ram question
polycounter lvl 20
Looking at getting some new ram, just wondering what the general opinion would be about these http://shoprbc.com/ca/shop/product_details.php?pid=23593
Also, what the deal with the vista upgrade nonsense? Does that mean it wont work at full capacity on my XP machine?
Also, what the deal with the vista upgrade nonsense? Does that mean it wont work at full capacity on my XP machine?
Replies
Shouldn't this be in general?
"I'm sorry you don't meet the min spec. Specifically your Intel 82845g EXTREME graphics controller is a pile of junk. Next time you buy a (insert computer corp here) don't expect to play games unless you specifically ask them for a quality video card"
But phrased in customer service speak to sound pretty...
Other than that, its a huge steaming pile of bugs and slowness.
I am looking to get a Dell XPS420 Platinum.
Some people have said the ram supplied is not great although it is 3G.Can i upgrade this in the future and what would you suggest.
The pc has nice specs but only ships with Vista.My concern is my current programs Max9/Zbrush 3.1/Photoshop CS2 are for XP.I am not in a position to buy new software as well.
I had been told that Vista has an XP compatibility mode and they should run fine.I even called Dell and spoke with Rep who assured me that they would work fine and that Dell only shipped out systems with vista as compatability issues with programs on xp has been for the most part sorted.He added the only likely problems would be connecting scanners/printers etc that were for xp in which case i should visit manufacturers website for new drivers.
Here is link for Dell XPS Platinum-
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/produc...;l=en&s=dhs
i have a friend who cannot use max 9 in vista, although max 8 works for me. if you really absolutely need to use vista, i suggest to update the video drivers first thing when you get your new computer, or you'll be in slug-town.
vista is still sluggish mind.
Personally I'd rather go with a PC6400 kit with the little to no price difference just to have a little more headroom for the future (unless you only ever plan to use the ram in a c2d machine with no more than 1333FSB).
"Upgrading" to Vista would only make "sense" if you go with the 64bit version as the 32bit version has the exact same "problem" when it comes to memory addressing limits as XP (or any other 32bit OS for that matter).
Also Vista (at least the 32bit version - I'm not sure about the 64bit version) still uses the same 2gb user space / 2gb system space allocation (unless you tell it to do otherwise, which also works in XP though) which means that no application will get more than 2GB for itself (on the other hand most applications are designed that way and couldn't even handle more than 2GB).
The problem with the 4GB limit is that 32bit addressing can only address 4GB of memory in total - and for example the memoryon your video card (among other stuff) also counts to that 4GB total so you will not be able to use the full 4GB of ram but depending on the other hardware found in your system more likely ~3.2 to 3.5 GB.
I also have 4GB of ram in my XP machine and I can't complain... the system uses 3.5GB of it and if I were to "upgrade" to Vista64 so the remaining 512mb could be used I'm sure vista would additionally eat up far more than that which would annihilate the original benefit of having it available.
long story short: don't let your XP concerns stop you from getting 4GB (especially right now while ram is dirt cheap).
OCZ is quality ram and the price looks good to me.
If you are interested here's a nice article about the limits of 32bit addressing.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3034
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAS_latency
That is what the "quality" typically gets down to. You won't see a difference unless you test the machines side by side, and even then the diff is less than 2-3%. Ram is typically the fastest item on the board being bottlenecked by GPU/Cards. If you use 32 bit XP you will only see 3.2gigs out of 4gb. If you use 64 bit XP, you will hit driver and stability issues. Vista is a pile shit, XP SP3 will be out soon and hopefully put Vista sales down so low they quit marketing it and just update XP. I'm a systems engineer with a decades exp.
Zbrush 3 had a bug with vista permissions, where you had to escalate running the app as an admin or it could'nt access something. It may have been addressed in 3.1. In vista you don't really run in admin mode unless you force it. it's a psudo admin similar to ubuntu. your user account uses a background system admin account when running actions that require the permissions. hence all the ridiculous popups asking for allowances.
I just updated to XP64 and miss win2k stability already, i wish they made a 64bit version before it died
The packaged desktop systems is usually cheaper, but I no longer buy those packages since I find that the hardware they provide is usually low end RAM, crappy video card, and can't overclock or restrict BIOS settings. You could always try posting on
NCIX Forums
if your looking for advice on hardware, or building a workstation computer on the "PC Builder Workshop."
Zbrush runs without any kind of problem. The same with the different apps i use. All is better than with XP pro, at least in my workstation. In general, i'm very happy with this new SO and with the few 64bits applications i use. UAC was something annoying, so i disabled it like some of the services i don't use and other silly features vista has.
Ram is very cheap now. I'm thinking to buy 4 gb more of ram, but i must see if they are needed for rendering. For modelling i have enough with 4 to give extreme detail. In Max 2008 64 bits, per example, i can handle 20 millions of polygons in viewports without any kind of problem (no instances). I'm really happy with all this.
About drivers, they work very good, although not as good as XP 32 versions of course. 64 bit drivers are not optimized yet but they work fine. Games runs almost exactly than in Xp, although some of them runs worse with less fps and others better.
If you haven't got 4 gb of ram or 3, i recommend you to stay with xp the longer you can. vista ultimate 32 uses around 400-700mb of your ram, and if you are going to have 8 gb of ram per example, you will use only 3 as in XP. Be sure to upgrade your ram taking in consideration the features of your actual ram. If you buy 2 modules of 1gb, and you had 2 modules of 1gb with different characteristics and worse timings... you surely will be wasting money if you go for better modules. For a good perfomance all the modules must be identical.
Max9 works in Vista with service packs. I have been several months using Vista ultimate 32 and Max9.
Ah, with Vista you will need to upgrade the sound card with a newer one with openAl acceleration (x-fi). I had an audigy 2 zs and it has been the unique thing i needed to change. Too bad, surround sound dissappeared with Vista arggh.
Vista=Money lost
I changed to vista because my system was not used at its 100%, and because it's a 100% vista capable system. If not.. i would never have switched to Vista. Xp pro 64 would have been my choice.
I have readed that Microsoft will not supply Xp Oem versions in 2008, and that Sp3 for Xp is stopped. And that they are working esclusively on Vista Sp1. If someone can verify this, would be of help.
Well, i hope to have helped with my experience with vista. If someone wants to ask something about all this i won't have any problem to answer. There are too many trash about Vista, and almost all are lies.