new computer

[peter]

Thinking about new computer - I7 - Liquid cooled ect. Been running windows XP with my current rig and have been fearfull of Vista. If i get a new computer should i move to Vista??

[nwadc10]

I'd like to jump in really quick and say skip Vista. I don't have the anymosity towards it like many others do but the reason to skip it now is to get Windows 7. Win 7 will be released next month and from what I hear it's what Vista was supposed to be but better. They got rid of a lot of overhead so performance is better. I've talked to one person who has been running a pre-release version of Win 7 with FSX and he says there is a noticeable difference from Vista. I plan on getting Windows 7 as soon as it is released, unfortunately that means a format

I built me own computer earlier this year with help from Kevin to pick out the parts. I am no longer as familiar with the hardware as I was back then so I can't help you there other than the I7 is better than what I have and I am happy with my system. A friend of mine has the I7 and I've seen it run FSX and it runs it well but still can't max out the sliders (which is ok, maxed sliders starts to get rediculous on autogen)

[esurfman]

Hey Justin, if with Vista I save my whole computer on another Hard Drive (and it just re-install everything without me touching anything) could I use that Drive after Windows 7....should I change or stay with Vista (works well on my computer)?...paid good money for the Premium or whatever edition...

[peter]

Sounds like i put plans on hold for a month or so. If i get vista now what do i face to upgrade to 7

[nwadc10]

Sounds like i put plans on hold for a month or so. If i get vista now what do i face to upgrade to 7

If you are planning to buy a new computer (not build it yourself) most deals are giving you vista on the machine with a *free* upgrade to Windows 7 upon release. Trouble is that you will have to format the HD I believe to do that upgrade (not positive on that). To buy the upgrade straight up, the Home edition is going for $120 USD and the Professional is $200 USD. There's an Ultimate edition out there that I haven't found for sale yet but I have confirmation that it's real. The difference between Professional and Ultimate is minimal from what I can tell and I'll most likely be putting my money down on the Professional edition, more research is required on that though.

The short version is that you either get it now and you get Win7 free next month, or get it next month and get Win7 possibly on the system already or with Vista loaded but can upgrade before you put any of your programs on it.

I was playing PS3 with Craig and Jason yesterday and we got to talking about Windows 7. Jason has it on his system and said in FSX he doubled his framerate just by using Win7. I'll put the disclaimer here that you may not see the same results but I've talked to another guy with the same setup and said that there is definate improvement in FS performance with Win7. He didn't mention his frame rate doubled but it did improve.

[nwadc10]

Hey Justin, if with Vista I save my whole computer on another Hard Drive (and it just re-install everything without me touching anything) could I use that Drive after Windows 7....should I change or stay with Vista (works well on my computer)?...paid good money for the Premium or whatever edition...

I'm not an expert but when I built my new system I tried to keep the HD from my old system as a secondary HD. The intent was to leave everything as-is so I could boot up XP and not mess around with having to reinstall FS9 plus addons, etc. The idea failed miserably. XP was not bootable although I did keep the HD in the new system which saved all of my user files. Programs no longer run that are installed on that HD and I suspect it's just a registry issue. Not worth my time to try to figure it out. The old HD acts like just a regular storage device which works well. Maybe someone else here has the key to unlock this mystery. I think your best bet would be to not toutch your existing drive and if you were planning to buy a new, second HD for the system, put Windows 7 on that new drive. The registry won't be messed up by assigned the original drive a different letter.

I also paid decent money for Vista Ultimate 64 but I will be jumping at the chance to upgrade to Windows 7, I just need to find a 64bit version of it.

[esurfman]

Thanks Justin but should we wait for a bug free Windows & or at least a second version?

[nwadc10]

Thanks Justin but should we wait for a bug free Windows & or at least a second version?

That's up to you but personally I'll be getting it right away most likely.