Re: Upgrade to Vista home premium with AMD Athlon 64.

On Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:20:38 -0000, "Dr.Hal0nf1r£$"
<femail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jeff Gaines wrote:
On 10/03/2008 in message
<7ecc2101-88b6-4a22-bf24-aaa9b654087a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
conkersack@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

I have a PC which currently runs XP, it is an Athlon 64 2800+
(1.8GHz) and has 1 GB RAM. It also has an ATI video card at 64MB
which has trouble running Google Earth (strange tartan pattern
effect obscuring the images).

That sounds like a settings issue to do with the resolution; but I don't
recommend playing around with settings of ATI drivers; as with the point I
made in an earlier post, ATI drivers have enough problems working correctly
as it is. Also I think Google Earth requires 128MB minimum though I may be
wrong.

I basically would like to upgrade this computer to Vista Home Premium
but I am concerned that that the processor may not be able to handle
it.

You should think carefully why you want to "upgrade" to Vista. I
tried it on 2 PCs here, one an Athlon 3200+ and one a Core 2 Duo
E6600 (both with 2 GB RAM) and it ran 20% slower than XP on both.
Vista would not run several apps that I use as well so I went back to
XP.

Our experiences here had Vista running up to 50% slower than XP. A
lot of software still does not work or needs expensive upgrades. I
would only recommend changing to Vista if you have to.

The processor should be able to handle it; but as Jeff says, Vista could
well slow it down. It sounds like it's a fairly comparatively old comp; so I
wouldn't recommend it myself.

The programs used most would be Office, Photoshop 7, Exact Audio
Copy, Sketchup, Firefox and Windows Movie Maker.

You should check with the manufacturers of the programs if they will
run on Vista, you may have to pay for upgrades.

Also, I would upgrade the RAM to 2GB at the same time (the most the
motherboard can handle, according to it's manual), and I would like
to change the video card to something that isn't going to cause
problems with the tartan pattern effect in GE. Can anyone recommend
a better video card? It will have to use an AGPx8 slot. ATI again,
or nVidia? How much memory? What is this noise about DirectX 10 that
I don't understand?

2 GB is a minimum for Vista and I would suggest a video card with a
minimum of 128MB (preferably more).

I think Microsoft recommend a minimum of 256MB graphics card for Vista. You
may have big problems finding an AGP card of that size. I think you should
stick to XP and get a 128 MB nVidia card - Enough memory and relative safety
in changing settings.

Lastly, when shelling out for the Vista, is there any reason I
shouldn't go for the 64 bit version? Apparently my scanner doesn't
have 64 bit drivers (it;s a cheap Canon) - could I use the 32 bit
drivers or does it not work like that? If not, are there any third
party scanner drivers available?

If you go 64 bit you must use 64 bit drivers so check availability
with the hardware manufacturers, I don't think it would give you any
advantages.

IMO It'll end in tears with the computer in question: It's theorhetically
capable of running 64-bit operating systems; but I forsee many crashes with
64-bit Vista; 32-bit also to a certain extent for that matter. I'd stick to
XP and upgrade the graphics card; that should solve the Google Earth issue.

I second this.

M.

.

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