The Ultimate Dream Computer

i know, but still..... (stop proving me wrong )

tbh i prefer a faster paced game, ala COD and RA, (hell even rollercoaster tycoon) over a slower mroe immersed FC game

 

No, I see exactly what you mean. Crysis is extremely impressive all maxed out. It's definitely the most graphically stunning game to come out yet. But the fact that most systems can't even run it decently maxed at any res, the sometimes heavy glitching, and the lack of AA puts something like CoD4 or Episode 2 far ahead of it in my eyes.

It's not just about eye candy for me. IQ and performance play a HUGE role in graphical quality. Consider that I can run Far Cry 2 MAXED WITH AA and it still performs better than my tweaked Crysis config with NO AA. And Far Cry 2 does all the same tricks from lightbeams to HDR to volumetric foliage. Granted, Crysis does everything with much higher fidelity. But when you can't even properly utilize AA, most of the the fidelity is lost unless you are right up close to what you're looking at or are using a high res monitor.

Yes. It all depends on what kind of gamer you are. I personally prefer both kinds of games. Slow-paced and immersive as well as fast-paced and flashy. And don't even get me started on a classic like RC Tycoon. I've been playing that off and on for years XD

Also, sadly, I've played the original Stronghold more than any other game XD Some said it was mediocre. But, I dunno, it just clicked with me and became one of my favorites instantly. Must be the excellent environmental/sound design and excellent castle building mechanic.

 

Maxed out, Far Cry 2, as far as realism goes, is far better than Crysis (the first one or Warhead) simply because the outdoor textures are much higher quality, and the game has proper vegetation rendering. The downside is that the indoor graphics quality is comparatively very poor, on par with typical games of this era.

 

Yeah, the game seems to maintain a higher standard of quality than Crysis. The Indoors don't look as sharp but the world looks more natural and cohesive. Even then the Indoors get the quality of maybe Quake 4. Which isn't that bad.

 

Ok so I have Vista Ultimate X64 Service Pack 1 installed. I now admit I was wrong about it. It's extremely similar to XP but with a much better UI and a slightly different folder hierarchy. Aeroglass looks sweet The updates are much less intrusive and all of my favorite programs install and run fine. I don't think 2GB vs 4GB makes much of a difference for RAM. Vista disables the UI and such when you run games. Plus it only takes like 850MB of RAM with a few apps open. Compare to XP where it took like 600MB with a bunch of apps open. My game performance is largely the same or better. I have no cases yet where I get worse performance due to not enough RAM or Vista issues. Even Crysis runs like the same give or take 2FPS. No stuttering or anything tells me Vista gives most of the RAM back when you game. I think Service Pack 1 largely fixes most of the immediate issues. If there's anything wrong with Vista, I don't see it. It's just a newer, shinier XP with Direct X 10. I like it

More impressions later but it seems Vista gets a bad rap for no reason. It's as decent and stable as XP as far as I can tell. Remember XP wasn't that great either, but updates smoothed it out and made it good. I think their sales are so poor compared to XP because so many more people have computer access now. That means that more people are exposed to the negative press.

It DOES use much more RAM, so 4GB can be beneficial. But 2GB seems to be working just fine for games and everything.

Anyway. Try it before you judge it. It's not really any worse than XP at all. If I run into issues, I'll be sure to update. But it's perfectly usable so far.

 

Also, a lot of the ram is used in SuperFetch. This was your programs that you use most often start up more than twice as fast compared to XP!

 

Yeah, superfetch is already working as my E mail and Firefox opened lightning quick after the first few times. At first it took the usual second or two to load, but now it's just instant. Very cool. I wonder how it applies to everything else and what programs it affects.

And yeah, superfetch is the main cause of all the used RAM. It gives the RAM back the second you need it though so it's a decent utility. Vista is impressive so far.

 

I've not checked my RAM usage since disabling all the useless stuff like Superfetch, Indexing and Malware scans, but I do know that without opening any programs other than the tray icons automatically loaded for me, using a real memory monitor (not the task manager) my idle usage was 1400MB. With XP it's about 600.

 

So would you say that 2GB of RAM is serviceable or is 4GB really necessary for smooth gaming? Memory is cheap, so It's not that big an issue to get a 4GB kit. But do I NEED it to get smooth performance? Vista seems pretty responsive to me with 2GB. Maybe 4GB will be a big difference and I just don't know it yet??? Because, TBH, I've only spent about 5 minutes checking out my games.

 

Depends what games you play, but realistically, I'd recommend 4GB for any game I'd consider 'demanding' on the CPU and GPU.

 

yey another vista convert

 

So far, CoD4 and Episode 2 are stutter free. Crysis does have some increased load times and some minor stuttering but nothing I'd consider bad. FEAR also stutters a bit now and then, but also not anywhere near bad. As far as I've seen, my actual framerates are largely the same +/- ~5%. Anyone worried about game performance either has a seriously weak system or has nothing to worry about.

4GB it is then. Can you recommend a kit? Are there any 4GB kits with the Micron D9 chips anymore? My Mushkin sticks use them and the latencies and OCing are incredible.

Yeah. It's nowhere near as bad as people make it sound. It IS a bit different than XP. But the file system is MUCH more intuitive and feels very "natural" to navigate. It's easy to get used to, and when you do, everything goes much quicker and with less mouse clicks than XP.

I'd rate Vista like an 8.5/10 and XP like a 9/10. Only for the fact that Vista has much higher requirements to run smoothly. In fact, that's my only major complaint so far. But if you have the system to run it, Vista is every bit as nice as XP and then some.

Again, I feel a powerful urge to say: TRY IT BEFORE YOU JUDGE IT. You might like it.

Of course, some are bound to genuinely not like it at all. Matter of opinion I guess...

 

The reasons I don't like Vista versus XP are due to personal experience, the number of issues I've had with Vista due to bugs or incompatibilities is around 30, and so far only around 20 of those have either been fixed or have 100% workarounds. However, that said, there are almost a dozen things I can't do with XP that I need Vista for, so the only real option for most people is to have both.

Estuansis: FEAR microstutters in CF. Disable it and the game will run better, I can max the game out at 2560x1600 on one card, let alone your res.
As far as RAM goes, I use 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 PC2-8500. Works well, haven't really tested overclocking much as I don't have the right chipset to do it.

 

LOL disabling Crossfire did the trick. Silky smooth now ;P

So what issues does Vista have for you that XP doesn't and vice versa? For the record, I backed up all my stuff and completely reformatted and reinstalled with a clean Vista installation. Still no issues to speak of. Maybe that my X-Fi Xtreme Music doesn't work with Vista. But it went back into my dual core build anyway

 

Sound card related stuff was epic until I figured out how to fix most of the issues, only remaining problem now is that not all games that supported surround in XP do in Vista.

 

Well, if you have the surround, which I don't, a dual boot makes sense. But the onboard Realtek HD sound on the X38 is quite sufficient and I am getting pretty nice sound quality with some EQ adjustments.

Besides that, my dual core is going to stay XP permanently. So if I need to do something in XP, it's there.

 

my dream computer is alienware

 

Pff bah, I think there's something to be said for having built your own dream machine.

 

Like yours my man??
;D

 

Not necessarily mine specifically, but yes. I think there's far more appeal in a homebuilt dream PC than one you bought off the shelf.