Very Stable Vista 5384.4 32bit

[hoxlund]

Im so happy got 4 channel sound working in Windows Vista Build 5384.4 (32bit)

i tried 64bit last night, doesn't work

if your stuck i posted the driver here:

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs ... d=221#M221

[LoneWolf]

I've got a testbed system I need one final touch on and then I'll be installing the Vista beta and Office 2007 beta for testing. It's nothing compared to my primary box, but it should be a good test for what the average user can expect. I'd rather get the idea of what their experience will be so I can tell non-techie people what I think of it.

Specs: eMachines T2885 tower (don't laugh, I got it for free, well, after replacing the PSU and mainboard), Celeron 2.8GHz, 512MB RAM, Seagate 7200.7 120GB hard disk, DVD-ROM & CD-RW.

Unfortunately, it's PCI only, but I found a really cheap used BFG GeforceFX 5500OC 256MB PCI card, which should be here Monday or Tuesday, so I'll be able to test Aero Glass (I'm quite sure the onboard Intel 845 video would choke trying). I'm already 60% done with the download (I love my 8Mbps down/768k up connection), and I'm quite interested to see what Microsoft has to offer this time.

[hoxlund]

w33t haha i just got my email from microsoft for vista

just got my legit key for vista, now i can run it more then 14 days

i already have the office 2007 beta running also, so far works wonderfully

[MonsterMan]

Got the 32 & 64-bit betas here...gonna repartition and try the 64-bit one a bit later...hopefully it'll work as good as the 32-bit one

[hoxlund]

carefull sound drivers for 64bit are hard to come by, plan old don't work for audigy 2zs series

[MonsterMan]

Right now I'm running on-board sound (yeah, yeah, I know). I did install the 32-bit version.

And as much as it pains me to say this: I like it. I lot. Reminds me of KDE under Linux.

Now to get all my software reinstalled & working under it...

What firewall do you use? I want out-bound program control...I tried Zone-Alarm, but got a warning about it being incompatable...

That, plus the fact the Opera 9 beta drops it's bookmark file to my desktop for some stupid reason are my only two gripes at the moment...

[hoxlund]

go ahead and try to install zone alarm anyway

so far its very stable with unsupported titles

couple builds ago it would actually blue screen and fail to boot back into windows, but it should work now

[LoneWolf]

Well, I installed Vista last night. Specs of system listed earlier in this thread.

Aero Glass works, but the system is definitely slow. I think it's due to either the amount of RAM (512MB) or the CPU (2.8GHz 400FSB Celeron). I have a P4 Northwood 2.8GHz 533FSB on the way; we'll see if quadrupling the CPU cache and upping the FSB does the trick. If not, I'll see if I can't find two 512MB sticks of value ram (I have 4 256MB ones, but the system only has two sockets) to see if this makes the difference.

I have so far installed just the Windows Updates, nVidia's Vista drivers for the GeforceFX 5500OC, Office 2007 Beta, and Avast! Antivirus Free edition (which is fully Vista compatible). It's really nice looking, but it takes a lot of horsepower, even just playing a simple DVD in WMP11 taxes the machine. Hopefully some optimization can still be done.

[LoneWolf]

Update:

I swapped the 2.8GHz Celeron for a 2.8GHz Northwood Pentium 4, staying at 512MB of RAM.

The differences are astounding. It's quite clear that the 533MHz FSB plays some role, but the biggest increase is coming from upgrading from 128k to 512k of L2 cache.

The system is far more snappy, the agonizing wait times for certain functions appear to be gone. The clear message on this one is that for Intel CPU owners, I wouldn't even try Vista in Aero Glass unless you have at bare minimum a Celeron D (with 256k of L2 plus the 533MHz FSB) or a Northwood core P4. I just don't think anything lower will be enough unless you run the Classic interface.

I'd still probably run a minimum of a gig of RAM, but if I don't load up too much at once, this system works reasonably well. I'll keep playing with the interface and see if any interesting tidbits show up.

[hoxlund]

in my experience with vista so far, ive found that the longer that vista sits there inactive

when you go to use it it becomes very unresponsive

[Bhairav]

hox.. the unresponsiveness... memory leaks, maybe? Run Task Manager and check the processes running.

[hoxlund]

no i know exactly what they are, memory leaks

same thing happened in whistler

[hoxlund]

huge performance upgrades with the latest build... 5728

installed it about 30 minutes ago, so far very solid and even better all around performance

still no god damn audigy 2 driver support

[LoneWolf]

Hox,

Try going to Device Manager, right-clicking the Audigy 2 (or unrecognized device, if it is listed as that) and then do an "Update Driver", be it from the menu that pops up or the Properties tab. Tell it to check online for the driver when it asks.

This worked for the SB Live! in my test system. It didn't work for the Creative game port, but it did for the sound card. At least it will give you something if it works.

[hoxlund]

too late already formatted for the second time today and reinstalled x64 windows xp

thx for the troubleshoot suggestion though, ill remember for the next build install

edit, ok im curious, brb, going to format and install it again and try it

[Spazmogen]

hox:

I hope you're using Ghost to make images, otherwise it would take forever at format/install windows...

Makes it easy to revert back to a previous version of windows too.

[hoxlund]

im way ahead of you

[MonsterMan]

hox:

I hope you're using Ghost to make images, otherwise it would take forever at format/install windows...

Makes it easy to revert back to a previous version of windows too.

I use nLite instead. Full XP reinstall (inc. drivers & software, plus tweaking) in about 15-minutes...

[hoxlund]

thats good and all, and i used to do that, but my hardware changes too often for that to work for me

i would have to make a slipstreamed cd like every 2 months