XP vs. Vista

[Ryken]

As far as Vista taking a lot of memory to run, you must realize this is an intended feature of Vista. The idea is that you should ACTUALLY USE all of the memory you paid for, instead of it sitting empty most of the time. So, it throttles up the memory used when you aren't doing much, and then throttles it down when you are running more things.

If you have a memory usage meter running, it looks like, "OMG, WTF is VISTA doing?!?!? My memories are FULL and I'm just sitting idle!!!!!" But Vista knows this, and it reduces its footprint when you start doing other things. This is a good thing, you paid for the memory, you want it used right?

Here is a link with some third party support, so you know I'm not some windows fanboy (I own a macbook, shhh!)

Why Does Vista Use All My Memory?

 

[Passerby]

most Linux distros do the same when you have a bucket load of unused ram it starts to cache commonly used files to ram to allow faster application startup and to make commonly used data more responsive.

example opensuse 11.1 only needs around 512mb to run but on my desktop it usually uses around 400mb of ram with just everyday desktop apps going plus a 3gb of ram used in file caching so it's always useing almost the whole 4gb even if it's just ideling at the desktop.

 

[Passerby]

it would make more sense of vista and 7 had a better way of displaying free and used ram
this is how free memory is shown in opensuse

Free memory: 1,021.8 MB (+ 2.3 GB Caches)

as you can see it is very easy to tell that just under a gig of memory is unused but there is 2.3 gigs of caches that can dumped and used if needed

 

[Kaine]

it would make more sense of vista and 7 had a better way of displaying free and used ram
this is how free memory is shown in opensuse

Free memory: 1,021.8 MB (+ 2.3 GB Caches)

as you can see it is very easy to tell that just under a gig of memory is unused but there is 2.3 gigs of caches that can dumped and used if needed

I guess they need to dumb it down even further...

Physical Memory

Total
Cached
Free

This is what the task manager shows, simple math eh?

 

[Passerby]

@Kaine i think it makes more sense to show cached in the free area it helps draw the line more that the cached memory can be dropped and used if needed

 

[Ryken]

@Kaine i think it makes more sense to show cached in the free area it helps draw the line more that the cached memory can be dropped and used if needed

I wonder what the perceptions of Vista would be if they had just done this from the start.

 

[xenophek]

I'm still not sure why people hate on Vista so much. I work on computers... A LOT. I've touched just about every operating system on the face of the earth, and Vista's not that bad. I hear people say how it's buggy and crashes a lot... no it doesn't. I have to work on my XP systems all the freakin' time to keep them running smoothly. I rarely have to touch Vista.

Now for resources, yeah Vista is a hog. But you can't live in the shadows forever, my friends. Pretty soon, you will have no support for XP and you won't have any experience with the new operating systems. Besides, it's not economical to downgrade to XP.

You'll spend $80 to get XP from Newegg, when you can buy a boatload of RAM instead and still save money. Just saying...

-Xen

 

[Passerby]

also most people with xp only have the 32bit version and xp 64bit has some issues and you guys got to remember that the whole 4gb limit with 32bit inst only ram that include the ram, vram, the the caches on the cpu itself. so what's better a os that can see all fo your physical memory but uses more of it or a os that cant see or take advantage all of your physical memory.

 

[Kaine]

@Kaine i think it makes more sense to show cached in the free area it helps draw the line more that the cached memory can be dropped and used if needed

If a person is really to dumb to put 2 and 2 together I really don't know what to say. Doesn't get much more clear than cached = free if you need it.

Then again I'm also for taking warning labels off everything and having that be population control so I have far less patience for the mouthebreathers out there.

 

[Gunbowzer]

I like vista better. For me vista is better then xp for gaming.

 

[Destroy]

7 > Vista
Agreed

 

[Passerby]

+1

but

vista = this generations Windows ME
Seven = this generations Windows XP

 

[FreakingHell]

+1

but

vista = this generations Windows ME
Seven = this generations Windows XP

No.

Windows ME was fail. Vista is perfectly fine, but Windows 7 is spectacular.

7 > Vista > XP

 

[Sharpe]

Uhhh outdated notions ftl.

Vista is NOT a huge memory hog compared to XP. My vista with very little if any tweaking at all uses 750mb's of ram including video drivers, sound card drivers, ESET, Steam, mouse/keyboard software and a few other things. XP uses a couple hundred less MB's IF THAT.

With XP On my computer, It can use about 320MB of Ram. That also includes all drivers, Steam, Mouse/keyboard, MSN, and a few other things.

With Firefox running it goes to about 400MB, and with TF2 running, It goes to about 600-700.

Weird?

 

[PloxBox]

Vista is slow and buggy, xp is awesome, mabey someday they will break in vista, until then im sticking with xp ;P

 

[FreakingHell]

Vista is slow and buggy, xp is awesome, mabey someday they will break in vista, until then im sticking with xp ;P

I haven't had any bugs with Vista since SP1. And Vista is faster than XP as long as you have 2 or more GB's of RAM. People say Vista sucks because originally it wasn't exactly great, and they didn't want to change. Now Vista's is looked down on because of its reputation. If Vista had been released with SP1, it would probably have a much better perception.

 

[Kaine]

With XP On my computer, It can use about 320MB of Ram. That also includes all drivers, Steam, Mouse/keyboard, MSN, and a few other things.

With Firefox running it goes to about 400MB, and with TF2 running, It goes to about 600-700.

Weird?

This man has a point. For those of you still running 512MB's of ram than XP is most certainly the way to go!

I just disabled most of Vista's eye candy (see features XP doesn't have) and I'm down to just under 400MB's. Do I win a cookie? Please, buy more ram if it is such a big deal to you that you find the need to post something with little to no relevance to even somewhat modern technology (if 100-300MB's is really so bad, it's time to upgrade bub).

Vista is slow and buggy, xp is awesome, mabey someday they will break in vista, until then im sticking with xp ;P

Thank you for sharing your opinion with no evidence to back it up. I'll make sure to inform the many Vista users that they have a buggy and slow OS and need to downgrade immediately.

I used XP for several years and have been using Vista for the last year. Of the 2 I find Vista more responsive and far more ideal for gaming. See, we can all post pointless statements with no evidence.

 

[Vader]

I run XP 32 bit and Windows 7 64 bit, I replaced Vista with Windows 7.
Don't even think of Vista, Windows 7 Release Candidate is free and works much better than Vista in every way. Plus Windows 7 supports DX11 when the cards come out in the fall, Vista and DX10 were a flop. Windows 7 is what Vista was SUPPOSED to be.

Though I still use XP as my main OS for maximum performance.

 

[FreakingHell]

Plus Windows 7 supports DX11 when the cards come out in the fall, Vista and DX10 were a flop.

DirectX 11 will be on Vista as well.

 

[redhat]

I think XP is the overall performance and gaming OS.
Vista's high graphics slow it down, and the attempt to make it at 'ez' caused alot of bugs, and anger. Luckly I found my XP disks, and downgraded.
I'm just waiting for Windows 7. But I won't get that until at least the first service pack, just because of bug issues.