Hi All

I've recently purchased P7 and I'm currently waiting for Adobe CS3 Production and I'm looking for advice on upgrading my system.

This is my current PC setup
Pentium 4 -  3.00 Ghz
1Gb RAM
NVIDIA GEFORCE 6200
XP

All the revewies I read in magazines concentrate on gamers but nothing for Poser users so I'm clueless :-(
I think I might aswell upgrade to Vista and Core Duo (NO CONFLICT PROBLEMS I HOPE)
These are some components I've been looking at...
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Abit AB9 Quad GT (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair TwinX 2GB XMS2 Dominator  DDR2 PC6400
GIGABYTE GV-RX195P 256-RH  Graphics card

That little bundle amounts to £523 without Vista so that my max budget.
Also What version of Vista? Premium, Ultimate or will Home Basic do the job?
Thanks

Don't get Vista ... there are a lot of issues still with it.  If you have your XP install disks, keep them.

You want at least 2 Gigs of RAM, 4 is better.  And I'd stick with nVidia for the graphics card, I'd just move up to at least a 6600.

I have an Core 2 Duo chip 1.8 Ghz, 2 Gb of DDR 3200 RAM (the next to be upgraded) and an nVidia graphics card and I run P7, Vue 6, CS2, Bryce, CS3 ... no problems with any of them.

Thanks for the info
The 4Gb RAM made my eyes water but glad you pointed it out as a must have.
Re: Vista
Someone sent me this link, it seems to major problem is Using AVI Movies as Textures
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/2127/1/858/

Also lack of OpenGL support which a lot of programs use.  I won't touch Vista for at least a year.

Quote - Don't get Vista ... there are a lot of issues still with it.  If you have your XP install disks, keep them.

You want at least 2 Gigs of RAM, 4 is better.  And I'd stick with nVidia for the graphics card, I'd just move up to at least a 6600.

I have an Core 2 Duo chip 1.8 Ghz, 2 Gb of DDR 3200 RAM (the next to be upgraded) and an nVidia graphics card and I run P7, Vue 6, CS2, Bryce, CS3 ... no problems with any of them.

Why nvidia?

Because, IMHO, they're the best for updating the video card drivers.  I've had a couple of different vid cards and I always keep coming back to nVidia.

WTF?

Let's try that again...

Hi renderclipps, I was recently bounced into a system upgrade by a failed motherboard on my old Shuttle 2.5Ghz P4 device, and built one using the CPU and memory you mentioned above. I chose an ASUS P5N32-E SLI 680 board (which is fine but probably not worth the premium) and an nVidia 7900 GS graphics card with 512mb of onboard memory.

It's a great success, and I can recommend the general path you're on. The E6600s overclock really well (via increasing the mainboard bus speed), and I have mine running at 3.15Ghz with no special effort other than an aftermarket heatsink and fan (an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - great and cheap at less than £20). The system has been thrashed with extensive testing and is absolutely stable with low core temps. Some people have them running at 3.6Ghz on air cooling, but I'm not going there (boring old fart).

I second the caution re Windows Vista. I'm sure it will turn out to be a fine OS, but it's usually best to let the adventurous find all the problems and let Microsoft work on them for a service release or two.

Regarding memory, be aware that 32bit operating systems have quite a low limit on how much they can use. With Windows XP and Vista it's usually a max of about 3.4GB or so. And applications running under 32bit Windows can only access about 2GB. To use 4GB or more effectively you'll need to use a 64bit operating system (there are 64bit versions of XP and Vista). But the 'problem' with 64bit Windows is that Microsoft only allows approved drivers, so getting older peripherals (printers, scanners, etc) to work may be impossible 'cos manufacturers aren't willing to support older products for a small market. Plus very few applications are written native for 64bit yet, so they have to run under 32bit emulation. 

2GB, or maybe 3GB, of RAM will be sufficient for hobbyist and semi-pro work for some time.

You don't need cutting edge graphics cards for Poser and Photoshop, and I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't tell the difference in those programs between your Geforce 6200 and the latest 8800 effort. I had to buy a new card as my previous GeForce was AGP, and went for the 512mb 7900GS because it was cheap and I use Hexagon and occasionally light game (though am hopeless). nVidia cards are often mentioned in preference over ATI because of supposedly superior OpenGL drivers - which is what 3D users want for their work windows. Though I'd bet that an ATI card would be fine. Fancy cards might need lots of power too, so make your case power supply is up to the task.

I never had good luck with ATI cards.  Just another reasons I stick with nVidia.  And I have 600 Watt power supply that will handle anything I put in.

I am planning on getting Vista Ultimate 64-bit, but I am going to configure Vista on a dual boot setup.  That way, I shouldn't run the risk of losing my XP functionality whenever it's needed -- and I will be able to begin to acclimate myself to Vista.  Which all PC users will have to do eventually.

From what I've read, dual-boot with Vista works like a charm.

I've been an nVidia fan for years, mostly because of the driver support, but in the recent 6 months or so they have fallen way behind ATI's drivers in terms of frequency of release, stability of the releases, and included features.  The old mantra "nVidia has better drivers" sadly doesn't necessarily hold true anymore (I've still got an nVidia card in my machine).

As for Vista, I have had no real problems running Poser or Photoshop on it as long as you do one of two things a) Turn off UAC, or b) set Poser and Photoshop to run as admin.  I don't know where this "lack of OpenGL support" drum banging came from, or why people seem to think it's important.  OpenGL support is left up to the manufacturers of the video card drivers.  Every OpenGL program I've run from Doom 3 to Poser 7 to Vue 6 to Carrara 5.1 has worked absolutely fine.  Vista has enough convenience features over XP and few enough problems that I would not go back.  However, if you're not willing to sit through the birthing pains of a new operating system, XP will do you just fine (and contrary to popular opinion, XP went through nearly the exact same set of issues at the time of its launch as Vista is now.  I know I bought it on Day 1!  People are trying to compare the stability and compatibility of a 5 year+-patched operating system against a brand new one).

My new computer that I built at the end of February is:

Intel Core 2 E6600
MSI P6N-SLI Platinum mobo (nForce5 650 SLI)
2GB Corsair DDR2 800 MHz (TWIN2X2048-6400C4)
BFG GeForce 7950 GT
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic
Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit)

Why did I choose Ultimate?  Well, in order to have the Windows Media Center features (which I use to hook up to my Xbox 360) you must purchase Home Premium or Ultimate.  In order to be able to remotely log into your computer via Remote Desktop (which I do from work), you must purchase Business/Enterprise or Ultimate.  So, that left me with one option: Vista Ultimate.

If you do choose to go with a version of Vista, do not get Basic.  It is stripped down beyond recognition, and you might as well stick with XP at that point.  It does not contain the new Aero interface (which is more useful than just eye candy).  It does not contain media center.  It doesn't have DVD or Movie Maker (if you're into that sort of thing).

My PC looks like this:

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200* @ 1.83 GHZ..1.83 GHZ

Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005*

2048MB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM*

Digital Widescreen WUXGA Ultimate TruBrite™ Display (1920 x 1200)*

NVIDIA® GeForce Go 7600 256MB GDDR3 graphics memory*

I agree with Victoria....2 GB Ram is a must have but better is 4. I had Vista installed and reinstalled XP since Vista still has a lot of problems what has to be solved first.

Yep.  I'd go with 4, too.  If you can afford it.  RAM is cheap these days.

I forgot to mention, agreed on the 4GB.  The price of the ram I bought back in February has already come down $60 + $50 rebate since I bought it. T.T

It makes me sad...

I'm considering picking up another 2GB very soon if prices stay low.

Quote - I never had good luck with ATI cards.  Just another reasons I stick with nVidia.  And I have 600 Watt power supply that will handle anything I put in.

I've heard that the ATI drivers are now the good ones, and it's the nvidia drivers
that are unstable.

Quote -
I've heard that the ATI drivers are now the good ones, and it's the nvidia drivers
that are unstable.

I don't have any problems with my nvidia...but had problems with the ATI driver :(

I should add that I made the jump from 2G to 4G about 3 weeks ago.  I have noted a distinct performance increase as a result.  Things that occasionally "stuttered" under 2G work without a hitch now.  I am able to handle & render larger scenes in P7.

XENOPHONZ, what does Windows report as the amount of RAM? Depending on the configuration of your other hardware it'll likely be somewhere between 2.5GB and 3.5GB.

It'll also be interesting to see how much Windows makes available to applications.

Thanks all
Interesting reading.
I've decided to stick with my old systm for now, this morning I ordered GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3, bringing my RAM to 3Gb. I was limited to chioce as I presume they don't make DDR400 anymore but it seemed the best value at £105

I'm currently downloading 3DMark bench testing software,apparently it's the worldwide standard testing tool. So I'll do some before and after tests.
http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark05/**
**I looked at the GTS 8800 range and the card itself looked MASSIVE, not sure if they'll be enough in my PSU to power it :-( So it think I'll have a look at the 7000 series.
When I eventually get the GPU I'll look into overclocking.

Nice one for all the advice
;-) **
**

Quote -

I'm currently downloading 3DMark bench testing software,apparently it's the worldwide standard testing tool. So I'll do some before and after tests.
**
**

905 was my score. (which is fairly rubbish)
It took ages to download and seemed to only test for games but at least I'll know what sort of progress my additions make ;-)

Quote - Also lack of OpenGL support which a lot of programs use.  I won't touch Vista for at least a year.

Just to clarify your statement....OpenGL intiplentation is the same in Vista as it was in XP...I have Vista running and not only have OpenGL 2.0 but also DirectX 10...sooo if you choose your hardware carefully you will have a much stronger API set than what is available in XP.

Vista is running fine for me (not crashed once) and I'm running Poser, Vue 6 Infinite, Modo, Maya and Adobe Creative Suite CS2 amongst others with no problems.

You also mention that if you have an XP install disk handy to keep it...I do hope you are not suggesting that a person uses the same license for a different machine than it was purchased for? ;0) Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Cheers

What I was suggesting, Cheers, is that if Vista doesn't work well, he could format the drive and install XP.  I have XP Pro and it allows me to install as many times as I want.  Since I do my own upgrades this machine is definitely not the one XP was originally installed on but it's still legitimate and I have no problems activating whenever I do a major upgrade.

Quote -
XENOPHONZ, what does Windows report as the amount of RAM? Depending on the configuration of your other hardware it'll likely be somewhere between 2.5GB and 3.5GB.

It'll also be interesting to see how much Windows makes available to applications.

Under XP, Windows is reporting 3.5G of RAM.  The bios recognizes the full 4G.

I've done a little research into that issue.  If I am understanding the matter correctly, so long as your low-level processes 'understand' that the RAM is there, the amount being reported by Windows isn't a problem.

However, I am curious to see what the system will report once I install Vista 64-bit on a dual-boot setup.  Supposedly, Vista will have no problem in reporting all of the available memory.

*   ",,,the amount being reported by Windows isn't a problem."

*It's not a problem so long as you don't mind paying for RAM you can't use. When Windows reports 3.5GB, that's all it can see and use.

The real 4GB limit in 32bit operating systems isn't physical RAM; it's memory address space. Physical RAM has to access address space, as do other hardware items such as graphics cards. Most other hardware devices are designed to read and write via the upper 1GB of address space, with most of the lower 3GB being available to physical RAM. Since Windows would fall over if it couldn't access those other hardware devices, it always gives priority to those. RAM gets what's left over.

When you have 3GB of physical RAM or less, you don't (normally) lose any of it because the other hardware is assigned to the memory address space in the region above. Once you go above 3GB of RAM, it's down to the configuration of your other hardware as to how much you get. The maximum reported RAM I've seen mentioned on the web is 3.63GB, but this was on a bare system with a puny graphics card. If there's lots of other hefty hardware, it can actually take address space below 3GB.

The other kicker is the way Windows divides the address space between its own kernel (along with drivers, etc) and applications. By default, the max available to applications is 2GB of address space. Obviously if you only have 2GB of physical RAM, then Windows has to pinch a load of potential app address space for itself. If you have 3GB of physical RAM, then the apps get their full 2GB and Windows gets 1GB - which is way loads for normal setups. Any more physical RAM over 3GB gets assigned to Windows rather than apps, and essentially just sits there unused.

So, in a normal desktop / workstation 32bit Windows machine, 3GB of physical RAM is the most that is useful. If you put in 4GB, anything you're lucky enough to get above 3GB gives you bragging rights but little else. Your applications can't use it, and Windows doesn't need it.

If you're moving to 64bit Windows soon, then 4GB of RAM (or more) makes sense. But if you *are *moving to 64bit Windows soon - good luck. ;-)

I've read conflicting information on that subject.  I don't have the information here in front of me at the office, but there appears to be some disagreement over exactly what the reduced RAM reporting by Windows XP (32-bit) means.  I saw that some people with 4G installed in their machines had Windows showing as little as 2.6G, while the average seemed to be somewhere around 3.12G.  Some 'authorities' argued that this was a problem; while other 'authorities' argued that it meant nothing.

shrug

The only thing that I can personally vouch for certain is that my system now runs noticeably better than it did under 2G.  Especially when dealing with large scenes in various 3D apps.  This is on a Core 2 Duo machine.

BTW - oddly, upon the 1st reboot immediately after I had installed the 4G's, Windows reported only 3G of RAM available.  That made me wonder if something was wrong with one of the RAM sticks.  So I re-booted and checked the bios -- the full 4G was there.  However: upon the 2nd reboot, Windows was reporting 3.5G -- and it's stayed that way ever since.

Anyway, seeing less available RAM than I was expecting caused me to wonder what was going on, so I did some investigation of the subject online.  The techs that I checked disagreed with one another on the "whys" and the "hows" and the "what does it matter's?".  So......I decided not to worry about it.  It works -- and it works well.

As for 64-bit: I am planning on purchasing a second hard drive, and then installing Vista Ultimate 64-bit on a dual-boot setup with my current Windows XP installation unchanged.  From what I've read about Vista/XP dual-boot, it's a snap -- and it works very well.  

I understand that certain apps simply will not run under 64-bit, and that certain other apps have problems doing so.  But some programs that I have -- such as Lightwave and AutoCAD -- can seriously benefit from 64-bit.  So for now I've reached the conclusion that dual-boot looks like the best of both worlds. 

I should know whether or not that's actually the case very shortly.  Perhaps even in the next day or two.  Nothing like trying it myself to find out.

I should add, PJF, that I appreciate your information.  It's helpful.

Here's a quick explanation that links to an in-depth Microsoft article that covers this issue and many others:

4 GB RAM in Windows XP
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html

Microsoft is sufficient authority on its operating systems for me. ;-)

Of course putting 4GB of physical RAM in will result in better performance than having 2GB - you'll get all the benefits of having 3GB.

I'll try to peruse the article in the next day or two, when I have some time.  Thanks for the link.

I will add that this is an issue which I've been somewhat curious about.

Hi again

After a lt of self reasoning I've decided to invest in a second system, so I'll need a new version of Windows anyway. It would seem silly to buy a second copy of XP therefore should I go for 64Bit Vista as I'll already have an XP setup?

New Hardware
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 S775, 2.40Ghz, 1066Mhz
ASUS P5B-E Socket 75 Core2 Dual DDR2 PCI-E SATA2 GLAN USB2.0 Motherboard
Asus Geforce 7600GT 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Graphics CardCorsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB)
Corsair 1GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x512MB)

Software
Poser7
Adode Production Suite CS3
Director MX (I think this isn't Vista compatible)

I recently heard that microsoft will stop their support on OpenGL in favour of their own directx10 platform ( on a autodesk promotionday). Does anyone know what's true about that?

regards,

Bopperthijs

If* Director MX is not compatible with Vista (seems odd), then you need to decide between that program's value to you versus the value of Vista's new features (which are?). I would have thought that any recent program that's compatible with XP would be compatible with Vista - unless it's a 64bit issue, in which case it won't work with XP x64 either.

Honestly, what value is a 64bit operating system to you? Will you benefit from it? Going by the hardware you list for your new system, you will not benefit from it at all. Indeed, if you have any important peripherals like printers or scanners or graphics that don't have signed drivers for Vista 64bit, then you'll suffer for having it. They won't work - full stop.

I don't see what's silly about buying a second copy of XP. It's a well sorted OS with guaranteed support for years to come, that already works with the programs you want to use. You can buy a full version for less than sixty quid, and your hardware is almost idealised for it.

Some notes on Vista. 

If you buy an upgrade version, I believe you have to install over an existing qualifying installation of Windows. You can't just let it sniff your qualifying setup disk and do a clean install as with previous upgrades. Do you have a qualifying version of Windows? Your current XP version won't count if you're still using it (they'll know...). There is a workaround that turns an upgrade version into a full version, and although Microsoft have taken a very relaxed view on it (so far...), it does nevertheless break the terms of the licence agreement. So I won't link to the workaround procedure here, you'll have to search online yourself.

If you buy an OEM version of Vista, your licence will only cover you for the hardware you first install it on. If you change anything significant, such as your motherboard (or even something much less significant) then your licence expires and you need to buy a new Windows! It remains to be seen just how stringently Microsoft will enforce this, but you need to know that you will be at the mercy of MS and may find yourself without an OS should you change something. OEM Vista comes only in either 32bit or 64bit - not both, nor with an option.

A full retail version of Vista allows a clean install and permits transfer (not duplication) of the licence to new hardware. The full retail version of Vista is very expensive - and literally almost doubly expensive in "ripoff Britain". Upgrade and Full Retail Vista - in Home Basic; Home Premium and Business versions - comes as 32bit in the box with an qualifying option for a 64bit DVD. Only Vista Ultimate (Full and Upgrade - not OEM) comes with both 32bit and 64bit in the box.

Yikes. I'd stick with XP.

@Bopperjthis & others still going on about Vista & OpenGL:

See this Dailytech article from Aug 2006.

Vista support for OpenGL is exactly the same as it was in XP.  Microsoft originally planned not to support it natively, but they reversed course.  However, it's up to you to get drivers from your video card manufacturer to properly support OpenGL, but that's exactly how things were in Windows XP.

I've used the following OpenGL programs in Vista (32-bit) so far w/o any (OpenGL related) problems for the past month and a half:

Poser 7
Vue 5 Espirit
Vue 6 Pro Studio
Doom 3
World of Warcraft

Thanks PJF
I'm thinking if any peripherals/software which do not work I'll just leave it on the XP computer
I currently own a full version of XP however it is OEM
I found a sealed full version of Ultimate on Ebay for £219 but I presume you can only use one of the bit versions in the box?

Once again thanks
In the last few weeks I've learn't so much regarding upgrading PC's from places like these forums
;-)

I believe the licence restricts you to one installation per machine, so even if you can install both 32bit and 64bit versions in a dual boot arrangement I suspect you can only activate one of them. And that seems to be the case judging from a brief Google.

By the way, Photoshop CS3 is a 32bit application, so there's no advantage to running it under 64bit Vista.

£219 is a better price for Vista Ultimate than is £300+, but I'd still rather have another XP and £160 to spend on something useful.

.