Important Vista question.

[Salamok]

Do all versions have freecell and hearts installed?

My dad wants a laptop and all he uses his comp for is email, online banking, freecell and hearts.  Sounds like a perfect Vista candidate to me (if the games are on there that is).

[Viin]

I have home premium and I'm pretty sure I have those. I'd bet Basic has them too, just the new "premium" games require Premium or Ultimate.

[Samwise]

Even if it didn't, I'm pretty sure you could set him up with freeware equivalents that worked exactly the same.

[Salamok]

Even if it didn't, I'm pretty sure you could set him up with freeware equivalents that worked exactly the same.

lol I found a gamespot review of the included vista games.  Some users are saying that it feels like they took all the hard games out of freecell.  I also found a post for copying the existing XP freecell over to Vista.

Anyhoo, problem solved thanks for the input.

[Mrbloodworth]

Do all versions have freecell and hearts installed?

My dad wants a laptop and all he uses his comp for is email, online banking, freecell and hearts.  Sounds like a perfect Vista candidate to me (if the games are on there that is).

I'm so sure they do, i don't even think you could uninstall them with out removing Explorer.

[CharlieMopps]

After I installed Vista I took a wopping 30% performance hit.  In the halflife2 lost coast benchmark alone I went from 88FPS (XP) to 52FPS (Vista)

I would stay away from Vista for at least another year if I were you. They really have a lot of work to do.

Edit: Should add my system specs shouldnt I?

AMD 4000+
2Gig Corsair ram
3 7500 Spin Sata3 Mactor HDs
Radeon X1900XTX 512MB
on-board sound

[Salamok]

After I installed Vista I took a wopping 30% performance hit.  In the halflife2 lost coast benchmark alone I went from 88FPS (XP) to 52FPS (Vista)

I would stay away from Vista for at least another year if I were you. They really have a lot of work to do.

Edit: Should add my system specs shouldnt I?

AMD 4000+
2Gig Corsair ram
3 7500 Spin Sata3 Mactor HDs
Radeon X1900XTX 512MB
on-board sound

hardware:

core 2 duo 2ghz/800mhz FSB
2gig of ram
160gig 7200rpm drive
256g geforce go 8600

I doubt he will notice much of a Vista performance hit seeing how he is coming from a windows ME/pentium 3/256mb ram and only uses his comp to check email, balance his checkbook via online banking and play freecell/hearts.

Main reason I overkilled his hardware is because I will be the one he calls he screws it up and I just know he will try and get this thing to last him for the next 10 years.  Plus I want him to transition to Vista (which should last him till he dies) before he gets any more senile.

[Viin]

I have an important Vista question too..

Is there any reason to install the 64bit version?

I'm running on an AMD 64bit dual core, but installed 32bit Vista before I even thought of using 64bit. Would it really be worth it to reinstall as 64bit or would I just expect problems with all those 32bit games I have? :)

[CharlieMopps]

I have an important Vista question too..

Is there any reason to install the 64bit version?

I'm running on an AMD 64bit dual core, but installed 32bit Vista before I even thought of using 64bit. Would it really be worth it to reinstall as 64bit or would I just expect problems with all those 32bit games I have? :)

64bit vista is 20% slower than 32bit vista

There are no advantages that I know of (unless you are doing some very fancy science/math stuff.

[Engels]

64bit vista is 20% slower than 32bit vista

There are no advantages that I know of (unless you are doing some very fancy science/math stuff.

And if you're up to that level of expertise, you run some *nix varietal anyway.

[MrHat]

I have an important Vista question too..

Is there any reason to install the 64bit version?

I'm running on an AMD 64bit dual core, but installed 32bit Vista before I even thought of using 64bit. Would it really be worth it to reinstall as 64bit or would I just expect problems with all those 32bit games I have? :)

64bit vista is 20% slower than 32bit vista

There are no advantages that I know of (unless you are doing some very fancy science/math stuff.

64-bit recognizes over 3GB's of RAM doesn't it?

[rattran]

Yep, if you want/need to use 4gig or more of ram, you need to go 64bit.


And as for the 20% performance hit? I call bullshit. Vista overall loses a few percent over xp (after turning off shit like aero, unneeded services, etc) but x64 boots faster than x32 for me, and things run the same. Except for x64 native stuff, which is faster. If you have any odd hardware x64 support isn't as good, but for mainstream stuff it's fine. ie, the Razer Barracuda sound card has crap vista drivers, creaf cards the drivers are fine.

So, stick to xp if you can, but if you need vista, x64 seems to be the right choice.

[Engels]

Except it isn't just 'wierd hardware' that doesn't get 64-bit support; it was only recently that Creative provided 64 bit drivers for their sound cards, for example. There may be some software add-ons that don't operate well with another product that does support 64 bit is another example.

Don't get me wrong; I think its fine to go with 64 bit after verifying that your hardware, software and any planned purchases you may make will work with 64 bit. Its just not something you can do with full expectation of support.

[CharlieMopps]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/page11.html

We are disappointed that CPU-intensive applications such as video transcoding with XviD (DVD to XviD MPEG4) or the MainConcept H.264 Encoder performed 18% to nearly 24% slower in our standard benchmark scenarios. Both benchmarks finished much quicker under Windows XP. There aren't newer versions available, and we don't see immediate solutions to this issue.

as far as 64bit being slower than 32bit, I read that in 1 article. In an attempt to find that article again, I've found several that contradict it. In any event it seems... at best... to be equal to 32bit or slightly faster.