Brent Harrelson said:
I wish I could give you a fix for your problem but I cannot. The problem
may not be so much Vista itself as the still relatively poor driver support
for it. They want you to think that Vista is then end-all be-all gamer OS
but the fact is most real gamers that made the switch to Vista quickly
switched back to XP. DirectX 10 promises better graphics and higher FPS
but this is subjective. In most cases the graphics are *slightly* better
but ONLY in games that support DirectX10. As for the speed....some games
get a speed boost but the vast majority are currently seeing a loss of
speed by as much as 20 to 30 percent in some cases.
Let me be clear and say that I am not saying Vista is a bad OS, it brings
alot of great features with it, but until drivers and to a slightly lesser
extent hardware catches up with it there are going to be performance
issues. I will recommend that you dual boot XP and Vista for now. It is a
very easy thing to do if you have not done it before but if you have Vista
already installed it would involve a format of your system (unless you
know how to use some of the advanced disk partioning tools which is
something I will not go into here). You simply install XP first and then
when you install Vista it will detect the XP installation and configure
you to dual boot.
I wish I had a simpler fix but to sum it up, right now there are going to
be a few annoyances for gamers using Vista and the easiest fix is
generally to dual boot and any games that do not run properly under Vista
should get installed on your XP install. Not only does this allow you to
avoid possible gaming problems in Vista but it is good for
troubleshooting, if you have the same problem under both installs then it
is probably not a Vista problem, right.
--
________________________________________
Brent Harrelson
IT Director
Alpha & Omega Communications, Inc
(843) 249-7372 ext. 303
Got a similar system, mine runs EQ2 splendedly.
http://www.nvidia.com download the latest drivers for the card from nvidia.
Here's a message from another forum goer, that lists all the fixes for Vista
out there, apply the ones that apply to you, should help. Don't listen to
Anti-Vista people I've run a ton of games on Vista, some have issue, some
don't, but all of them run eventually..
-A
--snip--
This is just a comprehensive listing of MS Hotfixes that should be
downloaded and installed specifically for those who play games with one
GPU or 2 in SLI. They all deal with Graphics/DX 10/SLI/Memory/etc.
There are a number of hotfixes that have been released to address the
Vista gaming/graphics/memory problems many have been complaining of.
Some of them you all know about, but some are hidden in the MS TechNet
and MSDN download areas. Below is a listing of the hotfixes that all
gamers should download...both SLI and Single GPU users.
The following take you directly to the TechNET Download Site and there
you can choose either 32 bit or 64 bit.
Download KB945149 'Graphics performance can be improved in certain
multiple-GPU scenarios on a Windows Vista-based computer - Enhances SLI
Performance in DX 9 and 10' (
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945149)
Download KB940105 'Virtual address space usage in Windows game
development - Fixes problems with certain games (BF 2, BF 2142, etc.)
involving low frame rates and crashes/lockups.'
(
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105)
Download KB936710 'Hotfix for SLI users running DX 10 Games -
Improves frame rates - For new games (BF 2, COD 4, FSX, etc)'
(
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710)
Download KB938194 'An update is available that improves the
compatibility and reliability of Windows Vista - For all GeForce users -
Enhances graphics performance across the board'
(
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938194)
Download KB938979 'An update is available that improves the
performance and reliability of Windows Vista - Again...for all GeForce
users - Enhances Performance overall'
(
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938979)
The following patches are those which I came across while digging
through TechNET and the MSDN download sites. They are pertain to gaming,
graphics, memory and performance. I have them on my own FTP, so you
should obtain as much bandwidth as your provider allows.
All of the following patches are for 64 Bit Vista. Respond if you need
the 32 bit versions.
'MS KB932246' (
http://tinyurl.com/26v82z)
'MS KB92977 - Allows for > 3GB ' (
http://tinyurl.com/ywsrya)
'MS KB933590' (
http://tinyurl.com/2exm3q)
'MS KB93671' (
http://tinyurl.com/ytb3h6)
'MS KB938194' (
http://tinyurl.com/23dhze)
'MS KB940199' (
http://tinyurl.com/you74y)
'MS KB941600' (
http://tinyurl.com/26226h)
'MS KB942763' (
http://tinyurl.com/yvwl59)
'MS KB945149' (
http://tinyurl.com/2d4g7p)
NOTE: Not all users will need all of the above patches. Just install
them to see if you do.
My personal experience in running Vista 64 has been overall very well.
With respect to gaming, there are some games that run just great and
there are those that suffer because they have not been optimized fully
to take advantage of multiple CPU's and GPU's.
I really only play Flight Sim X and even with the extreme setup I have,
I still run into problems. I guess we just have to wait until game
developers optimize their code extensively to fully utilize multiple
cores.
I hope the listing of fixes above helps at lease one person out there.
