vista is not for gaming

[kpmwrestler]

i have ut2004, and when i installed vista, UT2004 was extremely choppy, so i turned down the graphics to res:800x600, and just about everything (texture, character, etc.) on either medium or low, and it was still somewhat choppy with the ugly low quality textures, etc.

when i used xp, i had it on 1024x768, and most stuff on high or medium. it shows how much resources vista takes up.

my graphics card is 256mb and i have 2gb ram, 3ghz dual core


the best choice for gaming, at least for UT2004 i have used is OpenSuSE, but when you log in, instead of using KDE, you choose another desktop environment. i forgot what it was, not xfce, it had all the graphics drivers and stuff loaded, but all there was, was a little toolbar floating, and of course a mouse driver. so hardly any ram is being used.

there was no lag and i turned everything almost to its highest setting without any problems of any sort, no lag, nothing.


is there something like that for vista, like a safe mode, except with the proper graphics drivers?

[BartusCompater]

Does Vista not have the capability to run things in compatibility mode for previous versions such as Windows XP? Does this not work?

[Orion]

Just a guess, but if it was still choppy, low textures, etc, at 800X600, it sounds to me like you don't have the manufacturer's drivers installed for either your video card, your motherboard, or both. you're not using microsoft's default drivers, are you?

Granted, vista framerates are lower than xp, but we're usually talking a difference of FEAR in XP taking 45 fps, and in Vista taking 40. noticable, but not eye-wrenching. I have a system comparable to the rather un-detailed specs you posted, and have no problems running games in Vista. The framerates are regularly around 5-10% lower than they are in XP, but that's not bad.

As far as turning off resources, check blackviper.com. After being gone (or stagnant) for a while, he came back and got vista's services explained. there's a list that tells you what's safe to turn off and what's not. Trimming the fat from Vista is time consuming and can have drastic side-effects, but it can be worth it if you have patience. I really dont' think that's your problem though-the only thing that makes any logical sense for that kind of issue is drivers. Update them.

As far as compatability goes, the compatability mode doesn't work as well as one might hope, but in general, you can assume newer games (as UT2004 is) to be compatable. (granted, many other genres of software are sadly lacking in this respect, but we're talking about games here.) In any case, compatability modes aren't going to help here-if the program isnt' compatable with the OS, it won't run. The only case where the graphical performance will be affected is when the graphics drivers are not the proper drivers.

Give the graphics card drivers a look, and if the publisher is listed as microsoft, Ditch it! download the proper ones-nvidia, ATI, or Intel are the most likely ones....