Installing OS from scratch on new PC

[somebody]

Hi all

I am just about to build my new PC, but before I start, I just wanted to ask a few questions so that I can be prepared before hand.

1) What motherboard drivers do I need to install for the Asus P6T Deluxe? Looking at the the Asus website, and there seems to be loads of drivers (chipset, LAN, SATA drivers etc etc) for the Asus P6T deluxe motherboard, do you need to install all of them?

2) I am looking to create a dual boot system with Windows XP Professional x64 and Windows Vista Ultimate x64 OS's. I was just wondering would that mean I would need to install separate drivers for the mobo/graphics cards for both OS's?

3) I was reading that for optimal performance, it is best to create a separate partition just for the page file and that this partition should be on a separate drive. Now what I want to know is :

a) Would I need to move both swap files for both OS's onto this partition?
b) Is it worth moving the page/swap file onto a partition that exists on a 2nd hard drive if it is slower? (I was planning to move it to a 7200RPM 16MB Cache Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drive).

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to be prepared and eke out as much performance as I can for my new PC.

Thanks in advance

[Agent]

1) Windows will include almost all generic ones by default, but it's always best to grab the latest ones. Yes, install them all.
Some of the generic drivers do not fully support all the features of hardware. For example, the bundled graphics drivers with Windows offer minimal features.

2)Yes, the OS's are entirely separate. A driver is at the OS level so they do not share each others drivers. Not only that but XP64 and Vista64 use different drivers anyway

3)In most cases on home machines it's simply not worth it - more so with Vistas better memory management. When talking about database design and other high I/O scenarios, things might be a little different but for day to day use, don't waste your time.
I deal with some huge images in my job and had a separate disk just for swapping / scratching and it honestly wasn't worth the money. To answer though
a) yes
b) That depends on what over overheads is on the main drive. If you're taxing the main drive, even though the 2nd drive is slower it will be 'faster' to use it due to other I/O on the main disk.
Just so you're aware - you can have multiple swap files across multiple drives.

Don't get me wrong here, a separate drive for swapping is undoubtedly better, but the gains are still pretty small. If you're getting big gains from having a separate drive for swapping, spend the extra money on RAM and you'll reduce the swapping in the first place

[somebody]

2)Yes, the OS's are entirely separate. A driver is at the OS level so they do not share each others drivers. Not only that but XP64 and Vista64 use different drivers anyway

Yeah, I thought as much, I was more hoping that I wouldn't need to. There is alot more work than I thought to manage dual boot OS's.

Don't get me wrong here, a separate drive for swapping is undoubtedly better, but the gains are still pretty small. If you're getting big gains from having a separate drive for swapping, spend the extra money on RAM and you'll reduce the swapping in the first place

I've got 6GB DDR3 Memory atm, which should be more than enough I think for now.

I might as well ask the question, do u think its worth dual booting between these two OS's?. My logic behind this is so that I can run software and play older games on Windows XP Pro x64 OS and only move to Vista to play some of the newer games that require it or DirectX 10.1. My reason was also because running Vista would be alot slower? I didn't want to use a slower OS as my primary OS. However with the system I'm building (Intel Core i7 920, 6GB DDR3 Memory, Geforce GTX 275) I guess that will be irrelevant i think.

What do you think? (Can you play older games on Windows Vista/run older software?)
Does moving onto 64 bit cause alot more compatibility problems in regards to software?

[Mblaster]

I might as well ask the question, do u think its worth dual booting between these two OS's?. My logic behind this is so that I can run software and play older games on Windows XP Pro x64 OS and only move to Vista to play some of the newer games that require it or DirectX 10.1. My reason was also because running Vista would be alot slower? I didn't want to use a slower OS as my primary OS. However with the system I'm building (Intel Core i7 920, 6GB DDR3 Memory, Geforce GTX 275) I guess that will be irrelevant i think.

What do you think? (Can you play older games on Windows Vista/run older software?)
Does moving onto 64 bit cause alot more compatibility problems in regards to software?

Short answer, no I don't think it's worth it. On a new build you should have no performance problems at all with Vista, especially with an i7 and 6gb RAM, and XP 64bit is more trouble that it's worth from what I've heard about it.

[Agent]

XP64 has significantly worse compatibility than Vista64 with older games. Go with normal XP if you need backwards compatibility with something of that era.

Having said that, there are not a huge number of games which don't work on Vista 64. We are talking really old games for total non-compliance. Most things in the last decade have minor work arounds where needed.

The debate over speed of Vista vs XP has been going on forever, and for every one person you find saying one thing, there will be someone saying the other
Try not to read into them too much, Vista is much more mature now and most of the major bugs have been removed. Having said that, If you have to shell out retail costs, I'd wait for Windows 7 personally.

[somebody]

Hrmm, now I'm getting confused....

The reason why I totally eliminated a 32 bit OS was because I would lose 3GB of my RAM, which obviously is not what I want. I didn't realise that Windows XP x64 is worse than Windows Vista x64 in regards to compatibility!

So other people want to add their opinion? Windows Vista x64 or XP Pro x64.

Running Vista x64, I shouldn't have any problems playing games that are 3-4 years old?

[somebody]

If you have to shell out retail costs, I'd wait for Windows 7 personally.

I have an MSDN account, so that is not a concern. I am also waiting for Windows 7, from what I've heard it's what Vista should have been! Shame its not out already...

[aidanjt]

We are talking really old games for total non-compliance.

Or 'new' games that insist on installing a 32bit rootkit into your kernel. Now *that* is really annoying.

[Agent]

Oh, don't get me started.
Same issue with adding drivers for copy protection - most simply don't work.

[aidanjt]

Oh, don't get me started.
Same issue with adding drivers for copy protection - most simply don't work.

Here's looking at you, EA.