mmglads Posted June 11, 2008 Share Posted June 11, 2008 Now don't get me wrong, I really like Vista - I really do - it has proved itself to be reliable & works on my new system with no dramas whatsoever (so far!) It runs FSX adequately & I'm enjoying the flying - especially with FTX installed. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I decided to dual boot the system, with Vista installed first. The rationale being, I could just load up the XP operating system on an ample partition of my Vista HDD & with the exception of a simple anti-virus program, load up FSX with all of it's accessories and dedicate the entire partition to FSX. I can therefore compare things like loading times, framerates to see whether or not I have a smoother Flightsim performance. As I write this, the dual boot system is installed, XP is running & FSX is loading. The Windows XP install only has 25 processes running as opposed to the 75! in Vista. Yes I can use Alacrity or Teak UI etc., but I'm a simple soul - and the less hassle I have fiddling with the operating system the better (IMHO). I can now boot into either Vista or XP, one system for all my work stuff, e-mails, important forum posts! and the other for flying. Don't know if anyone has done this, but would, as always, welcome any views. I'll do a follow up post for anyone interested, comparing the results. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ymhb_flyer Posted June 11, 2008 Share Posted June 11, 2008 I've considered doing this also, but only if there is a worthwile (or noticable) performance improvement. I'm currently running an SLI'd Vista64 rig which has thrown up a few issues. Would be good to hear some back-to-back comparisons. Keep us posted. Cheers, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bushcaddy80 Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Im thinking about doing the same thin g also , infact just asked the ITO's at work if I could actually load XP on after Vista was loaded, They couldnt actually answer the question apart from saying "you should be"able to!!!!! I will certainly be keeping an eye out for the comparison. Cheers Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skye Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 When Vista first came out I had problems with some programmes that did not have vista drivers released now I did not want to give up on some of those programmes so I opted for a dual boot system and found this web page ( http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm ) helped to set it up very easily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmglads Posted June 16, 2008 Author Share Posted June 16, 2008 Yes Skye, that's exactly the process I followed & it worked really well. I'm still working on the evaluations (work & stuff keeping me away from the PC at present) but I should have some meaningful results by the weekend. At the moment, XP is faster to load & "smoother" to fly in, but I'm just upgrading to the new NVidia 177.26 drivers on both partitions (courtesy of Mango, I think) so that we'll "all be singing from the same hymn sheet" I have a sneaking suspicion that I will prefer to fly in XP, but use Vista as my operating system of choice for all other stuff. Cheers all, thanks for the input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 At Orbx we order our laptops with XP installed, not Vista. We have yet to find a compelling reason to "upgrade". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandit Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 At Orbx we order our laptops with XP installed, not Vista. We have yet to find a compelling reason to "upgrade". What about DX10 John? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Venema Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 DX10 gives you nothing other than cockpit internal shadows and ocean wave crests in windy conditions. That's it - nothing else can be seen other than those two and in fact you'll get worse frame rates with it turned on and for me, I can easily live without those two very minor features. In fact, for the waves, I prefer the fx that various environment packages add to waves rather than rely on DX to render fx. To be honest I expect a lot of DX10.1 fx to be offloaded to the GPU with FS11, but that's a number of years up the road yet. For now, stick with DX9.0c and better performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shedman51 Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 We have two labs set up with XP but for the last one we couldn't get any and had to use Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmglads Posted June 22, 2008 Author Share Posted June 22, 2008 Sorry guys - work has kept me away from the PC this week, but my initial findings mirror Koorby's posts. With all parameters set the same, i'e. same cfg files all round, same scenery, same locations etc. etc., XP beats Vista hands down (on my setup at least) interms of loading speed to menu - XP 6.5 secs - Vista 13.5 secs - to initialising flight menu - XP 25 secs - Vista 1 min 42 secs! These I've had to average out, for as you know, your fist "clean" load of FSX in either environment is the longest, but you get the idea. I was going to draw up an Excel comparison spreadsheet, but frankly (IMHO) XP wins hands down over Vista in all aspects - also, there is a "smoother" flight experience in XP, especially when running with frame rate "unlimited". Yes I know we're not supposed to, but it's fun to try & push the system. Also tried running 4 Gb Corsair matched RAM as opposed to 2 Gb. No difference in loading times or running experience in either environment. As I said in the initial post - I like Vista, but for "gaming" (if I can use that term), Windows XP remains my personal choice of operating system. DX10? Again John's post says it all - & now with FEX SHD & the new water textures about to arrive, I'm going to stop worrying about OS's & just enjoy flying in the best environment FSX has to offer - FTX! Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packo88 Posted June 22, 2008 Share Posted June 22, 2008 I'm very interested in the whole dual boot idea and i really want to give it a go. I don't own a XP disc so before i go out and buy one can anyone tell me if I will run into trouble having Vista ultimate 64 bit and XP 32 bit as a dual boot. My system as it stands is very good and runs FSX very well but I'm a power pig and if it will run better under XP I would love to give it a go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.