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).

¤~Giolon~¤

¤~ RadiantCG ~¤~ My Renderosity Gallery ~¤