drives.

And I think you are missing the throughput point. ReadyBoost is never designed to help you with those situations. Ever. That's why those requests are not even sent to the flash RB drive. Once the service thinks you are attempting a sequential access, it will send it directly to HD. If it's small chunks of randomly accessed data, though, it will go to the cache.

Btw, c'mon, trust Russinovich much more than MS marketing (my link vs. your link). Russinovich is the man. He knew more about kernel than MS did even before he was working for them.

 

[russki]

Btw, one more point:

... I do agree that if you have POS notebook 5400 RPM drive with a throughput of 15-20MB/sec it could be useful, but more RAM is still preferable...

You underestimate the crappiness of some of the desktop drives. The 5400 RPM drive on my notebook blows the crap in my work desktop out of the water. It is to the point where it's funny. OEM's put some crappy components in their business boxes. Stable, long lasting, sure, but performace-wise crappy as can be.

 

[purplerat]

I recently formatted my PC and removed XPpro32 which I used to have dual booted with Vista64Ultimate.

Now I just have Vista64 which runs nice, games run smooth, and pretty… There is a small speed factor however on my machine it is milliseconds, nothing really even worth mentioning. (but I did anyway)

I have not found a program that I can’t make run in some way or other. The only issues arise due to Vista64 not 32, sometimes I have to get a little creative…like using symbolic links or installing apps in a different folder then the program files .DIR
-I can give you a hint on resolving issues WWW.GOOGLE.COM

So far all issues have been resolvable by the user (in this case me) they just took some effort.

In the future after more updates and a little more time Vista will surely surpass XP in every category.

Let’s not forget a VERY important detail, Windows XP was first released on October 25, 2001.
I feel that Vista will surpass XP shortly as the OS of choice, a spot which XP has had reserved for 7 years.

Imagine Vista in 7 years? … how about 2?

It's already been shown were in gaming Vista has come from being far behind XP to just about dead even in just the first few months.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] ce_update/

People just like to ignore the facts.

 

[Zorg]

Yeah, kind of semantics, I guess. But no, RB does not prefetch SF - way too slow for that (particularly since much of SF is sequential in pattern. And yes, if you have enough RAM, it will do its caching there, but really, ReadyBoost was designed for the slower spindle notebook drives.

And I think you are missing the throughput point. ReadyBoost is never designed to help you with those situations. Ever. That's why those requests are not even sent to the flash RB drive. Once the service thinks you are attempting a sequential access, it will send it directly to HD. If it's small chunks of randomly accessed data, though, it will go to the cache.

Btw, c'mon, trust Russinovich much more than MS marketing (my link vs. your link). Russinovich is the man. He knew more about kernel than MS did even before he was working for them.

I did agree with you about the 5400 or even worse 4200 notebook drives. But that's not how they are selling it. They are selling it to everyone as the hot stuff, which it isn't. I stand by my conclusion that RB is more hype than anything. Additionally, The access hierarchy is not clear to me. I would hope that what you say is true and that the RB is only hit just before the HD and only for small non sequential data, but I don't trust MS or anyone associated with them to give me straight information.

Remember, this whole discussion started with this post

You should run HD tune on that USB stick. I don't know what Vista needs as a minimum to call it ready boost, but from what I have seen most USB flash RAM has abysmal read times compared to the HD. I'm not even sure Vista would use it, given the fact that you have 4GB of RAM, but it wouldn't surprise me. I used RC1 and I don't remember it taking 18sec to get to the home page. Something is wrong, and that's coming from a Vista disliker. I didn't want to be a hater. :lol:

That was addressing this post

In XP Pro I open a browser window and connect to google in 4 seconds.

In Vista Ultimate the same action takes 18 seconds.

WHY?

With the addition of this post

The comp I am running Vista on is a new build with a Q6600 and 4GB of ram. And a 4GB readyboost usb drive. Hard Drive is Sata II with 32MB cache.
For Pre-cache to work how many times do I need to open a browser window 20,000?

So my comments make more sense taken in context. He has a fast processor and 4GB of RAM (probably Vista32 so about 3GB usable). His load times, from my own experience, should be considerably faster. So Maybe the RB that he doesn't even need is screwing things up. It is certainly not out of the question, hence my post.

 

[Shadow703793]

It's already been shown were in gaming Vista has come from being far behind XP to just about dead even in just the first few months.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardwar [...] ce_update/

People just like to ignore the facts.

yeh,yeah,yeah, Its true but you will be able to play Crysis on ULTRA on XP before you can do it in Vista . You can play on high on XP too with a few hacks.

 

[mlaporta]

I signed the petition!

 

[Guest]

Relax

http://www.reactos.org

Can't decide if they are mad Geniuses (Genii??) or just mad.

 

[jaguarskx]

Meh.

I'll wait for Windows 7 (formerly known as Vienna) in Q4 2009 or 2010.

 

[Shadow703793]

Relax

http://www.reactos.org

Can't decide if they are mad Geniuses (Genii??) or just mad.

Thats been out for a while actually. works OK but not the same as native XP/2000

 

[purplerat]

yeh,yeah,yeah, Its true but you will be able to play Crysis on ULTRA on XP before you can do it in Vista . You can play on high on XP too with a few hacks.

Didn't know there was an 'Ultra' in Crysis. I guess leet hackerz like you must be keeping it a secret. Here's what I do know; Crysis has both a DX9 and DX10 mode. There are also a ton of variables which can me used to tune the game outside of the Low-Medium-High-VeryHigh settings. Crytek designed it to be like this so it's not a hack to turn variables up higher then what the default may allow. Vista and XP run Crysis almost identically in DX9. DX10 can't be compared because it's not available on XP; It does however tax performance greatly in Vista- but there's no reason to believe it wouldn't do the same if available on XP. Also any of your "hackz" can me used in Vista DX9 the same as XP DX9 with the same results. Maybe you just don't know any better but comparing Crysis with DX10 in Vista and Crysis in DX9 on XP(with or w/o a Very High config) is like comparing apples and oranges. Try comparing DX9 Vista VS DX9 XP.

 

[Shadow703793]

^True, but the fact still stands is that DX10 so far has not offered much improvement over DX9.

 

[purplerat]

^True, but the fact still stands is that DX10 so far has not offered much improvement over DX9.

DX10 offers a lot of improvements over DX9. The issue has been developers implementing it succesfully. Crysis has been the only real attempt so far. Results in Crysis are difficult to see because the game itself is very taxing on even the highest on systems regardless of DX version. Vista has already matured greatly in it's first year, and I would expect DX10 to do the same in the following year as developers begin to utilize it.

 

[mainyard]

Basically the way I see it is:
Current Gen hardware is adequate for vista
Previous Gen hardware is going to suffer
Next Gen hardware is going to fully utilize vista fully
Now, I am using XP Pro as my main OS, but I have Vista x64 installed.
I have a Previous Gen setup, it runs ok, just
If you look at all the major step ups in OS you will notice a significant change of demands
eg 98-xp more ram, bigger cpu required for high performance
while xp-vista isnt such a huge move as 98-xp was, its still a major revamp of the underlying core of windows.
I grumble all the time about how vista performs worse than xp.
I still grumble how xp sp2 performs worse than un-patched xp.
Its gonna take time but eventually everyone will move up, the main thing that pings me off was MS choice to only allow DX10 on vista (even though DX10 hasnt really shown its full benefits to me yet).
Once we hit next gen chipsets with the same gen processors vista will seem great. Until then most of us will be satisfied with XP.

 

[nhobo]

In XP Pro I open a browser window and connect to google in 4 seconds.

In Vista Ultimate the same action takes 18 seconds.

Another Vista "feature".

 

[aahz]

Vista SP1 does not increase the speed of Vista.

I installed the beta version of SP1 and it increased Vista start up time as well as the overall speed of my system. Don't know why they would remove the speed gain from the finished version of SP1.......

 

[TMSter]

I think Vista is what Killed PC Game sales. Consoles will prevail i guess, shame really. I can see it now.