Is there a consensus on which way to go? I see SP1 for Vista has been iffy for most. I have a new drive and new copy of Vista 64, but so far havent' taken the plunge. Vista 64 without SP1? Vista 64 w/ SP1? FSX on XP? Oy!QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

>Is there a consensus on which way to go? I see SP1 for Vista>has been iffy for most. I have a new drive and new copy of>Vista 64, but so far havent' taken the plunge. Vista 64>without SP1? Vista 64 w/ SP1? FSX on XP? Oy!>>QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT>@700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista>64--soon to be installedThere is no sense running that much memory with a 32 bit OS...It simply can't utilize it. FSX seems to be happy with Vista 64 bit on my PC. I just installed SP1 yesterday and haven't had the time to really play with it since, but I haven't noticed any performance degradation so far.

>There is no sense running that much memory with a 32 bit>OS...It simply can't utilize it. FSX seems to be happy with>Vista 64 bit on my PC. I just installed SP1 yesterday and>haven't had the time to really play with it since, but I>haven't noticed any performance degradation so far.Thanks. Yes I am aware of the memory limitations of XP. I bought it cuz it was cheap and need it for other software, namely Gigastudio 4.0. Plus, planned on Vista 64 which of course can address this on my mainboard. Mainly just looking for guidance on FSX on XP or Vista 64.

Hi Noel,SP1 has probably been pushed to many thousands of users over the last few days. Added to that are many more thousands of users who were fortunate enough to have received it earlier in the month.From reading various forums around the web, there aren't really a vast number of complaints related to the service pack. It does improve performance slightly on some machines and many of the fixes are under the hood anyway.Considering support for Windows XP will expire long before that for Vista, it just makes more sense, given your hardware, to install Vista x64. Memory management is far more robust in Vista x64 and it appears to be more stable overall. I haven't experienced any OOM or CTD errors since making the switch.Drivers, with the exception of nVidia, have matured nicely. What their problem is, is anyone's guess :-)Regards,Jim Karn

>Drivers, with the exception of nVidia, have matured nicely. >What their problem is, is anyone's guess :-)>>Regards,>Jim KarnNice Jim, thank you. As you can see I am using an 8800GT. Do you know what specific issues I can expect with this guy on Vista 64 with FSX? I actually became a fan of ATI when my old 6800GT died about 4 or 5 months ago, when I bought a very cheap n effective x1950 Pro AGP and discovered IQ was dramatically cleaner than with my 6800GT. I must say now though that IQ with my 8800GT is certainly an improvement over the 6800GT, though not as squeaky clean as the ATI. If ATI comes out with a seriously more potent dual GPU solution (beyond 3870x2 in other words) down the road a year or so I may jump back on board with ATI, because of the IQ mainly. The 8800 was so nicely priced it helped ease the pain of the QX.Perhaps I will take the plunge with Vista on a separate drive this weekend. Seems it's about time for me. I will be using it for FSX and Gigastudio only at this time.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

I don't think you'll have any problems with the latest drivers combined with nHancer. NickN has posted several threads regarding its setup, and to be quite honest, it's very intuitive.nVidia drivers are being released at an amazing pace, and they don't all have issues. The 169.44's have been very stable and IQ is as good as any of them using nHancer.Regards,Jim Karn

Great Jim, I use nHancer and so will boldly install where no OS has ever been installed! Kinda fun to learn a new OS, especially when I can boot to ol' trusty XP. I am going to just use my mainboard's BIOS boot to a separate drive capability, which works dandy for my 2 SATA 2's, one as a main drive the other as a cloned copy. I can boot to either one with no troubles.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

My recommendation is XP Professional 64 Bit ;-)

I have run them allVist64 is unbeatable fastXP64 is very fastBUTI fly on Vatsim and use FSInn and a lot a addons via a NotebookThats NOT goodLots of weird hangups, voice lost, slow connects etc sometimes do sometimes dont, a recipy to drive one nuts.so .. I back to XP32/SP2Standalone: Vista64 / but carefull with the addonsOnline: XP32P5K 4GB-DaneElec Q6600 8800GTS640MB XPproSP2 FSXSP2

Microsoft will be supporting XP through 2014. Hopefully by then their will be a new OS other than Vista available. Many businesses as well as Universities have not made the switch to Vista at this time. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2...tWindowsMA.mspx Craig

> Microsoft will be supporting XP through 2014. Hopefully by>then> their will be a new OS other than Vista available.>> Many businesses as well as Universities have not made the>switch to> Vista at this time.>>> http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2...tWindowsMA.mspx>> CraigI wouldn't consider that a stinging rebuke of the OS. One of my former employers jumped from Windows 98 to XP and only did that in 2003. One of our customers when I worked for that company jumped from NT to XP. Point is, most businesses are usually slow to adopt new operating systems. Typically they'll phase an OS migration with a hardware refresh to get around the pains of installing a new OS on older equipment. Then you've always got the folks with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality that are forced to change because it becomes impossible to support the older OS.

I would like to use vista 64 but my elite radio stack that I just purchased fairly recently only supports vista 32 and so far there are no plans to support 64. You may come across a few issues like that if you have any high end flight hardware such as above.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

I don't want to sound stupid or anything, but how do I find out what I have? I have Windows Xp Home, but I don't know if it's 32 or 64. How can I check?Thanks RichardS

I don't think there's a 64-bit version of the Home edition, but just to be sure you can go to Start -> Control Panel -> System PropertiesUnder the heading "System:" you should see which version of XP you're using. Mine says:Microsoft Windows XPProfessional x64 EditionIf yours makes no mention of "x64", then it's 32-bit.

Thanks. I never paid it much attention before but since I was reading these messages I figured I may as well ask. RichardS