Vista Ultimate - a few technical questions

[Simon Pieman]

I've just obtained a copy of Vista Ultimate and have a few questions about it before I decide whether to install it on my machine:

• Is the media centre any good? My current tv card software is rather crap and others I download seem rather temperamental.
• How much better is directx10 compared to directx9?
• Anyone successfully sorted out Vista and XP in a dual boot configuration and does this work ok?
• I currently have 2gb RAM. Would an upgrade to 3 or 4gb be worth it? The memory is cheap enough to upgrade.

[Sippo]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/#comment

As for the RAM definately upgrade. 2gb is sufficient, but as its so cheap its worth doing.

[Simon Pieman]

I think I will be fine at getting it installed, it's whether it will lead to any issues I'm more concerned with. I already have xp on my machine, so I won't be able to use that method in that guide unfortunately. But it's more or less the same.

[Sippo]

That should be hell of a lot easier then!

[sheepshagger]

DX 10 over 9 is only any good if you have hardware and games to take advantage of it....

Unfortunately there are very few applications that support DX10 fully so most will only take advantage of DX 9 anyway...

Of course you have to have a DX10 graphics card as well...

[Samdy Gray]

Anyone successfully sorted out Vista and XP in a dual boot configuration and does this work ok?

I've got XP and Windows 7 on dual boot with no problems. I just created a new partition (40GB) and installed W7 on the new partition as if it were a new install. Worked a charm.

[Peter Venkman]

DX10 is virtually no improvement whatsoever...even on Crysis which has 64bit and DX10 compatibility.

However this may change in the future but dont hold your breath.

I am running 64bit Ultimate and there is virtually no difference with bog standard Vista.

I use dual boot XP and Ultimate 64 but I boot them on different 500gb drives with no trouble whatsoever but I have not tried it on partitioned drives yet.

As Sheepy says you do need a DX10 card...but they can be bought for as little as £25 now so thats not much of a problem.

2gb is NOT enough for Ultimate to run smoothly, I know as I use DDR3 1366 2gb and its not enough for Ultimate, I do strongly suggest going for 4gb as it swaps in and out of applications much smoother with little lag and gameplay frame rates go up by about 10-20% too.

Overall.....if you feel the need for Ultimate and dont use Vista already then go for it.

[leefer]

While you Boffs are on,a simple question for you...ime getting Champ manager is it ok for a laptop and is it straight forward to load.....will it effect the time for other files etc...any tips would help me....thanks.

[tans]

dont get champ manager, get football manager leefer

[leefer]

OK...not getting it till next month....is it basicly just better for a lappy or just a better game.

[Peter Venkman]

Champ managergerer is not very nasty to a system..unlike FM I am pretty sure it only needs about 1gb of hd space and 2ghz processor and 512mb of ram to run, and if your system is nice and tidy with a fair bit of disk space it will run fine.

But as Tans says...go for FM2009 if your system can take it.

[leefer]

Thanks...just what i needed to know,

[Samdy Gray]

Seeing as other people are piggy-backing on this thread, I might as well join in.

I'm looking to upgrade the RAM on my machine and haven't for a couple of years so don't know what the shizz is with RAM at the moment. What's the best/cheapest DDR2 PC2-5300?

[Peter Venkman]

www.overclock.co.uk has PC5300 for about £7.20 for 1gb thats about the average...even cheaper if you can have PC6400 which is about a quid cheaper per gig.

[Samdy Gray]

I'll have to check when I get home. I know I've got PC2-5300 in there at the moment but I'm not sure of my FSB speed off the top of my head.