Fuck you, Tremulous pwns. I've played more on Tremulous than I have on Bioshock, or Crysis, or S.T.A.L.K.E.R, or TF2, or BF2142.


As for Vista, leave it well alone, in fact, if you see it on any computer you are being offered, consider the other options very thoroughly. It's amazing how badly MS fucked up with Vista.

 

It's a DRM driven, memory hogging, CPU fucking, aesthetic nightmare.

Stick with XP.

 

I haven't kept up but don't you need Vista for DirectX 10?

 

Yes DirectX 10 is only suppose to work with vista, but I have heard of people getting it working on XP.

http://www.techmixer.com/download-directx-10-for-windows-xp/

 

For all that people complain about it, Vista isn't too bad for general use. Most people who hate on it are those who actually take note of things like RAM usage, which isn't really that many people, proportionally speaking.

Vista is slightly slower than XP, it is true, but it is also much more convenient. For a general use user like Lady Sorrows, I'd say Vista is the superior option. More user friendly, less fiddling and extra programs required. For example... to burn a DVD on XP you have to buy/download a separate program. Vista comes with it built in. Just little things like that make Vista a smoother experience than XP, even if XP is more efficient in terms of system resources.

To use a Harry Potter analogy, the choice between XP and Vista is the choice between what is right (XP) and what is easy (Vista).

If you do decide to get Vista, be aware that if you are going to get 4GB of RAM then Vista will only utilise this if it is the 64 bit version. If I recall correctly, 32bit Vista uses a max of 2GB RAM.

Also, you might like to look at MESH computers. I haven't looked at their systems in a while, but 2 years back when I was investigating desktops (I ended up building my own) I recall them being pretty good value.

Edit: Yeah, taking a look at them MESH are still doing good deals. Here are three of the best:

For £600

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 Dual Core Processor(3.16GHz,6MB Cache,1333MHz)
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
• MESH Mini-Tower Micro ATX Case +250W PSU - 190mm(W) x 375mm(H) x 390mm(D)
• ASUS P5N-MX Nvidia Geforce7050 Mainboard - Intel Core™ 2 Duo/Quad Core MATX
• 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM - (2x 2GB)
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
• Samsung 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer Super Format +R/-R/RW/RAM
• 512MB ATI Radeon HD3450 (Direct X10.1, PCI Express 2.0)
• 22" Widescreen LCD TFT Digital Display (DVI, 5ms)
• 5.1 High Definition onboard sound card - 6 Channel Cinema sound

For £650

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E8500 Dual Core Processor(3.16GHz,6MB Cache,1333MHz)
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
• MESH Stylus Silverstone Compact Performance Chassis 300W PSU (270mm (W)x212(H)x393(D)
• ASUS P5N-MX Nvidia Geforce7050 Mainboard - Intel Core™ 2 Duo/Quad Core MATX
• 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM - (2x 2GB)
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
• Blu-ray ROM Player Dual layer DVD Writer 24 x CD Writer
• 512MB ATI Radeon HD3450 (Direct X10.1, PCI Express 2.0)
• 22" Widescreen LCD TFT Digital Display (DVI, 5ms)
• 5.1 High Definition onboard sound card - 6 Channel Cinema sound

For £700

• Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)
• Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English
• MESH Midi-Tower ATX Case + 550W PSU - 190mm(W) x 420mm(H) x 480mm(D)
• ASUS P5K SE Mainboard - Intel P35 - Intel Core™ 2 Duo/ Quad/ Extreme - ATX
• 8192MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM - (4 x 2GB)
• 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
• Samsung 22x Dual Layer DVD Writer Super Format +R/-R/RW/RAM
• 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS - DVI, HDTV, TV-Out
• 22" Widescreen LCD TFT Digital Display (DVI, 5ms)
• 7.1 High Definition onboard sound card - for 8 Channel Cinema sound
• Logitech Desktop Keyboard & Optical Mouse

The problem with pretty much all of them is that they could really do with much better PSUs/cooling. However, it's pretty easy to get a good PSU for £20-£30 and installing them is a breeze. Otherwise they're very good specs for the money. You can also upgrade the case, PSU and cooling in the customisation option on the site, but all but the first upgrade are shockingly expensive.

 

Actually I'm pretty sure vista 32 bit only sees the same amount as XP 32 bit

 

Windows XP Starter Edition: 512 MB (no 64-bit version exists)
32-bit versions of Windows XP: 4GB
64-bit versions of Windows XP: 128 GB

Windows Vista Starter Edition: 1GB (no 64-bit version exists)
32-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate: 4GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Basic: 8GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Home Premium: 16GB
64-bit versions of Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate: 128GB

Google is your friend.

 

128GB of RAM... 6 years away? I hope they're not intending Vista to be around for the next 6 years lol.

 

Windows 7 is due out 2010, so I doubt it. But, it doesn't mean people will upgrade to it.

 

I am firstly gonna assume that they are going to make some kinda new name for it, and secondly, I think we all know it will be 4 years late.

 

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/

I was more talking about what you will see, like on my laptop that has vista home Premium and 4 GB of RAM, in the system settings I see 3.25GB.

 

Windows MoJave

 

You're completely correct. The amount of memory chewed up is largely dictated by your video requirements. A PC with a 32MB video card will be able to get nearly all of the 4GB, and one with 2x1GB video cards in Crossfire will see less than 2GB of the 4GB RAM they've got installed.

 

Why is that? I didn't really understand the HP article.

 

To understand why this is, you've got to go back. Way back. Back to the horrible old days of DOS and the 640 kilobyte barrier. This is the simplest explanation I've read: http://www.dansdata.com/askdan00015.htm

It's a low level memory architecture issue that affects all PCs, whether they're windows or linux; 32-bit or 64-bit. 64-bit PC's can install 8GB RAM if they like, but the memory hole between 3-4GB will still exist, so they still lose just as much RAM as the rest of us.

Lady Sorrows: Don't buy a 64-bit OS. Stick with 32-bit XP, Vista, or Linux for now. Apple is probably alright for 64-bit though. The problem with 64-bit is the difficulty in trying to find 64-bit drivers for your hardware, and if they do exist, then you have to hope that they're not as buggy as hell.

 

Much easier to understand. Many thanks.

 

Nope, you can use a separate program but simply pasting the files/folders into a blank disk then hitting write these files to CD will do.

 

I don't think that this method would produce a CD/DVD that you could play in a CD/DVD player. At least I could never get it to work...