Windows Vista performance question...

i am using a computer that i built almost 3 years ago... it has an Intel 478 socket 2.8ghz, 512 ddr400 ram, and 128mb Radeon 9800 Pro ... i just installed Windows Vista a couple of days ago... i do occasional gaming, but 99% of the time, my computer is used for Internet, music, TV, and watching other videos... i don't really consider myself as a power user but i also don't like waiting on my computer... needless to say, with 512mb of ram, Vista was very slow... i can't even watch TV properly without the thing having to pause so often while the OS access the pagefiles...

i went out and bought an additional 1GB ram and that made everything better... everything seems instant now... after the initial loading on boot up, the OS doesn't really make me wait anymore...

my question is, i've been reading some reviews about Vista and some of them complain that the OS is still unbearably slow even with 1GB of ram and 256mb video card... i don't know if it's because most of these reviews are evaluating beta versions of the OS or if my expectations on how a PC should perform is just not as high as most of these reviewers'... because as i said, with my 1.5GB of ram and only 128mb of an older AGP ATI 9800 Pro, it seems like Vista is already fast (for what i use my computer for), and i can't imagine it being much more faster... so how come a lot of the reviewers are complaining about performance...? i read one who even said that he can't watch a video properly while he browse the Internet with 1gb of ram and 256mb video... i'm already doing those, plus more and have 3 different chat programs running and i don't experience any noticeable lag... i'm just wondering if there's really a big improvement between the beta versions and the final release...?

There's a million different factors. Chat programs are not resource intensive. HDTV requires far, far more resources than SDTV. Not all 128 MB graphics cards are created equal. Not all cpu's are created equal. People have different expectations. etc.

i understand that there's a lot of factors, but i guess i just want to know if there is really a huge difference between the betas and the final version... cause i can't really imagine the OS being anymore smoother than what i have now... on my system, Vista with 1.5gb ram is actually running a lot smoother than XP with 512mb...

Works for me... Vista that is,, I feel ya, what your sayin..

I was using the vista rtm 32bit to test but brought oem 64bit and since i put the 64bit on my memory usage has gone up

MRD said:

People have different expectations.

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I really think that is the common issue there. People expect Vista to be faster and better performance than XP, it is not. You need a NEW modern system to run Vista comfortably. New Dells have started comming with 1GB ram and add on videocards.

I could barely get XP to run on my Win98SE computer (K6-3 350MHz, 128MD SDRAM, 80GB HDD, gForce 2 video). Diffrence now is that I have more money and was well into the Vista comfort zone (good videocard and 2GB RAM). I just built this system in the summer of 2006, my previous system (Athlon 64 3000+, 1GB DDR, 80GB+320GB HDD, gForce FX5700LE) would be somewhat slow for Vista, but capable. My brother had that system now, and runs Home Premium fine, not much multitasking capacity, but fine.


A power user who had a X2 5000, 2GB DDR2, sli FX7950GT, someone who lives on getting just one more FPS in a game and how fast he can do super pi will be dissapointed. Vista uses more resources than XP, simple.

Give it a year or so, everyone will have gone to Vista or Linux and be praising how great it is (or how they were cool and went to Linux).

I tested the betas and RCs and I now have the final release of Vista Business on a laptop. All tested on the exact same hardware doing the exact same office work type of tasks. The final release is a lot smoother and more polished, as would be expected.

Give it a year or so, everyone will have gone to Vista or Linux and be praising how great it is (or how they were cool and went to Linux).

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I still think you're wrong about this. 95% of the public that doesn't buy a new computer with Vista on it will still be using whatever version of Windows their computer came with 5 years from now. Operating system upgrades are not important enough for most people to spend money on, no matter how much marketing hype you put into them. XP runs your software, vista runs your software (well most of it), that's all people care.

MRD said:

I still think you're wrong about this. 95% of the public that doesn't buy a new computer with Vista on it will still be using whatever version of Windows their computer came with 5 years from now. Operating system upgrades are not important enough for most people to spend money on, no matter how much marketing hype you put into them. XP runs your software, vista runs your software (well most of it), that's all people care.

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i think i'm one of those people you are describing... i think that's the reason why i haven't upgraded any hardware in close to 3 years now... it's because my computer is still smooth for what i use it for... the only reason i switched to Vista is because my XP MCE install has been bothering me for a few months now... as i said in the previous post, i can't even watch tv properly while surfing the Internet and chatting with people... i wanted to reinstall XP but since Vista is already out, i just decided to go with that... of course, after installation, Vista was worse... that's why i bought more ram... but on a hind sight, i would have fixed the problems i was having with XP if i just bought the 1gb ram in the first place and didn't have to change to Vista...

i have been running vista 32 bit for about 2 weeks now and i will never go back. the sweet spot with vista is 2GB ram and some graphics card with atleast 256MB ram. ( this being most cards with 256mb have enough power to run areo nicely).

it is a resource hog but it uses them differently than xp did. it pages to disk in a different way and it utilizes memory better. ( but it uses alot more of it)

It gets better as you turn crap off just like with XP, but I turned a lot of stuff off and my base memory usage at idle is 760MB. So I can't imagine it running to well with 1GB of memory.