Laptop: Vista or Xp

[Ratbag]

Hiho ya'al, So I have a question.

I currently have an Acer Laptop (Aspire 7730G)

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5800 @ 2.00GHz 2,00GHz
RAM: 4,00 GB
GeForce 9600M GS 512 MB
Intel Centrio
320GB HDD

So what I'm wondering is. Currently my Medieval 2 games tend to get a little laggy.
Would my laptop run better with XP? Because I've heard Vista is a very hard OS to run.
I don't know jack **** about PC so I hope you guys can help me on what I could do to get it running better.

[Jaketh]

windows 7

[Ratbag]

Lols, That would be great but I'm not going to spend that much money on it.
It's just that I have a XP pack lying around.

[Jaketh]

windows 7 is a free beta

[Ratbag]

Oh really.. Like I said, I don't know about PC's.

But I don't really like the sound of a Free BETA OS.

[Jaketh]

Oh really.. Like I said, I don't know about PC's.

But I don't really like the sound of a Free BETA OS.

its amazing and is compatible with everything

[Ratbag]

Yeah, I've been looking it up and it will start shutting down every 2 hours.

This is a very important question. The Windows 7 Beta will expire on August 1, 2009 and the RC will expire on June 1, 2010. To avoid interruption, you'll need to rebuild your test machine using a valid version of Windows before the software expires. Windows will notify you that the expiration process is beginning, and two weeks later your PC will begin shutting down every two hours.

So no thanks. Can anyone answer my question from the OP?

[Alba gu Brath]

Vista is quite power hungry but apart from that, I have no problem with it. It's better than XP IMO. You have 4GB though so it shouldn't be a problem.

[Ratbag]

So it's just my laptop that isn't good enough for Medieval 2?

[Mar77]

What settings do you run the game at?

[Strelok]

Vista runs flawless with around 2GB of RAM. Anything higher is only more beneficial since Superfetch will up your un-used RAM with files so that you do not have to rely as much on the hard disk. Windows XP or any other OS even worth mentioning does this, but you have to first access them by the disk and then they are placed into unused memory. SuperFetch will collect related information of your habits and intelligently cache unused RAM whenever RAM is free'd up. (Note that this cached RAM is reported as unused RAM, look at the "Cached" figure under Physical Memory ussage in the Task Manager). Heck, Vista was 100% responsive when I only had 1GB of memory, even when gaming, although I did have a solid state disk. Of course, SuperFetch is just one of the performance-related features included in Vista.

Also note that Laptops comes crammed in with a lot of redundant junk and hence there will be a lot of excess third party things running in the background using up RAM. A clean fresh install of Vista runs exactly 33 processes and results between 300 and 500MB of total memory usage. Anything much higher is 99.9% of the time due to third party gunk running in the background.

Windows Vista, now, with the latest updates and drivers for your components, is high performing and stable as a rock.. I've been using Windows Vista since late 2007 without a single problem with it.

Would my laptop run better with XP? Because I've heard Vista is a very hard OS to run.

You should check on other things and make sure you have all third party programs and their services stopped before playing any games. Normal Windows Vista memory usage is between 300-500MB. Pressthe Ctrl+Shift+Escape keys at the same time to open Task Manager and open the Performance tab. Tell us how much memory is being used. Also, do you know if the drivers for all your components are up to date? Do you know if you have all the latest updates for Windows?

Also note that laptop cards are considerably of less quality than desktop cards. A desktop 9600GT shouldn't have trouble running MTW2 at high settings. What settings are you trying to run at?

[Ratbag]

You should check on other things and make sure you have all third party programs and their services stopped before playing any games. Normal Windows Vista memory usage is between 300-500MB. Pressthe Ctrl+Shift+Escape keys at the same time to open Task Manager and open the Performance tab. Tell us how much memory is being used. Also, do you know if the drivers for all your components are up to date? Do you know if you have all the latest updates for Windows?

Also note that laptop cards are considerably of less quality than desktop cards. A desktop 9600GT shouldn't have trouble running MTW2 at high settings. What settings are you trying to run at?

1,28GB Damd.. That's too much probably no?
There are 94 things running.

But like I said I don't know about PC's, well not much at least.


Could you direct me to a solution to bring it down?
I would be ever so grateful.

Also I run them on medium settings.

EDIT: I could just re-install Vista but they don't give you OS Cd's when you buy a freaking PC or laptop anymore... WTF IS UP WITH THAT????

[Shqiponja_Hayabusa]

Many people who purchase a laptop prefer XP over Vista since batteries will last you 50% more than with Vista.

[Freddie]

1,28GB Damd.. That's too much probably no?
There are 94 things running.

But like I said I don't know about PC's, well not much at least.


Could you direct me to a solution to bring it down?
I would be ever so grateful.

Also I run them on medium settings.

EDIT: I could just re-install Vista but they don't give you OS Cd's when you buy a freaking PC or laptop anymore... WTF IS UP WITH THAT????

We ordered a new laptop at work and it had Vista on it, by the time I had activated and set the clocks and settings etc ram usage was already at 1.28Gb (running Vista Home Premium). 300 Mb's of that was crap Dell had installed so once that was disabled I managed to get the Vista wort hog down to 900 Mb's but by this stage Vista was pretty bear I can't remember how many process were running in the background but it was going to be a struggle to get it down to anywhere near 500 Mb's let alone the 300 Mb's TheAnonymous mentioned.

If you running a Laptop and battery life is important to you go with XP, XP is proven to run laptops longer then Vista and is less power demanding not to mention XP is faster when it comes to playing non DirectX 10 games as well. The biggest selling point of Vista is it's improved security it's a lot better XP but with that does comes the annoying UAC which pops up ever time you go to change a setting so if security is your most important part for this Laptop you should look at Vista.

[Scandinavisksoldat]

The answer to this problem is simple. It is fixed in a quick, five step plan:

1. Go here:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

2. Download the appropriate file.

3. Burn it to a cd or dvd.

4. Install a new, WORKING operating system.

5. Install WINE, the Windows program loader.

And by now, all of your problems are solved!

[Shqiponja_Hayabusa]

Go with Ubuntu if you dont have money to buy your OS or if you want to learn everything about programing. And you need in order to perform basic jobs under linux. For example intsall flash player

[Wheelchair]

I put vista on my aunts PC and it has 1GB Ram, runs great.

[Ratbag]

Battery is not an issue, I just bought a laptop because I could sit in my seat.
I prefer it over desktops but I hardly use it without being plugged in.

The only thing I'm concerned about is performance.

[Shqiponja_Hayabusa]

It depends on what performance do you need. Overall xp is faster in games and generally. Vista eats in iddle 700-800 mb, once you have installed some stuff. Xp needs half of the resources and you can go even lower I have a computer with xp that uses only 92 mb ram. But still Vista has some pros like security and maybe file fetching. Better than both is probably 7, eats alot of ram like vista too. I would go with Xp however or x64 bit Vista.

[Musthavename]

I've used a laptop with virtually identical specs to that and I was running Med2 fine on High at 1280x800, so unless you're playing at a higher resolution I don't see why you should be getting lag. Apart from perhaps making your power consumption better I don't see what benefit you'd get from an XP downgrade. If you currently have a 64 bit OS using that 4GB of RAM, then downgrading to XP (presuming it's the 32 bit version) will cause your laptop to recognise less RAM.

I seriously wouldn't reccommend the Ubuntu/Wine suggestion if you don't know much about PCs.