Which version of Windows to use?

[snacks]

Working on a gaming computer, and since I don't really see the benefits of Vista, thinking about going with XP. Which one specifically?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

If your rig can handle Vista and you see yourself gaming when DirectX 10 comes around, I'd go Vista.

 

[SNGX1275]

Well man, if you don't like Vista for whatever reasons, then your only choices are XP and XP64. Surely you've been around the boards long enough to have seen the threads concerning 4GB of RAM and 32bit XP or Vista.

If you haven't, the simplified version is 4 gigs of ram won't show up as 4 gigs in xp or vista (but vista sp1 changes that cosmetically only). So less than 4 gigs of RAM you will be fine with 32bit, 4 or more and you want 64bit.

Now if you want more than 4 and want to game you've just backed yourself into a corner by not liking Vista, because XP64 has pretty poor driver support. XP64 may still work fine but you'll need to know exactly what hardware you plan on using with it and whether there are 64 bit drivers for it.

My recommendation: Vista 64.

 

[snacks]

Has SP1 fixed much? What are some major bugs gone from Vista at this point? I've never trusted Vista because I've already seen two incidents of the constant restarting bug and Vista unregistering itself, plus its performance and compatibility with games has been notorious.

Plus I don't know about the compatibility of each part.
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic96443-2.html

 

[Route44]

Here is an excellent article on Vista SP1 and what it fixes:

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3233

 

[snacks]

Assuming Vista would be fine, then which Vista 64-bit, or a link to it, since searching for it will just get a bunch of computers with Vista and Vista-compatible hardware.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Have at it...