[BigTree]

Hey guys.

I am turning my one computer into a sole gaming computer that will be used to play games. Nothing more, nothing less. It will be playing all games at 1920x1080 with an 8800gtx (1 for now), most likely q6600 over e6750 and 4 gigs of ram.

I will not even be browsing the internet or msn/irc with this. Which OS should I go with? I know XP doesn't recognize the full 4 gigs of ram and this doesn't bother me too too much to be honest, I just would like to the the OS that will give me the best speed/quality overall.

Gamewise right now will be Crysis, HL2, Bioshock, UT3, COD4 and others.
I have heard that Crysis runs much quicker on XP with some config file tweaking...

I am open to all opinions and suggestions. If you need any more information please ask!

Thanks alot for you advice!

[mbentley]

i would suggest xp over vista for gaming. i hear that some games run slightly slower with winxp x64, but definitely go with winxp

[ErikD]

I am not much of a gamer, but have heard that Vista has a slight edge for certain games. Plus you get DX10, don't know how important that is to you. If you go for more than 3GB of RAM you might as well go for an OS that will recognize and use it. Plus it will leave the possibility to add more in the future where as with 32bit you are stuck.

[juane414]

I went from XP 32-bit to Vista 64-bit and I did notice a drop in frames per second. I upgraded to 4Gb or ram from 2 in the switch, which seemed to make games run more smoothly, but with fewer frames. Vista is enough of a resource hog that it will affect your game performance, but in addition, the video drivers for vista do not allow overclocking (so far). However, I only have a 7600gs which is nothing compared to the 8800gtx. XP with 3.5gb or ram will outperform Vista with 4gb of ram at this point, at least on older games.

[BigTree]

Thanks alot. So XP possibly 32 bit might be the way to go for now...

[FLCLFan]

If your going to have 4 gigs of ram you NEED a x64 operating system. That leaves you XP x64 and Vista x64. For me XP is faster for games then vista is but if you are going to be using games that can support DX10 then go with vista x64, if not then id recommended XP x64.

[Blazing fire]

I would choose xp. Somehow on my vista partition, it always says "can't dump byte XXXXX" when playing team fortress 2.

[brown_dog]

if you wanna use your full 4 gigs of ram on a 64bit vista. Then thats a big mistake. 32 bit vista and XP can detect 4gigs of ram but some of it are allocated for the kernel.

The 64bit vista although can detect the 4gigs of ram but it will consume a whole lot more than the 32-bit verison. You can even have more available ram in a 32 bit vista compared to a 64-bit even in the 32bit version some of the rams is missing in a 4gig setup.

usual vista start up apps like avg antivirus and ati control center nothing more:
vista 32bit consumes upto 600mb - only 3.25gigs detected w/ 4gigs ram
vista 64bit consumes upto 1gb - full 4 gigs detected.

I think in a 32bit vista missings rams are not actually wasted but being reserved for the kernel.

[Cheator]

64bit vista works ok on my rig. But if you want it for gaming go for the dual core, not the quad. It should perform a little better

[ErikD]

Originally Posted by brown_dog

if you wanna use your full 4 gigs of ram on a 64bit vista. Then thats a big mistake. 32 bit vista and XP can detect 4gigs of ram but some of it are allocated for the kernel.

The 64bit vista although can detect the 4gigs of ram but it will consume a whole lot more than the 32-bit verison. You can even have more available ram in a 32 bit vista compared to a 64-bit even in the 32bit version some of the rams is missing in a 4gig setup.

usual vista start up apps like avg antivirus and ati control center nothing more:
vista 32bit consumes upto 600mb - only 3.25gigs detected w/ 4gigs ram
vista 64bit consumes upto 1gb - full 4 gigs detected.

I think in a 32bit vista missings rams are not actually wasted but being reserved for the kernel.

No, it can't be used in a 32bit environment. It has to do with how memory is addressed in the binary system. The "missing" memory isn't reserved or in use by the kernel or anything fancy like that, it is just not usable.

[mbentley]

i also believe that in x86 versions of windows (at least xp) that a single program is limited to accessing 2gb of ram. i have no clue if it is true or not for x64 based systems as well (i don't believe this is true in x64).