Here's something I've done which has helped me a lot in using games and
applications not quite designed for Vista. I am currently running Vista x64
on my home built Athlon 64 X2 desktop system and on my HP Pavilion ZD8080us
desktop replacement notebook. The desktop has two ATI X1600 Pro 256 PCI-E
in crossfire mode (though not enabled until ATI supports crossfire in Vista)
and my laptop has an ATI X600 Mobility 256 PCI-E. I found for my desktop
that disabling the A.I. resulted in less visual corruptions and errors in
Vista x64 and allowed more games to be played, same as on my notebook, but
it took a performance hit. Setting it to low helped out in Vista x86 being
able to run more 32-bit games. Still some visual corruption in menus such
as on NHL 2005, but after cycling or ALT-TAB'ing the menus appeared
correctly. This may also be in part to Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 since
most EA Sport games uses internet explorer to power their menus till running
the game. In the game, I found Vista x86 to run games like Madden 2006 even
better than in the previous Windows XP Media Center Edition it had on it.
Some games like Need For Speed: Most Wanted Black Edition it runs a tad
slower. I'm guessing due to the huge drop in memory available. Another
thing I do to help out is running ready boost to help out my laptop and it's
slow hard drive (4,200 rpm). And running Vista for a while before starting
a game. I find after 5 minutes my memory usage drops from 60% on initial
startup on my laptop down to 40%. On me desktop it starts out at 47% and
drops down to 34%. Laptop has 1gb and desktop has 2Gb of memory. I also
noticed Vista does not like over clocking of any sort. I don't condone over
clocking, I always suggest in putting in the extra money and getting a
better chip which I did when building this. I went from the 3800+ chip to
4200+. But my motherboard has AI N.O.S. and I had it set to 5% over clock
when heavy loads are detected but this resulted in blue screens and program
crashes, plus with no Cool 'N' Quiet support from AMD for Vista yet it's
running full bore all the time now, except when I dual boot into Windows XP
Pro x64, of course. Turning of AI N.O.S. helped Vista's stability a lot.
It is a beta so once performance improvements are made and real better
drivers are found I'm sure all our neat functions from ATI will be back.
Like I'm currently foircing a x64 driver for my onboard Realtek 882 sound to
work. It works, though just front, centre and subwoofer so far, no side or
rear yet. But I do have sound, and video and it's stable. It doesn't like
hybrid sleep or resuming from it and hibernation. I always have to reset
and clear the restoration data. Problems noted and reported. I hope
everyone is manually reporting feedback to Microsoft, too. I also hope to
their device and program manufactures also. I've contacted EA quite a few
times to hound them for Vista support on current games. I think they should
offer support for current games being sold. I mean do they expect that
we'll buy new games for Vista once Vista is out? Sure, maybe. But current
big games like Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Battlefield 2 and it's add-on's
and so on should have support if they expect them to be played online as a
legacy. I mean, I just put together an old computer I had from parts laying
around. An old Pentium MMX 200 for my dad and decided to have some fun and
see if it could play my old games like Unreal, NHL 99, Motocross Madness,
Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun, Starcraft: Brood Wars and so on. And the
amazing thing I found out was that when I went to update CC: Tiberian Sun
online there were still people playing it online!!!! This was a game that
came out in 98 with Tiberian Sun being added later on. SO that means it
went through Windows 95 most likely, Windows 98, 98SE, Windows ME, Windows
2000, Windows XP and yes now Vista. I refuse to say games are limited to an
operating system; that's why I've stuck with computers for gaming and not
consoles. Because back in the day, a new console version meant you'd have
to get new games or wait for the games you love to be made for that system.
Ask any console owner if their games from SNES or N64 play into today's
console versions? Very rare if they do. I know 16-bit games are dead, but
we haven't crossed over from 32-bit to 64-bit fully so the 32-bit games we
love should be around from XP to Vista. That's just my reasoning. My other
gripe is also getting 64-bit support for current 32-bit games like NFS:MW
and BF2. Unreal Tournament 2005, Dreadnought, Half-Life 2 have gotten
64-bit support so why not? Using a dual-core 64-bit system has presented
some problems in playing games. Oh they run, but sometimes the timing is
off; it's either too slow or too fast. The emulator in XP Pro x64 and Vista
x64 does a pretty good job though for most games and applications and I
guess in a sense even in Vista x86 the games are in an emulator since 2D is
gone of the days of 80x86 processors. The future is bright, but it could be
brighter. So get on those feedback and e-mails and glad to see everyone
helping each other out here. I've found a lot of good ideas and suggestions
here in getting Vista going, and this WILL be our new gaming platform so
only by this will we form our future of gaming to a new level with a bit of
old-school fun. As they say in streets of Canada every winter after a
road-block...Game on!!