I've got the inside track on SP1.  You Vista owners out there will find SP1 does fix some issues and addresses some complaints, but it is and will forever be bloated and a resource hog. 

There is absolutely nothing you can do about that.

I miss the Win2k speediness and UI, but whatever.

-CG

As the default standard CPU for Windows becomes a Core2Quad and 8GIG RAM only costs a few hundred dollars, an OS that frolics in 1-1.5 GIG is a joy...if it delivers a rewarding desktop experience. In otherwords, one person's "resource hog" is another persons 'higher level experience."

Quote - As the default standard CPU for Windows becomes a Core2Quad and 8GIG RAM only costs a few hundred dollars, an OS that frolics in 1-1.5 GIG is a joy...if it delivers a rewarding desktop experience. In otherwords, one person's "resource hog" is another persons 'higher level experience."

That about sums it up - Opera

Even now here in Australia - most of the home user market computers now being sold are 64 bit dual core - dealers are not pushing 32 bit computers at all - apart from the notebook market.

The change is coming and people will have to live with it - the motherboards etc just won't be available anymore to replace "aging" computers that 12 months ago were state of the art.

My machine came in at under $AUD 1000 without an O/S and is as follows:-

AMD X2 5200+ X64
4 GB Ram
DVD RW
8 in 1 Card Reader
320 GB SATA
NVidia 8600 GT

And at that the dealer who put the bits together didn't consider it a dream machine - he was only amazed at the amount of ram I ordered.

We are now seeing similar machines being advertised to the home market with 2 GB ram and Vista for $AUD 1100 - 1200.

My motherboard will take up to 8GB ram - so I figure if I expand to that I may get away without an upgrade for maybe 2- 3 years.

And  as for the bloated Vista thing - well M$ aren't making XP or 2000 any longer so people will have to learn to live with it if they want to upgrade their computers.

The there is also this
www.vlite.net/about.html
Seems as though it supports 64 bit as well.
www.start64.com/index.php

And  as for the bloated Vista thing - well M$ aren't making XP or 2000 any longer so people will have to learn to live with it if they want to upgrade their computers.

I don't know about M$ not making XP anymore but XP is available all over the place.  I see it in stores and online (even my computer guy has XP Home and XP Pro available).  Many pre-built computer systems have now gone back to offering XP as an option.  M$ intends to continue support of XP for five more years - that desparate huh?  And with MSDN, I don't have to see the inside of a Vista disc for quite a while.

Gamers keep giving the finger (two if your English) to Vista for being shit-for-brains for playing their games.  Not my thing, but when you upset the gamers (ya know, the people who have made the gaming industry worth more than Hollywood and NASA combined?) that's a bad thing.

And again, you talk about everyone pushing 64-bit hardware.  And we have several flavors of 64-bit Windows OS.  Where are the drivers and software?  Bleating on about, well, you can use these newest/latest three models even though there are five thousand others to choose from.  That's just wrong.  Are we Apple now?  You can have the chicken...

Again, I'll wait a bit.  I did the same thing with XP - but not as long (SP2).

Finally, no, I don't have to 'live with it (Vista)'.  Hmmm. I've upgraded three computers in the last 8 months (the most recent just last week) and not one has Vista on it.  I don't see forcing to get Vista.  The 'older' machine is an Intel Q6600 QuadCore with 8GB, 1.5TB SATAII drives, Blu-Ray DVD, and GeForce 8800 GTX.  XP Pro has no complaints.  Don't believe the lies that XP Pro can't handle this stuff...

Quote -
I don't know about M$ not making XP anymore but XP is available all over the place.  I see it in stores and online (even my computer guy has XP Home and XP Pro available).  Many pre-built computer systems have now gone back to offering XP as an option.  M$ intends to continue support of XP for five more years - that desparate huh?  And with MSDN, I don't have to see the inside of a Vista disc for quite a while.

Your point is taken and valid - but I would question as to how many unopened copies of XP 64 bit are still out there on the market - to take advantage of the extra ram you really need the 64 bit OS.

I'm thinking that at the time that XP 64 bit was produced not a lot of people were quick to adopt 64 bit technology - it's only just now it is starting to take hold and it is of no real benefit for anyone to put a 32 bit O/S on a 64 bit machine it won't perform to it's fullest.

Your local Computer guy may have XP still in stock - I would have to shop around and go for a hunt on ebay or at a swap meet to find an unopened copy of XP and then 64 bit are as rare as hens teeth.

Depends on where you live and the attitude of resellers what will be available - and remember I am stating unopened - I would hate to run the chance of buying a copy of XP only to find that it wouldn't activate......

So perhaps we should be careful what we say - as someone new to computers could stumble upon threads like this and get the impression that they can go out and buy a nice new 64 bit machine and pick up a 2nd hand copy of XP Pro and throw on it and it will be a whiz bang machine.

NewEgg, Amazon, etc are still selling XP64.

I have XP Pro 64 + XP Media Edition (32 bit) on a dual-boot setup.  My processor is a Core 2 Duo.  4G's of RAM.  I have no intentions of switching to Vista in the near future.  It's possible that MS might turn on a dime with future fixes to Vista: but I'm not in any hurry to switch.

Vista Service Pack announcement -> Vista bashing orgy -> howto get/install XP
Typical internet drivel at it's finest. I'm sure all of the 'facts' about Vista here will be regurgitated/spammed around the net on many forums.
What surprises me is that more Vista users don't step up to say what a load of garbage most of it is.

Quote -
What surprises me is that more Vista users don't step up to say what a load of garbage most of it is.

As I said earlier in this thread - no real issues here with Vista Ultimate X64 - apart from Poser 5 and FaceShop Pro 3.5 everything else has worked fine.

Have been using Vista Ultimate on an AMD 3200+ 32 bit with 2 GB ram - no real issues there apart from again FaceShop Pro.

I also run Vista Home Basic on my notebook - Acer 5220 Celeron 1.7 with 2 GB ram - I will admit that the 512 MB ram that it came with didn't cut it as far as Vista is concerned - it needs at least a 1 GB.

Like it or love it - it's an individual thing and all I can say is I am happy working with Vista.

Apart from the desktop icons as mentioned before.

Quote -
What surprises me is that more Vista users don't step up to say what a load of garbage most of it is.

-shrug- I got tired of repeating myself.
I've used Vista (32bit home edition, 2g of ram) almost a year and have had no problems whatsoever. On a Dell, even!!! -gasp!-
I use all the programs I ran before on XP.
Sure, I've tweaked the hell outta it to free memory, I'd not go back to XP, ever.
;)

In no way, shape or form am I (or others) 'bashing' Vista.  I am, however, recognizing the realities of the situation as it currently stands.  There's no doubt whatsoever that Vista has experienced many compatibility problems with 'legacy' software -- that is to say: software which was written prior to the release of Vista.  Repeating this fact does not constitute "bashing".  Nor is the observation of this fact strictly the province of individual malcontents: the onus behind MS's decision to support XP five years out is the result of recognizing that their large corporate clients aren't switching over to Vista in anything like a hurry.  And there are reasons -- valid reasons -- why the corporate world is doing this.

Perhaps MS will fix many of the very real problems with Vista this time around.  We'll see.  I hope that they do.  But I wouldn't be too hasty to dismiss as meaningless the legitimate complaints of some.  Sure, a few anti-MS-no-matter-what types are adding their shrill squeaks to the anti-Vista noise.  But I'm not one of those.  Nor are the corporations who are customers of MS's products........corporations who aren't buying into Vista in droves just yet.

Agreed;  The issue for me and others is that we have a pipeline that uses legacy applications.  If all of your apps are Vista-compatible, your pipeline is fine, otherwise there's trouble.

Well, I love bashing Microsoft stuff, because it usually IS a pile of crap until SP1 come out, haha!

However, new rig, 8 gig RAM, quad core etc, and Vista Ultimate 64...OMFG...what an ENJOYABLE difference :)
had some problems,but mostly it's miles better. Don't wanna go back.

well, then too, there's 5 versions of Vista, from the Home version up to Ultimate. Yeah, Ultimate has loads of capabilities the business and other versions don't, so it makes comparisons here a little hard to square..;)

I had a chance to get Vista on my new machine, but went with XP Pro...;)

3/3/08

I have Windows Mediacenter on an otherwise perfectly good computer. When I bought the computer, Mediacenter was advertised by Gateway as having all the features of XP Pro, but it doesn't. The /3GB switch (installed as per the MS page on the subject) does not work on my Mediacenter computer. 

Is anyone else using Poser 7 on Mediacenter? After researching Mediacenter a little more closely, it seems to have a lot of conflicts with a number of graphics programs. Mediacenter considers itself to be XP Pro, so one cannot upgrade/sidegrade to XP Pro (it fails, and most forums strongly warn against the attempt). A number of people attempting a clean install of XP Pro on systems designed for Mediacenter say that it will not install at all.

It is possible to upgrade a computer with Mediacenter to Vista. The question is, how much memory do the various 32bit Vista versions allow Poser to use? Right now I am trapped at the 2GB limit (though my Poser.exe process crashes at 1.31GB, certainly well before it reaches 1.4 GB - I have 4GB installed - I render in a seperate process with only one thread).

A way forward with this computer is not obvious. I would like to get it working as well as possible, but keep it against the possible future of rendering on several computers over a network.

LMK

I have Windows XP Media Center Edition alongside XP Pro 64 on a dual boot.  I rarely use the Media Center Edition setup any longer.  Or at least as little as I possibly can.  Unfortunately, for some few things I have to use 32 bit.

Here's a link to an old thread that you might find interesting:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3140697&ebot_calc_page#message_3140697

BTW - I believe that it's not a problem to upgrade to Vista from XP Media Center Edition.  Or at least so the Microsoft-supplied Vista Upgrade Advisor told me.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx

Personally, I have no plans to "upgrade" to Vista at this time.  I am planning on sticking with XP Pro 64 until the kinks are worked out of Vista.......or Windows 7, whenever that's out.  With my own PC's specs, I should be ready for a new machine at around the time that Windows 7 is slated to come out -- if everything goes as expected.

3/3/08

The processor I have, Dual Core 2.8 GHz, is 64 bit, but the motherboard and memory seem to be 32 bit. I also have two SATA drives, and research makes it seem very difficult to install SATA drives on 64 bit systems (requiring a floppy drive of all things, and in the 21st century - that's just sloppy of M$). I don't want to buy XP Pro 64 or a Vista 64 OS, and botch the instalation because of the SATA drives.

Do any virsions of Vista 32 bit allow for more program memory than the 2GB limit of Mediacenter?

LMK

Quote - 3/3/08

The processor I have, Dual Core 2.8 GHz, is 64 bit, but the motherboard and memory seem to be 32 bit. I also have two SATA drives, and research makes it seem very difficult to install SATA drives on 64 bit systems (requiring a floppy drive of all things, and in the 21st century - that's just sloppy of M$). I don't want to buy XP Pro 64 or a Vista 64 OS, and botch the instalation because of the SATA drives.

Do any virsions of Vista 32 bit allow for more program memory than the 2GB limit of Mediacenter?

LMK

?????????

I have SATA HD's on my 64 bit machine and no floppy....... no problems here installing Vista Ultimate 64

Vista 32 (Home Premium is what I have) allows 4 GB, but 3GB can be actually used with Vista HP.

I have a Vista is all about the Media Center, and I really haven't had much trouble with Media Center on either my Vista box or my XP Media Center box.

BTW, I am currently runnning Vista SP1 (found the download link from an RTM at a forum), and it's slightly better. It does copy files faster over a disk and from other disks. I had no trouble installing it, although it did take several hours after the several hours of downloading.

Now I'm just  waiting on SP3 for my XP box.

-- Jeff

Quote - 3/3/08

The processor I have, Dual Core 2.8 GHz, is 64 bit, but the motherboard and memory seem to be 32 bit. I also have two SATA drives, and research makes it seem very difficult to install SATA drives on 64 bit systems (requiring a floppy drive of all things, and in the 21st century - that's just sloppy of M$). I don't want to buy XP Pro 64 or a Vista 64 OS, and botch the instalation because of the SATA drives.

The link to the old thread that I provided -- that thread has links to a free program called "nLite", which is specifically made to address this problem.  It worked for me, and did an excellent job, too.

But it's true -- you need a 64 bit system in order to run a 64 bit OS.  You need to verify that first.

The only problem I had with Vista was the "not enough memory" message everytime I tried to render animations in Poser 7, where in XP it could render them just fine. If this is fixed in the SP1 I'll switch back in a heartbeat.

Does anyone know...

What are the various flavors of 64-bit Vista and what are the feature differences.

::::: Opera ::::

Quote - Does anyone know...

What are the various flavors of 64-bit Vista and what are the feature differences.

::::: Opera ::::

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

thanks that llink helped. I flipped also to a page about the 64-bit versions
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/64bit.mspx

I've still got to do some more research because a few key legacy apps I have may not function.

Thanks

::::: Opera :::::

3/4/08

Well, I was almost convenced to try and install a 64 bit operating system. The MS site offeres instructions (fairly hard to find) on how to figure out if a computer can run a 64 bit operating system or not, and mine fails the test. So, the processor itself is up to the job, but not the rest of the computer. Unless Poser comes out with a version that is more stable, and handles memory better, I am stuck at this level of functionality for the time being.

Sigh.

LMK