Windows 7 vs XP

[Sparkey98]

vista home premium is da best peoples

0_0
 
oh......my.......god. this kid...needs to be.......checked
 
777777777 <3 I highly recomend it

[Reier]

TBH, you should wait a while till they get the bugs worked out before you get a new OS. Like XP was crud when it came out then they made Service pack, and now it's great.

[Reier]

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668385.php

^^ I've reeeeally got my eye on that one thar. If I get it at Radioshack, I will save $80, because 1. It's on sale for $50 less! :O 2. because I have a $30 giftcard for there anyway.
 
320 GB hard drive, 4 GB RAM, 15.6" screen, 5.84 lbs, blahblahblah. Sounds good for me. Just need to decide before the 6th because the sale expires then.

[Jack Daniels]

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668385.php

^^ I've reeeeally got my eye on that one thar. If I get it at Radioshack, I will save $80, because 1. It's on sale for $50 less! :O 2. because I have a $30 giftcard for there anyway.
 
320 GB hard drive, 4 GB RAM, 15.6" screen, 5.84 lbs, blahblahblah. Sounds good for me. Just need to decide before the 6th because the sale expires then.

The only thing that concerns me is that it has a Non-Radeon graphics chipset.  If I were you... I would bring a copy of RA2 on a pocket drive to the store and load it on their floor demo to test it out.  If you don't feel comfortable with doing that (or if they are jerks and tell you no.)  I am thinking about bringing a copy of RA2 with me to work and testing it on all the laptops we sell for giggles. (I will see if any of them have the same chipset as your Gateway interest)

[Reier]

If you could do that I'd be really grateful. And I can't go to a store anyway because they're an hour away at the closest.

[ACAMS]

RA2 will work, if it was nVidia graphics chipset then he would have to 1.3 patch it.....which he probably will anyway!

[Jack Daniels]

RA2 will work, if it was nVidia graphics chipset then he would have to 1.3 patch it.....which he probably will anyway!

Well, there's some solid words for you Reier. From what it sounds like, ACAMS gives his technological blessing. I'm still going to test my machines at work though and post a report here in the next few days. I am still curious.

[Reier]

Ok, thanks a lot.

[Reier]

In 3-8 Business days, I will be the proud owner of my first ever computer.
I'll keep y'all posted.

[Jack Daniels]

In 3-8 Business days, I will be the proud owner of my first ever computer.
I'll keep y'all posted.

Rock on! Just so you know I brought RA2 (Starcore) with me to work today and installed it on a few laptops.  All of them ran the game fine with Windows 7.  Laptops that were equipped with the Radeon Vision or Nvidia chipsets would run the game fine, but had the screwed up menus and buttons (like Stagfish's screenshots).  Any of the laptops that I installed which had the Intel GMA ran the game perfect and quick. No menu problems or glitching at all.  I was rather pleased.  I think the only problem you will run into is what Roboshark encountered with saving files. (the files end up in a different "compatibility" folder).  I didn't have time to save anything because I actually had work to do.

But, as ACAMS said, it looks like RA2 should work fine on your new machine Reier. Congrats. Better check to see if your game recorder is Win7 compatible though.

[Serge]

In 3-8 Business days, I will be the proud owner of my first ever computer.
I'll keep y'all posted.

Awesome!
Some tips to get you started (all of the following applications are free, most of them are also open-source):



Antivirus: Ditch the included McAfee / Symantec you'll get. They're RAM hogs, you will hate them. Instead use a free antivirus suite. My favourites are MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials, it's on Microsoft's website. Awesome antivirus, little to no RAM use) and Avast! Home Edition (download from their home page, requires free registration. good antivirus, little to no memory usage).

Anti-spyware: Malwarebytes' AntiMalware. It's astonishingly good.

Web Browser: If you must use IE, update to the latest version. Otherwise, use Firefox or Chrome, the latter being newer but also faster. It's your choice, but I would advise Chrome.

Music Player: I like foobar2000. It does only what it should do (music playback) and it does it very well. It's fast, has tons of plugins if you need added functionality, and best of all, it's one of the few players that support 16-bit DAC's, comapared to the usual 12-bit. Give it a shot, you'll love it.

Video Player: VLC (Videolan Client, don't get confused by the name). Instead of downloading a crapton of codecs form shady websites, this little puppy supports all of the out of the box. It's based on the excellent open-source decoder ffmpeg, which the msot widely used decoder in the Linux world. It will play any format you throw at it, even the most obscure ones.

IM: If you use more than one protocol (eg. MSN and AIM), try Pidgin. It's an IM client that supports most (if not all) popular protocols like MSN, AIM, ICQ, IRC and allows you to use them in one program. It's very light and ad-free.

P2P: If you use torrents, the uTorrent. It's small, powerful and FAST. Switching to it from other software (like Vuze) is a huge difference.

CD/DVD burning: If you just want to burn ISO files, get ImgBurn. It reads most file formats and it's open-source. If you want to burn data and/or music, get DeepBurner Free. It does what it does perfectly and doesn't clog your computer like Nero.

Archiving utility: Forget WinRAR, use 7-zip. It supports WAY more file formats, and it's native format (.7z) is a LOT better than anything else. If you have a multi-core processor you will notice the speed increase. After installing, run the 7-zip File Manager, go to Tools->Options and associate it with all the archive file formats.

Text editor: If you edit RA2 .py files, get Notepad++. Syntax highlighting, regexp, searching through files... Awesomeness.


BTW, if you don't wanna install all of these by hand, use http://ninite.com/ . It's a website where you select all the common software you install on a new computer, and it spits you out an executable that downloads and installs all the software for you.

[Reier]

Thanks Serge, are these all free normally or are some torrented?
 

Awesome!
Some tips to get you started (all of the following applications are free, most of them are also open-source):



Antivirus: Ditch the included McAfee / Symantec you'll get. They're RAM hogs, you will hate them. Instead use a free antivirus suite. My favourites are MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials, it's on Microsoft's website. Awesome antivirus, little to no RAM use) and Avast! Home Edition (download from their home page, requires free registration. good antivirus, little to no memory usage). I'll keep those in mind, Currently I'm using SercureIT, though that isn't free. It's been very good so far.

Anti-spyware: Malwarebytes' AntiMalware. It's astonishingly good. Used it before SecureIT, it was ok I guess.

Web Browser: If you must use IE, update to the latest version. Otherwise, use Firefox or Chrome, the latter being newer but also faster. It's your choice, but I would advise Chrome. I only use IE cause I'm used to it and FF/Chrome aren't any faster on my computer. I suppose I might use them when I get my Laptop.

Music Player: I like foobar2000. It does only what it should do (music playback) and it does it very well. It's fast, has tons of plugins if you need added functionality, and best of all, it's one of the few players that support 16-bit DAC's, comapared to the usual 12-bit. Give it a shot, you'll love it. I really don't need anything overly complex, I usually just use Windows Media Player 11 (?). I'll try to give fb2000 a shot though.

Video Player: VLC (Videolan Client, don't get confused by the name). Instead of downloading a crapton of codecs form shady websites, this little puppy supports all of the out of the box. It's based on the excellent open-source decoder ffmpeg, which the msot widely used decoder in the Linux world. It will play any format you throw at it, even the most obscure ones. I use WMP 11 for this too, beucase I really only play .wmv and .avi files. But That sounds neat, I may give it a try.

IM: If you use more than one protocol (eg. MSN and AIM), try Pidgin. It's an IM client that supports most (if not all) popular protocols like MSN, AIM, ICQ, IRC and allows you to use them in one program. It's very light and ad-free. I use Yahoo and Hamachi, though I really haven't tried anything else.

P2P: If you use torrents, the uTorrent. It's small, powerful and FAST. Switching to it from other software (like Vuze) is a huge difference. No thanks.

CD/DVD burning: If you just want to burn ISO files, get ImgBurn. It reads most file formats and it's open-source. If you want to burn data and/or music, get DeepBurner Free. It does what it does perfectly and doesn't clog your computer like Nero. I don't know much about DVD burning, I'll keep that in mind.

Archiving utility: Forget WinRAR, use 7-zip. It supports WAY more file formats, and it's native format (.7z) is a LOT better than anything else. If you have a multi-core processor you will notice the speed increase. After installing, run the 7-zip File Manager, go to Tools->Options and associate it with all the archive file formats. I'll look into it.

Text editor: If you edit RA2 .py files, get Notepad++. Syntax highlighting, regexp, searching through files... Awesomeness. Already have N++. =J


BTW, if you don't wanna install all of these by hand, use http://ninite.com/ . It's a website where you select all the common software you install on a new computer, and it spits you out an executable that downloads and installs all the software for you.

Thanks for the tips Serge.

[G.K.]

I'll second the reccomendation on 7-zip.

[Serge]

Thanks Serge, are these all free normally or are some torrented?

Free as in free to download from their official website for no monies.
Yes, legally.

[Reier]

OK, thanks a lot for the suggestions, I'll look into them.

[Reier]

DP
I must say Serge, while Firefox and Opera didn't do much for me, I am very impressed with Chrome. I'm using it now in fact...
It doesn't matter to me too much, but it uses 16k KB while IE, FF, and Opera all use 26k-40k KB, which is pretty nice.
It also seems very slightly faster.


One thing: I miss the ability to play videos from the browser instead of having to download them. Any way to play them w/o saving them?

[Reier]

I just got my fancy new Gateway NV5468u this morning, it rocks. However, I can't copy all of my info to it just yet because my old XP is acting goofy, but I should get it fixed shortly.
Cheers.

[Sage]

Woohoo! Congrats, a new computer is always a fantastic feeling.

[Doomkiller]

Expescially when the computer is good.....

[Mr. Apocalypse]

I agree with Serge's recommendations entirely, but this is not why I had to say something after having this topic get old.

Basically I have tried to put an Nvidia GT 240 graphics card in my Windows 7 PC, and I couldn't get it to work with the latest version of the drivers. Windows 7 didn't even see it, and when I booted from it I got a black screen after the BIOS screen. Then I tried using the motherboard video and I couldn't get it to work. I tried so many different methods, and I ended up giving up my new graphics card to my dad, who just popped it in his Vista machine and it worked.

I already have a 9500 GT from Nvidia already, so I just stopped myself from doing very dangerous things (like reinstalling Windows 7 and keep trying a ton more different configurations. I've heard many problems like this, and it wasn't just my card. It seems that many GT 200 series and the 9800 GT have this problem. I'm now using Linux Mint on that computer, but that is only because I wanted to go the open-source route on all but my laptop. My laptop runs 7 and this OS from Windows is quite swell. Just watch out for hardware compatibilities like that. Software compatibility is also another problem for those who have games that work on the XP machines. RA2 works pretty well though.