Reccomend specifications for a new machine

JazzyDJ · Post by **JazzyDJ** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:43 am

Well after a scare (the first boot attempt out of the box didn't send a signal to the moniter, then the second had scribly lines at first, but the 3rd time was the charm for the first real boot up) of my first time turning it on, I decided to give this new PC a second chance because I wanted to see what Vista was like. The first time I got on it, it scanned my system and checked what I had. So it took a while. Then after that I browsed around with the Vista system and the new PC (1GB) was slow as dirt. So I was discouraged.

But then after a while I decided to test it out again (comparing video with a DVD to my old TNT2) and for some reason this time when I booted up it ran pretty smooth and WAAAAAY quicker than my old computer. So I guess the thing with Vista is that it gets to know your system and once it does that, it can optimize your memory/usage. I've heard Vista uses all your memory as cache. So if I'm right in what I think I've learned from you guys about computers, that would explain why it was so slow the first time but quick and smooth on the next boot up.

But I do have to admit Vista is looking pretty attractive. Just owning the right hardware and as soon as the updates come to iron it out, I bet every one will really start jumping on the bandwagon and enjoy it.

Any way, I think I'll keep it. I just added another 1GB RAM stick and a 512mb DX10 GeForce 8500GT. (Pretty easy to do.) But I've yet to turn it on and test it out since.

By the way do all PCI x16 cards need to be connected to the power supply or do some actually get power strait off the mother board from the PCI Express slot?

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:39 am

some video cards just plug into the pci-e slot (and get enough power from that)
some video cards need additional power (usually higher-end cards)

my old GeForce 6600 didn't need to use the 6-pin pci-e connector, but my Radeon x1950pro does

Gepetto · Post by **Gepetto** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:47 am

Kariudo wrote:XP: 64MB [minimum] 128MB recommended

XP has a hard time running on anything less than 256 (unless you're in safe mode)

Joe88 wrote:impossible

ive ran XP pro fine on 64MB (works better with 256MB) ram compaq deskpro's
vista ran fine with only 512MB ram, Ive gamed with it, as well as a bunch of other stuff with no problems or low memory warnings

AFAIK you're both right. XP Service Pack 2 eats up the computer's resources like a fat kid at Charlie's Chocolate Factory and 256 is the bare minimum for XP SP2 to only crash every other hour, but if you don't run SP2 and disable some of the eye-candy (which is very poorly coded, since it wastes way too much RAM for simple stuuf like shading under icon names on the Desktop - MAC OS X and Beryl do a lot more for a lot less) then 64MB will run (although I don't think you can call it very stable on 64MB - I've never tried XP on it, but Windows 98 crashed a lot on me with 64MB).

I've just installed a little package on my brother's computer that gave the full Vista look to his XP set - the sounds, the icons, the taskbar thumbnails, the glassy windows and even the desktop widgets (practically everything but that 3D window-spinning thing that can replace Alt+Tab) and the RAM load increased by about 50MB. Actually running Vista is bound to be heavier than theming XP, but based on this and the fact that most of the changes were visual, I don't really see why it would be so much heavier.

Joe88 · Post by **Joe88** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:16 pm

I tried that transformation pack on my XP before I upped to vista in jan
it lagged like no tomorrow...

though the actual vista runs very smoothly compared to that though