Vista and nVidia... a good combo

elrasho

elrasho

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After the latest BETA nVidia drivers were released and people were getting huge performance increases in Bioshock, ive been seriouly considering upgrading from XP Home to Vista Premium.

Ive ran the Wizard thing and it said all my software/hardware will work fine :-)

So is there anything I should know before I take the plunge? I'll be getting an 8800 GTS soon aswell, so I'll have DirectX10 on Crysis :-)
 
I just got my 8800GTS 640mb yesterday, runs Bioshock maxed out easy :D

This is with the standard drivers too, cant wait to try the new ones!
 
Nice one Neptune - what res are you playing at? I'm torn between the 320 and 640mb versions.
 
Just at standard tft 1280x1024, I figured at my res a GTX would be overkill, hence not worth getting.

I only got the 640mb one in the hope it may last longer before I need to upgrade, remember some games with high res textures need a min of 512mb of video memory to run (Quake 4 etc).


My specs are like:

2x1Gb DDR2 Corsair value @ 533mhz
E6400 Core 2 @ stock 2.13ghz
Onboard sound.

Which is nothing fancy.

However I will be upgrading to:
4x1GB DDR2 OCZ 800mhz
X-fi extreme music sound card.

Which will be a nice boost.
 
WOW cool. I have an Opteron 180 CPU, can I get the 64-bit version of Vista?
 
Well it's a 64-bit CPU so yeah.
But I would advise against it, you wont get any proper performance boost or anything... infact you are more likely to experience problems.
You will need 64 bit drivers for everything, and not everything has a 64 bit driver.
 
Cool, so the 32but verion it is.... Seen lods on EBay going for £60... the ads say its cheap coz its an "Educational" licence... but the version is exactly the same as the retail version.. is that true?
 
Quote: some random site


1. Most hardware does not currently have 64-bit drivers.

Out of all the boxes that I have installed x64 Vista on, I could always get it to boot up. However, the lack of 64-bit drivers for many hardware devices typically left me without any chance of burning DVDs or listening to audio. Networking devices and card readers were frequently not supported as well. Vista x64 is pretty but it's not very fun without network access or audio.

2. In Vista x64, any driver that is not properly signed will not be able to enter the kernel and will fail to load.

Think how many times you have ignored that warning that a certain hardware driver is not properly signed. With vista x64, if your driver has not be blessed by Microsoft, it will not work. Forget about it.

I have tired to get around this by booting with the F8 option Disable Driver Signature. It doesn't make a difference.

3. Vista x64 currently does not backward support most x86 (32-bit) drivers.

For the most part 64-bit systems run 32-bit applications very well. However, vista x64 doesn't run x86 drivers... at least at this stage.

4. Vista x64 does not support 16-bit software.

You may think that you never, ever run 16-bit software. However, XP actually handles this legacy fairly well.

5. Very little x64 software currently exists.

x64 software runs better on a x64 system with an x64 OS. Currently, however, there is very little x64 software out there. If you have that magical combination, you do get a nice performance boost. Currently, however, this combination is way to far ahead of the curve
 
OK defo going for the 32bit version... apparently u need 4GIG of ram for Vista!! I dont want to upgrade again
 
You dont.

.


You can run vista on 512mb RAM if you have a deathwish. But it runs fine on a standard 1GB.


Oh one thing, If that PSU is a 'HIPER' one, it a) may not be powerful enough for the GTS
b) explode. :|

Lots and lots of people have had issues with these Hiper PSUs, especially after upgrading. Id recommend a more stable PSU! You wouldnt want to get a blue screen of death in the middle of Rapture, now!

I played it safe and got a 700W Thermaltake Toughpower PSU, but you dont have to go that far!!
500W is the bare minimum for a typical 8800GTS PSU, a healthy 600W is recommended.
 
neptuneuk said:
You dont.

.


You can run vista on 512mb RAM if you have a deathwish. But it runs fine on a standard 1GB.


Oh one thing, If that PSU is a 'HIPER' one, it a) may not be powerful enough for the GTS
b) explode. :|

Lots and lots of people have had issues with these Hiper PSUs, especially after upgrading. Id recommend a more stable PSU! You wouldnt want to get a blue screen of death in the middle of Rapture, now!

I played it safe and got a 700W Thermaltake Toughpower PSU, but you dont have to go that far!!
500W is the bare minimum for a typical 8800GTS PSU, a healthy 600W is recommended.
Click to expand...

Can you recommend me a PSU for around the £50 mark?

Ive seen this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=468732
 
That one looks great! :)
Go for it, get your parts in and play bioshock.
 
A modular PSU is one where the cables are seperate from the PSU so you can choose to only connect the ones you need. I have one but I only went for it because I am switching to a very small case so Ill need to make space!
 
That's how it'd powered.

Throw another kid into the furnace!!
 
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