Some of you asked me to post my impressions with my new pc so here they are!

Spec: Core 2 Quad Q6600, Nvidia8600GT, 8 Gig RAM, 2 x 320 Gig HD's in Raid 1 array, Vista Ultimate 64

Vista: Lots of bells and whistles you prolly don't need, eats RAM, typically 1 Gig but has gone up to 1.6 Gig with some background stuff working. 
Turned a few things off that I don't need like the side bar and the "nag" screen! Also some tablet stuff that I won't ever use, so generally you're looking at 1 Gig for Vista out of your total RAM!
Generally Vista seems quite stable although there have been instances of it "thinking" a bit too long before doing something, a minor inconveniance though, nothing more!
My old Vue files with Poser content refuse to load without manually assigning the textures, I think it's down to Vista's new folder set up, again more an inconveniance than a big problem!
Old Vue files without Poser content work fine!

Vue 6.5: Well what can I say, super fast, super stable, a couple of very small issues but nothing great!
Using the Gizmo to rotate and move the camera is jerky and imprecise, this is prolly a driver issue though and yes I have the latest driver, again it's not a biggie and will hopefully be sorted with a driver update!
Render times are fast!
Now comes the bit I know some of you are waiting for, Poser imports!
I posted an image last night using V4.1, Miki2 and the SS Magellan space ship. One of the  two females had clothes on, both had Hi-Quality skin shaders and as Poser users know the SS Magellan is a beast of a model, very large and complex!
Imported said scene with use  "Poser shader Tree" ticked!
Now normally as most of you know, a scene like this would bring it to it's knees, the good news is it didn't!
These are the figures: Imported scene with full HQ shaders, resources at 82%, rotated cameras, added lights, moved a few things etc. as you do to set it up, resources dropped slightly to 77%, at no point did resources drop below 75%, Result!!!!

Overall: Ok it's very early days, less than a week of playing, only 4 days in fact, but initial findings are positive and at the moment I'm happy with the set up, I need to to tweak some of the more superfluous Vista bits but these things take time!
Anyway I hope that's given those of you that asked some food for thought!
As ever these are just "my" impressions, others may have different views or experiences or have set Vista up better than I have, it will take considerably longer than 4 days to get used to the new OS!

Had chance vista 64 oem £50 but as i use lot old programs and hardware on amd 4200 would be no point as you cant gt drivers for most stuff.
Before purchase any hardware make sure it has 64 bit vista driver other wise vista 64 new security features wont allow you to install driver.
Trouble is people with 1gb and 2gb memory screwed as they way vue programmer's did memory and no 1 bloke has over 16gb memory wont tell us how much but he a gaming nutter,  money no object.
If carrara 6 does water and other effects like vue then i will drop vue as i don't see why i should pay to upgrade memory just to use vue.
With 64 vista check carefully what you want turned off as its new security features nice but has upset vista 32 bit users, as vista 32 does not have the extra security especially going on web like 64.
But glad ya having fun with new machine.

I have the same issue with Gizmo movement - I've recently updated the drivers on my Nvidia card and it's a little better now.  It's true about Vista needing 1 gig or more all the time, I have a 6 gig machine and never see more than 5 available for use. 
Since I upgraded Vue to 6.5 everything seems to be running smoothly with Vista. 

Enjoy your new machine - it looks like a powerhouse!

G'day fixer,

was that vista using 1gig just idling? or does it kick in when you open any app?

Nope, it uses the 1 Gig just sitting there! I may have had my mail and IE7 open but nothing more! 
That said Vista prolly isn't using it all, there are things in the background like my AV and such, you have to remember though that Vista has lots going on in the background, like all the checks it constantly does, Defender and other stuff running.
You can get quite a lot back by turning off some of the bells and whistles, there's lots of stuff you don't need.
Don't forget though, I've only been playing with it for 4 days so I might not be using it effectively at the moment!
If you search on various tech sites though, they pretty much say the same, it runs ok on 512 but really needs 1 Gig!

Gywn,

If you want to turn off all of the “fluff and stuff” you can go back to the Classic Style of Windows, and gain 10 to 20 % resources.

Go to the Control Panel,

Personalize, Window Color and Appearance,

In Color Scheme select Windows Classic,

Select the Effects Tab, and uncheck all three effects,

In the Desktop Background, select Solid Colors to get rid of the background pic.

Turn Off any effects in the screensaver to a blank window, less memory use.

Turn off the Effects for the Start Bar, also called the Task Bar and go to the classic style.  Get rid of as much stuff on the Quick Launch, and StartUp Menu.

Turn Off Sounds, less memory use.

In Theme Select Windows Classic.

Shut off the Windows Firewall, Phising, and Windows Defender, and use your favorite Anti-Virus.

Shut off Indexing for your Drive.

Shut Off Sleep mode in the Power Options, this will save gigs of hard drive space without a Hibernation file.  It also wills stop Rendering when it engages, so shut if off.

Shut Off Windows Update, and Manually get updates each month around the 12th as MS, puts out during the middle of the month.

Use the Windows Classic Folder Options.

Everytime you have a crash, Select the main drive and in Properties, use the Disk Cleanup to get rid of the Memory Dumps.

NVidia just released the new signed drivers 162.22 for the 7 and 8 series of cards for 32 and 64 bit.  Get them they work better than older versions of drivers.

That ought to get you started. 

At my current job, the team in charge of our Vista migration is recommending 2Gb of RAM just for Vista alone.

I nearly had a heart attack when I got that requirement...

keenart: Thanx for all that, my current Nvidia driver is 162.21 so I'll get the new one when I get home.

At my current job, the team in charge of our Vista migration is recommending 2Gb of RAM just for Vista alone. 

Scary isn't it!!!!

thefixer...I'm not sure about your RAM usage...I have Vista Aero running at the moment, with Virus protection, monitoring software and tons of stuff on the side bar plus this Firefox browser and I'm using just over half a Gig of RAM. I've never had issues with Vista and memory usage and a bit stumped as to why Vista should be using a Gig +
Ok, just fired my laptop up running Vista, and thats only using half a Gig of RAM too.

Well I guess you must be lucky, all the techs I've spoken to say it uses 1Gig in full working mode and that seems to be born out by my experience of it and what Agiel's tech peeps are saying too!
I don't know, maybe it depends on which Vista you're using, I'm on Ultimate 64, what are you on?

    Ultimate 64 on my workstation and Home Premium (32bit) on my laptop.

IF i install Vista on a new system with 4 gigs ram (physical installed on the board) and the OS just recognize 2 gig unless it is 64bits os ....how ram is available for my graphics soft?

I have 3-4 months to understand before i buy my new computer because i still confused about the memory usage .Can someone explain this in plain english for non-techny person?
I have actually 2 gigs with Xp and everything is fine with my Pentium 4

Typically Vista will use about 490 megs upto 950 at full requirements. I do not want to go into all that will be running in the background, but I have maxed out the system at 1.2 gigs easily. 

With all of the Bells and Whistles enabled, and all of the scheduled apps running in the background you can still keep your resources low as long as you are not using SuperFetch and Sared Video Ram. It additionally depends on how you are connected to the internet and also are you using IE 7.

SuperFetch is the new memory manager, and what it does is to load all of the apps that it believes you will use during your work load. If you have few apps then your free resources will be many, but if you have two or three dozen additional progs, then you can easily hit the 1 gig limit of used resources when SuperFetch loads the *.exe’s. You can turn this feature off, but your computer will slow down, and in some cases substantially. 

If you really want to add a boost to the system, then use ReadyBoost, a System Cache that can run off of a USB Flash Drive. Many Flash drives will not meet the minimum requirements. My suggestion is that you find a 160x or 200x Fast Flash Drive. Typically you should have a Flash drive that is equal to or twice the size of the Installed RAM. ReadyBoost will acknowledge the drive and then select the necessary space for its cache. Do not change this setting, unless you understand ReadyBoost’s requirements. A little must be left on the drive.

TIP: Before installing the cache, make sure the Flash is NTFS compatible and then reformat the drive to the default, usually 4 k, a size usually used on your hard drives. If you reformat and then the drive does not work, it was not NTFS compatible, as some are only FAT compatible.

Go to MS and find the White Papers that explain all about this stuff if you want more info.

Another factor is the Video Card, which uses a new Shared System Memory. What this does is take a specific amount of onboard system Ram and use it in addition to the available Video Ram. You can not change this feature, but Microsoft uses drivers that do not use this Shared Ram Feature. Yes, I am talking about a Desktop, not a Laptop, a feature few are aware of.

AS you can see 1.2 to 1.4 gigs of Ram may be necessary for some of us Power Users, just to get the system running. So, you better have at least 4 to 6 gigs to run Vue if you are running Vista.

Thanks But what about this 2 gigs limit for a non-64 Os ?I have read it in anothers threads about memory.I want to use VUe infinite 6 and Poser 7...and i hope that VIsta will have a service pack before i buy a new system.Anyway XP is the past and i would prefer to have an OS with a futur even it is actually buggy

All 32 bit systems can use 2 gigs max.  If you know how and your motherboard can support 3 or 4 gigs, then you can use a 3 gig switch.  A tricky and risky solution for those not in the know.  I would suggest a 64 bit systtem if you are going to run 3D.  A 64 bit system takes 4 gigs so you should have little trouble working with 3D.

You can stil run 32 bit programs on a Vista 64 bit system.

As explained, if you can stand to turn off all of the Bells and Whistles then 32 bit Vista will work almost like XP, almost but not quite.  And, as it stands with Vue it really works better in the XP environment 32 bits or 64 bits.  They have not really addressed a Vue packaged for Vista as yet, maybe next year.  

So the choice is really up to the user.

I might add, if you are planing to upgrade to Vista you will have to have hardware and software that is very current, especially the ACPI, which must be a new 24 pin power supply with special features that Vista requires.  So If you are running an older system 2 years or more then I would stay with XP, rather than try the Vista upgrade.  XP is still good for another 10 years of MS support.

MS says they will release the SP for Vista in November.

Jan: I've noticed this new memory "information" Vista tells you about, apparently with Vista the "free memory" should be as low as possible, in fact the lower the better!,  while the "cached memory" should be high, am I reading that right?
I still have too much running in the background, I realized as well that my Raid controller is always running too so that adds to my background stuff, but I'm not arsed, Vue has never worked so well.
I might have to roll back that Nvidia driver though as I've lost my tool tips in Vue since installing it, could it cause that??

Thanks for info

Gwyn,

There are two Vista Drivers for 162.22, a beta and the final Microsoft Signed version just released.   It is difficult to tell which is which, only the size of the file is an indicator of which is which as the most current has new features added for the 8 series and old ones removed, and therefore file size is smaller.  On my system that is 47 megs for the Beta and 43 megs for the current signed driver. 

I have the Tool Tips functioning, so you might check or uncheck the preference Show tool tips and reload Vue and recheck the Show tool tips in views, to see if it got lost or something. 

The newest 162.22 drivers address the newer features of DX10 and the OpenGl functions up to version 2 and so are pretty current.  Vue is supposed to use the Generic 1.2 and upward, but who knows what that is.  e-On keeps telling me that they are certain all of the troubles are with the OenGL features that my video card does not support.  I have a video card and drivers that support DX 9c and OPenGL 2.1, so I know that is not true. 

For the most part the only troubles I have had with the newer drivers are Vue.  No other programs have any troubles with these drivers, but others may have depending upon their system setup.  If you encounter a problem you should report any glitches to the Vista Beta program, and that goes for any other apps, so they will get rfixed asap. 

Yes Raid is goind to sap the system a good 10 to 12 percent.  The feature I like is the Reliability and Performance Monitor, which gives a very detailed account of what it happening to all of the resources when an app is running. 

Remember I mentioned all of those features above, so if you had a system that was running with 500 megs when installed, added a video card that now borrows 256 meg, 12 new programs for a total of 250 megs in SuperFetch, with Defender, and there are more than a dozen background security and analytical programs running, your system resources can soar easily.  You should not have any trouble as long as your system can get at at least 1.5 gigs of Ram, and Vue can get at least 1.5 to 2 gigs of ram.   In other words all totaled you need 3 to 4 gigs of hard ram when running Vista and Vue together.  Ironically when Vue is behaving it only takes about 10 to 15 percent of system resources.  When it gets a memory leak that can go off the scale.

If you want to disable a service Like Microsoft Card, do not turn it off, instead check it to Run Manual, just in case there are any poling services or services that need to make scheduled checks.   If you do not you may get lots of notices in the Event Viewer.  Or an unidentified support prog may keep popping up.  In Manual you can start the Service when you want if you need it later.  I do this all of the time, when I want Defender to run, otherwise it is shutdown.

Keep searching MS for the KB's and you will find tons of support docs with lots of info.  And do the internet search everytime you have an Error, or problem, as everyone is putting this stuff out ther in hope so fgett issues resolved.  YOu may find an answer that even MS does not have.

Trust me when I say I have already used up my Tech support, and although they were nice people, they new less about computers than my CAT!

I think you need a new Cat..........:)

I raised this one by hand from three days old.  Bottle fed, carried around in a towel while working, and bottom wiped every 2 to 4 hours for the firs three months.  He types faster, and spells better than me too!  Gotta keep this one!

I don't much want to turn anything off at the mo' 'cos I'm not really up on what stuff is yet!! [LOL]
I'm hearing and seeing terms like superfetch and card and I'm clueless as to what they are!!
Well not entirely but I want to know more about them before I start fiddling with them!! [LOL].

Yeah, good idea, as there is soo much going on under-the-hood, that it will take time to get it all understood.  MS did a little bit better on the Help Files with this version, so you can get a better understanding.  If you can get one of the books written for Vista, that could be helpful resource of knowledge.

Glad it is all working for you.  Have you got the fence up and around to keep out the local troops? (Mum and the Kiddies)

LOL yea, password protected and "ONLY" me allowed anyway!!

Nobody, and I mean nobody gets near this baby!!