I've gone to the Dark Side..........

[{OF}Erad]

Well, my MS Vista saga continues. I played with all the Beta, RC and RTM versions of Vista with few issues. I decided to buy a copy of Vista Home Premium and give it a full run on one of my OLD Test Rigs.

The Specs:
AMD A64 3500+
1GB RAM
250GB SATA 300 HD
DVDRW/CDRW
DVD
eVga nVidia 7600GS 256MB

Well, unlike the Beta, RC and RTM versions, I had problems with the video card running anything but the original Vista Drivers for the card, which were terrible. Lock ups, BSODs and constant crashes of games and apps. I tried all the Beta Drivers I could find, and no luck. There are posts all over the net talking about the same issue I was having, and even a Class Action Lawsuit about the state of the nVidia drivers. I have a 2nd 160GB SATA 300 hard drive in the system with XP SP2 on it, and the card ran very well in it. After a week of frustration, I went to the dark side, and bought an ATI x1650 PRO 512MB video card. I cleaned all the Vista nVidia drivers, and added the new ATI card. I loaded the latest ATI Beta drivers, and I am back running Vista without any issues. ATI did get their drivers right, but they still have a lot of work to enable all the features of the card, but I can wait for those, being that the system plays all my games and apps without any issues. I have always been partial to nVidia, and 3DFX before that. I have had a few laptops with ATI video on them, and they ran fine. The only thing I find strange, is that the ATI card was twice the price I paid for the nVidia card, and, depending on the app or game, the ATI is anywhere from 10 to 50% slower in XP than the nVidia card. In newer apps and games, they are very close, but in older apps, benchmarks and games, the ATI is noticeably slower. The nVidia was also faster in Vista, but crashed or locked up every 5 minutes or so. The ATI does make Quake 4 look nicer in XP and Vista, but otherwise, I didn't see any other differences in UT and other games.

So, in conclusion, if you plan to upgrade to Vista, steer clear of nVida video cards until they fix their drivers, or use an ATI video card.

[{OF}GreyGhost]

Welcome!

[{OF}Malicious Assault]

Will wait for a little while to upgrade to Vista. Besides my upgrade cds have not come yet

[Harbinger]

Oh, when I read the subject I thought you bought a Mac

[Capt. Insane]

Hahahahaha good one Harb!

Thanks for the info Erad. I'm still not getting Vista for a long while and will definitely get a new graphics card first. Anyone know when the R600 series cards are coming out? *looks to Chem for an answer*

[ChemicalWarrior]

Please do not tell me you spent $200~ on an X1650...

Anyway, glad you got it working at least.

[{OF}Blong]

Originally Posted by Harbinger

Oh, when I read the subject I thought you bought a Mac

when you can get me a 75% discount ill buy a MAC . Honestly I think the macs are cool and would be great for the kids to use to do homework and stuff and maybe if it was a laptop to play movies onto my tv from other computers in the house .

chem are you saying the 1650's are the same price as the 1950's?

[{OF}Flying_Dutchman]

Originally Posted by Harbinger

Oh, when I read the subject I thought you bought a Mac

LOL @ Harb!

[ChemicalWarrior]

Originally Posted by {OF}Blong

chem are you saying the 1650's are the same price as the 1950's?

He said double what he paid double what he did for his 7600GS, which would put it close to $200, which is the price of many X1950 Pro cards, which is a complete and utter rip off. At $200 you have the X1950 Pro and 7900GS, both of which destroy the lower end cards mentioned and in a number of cases the X1950 Pro destroys the 7900GS in image quality.

[{OF}MillerTime]

I'd drop the $250 for the X1950 Pro-512md, again in a herartbeat.