Vista Ultimate or Home Premium for Gaming Rig?

Sorry if this has been posted before, I tried searching for it but all of the posts I could find were comparing 64 bit to 32 bit, or comparing vista to xp.


Is Vista Ultimate or Home Premium better for a gaming rig? (both would be in 64 bit)



Ultimate sounds more powerful from its description but it also sounds like it could be loaded with more junk I'll never use..


Thanks

I vote Home Premium unless you need/want any of the Ultimate features. I personally don't use any of the Ultimate features I paid for...

I second Trap05. Just more junk you wont use.

Agreed, Vista home premium will most likely accomodate your needs just fine.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

I'd go with the premium edition if you're looking to save a few dollars. I like dream scene for some reason though.

Windows XP FTW. There are NO games that currently take full advantage of DX10--even Crysis can be modded to get high detail in XP.

Save yourself a lot of money--a lot of bloat--and a lot of disappointment--get XP now and wait for Windows "7."

mbigna said:

Save yourself a lot of money--a lot of bloat--and a lot of disappointment--get XP now and wait for Windows "7."

Click to expand...

Just to note that is purely your opinion not fact. IMO I would get VISTA Premium.

Vista Ultimate..... just sounds so cool!!!!! but is unneeded.

Home premium is just fine. Dreamscene is the only thing that seems cool, but I aint gonna just sit there and stare at my desktop all day. I rather be gaming.

the big question is ... have they resolved the fps issues w/ either yet?

greyharte said:

the big question is ... have they resolved the fps issues w/ either yet?

Click to expand...

what fps issue?

my games play just as fast in vista than xp, never had an issue to low fps or slower everything runs great some games even run better in vista...if you have a good rig vista will fly

If you look at the list of features that Ultimate / Premium offer and don't find yourself in a need for them, just stick with Premium. Definitely do not go by the "Ultimate Extras". In the past year that I have had Ultimate x32 or now x64 I think there has been 3 updates. 1 for Dreamscene, 1 for extra Dreamscenes, and one for Hold'em Poker. Sort of a gimmick feature by MS.

Sadly one of the main reasons I had to opt to go with Ultimate is that I rely very heavily on RDP. I am RDP'ed into my home machine all day. The "server" aspect of RDP is only available on Business & Ultimate. In that regard, well worth it .

Just to note, I still prefer XP. I still am not 100% happy with how Vista is laid out. I actually started with Vista in beta as Longhorn and received a retail copy shortly after release. I can say that it has improved a lot since then, however there is still a lot of room to grow. "Windows 7" is too far off to wait it out. You are looking ~2010 or 11 to see some light on that. Between now and then, I think Vista will become more polished and essentially you will see XP completely phased out.

Thanks for the info.

One quick question, the website that compares Vista editions (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx)
says that Home Premium does not have any remote desktop? But is that just talking about how you can make your computer a mini server..?

I'm pretty sure I will need Remote Desktop (I use it a lot atm on my laptop to connect to some computers), but if home premium has that capability then I'll go with that.

Premium I'd say is the typical solution for most people. I have Utilimate and use some of the features that go with it. I like it and don't regret getting it.

eneldin said:

Thanks for the info.

One quick question, the website that compares Vista editions (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx)
says that Home Premium does not have any remote desktop? But is that just talking about how you can make your computer a mini server..?

I'm pretty sure I will need Remote Desktop (I use it a lot atm on my laptop to connect to some computers), but if home premium has that capability then I'll go with that.

Click to expand...

All versions of Windows can run the Remote Desktop client. Where Premium differs from Business & Ultimate edition is that the latter can run as a RDP server. With home premium you will not be able to Remote Desktop into the machine, but you can surely remote desktop out.

Having said that, that doesn't mean there aren't other ways to remote control Home Premium. VNC & Logmein are a couple different examples. Personally I prefer RDP over the other mentioned ways.

As for a "mini-server" Premium can do file sharing without a problem. You just won't be able to remote desktop into the machine.

VinnyTAMU said:

Just to note that is purely your opinion not fact. IMO I would get VISTA Premium.

Click to expand...

Well, it has been seen that there can be up to a 30% performance hit from XP to Vista with the same hardware...

So I think that this would be fact...

Plus you need all these other things enabled to get it to run faster.. Funny stuff like: Prefetch and Ready boost..

IMO, These things were after thoughts.

If it were such a great OS, there would not be a need for these speed boosters...

You guys should look into Windows 2008 server, all the bloatware is removed, and you can turn the things on that you want. It even comes as a CMD prompt version as well... and get this, can run on 1 gig of RAM without any issues....

mbigna said:

Windows XP FTW. There are NO games that currently take full advantage of DX10--even Crysis can be modded to get high detail in XP.

Save yourself a lot of money--a lot of bloat--and a lot of disappointment--get XP now and wait for Windows "7."

Click to expand...

Yes, wait until 2011..... enjoy waiting, you dont like vista, sorry to hear it, theydidnt ask about XP, they asked about Vista, what if they want to use more then 4G of ram and actually want decent driver support... (there goes XP32 and Xp 64bit)

Well, it has been seen that there can be up to a 30% performance hit from XP to Vista with the same hardware...

So I think that this would be fact...

Plus you need all these other things enabled to get it to run faster.. Funny stuff like: Prefetch and Ready boost..

IMO, These things were after thoughts.

If it were such a great OS, there would not be a need for these speed boosters...

You guys should look into Windows 2008 server, all the bloatware is removed, and you can turn the things on that you want. It even comes as a CMD prompt version as well... and get this, can run on 1 gig of RAM without any issues....

Click to expand...

Maybe a %30 hit on year old + reviews, more recent ones show a far ,less, FAR FAR less hit on performance, and the general improvement of memory management, superfetch and such makes vista react much faster then XP, for most, and myself, at least.

And those other things are already enabled by default...

it is a good OS, they are in the OS, how does MS including something in the OS, not make it good? that makes no sense, they have it in the OS - they just decided that you can turn it off it you like..... how is having a choice a bad thing.


Most people dont have $500 plus for a server operating system (i think just over $400 for the web edition, about $600 for standard), and many things, dont run on server 200*, such as many home anti-viruses, various games need patching or hacks to get to work as well.

Vista can run on 1g of ram with out issues as well. you can turn off all the fancy smanchy goodies making it basically XP with a newer kernal and better networking.

MR-FIX-IT said:

Well, it has been seen that there can be up to a 30% performance hit from XP to Vista with the same hardware...

So I think that this would be fact...

Plus you need all these other things enabled to get it to run faster.. Funny stuff like: Prefetch and Ready boost..

IMO, These things were after thoughts.

If it were such a great OS, there would not be a need for these speed boosters...

You guys should look into Windows 2008 server, all the bloatware is removed, and you can turn the things on that you want. It even comes as a CMD prompt version as well... and get this, can run on 1 gig of RAM without any issues....

Click to expand...

Ummm prefetch is in XP and it sucks. Same with memory management. Hence why in Vista its called Super Fetch and actually does learn what programs are used and keeps bits in local memory to launch it quicker. Speed boost is for slower HDD or people that lack overall system memory. Its not an after thought it was put into the system with this in mind.

You can disable features in Vista to equal that of Windows 2008 just as well. SP1 brings basically Vista up to speed with 2008, just Vista has more user friendly services running.

deathman20 said:

Ummm prefetch is in XP and it sucks. Same with memory management. Hence why in Vista its called Super Fetch and actually does learn what programs are used and keeps bits in local memory to launch it quicker. Speed boost is for slower HDD or people that lack overall system memory. Its not an after thought it was put into the system with this in mind.

You can disable features in Vista to equal that of Windows 2008 just as well. SP1 brings basically Vista up to speed with 2008, just Vista has more user friendly services running.

Click to expand...

See, That just proves I don't know Vista.

The one thing I don't like, and I know it gives it back, but if you have 2 gig of ram, it uses almost everything, and leaves nothing free. Now for an OS to use every last Gig to run just the OS, something is up there...

My XP box has I think 17 Processes running. I have about 1.7 Gig free for anything and don't have to hope that Vista will give it back...

I may switch soon, just to get into it. I've been holding back for some time now...Wanted SP1 to be included in the version before I buy it..

I'm new to the forum, and certainly don't want to stir up a Vista vs XP discussion. As for one, I'm sure it's been covered to death here. Second I especially don't want to crap on the OP's initial question of which version of Vista.

Having said that I'll contribute .02. Do I think the Vista is the excellent, groundbreaking, revolutionary OS that XP was when first release? Of course not. The performance hit was right around 30% when Vista was first released. This is not uncommon. Those of you that were into computing / gaming not all that long ago when XP was released. It was horrid. People were kicking and screaming that they would never switch over that and 98SE (gotta be SE, USB!!!). My point is with any OS, there are growing pains.

Do I think Vista has some bloatware? Of course. The truth is, XP is getting phased out. Sure it's not going to happen tomorrow, but in a year or so when driver updates stop. Newer games really unleash DX10 (or beyond), it's going to come time where you have to part with XP. Question is do it now, or wait a year or so. I chose to switch over now. As the performance difference really isn't all that much. You can disable most "bloatware". Hell you can make it look identicle to XP.

The absolute deciding factor for me was ram. We all know that to get 4gb+ of ram to register you need XP x64 or Vista x64. Right there hands down, Vista x64 wins. XP x64 was merely a rushed project that never really caught on. Server 2008 in my opinion isn't a reasonable choice due to poor home functionality & very high price range.

just my .02.