Hi guys,I am building a new system and have come to the point where I need to decide if it's going to be powered by XP or it's brother Vista.I'm going to be playing both FS2004 and FSX. The system will be fairly decent E6600 along with a 8800 GTS. I don't mind not having the nice visual of vista (already have it at work). I'm looking for more performance vs. eye-candy.Your suggestions are appreciatedNick

The word, "NEW" and the term, "XP" don't go together. If you're building a "new system", Vista will be either installed now or later. Which would you rather do for a "seamless" installation?

I would stick with XP , you can find it cheap off newegg, until the DX10 patch is released for FSX, then wait a few months after that to get Vista Home Premium.

I have E6600 for FSX and use XP, I've no complaints. I'm not anti Vista but will wait for drivers to mature and the DX10 patch before worrying about an upgrade to Vista myself.

Get 2 Hard-drives and create a Dual boot PC..then you can have both.RegardsJim

If I were building from scratch..I'd probably look towards Vista.I currently have XP, The idea that I have to go Vista even a year from now when DX10 hits the market, is not palatable to me... I have too many addons installed for FS9. If you alredy had XP then I would have said..stick to it and don't bother with Vista.Manny

Trust me...Vista and FSX work GREAT together, provided you have a system like you are going to build. There are no real driver problems that I have encountered. Creative X-fi is out; Nvidia has drivers for Vista (and will continue to improve), and my Epson printer, Canon Scanner, etc. all work beautifully. I am experiencing over 28 FPS at most airports and very frequently stay in the 30's, 40's and up. I do this with Real Weather in all cases. My FSX Config is always set to Unlimited, and let FSX do the AA and AF in the game. My Texture Multi Bandwidth is 140, and I find this to be an important setting.The future is VISTA...especially with a system...the likes of which you are building. XP, in my opinion, is a step backwards.

>If you're building a "new system", Vista will be either installed>now or later.Nonsense.I just built a new system that runs Windows 98 SE and, mark my words, it will never see Vista.

Vista and FSX are a good combination, as long as it's Vista 32Bit. Some addons are incompatible with 64Bit versions of Vista.FSX run great on Vista. However FSX runs more stable on WinXP for me. I am still having some graphic/driver issues with FSX with my 8800 GTS.Pat

The issue with Vista is DRM, not the performance of FSX or any other appication. Anyone who understands the DRM issue would not be likely to say that XP is a step backwards.Doug

Hi guysThanks to all for your input. I think Vista it is. However I'm wondering if any of you still run FS2004 on their vistas ...does it perform pretty much like it does on XP or there is a noticable performance drop?ThanksNick

Interesting conversation,Are MS going to continue to sell XP past the end of 2007? I thought they where going to stop selling it end of 07, but continue to offer support for it until 09?My 2c is that Vista is probably the way to go if you've got the system to support it. Improvements in drivers will continue over the comming months. I don't really see the advantage of installing XP and then having to install Vista in 12 months time when Aces update FSX for DX10.I'm going with VistaKael

W.r.t. XP support, I copied this down a while back:XP Support Timeline===================The company announced that it is adding five-year customer support for the Windows XP Home Edition and Windows XP Media Center Edition operating systems. The "extended" support, which kicks in after April 2009, will bring the two products on par with Microsoft's Windows XP Professional for businesses.Under Microsoft's Support Lifecyle Policy, consumers and businesses both receive "mainstream" support for their products. XP Home Edition and XP Media Center will see mainstream support end in April 2009, which includes paid support, security updates, design changes and feature requests. Once mainstream support expires, the five-year extended support is due to kick in. Previously, XP Home and XP Media Center consumers would migrate to self-help support for eight years, after their mainstream support ended. The extended-support level includes roughly half of the eight features included in mainstream support. Those not included are design changes and feature requests, warranty claims, no-charge incident reports and nonsecurity hot-fix support, unless a user purchases an extended agreement within 90 days of the mainstream support expiring. The phase for additional software support will provide consumers with service until 2014.w.r.t. OS choice: considering FSX only, and having run FSX on both, I have seen no significant reason to choose Vista over XP at this time if FSX is the only major app you would be running on the computer. Perhaps DX10 will change this, but I don't expect that outcome will be known until early 2008.- SkyDrift

I bought a new rig about 2 months back and stated I that wanted Vista 32 installed. I'm running a C2D6600/4 Gig Ram/XFX GTX 8800 vid card.I'm getting frame rates (set to unlimited) of 50-60 sometimes higher in both FS9 & FSX and couldn't be happier.CheersPaul

Have you had any memory issues (Ie, running out of memory) with FSX?