jjmelo.com— For everyone out there claiming that you need a very high-end PC to run Windows Vista, this article shows that you don't need to break the bank to enjoy Vista to its fullest
Feb 27, 2007View in Crawl 4
I'm currently running Vista Ultimage RTM on an Athlon XP 2600, with 1gb of Ram, ATI 9600 Vid, and a 120GB SATA drive. IT RUNS JUST AS GOOD AS THE SAME MACHINE RUNNING XP and openSUSE 10.2. openSUSE 10.2 on the same machine with beryl is a complete dog, plus it's unstable and buggy as hell.
Wow, I was trying to be fair to the Mac, but in light of what I'm hearing, the Mac doesn't even compare. Here's a revised comparison:Mac Mini1.66 GHZ Core Duo (wins)2 GB 667 RAM (Ties)160 GB HD (Loses)(No Monitor or Keyboards for either)Intel GMA 900 Graphics (Loses)OS included (Wins)$1099 (Loses)Fanboys can extrapolate on behalf of their preferences from there with cliches such as video games, viruses, Media Centers, aesthetics.. etc...
I installed Vista Business on my main PC. Specs are very low end:AMD Sempron 2200+ (Socket A)768MB Memory80GB Western Digital Hard DriveYamaha 16x10x40 CD-RWPioneer 16x8x16 DVD-RW1.44MB Floppy Drive (Full of dust)nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MBCheap AC97 Onboard Sound (because my Soundblaster Live Value isn't supported in Vista)I had Aero enabled (disabled it only because I had some compatibility issues with Audition and VMware using 3D support) and it wasn't top of the line performance, but it was smooth enough to enjoy the effect. I still enjoy Expose on Mac OS X better than Flip 3D, but Vista has proven it self stable enough to not crash on me yet and it runs everything at about the same speed as Windows XP. I am not a gamer, but I do play Halo a bit. My system score breakdown is as follows:Processor: 2.8Memory: 3.9Graphics 2.9Gaming graphics: 2.6Primary hard disk: 5.0My next step is to upgrade the graphics card to a nVidia 6x00 series or ATI x1000 series. The next upgrade is a CPU/Motherboard upgrade to a AMD64 or CoreDuo machine (whichever gives me better performance per dollar spent, aka cheaper). I also installed Vista RC2 on a Dell Inpiron 6000 with 512MB memory, but a Pentium M 1.8GHz and ATI x300 graphics and visual performance was better, but lack of memory caused it to lag.
The advantage isn't that "it looks pretty." The Aero theme is part of Window's new window management system. You know why OSX draws windows much fast, and can update video without tearing? Because the windows are actually 3D objects to the system, and the graphics card stores and handles all drawing the windows. In XP the windows are managed by software and the processor, which is why video playback tears when you move the window. There is a significant performance boots by allowing your graphics card to do those jobs.
And to be honest, I don't mind getting dugg down. It comes with the territory of being right. If Vista actually gave the user a fundamentally better OS, it would be selling like hotcakes. It doesn't. It looks nicer, but it is far less efficient, power and memory-wise to do everything in 3D when it could be handled adequately in 2.This is my OS should be the smallest app on the computer bias. Which I am quite proud to have. If I want a different explorer that runs in Direct3D all the time, I can run that on top of a lightweight OS. Its really too bad windows wasn't built to accommodate such things.
ray901Feb 28, 2007
no wonder it's cheap - it doesn't have a power supply....
Closed AccountFeb 28, 2007
I'm currently running Vista Ultimage RTM on an Athlon XP 2600, with 1gb of Ram, ATI 9600 Vid, and a 120GB SATA drive. IT RUNS JUST AS GOOD AS THE SAME MACHINE RUNNING XP and openSUSE 10.2. openSUSE 10.2 on the same machine with beryl is a complete dog, plus it's unstable and buggy as hell.
desistereFeb 28, 2007
Wow, I was trying to be fair to the Mac, but in light of what I'm hearing, the Mac doesn't even compare. Here's a revised comparison:Mac Mini1.66 GHZ Core Duo (wins)2 GB 667 RAM (Ties)160 GB HD (Loses)(No Monitor or Keyboards for either)Intel GMA 900 Graphics (Loses)OS included (Wins)$1099 (Loses)Fanboys can extrapolate on behalf of their preferences from there with cliches such as video games, viruses, Media Centers, aesthetics.. etc...
nickhammFeb 28, 2007
I installed Vista Business on my main PC. Specs are very low end:AMD Sempron 2200+ (Socket A)768MB Memory80GB Western Digital Hard DriveYamaha 16x10x40 CD-RWPioneer 16x8x16 DVD-RW1.44MB Floppy Drive (Full of dust)nVidia GeForce FX 5200 128MBCheap AC97 Onboard Sound (because my Soundblaster Live Value isn't supported in Vista)I had Aero enabled (disabled it only because I had some compatibility issues with Audition and VMware using 3D support) and it wasn't top of the line performance, but it was smooth enough to enjoy the effect. I still enjoy Expose on Mac OS X better than Flip 3D, but Vista has proven it self stable enough to not crash on me yet and it runs everything at about the same speed as Windows XP. I am not a gamer, but I do play Halo a bit. My system score breakdown is as follows:Processor: 2.8Memory: 3.9Graphics 2.9Gaming graphics: 2.6Primary hard disk: 5.0My next step is to upgrade the graphics card to a nVidia 6x00 series or ATI x1000 series. The next upgrade is a CPU/Motherboard upgrade to a AMD64 or CoreDuo machine (whichever gives me better performance per dollar spent, aka cheaper). I also installed Vista RC2 on a Dell Inpiron 6000 with 512MB memory, but a Pentium M 1.8GHz and ATI x300 graphics and visual performance was better, but lack of memory caused it to lag.
theredbombFeb 28, 2007
The advantage isn't that "it looks pretty." The Aero theme is part of Window's new window management system. You know why OSX draws windows much fast, and can update video without tearing? Because the windows are actually 3D objects to the system, and the graphics card stores and handles all drawing the windows. In XP the windows are managed by software and the processor, which is why video playback tears when you move the window. There is a significant performance boots by allowing your graphics card to do those jobs.
tdr25Mar 1, 2007
I'm sure I'm not the only person that will say this, but I'm sure that you'd save a ton of money if you just through a Linux Distro on that som'bitch!
afreytMar 1, 2007
And to be honest, I don't mind getting dugg down. It comes with the territory of being right. If Vista actually gave the user a fundamentally better OS, it would be selling like hotcakes. It doesn't. It looks nicer, but it is far less efficient, power and memory-wise to do everything in 3D when it could be handled adequately in 2.This is my OS should be the smallest app on the computer bias. Which I am quite proud to have. If I want a different explorer that runs in Direct3D all the time, I can run that on top of a lightweight OS. Its really too bad windows wasn't built to accommodate such things.
afreytMar 1, 2007
And you won't be sacrificing a gig of RAM to the OS.