Best OS for new Quad system?

[greenclaws]

New quad core system with 2gb of ram.
It's mostly going to be used for audio production, video production and Photoshop. Some gaming but only a DX9 card installed.

I need some advice on which OS to buy and install for this system that will compliment its power. As it's a new 64 bit processor, would Vista 64-bit be the best? At the same time it's not widely supported and so would even XP 32 bit do?

Any advice would be much appreciated

Thanks!

[Clunk]

Right now, as things stand, I would say XP 32bit.

[TheAnimus]

No way on earth i'd agree with clunk on that.

If your not going to go for Vista (choosing hardware which works effortlessly with it is still hard, you might as well use linux hard, almost) then Windows 2003 Server.

XP's code base is stone age when you think its 5 years old, it has no idea how to coupe with quad core, it wasn't designed for it.

Server 2003 was designed to scale more accross multiple CPUs and use them, i found the performance difference between 2003 and XP striking on my old dual box.

If you don't agree with that, then there is always the fact its got later optomisations compiled in.

One thing thats often ignored is the difference this can have. Take an old linux and compiler (say 2.4) and compile it with the latest and the oldest compiler, the speed difference is surprising to some. This is an often ignored issue with pre-compiled os'es, if your running on the later gen hardware, the older compiled OS won't use it as effectivly as it could. Remeber XP is compiled against northwood ~2ghz era cpu design optomisations.

This is why so many people found performance boosts with win 2k3 once stripping it down to a desktop OS mode.

Myself, i'd go for vista. Its only this PC (single core tablet pc) I'm not running it on now, except for a dodgy atheros driver on my q1 ultra (fixed by them now) its all been going swimmingly.

[Fraz]

No way on earth i'd agree with clunk on that.

If your not going to go for Vista (choosing hardware which works effortlessly with it is still hard, you might as well use linux hard, almost) then Windows 2003 Server.

XP's code base is stone age when you think its 5 years old, it has no idea how to coupe with quad core, it wasn't designed for it.

Server 2003 was designed to scale more accross multiple CPUs and use them, i found the performance difference between 2003 and XP striking on my old dual box.

If you don't agree with that, then there is always the fact its got later optomisations compiled in.

One thing thats often ignored is the difference this can have. Take an old linux and compiler (say 2.4) and compile it with the latest and the oldest compiler, the speed difference is surprising to some. This is an often ignored issue with pre-compiled os'es, if your running on the later gen hardware, the older compiled OS won't use it as effectivly as it could. Remeber XP is compiled against northwood ~2ghz era cpu design optomisations.

This is why so many people found performance boosts with win 2k3 once stripping it down to a desktop OS mode.

Myself, i'd go for vista. Its only this PC (single core tablet pc) I'm not running it on now, except for a dodgy atheros driver on my q1 ultra (fixed by them now) its all been going swimmingly.

The OS might well be compiled using old compiler technology, but that doesn't mean the applications you then install on it will be. And since XP has much lower hardware requirements anyway, this somewhat invalidates what you are saying.

However, I agree with what you say TheAnimus - GreenClaws should look forwards, not back. And lets face it... you can get Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM for ~£60. It's not a lot when compared to the amount you've prob spent on hardware.

Or, if you still aren't sure, just dual boot it.

[TheAnimus]

remeber that most apps, even the simple ones spend a lot of their time in APIs.

A simple way to show quite how much, is to look at kernel cpu time. Everything there can benefit, or get worse thanks to 'more modern' ie more complex paradigms.

Now remeber as well that a lot of simple win32 api type things have been improved, if you where running notepad without glass, you would probably find it noticeable faster to open, and find in big txt files.... or anything else my poor choice of app does

[joshwa]

Does server 2003 run games okay?
Isn't Vista based on the same kernel?
So presumably vista would cope just as well with quad core?

[TheAnimus]

yes, but vista would be a better choice (dx10),
yes, but based... remeber that, based like its all based on NT 4 which was based on.......,
yes, but better (kinda my point).

[joshwa]

Ah cool, I thought you were saying 2003 was the best, but you're saying:

Vista is better than 2003, and 2003 is better than XP (for quadcore)

[mroz]

I'm sticking with XP 32 bit simply as I don't intend beta testing an OS on my main rig. Optimisations don't help when you can't find stable drivers or some of the software you want to use doesn't function properly. I'll switch to Vista 64 bit when it looks to have less issues & better support - & then I'll be dual booting for three to six months probably.

I don't know about Server 2003 but if it has the same code base as the Vista kernel won't driver issues be similar?

[Clunk]

XP runs fine with current quad cores, in fact overall, it runs much faster than vista on mine for pretty much everything.

A good test for me that vista was still broke, was to fit another 2GiB RAM, watch it consume the RAM and not actually get any faster.

There are still hard disk slowdown problems and major networking problems.

The OP said he wanted it for Audio and video production. Video card drivers are still garbage from Nvidia (not sure about ATI at the moment). Maybe I'm too picky, but I certainly wouldnt want vista on a machine that I was using for work stuff, especially audio and video stuff...not yet.

[ajbrun]

Tbh, I think Vista must have gotten out of the wrong side of bed the day Clunk decided to install it. I've had close to zero problems with it, and I still use it as my main machine which is used for gaming.

The other day I too added and extra 2GB ram, and I seen an improvement.

I don't see how you would be 'beta testing an OS on your main rig'. It's been released for about 6 months now, and I believe that the only reason it's got such a bad reputation is because everyone talks about all the negatives. You never see a load of threads all about the positives. For example, this thread showed that at least 81% of us who run Vista think it's fine, and I'm sure that number will improve even more with time.

Finally, just look at the cost benefit. Surely there's no point in buying another XP license now, and then a Vista one sometime in the near future when you finally decide to upgrade?

It just doesn't make sense...

[ikonia]

how many times....how many threads this month alone must we go over this tedious debate.

[Bluecube]

Given that Vista is a real memory hog and you've got 'only' 2Gb and are considering video production, I'd use XP for the time being.

[javalord]

Finally, just look at the cost benefit. Surely there's no point in buying another XP license now, and then a Vista one sometime in the near future when you finally decide to upgrade?

It just doesn't make sense...

Actually microsoft offer a downgrade process for Vista licences to XP, and you can go back to Vista at a later date.

Yes the Vista kernel is a bit more optimized yada yada, but in all seriousness, the overheads and the performance loss during normal tasks and productivity is just poor, and this is on a system with plenty of RAM. Now I wouldnt mind a small loss for some benefit, but to date, there isnt much benefit from moving from xp.

Also its been mentioned that some audio applications do have an issue with Vista's sound APIs, so worth checking. And as for multithreading ability, a lot of audio/video applications do rely on their own multithreaded APIs, and whilst the kernel has a part to play, so does the original code base to a much larger extent. The XP kernel isnt that bad scheduling multithreaded applications, despite its 'dated kernel'. There's a good reason why MS is forcing Vista on new machines...

[javalord]

Now remeber as well that a lot of simple win32 api type things have been improved, if you where running notepad without glass, you would probably find it noticeable faster to open, and find in big txt files.... or anything else my poor choice of app does

Its loading faster as like OS X, when the system is idling, its caching. Which is nice and useful, but as soon as your apps are open, thanks to the lovely aero interface and whatever other overheads, you start to lose an edge in terms of just getting things done.

But its dam useful on a media center box, one press and its go go go! Fortunately I limit it to the media center box too.

[TheAnimus]

Its really worth saying, run some code that does say 512 memalloc's for 1meg of memory on vista.

You will see how quickly the cached data (the 'ram hog') is dumped for your definately wanted allocation to be in physical (from virtual), seriously people if your not a developer, don't lob around your 2 cents proving you don't know how to read task manager, yet alone pagign.

your OS, should idle with 100% memory useage in an ideal world, and the page file should contain everything as soon as the HDD bottleneck has spare overhead. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!