Vista has ruined my PC gaming experience

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I need HELP. Once upon a time, when my computer ran Windows XP - I had a very
stable and enjoyable PC experience, all the way around. Applications started
when I wanted them too, and ALL the games I wanted to play ran without
question.
I was excited about Vista, and defended it when all my other gaming
buddies bagged on it and me for making the switch. Now, I feel like an idiot.
Battlefield: 2142 crashes on stage loads. Sure, it has the "this game has
only been tested on Windows XP 32-bit" but the compatibility mode on Vista
doesn't even let the copy-protection scheme on Battlefield 2142 work
correctly - so it won't load.
Titan Quest - simple enough game - crashes for random things now with
little or no explanation as to why.
XFIRE used to be a wonderful tool for ingame chat. Now, it's a prime source
for PC crashing.
So, then these wonderful VISTA only games come along so -- my idea was to
dual-boot. That led to a total train wreck of an XP intsallation that led to
a total re-load of Windows Vista and STILL no dual boot capability into
Windows XP.

I used to HATE console gaming, but now I hate my PC even more. I spent A
LOT of money building a pretty awesome gaming rig. 2x 8800GTX to go in an
Asus Striker Extreme motherboard with a Core2Duo processor, 2 Gigs of RAM and
a very nice 30" LCD monitor. To bad its all pretty much a paper weight with
Windows Vista isntalled.
 
Well, I think there is some hope, but I will give you the generic lecture.
If you had a stable platform and had no real reason to upgrade, then you
should have waited until you had a real reason to upgrade.

Dual booting once Vista is already installed is probably going to be a
little tougher, since it normally like XP installed first and then Vista.
But you should look at a program called Vista Boot Pro
(www.vistabootpro.org) and see if you can't use that program to get you a
dual booting config. Of course, I encourage you to put XP on a seperate hard
disk, versus sharing a partition.

Not sure why BF2142 is not working for you. I've played Much hours of BF2142
under Vista 64. You do have to make sure to run the program with the "Run as
administrator' option. But that shouldn't be causing crashes on Stage loads.
When you say it won't load, are you talking about installing the game or
loading a map. When you go to install the game, you probably need to also
run the setup.exe as administrator as well.

If nothing else, try turning off the UAC and see if that fixes the problem.
You can find the UAC option under Control Panel - User accounts.

I don't play Titan Quest, can't help you there and I haven't used X-fire in
years, but I had heard alot of problems being caused by that under Vista. I
think it also needs the Run As administrator option, but more than likely it
needs a Vista update.

Just remember, there is always a price for being on the cutting edge.
 
I need HELP. Once upon a time, when my computer ran Windows XP - I had a very
stable and enjoyable PC experience, all the way around. Applications started
when I wanted them too, and ALL the games I wanted to play ran without
question.
I was excited about Vista, and defended it when all my other gaming
buddies bagged on it and me for making the switch. Now, I feel like an idiot.
Battlefield: 2142 crashes on stage loads. Sure, it has the "this game has
only been tested on Windows XP 32-bit" but the compatibility mode on Vista
doesn't even let the copy-protection scheme on Battlefield 2142 work
correctly - so it won't load.
Click to expand...


Works fine here even on a version bought via EA Link.
 
Khatoic said:
I need HELP. Once upon a time, when my computer ran Windows XP - I had a
very
stable and enjoyable PC experience, all the way around. Applications
started
when I wanted them too, and ALL the games I wanted to play ran without
question.
I was excited about Vista, and defended it when all my other gaming
buddies bagged on it and me for making the switch. Now, I feel like an
idiot.
Battlefield: 2142 crashes on stage loads. Sure, it has the "this game has
only been tested on Windows XP 32-bit" but the compatibility mode on Vista
doesn't even let the copy-protection scheme on Battlefield 2142 work
correctly - so it won't load.
Titan Quest - simple enough game - crashes for random things now with
little or no explanation as to why.
XFIRE used to be a wonderful tool for ingame chat. Now, it's a prime
source
for PC crashing.
So, then these wonderful VISTA only games come along so -- my idea was to
dual-boot. That led to a total train wreck of an XP intsallation that led
to
a total re-load of Windows Vista and STILL no dual boot capability into
Windows XP.

I used to HATE console gaming, but now I hate my PC even more. I spent A
LOT of money building a pretty awesome gaming rig. 2x 8800GTX to go in an
Asus Striker Extreme motherboard with a Core2Duo processor, 2 Gigs of RAM
and
a very nice 30" LCD monitor. To bad its all pretty much a paper weight
with
Windows Vista isntalled.
Click to expand...

No problems playing the following with Vista

Rome Total War
Rome Barbarian Invasion
Medieval Total War 2
Stalker Chernobyl
Silent Hunter 4
Virtual Tennis 3
 
Khatoic said:
I need HELP. Once upon a time, when my computer ran Windows XP - I had a very
stable and enjoyable PC experience, all the way around. Applications started
when I wanted them too, and ALL the games I wanted to play ran without
question.
I was excited about Vista, and defended it when all my other gaming
buddies bagged on it and me for making the switch. Now, I feel like an idiot.
Battlefield: 2142 crashes on stage loads. Sure, it has the "this game has
only been tested on Windows XP 32-bit" but the compatibility mode on Vista
doesn't even let the copy-protection scheme on Battlefield 2142 work
correctly - so it won't load.
Titan Quest - simple enough game - crashes for random things now with
little or no explanation as to why.
XFIRE used to be a wonderful tool for ingame chat. Now, it's a prime source
for PC crashing.
So, then these wonderful VISTA only games come along so -- my idea was to
dual-boot. That led to a total train wreck of an XP intsallation that led to
a total re-load of Windows Vista and STILL no dual boot capability into
Windows XP.

I used to HATE console gaming, but now I hate my PC even more. I spent A
LOT of money building a pretty awesome gaming rig. 2x 8800GTX to go in an
Asus Striker Extreme motherboard with a Core2Duo processor, 2 Gigs of RAM and
a very nice 30" LCD monitor. To bad its all pretty much a paper weight with
Windows Vista isntalled.
Click to expand...


Okay, this is an IF...

Many recent MBs have an option to choose which drive you boot from, in
the case of this here Gigabyte MB it's F12.

Install XP on one drive, Vista on another (ONLY have one drive in the
machine when you do this) and the BIOS drive sector will allow you to
choose. You MUST remove the drive you are not installing on...

It's not as elegant as VistaBootPro claims to be but that doesn't
actually work so elegant or not there's no point.

Does you MB manual or website give any data about such an option?
 
The world thanks you for that inspirational insight. You don't by any
chance have such an erudite solution to the problem of international
terrorism do you?
 
I cannot run STALKER, it freezes up about five minutes into gameplay. I
cannot run ArmA combat operations, it immediately stops working and sends an
error report. Farcry freezes constantly. I have 2 gb ram, an intel core 2
quad q6600, Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb superclocked x2. I have downloaded
all the latest patches for the games above, but still no luck. Any ideas
from the people who can run these without a problem?
 
You might get a better response reposting a new question with the title
Farcry, Stalker and Arma crashes and if you can find it include the
number of the video card driver you are using in the post.

Also, it's not impossible that it could be the sound card or drivers
causing trouble.

Are you running Vista 32 or 64?
 
I am running 64bit vista, and I have checked on the soundcard drivers, I am
running the latest nvidia drivers, so I don't know what the heck the problem
could be other then vista instability.
 
Does any of your games utilize Star-Force copy protection? If yes . on the
starforce website they have updated vista protection drivers.
 
Khatoic, I have as system almost identical to yours except I have 4Gigs of
ram. I'm not playing Battlefield: 2142 or Titan Quest and I don't use XFIRE,
but my experience has been similar for some games. Gothic 3 is still
unplayable on my system and Neverwinter Nights 2 was unplayable at
2560x1600. Even Half-Life 2 gave me lock up and crashing problems along with
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. However, things have got better but not
perfect. The 8800 GTX in SLI mode is a disappointment due to its' low
performance level in games relative to what it should be able to do. Games
are playable, however.

I found a couple of things have helped. One is to make sure your bios on the
mainboard is up to date. The latest version is 1102. Memory compatibility
was part of my problems. (Out of curiosity what memory are you using? )
Also, I suggest you update to the latest Nvidia drivers if you haven't
already. Latest are 158.24's but the latest beta is 158.45. Finally, and
this was the most helpful thing for me, was to make sure in the Nvidia
Control Panel under 3D Settings > Adjust Image Settings with Preview that
you select "Use the advanced 3D image settings" button. If you do that the
Nvidia profiles for your games will be used.

Most of my games are now working well.

Hope this helps. Ya, we bought in too soon. We believed the Nvidia hype and
the Vista hype. Things will get better.

All the best.

Riverdog
 
blkgto said:
I am running 64bit vista, and I have checked on the soundcard drivers, I am
running the latest nvidia drivers, so I don't know what the heck the
problem
could be other then vista instability.
Click to expand...

You have an overclocked video card, According to Extremetech.com, most
overclocked video cards that come overclocked fail quite easily. Might want
to call whoever made the card, or take out the overclock settings and see if
that helps at all.

(New hardware+New OS) + Old Games = New Problems

Good luck with that overclocked stuff.
 
Uncle Nobby said:
No problems playing the following with Vista

Rome Total War
Rome Barbarian Invasion
Medieval Total War 2
Stalker Chernobyl
Silent Hunter 4
Virtual Tennis 3

your having a laugh arnt you?.
Click to expand...
stalker, hard locks at random
bioshock, crashes and returns to desktop at random
collin mcrae dirt plays for aproox 5mins then eather you get a massive drop
in frame rate or crashs back to desktop
ghost recon 2,crashes to desktop or hard locks
test drive unlimited, 1 minute works ok the next like im playing it on a
card with 64mb of memory.
company of heroes plays ok but crashes when it feels like it.
the list goes on and on and on
as far as vista putting gamers in mind, what a load of bull its the wost
operating system ive ever had
no game i have works properly and belive me thats a lot it pisses me of
because it cost me nearly £200 for the oem vista, £450 for the 8800gtx i
could have bought both the playstation 3 and nintendo wii (with the state of
visa i wouldnt even consider the xbox360) even without the gaming problems
vista sucks the defrag works for 30 seconds or so the it does not defrag even
though it says it does the task manager shows otherwise.the only thing vista
is good for is looking at.SO COME ON MICROSOFT SPEND SOME OF THAT MONEY YOU
RIPPED US ALL OF WITH AND GET THE PROBEMS FIXED
 
hobbo1522 skrev:
: .....
stalker, hard locks at random
bioshock, crashes and returns to desktop at random
collin mcrae dirt plays for aproox 5mins then eather you get a massive drop
in frame rate or crashs back to desktop
ghost recon 2,crashes to desktop or hard locks
test drive unlimited, 1 minute works ok the next like im playing it on a
card with 64mb of memory.
company of heroes plays ok but crashes when it feels like it.
the list goes on and on and on
as far as vista putting gamers in mind, what a load of bull its the wost
operating system ive ever had
no game i have works properly and belive me thats a lot it pisses me of
because it cost me nearly £200 for the oem vista, £450 for the 8800gtx i
could have bought both the playstation 3 and nintendo wii (with the state of
visa i wouldnt even consider the xbox360) even without the gaming problems
vista sucks the defrag works for 30 seconds or so the it does not defrag even
though it says it does the task manager shows otherwise.the only thing vista
is good for is looking at.SO COME ON MICROSOFT SPEND SOME OF THAT MONEY YOU
RIPPED US ALL OF WITH AND GET THE PROBEMS FIXED
Click to expand...

It's not a Vista problem. Did you replace your power supply when you got
the 8800GTX? If the machine in ordinary office and internet tasks is
stable, I'm pretty sure you got a weak power supply.
 
hobbo1522 said:
stalker, hard locks at random
bioshock, crashes and returns to desktop at random
collin mcrae dirt plays for aproox 5mins then eather you get a massive
drop
in frame rate or crashs back to desktop
ghost recon 2,crashes to desktop or hard locks
test drive unlimited, 1 minute works ok the next like im playing it on a
card with 64mb of memory.
company of heroes plays ok but crashes when it feels like it.
the list goes on and on and on
as far as vista putting gamers in mind, what a load of bull its the wost
operating system ive ever had
no game i have works properly and belive me thats a lot it pisses me of
because it cost me nearly £200 for the oem vista, £450 for the 8800gtx i
could have bought both the playstation 3 and nintendo wii (with the state
of
visa i wouldnt even consider the xbox360) even without the gaming problems
vista sucks the defrag works for 30 seconds or so the it does not defrag
even
though it says it does the task manager shows otherwise.the only thing
vista
is good for is looking at.SO COME ON MICROSOFT SPEND SOME OF THAT MONEY
YOU
RIPPED US ALL OF WITH AND GET THE PROBEMS FIXED
Click to expand...

I have a rig with identical specs as yours except that I have 4 gigs of ram.
I am not having trouble running games in Vista Ultimate 64 bit except when
there is a Nvidia graphics driver issue as there is with the Crysis Demo. In
fact, over the last 6 months my experience with Vista and games has improved
markedly. I have made sure I have all the latest Nvidia updates and Vista
updates, especially the updates recommended by Nvidia. Also, the latest bios
update for your (my) mother board is the 1305 version. Finally, I have a
1000 watt power supply.

Regards, RiverDog
 
hobbo1522 said:
stalker, hard locks at random
bioshock, crashes and returns to desktop at random
collin mcrae dirt plays for aproox 5mins then eather you get a massive
drop
in frame rate or crashs back to desktop
ghost recon 2,crashes to desktop or hard locks
test drive unlimited, 1 minute works ok the next like im playing it on a
card with 64mb of memory.
company of heroes plays ok but crashes when it feels like it.
the list goes on and on and on
as far as vista putting gamers in mind, what a load of bull its the wost
operating system ive ever had
no game i have works properly and belive me thats a lot it pisses me of
because it cost me nearly £200 for the oem vista, £450 for the 8800gtx i
could have bought both the playstation 3 and nintendo wii (with the state
of
visa i wouldnt even consider the xbox360) even without the gaming problems
vista sucks the defrag works for 30 seconds or so the it does not defrag
even
though it says it does the task manager shows otherwise.the only thing
vista
is good for is looking at.SO COME ON MICROSOFT SPEND SOME OF THAT MONEY
YOU
RIPPED US ALL OF WITH AND GET THE PROBEMS FIXED
Click to expand...

Yeah, doesn't sound like Vista, sounds like hardware issues.

FYI, consoles are a great investment now a days, I think I get more quality
time out of my 360 anyday, but I still love certain MMOs, and other PC
titles that consoles can't quite touch yet (too much quibbling amongst
themselves).

Defragging isn't gonna fix crash problems in any operating system, all it
does is line up your files on your HD so they are prettier.

SP1 beta is looking good, but it is beta. If I were you I'd download some
hardware test utilities like memtest or PC-Check, see if your hardware isn't
the problem.

-A.
 
Did you look into a hardware problem? With all those games crashing it
either looks like a misconfigured system, hardware issue, or user error...
 
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