Vista vs XP

[crimkid]

Is there really an issue of speed if you tweak the Vista machine and remove most all the memory hogging items? I have a dual core pentium machine, with 4 gbs of memory that i want to plug 3 cable boxes into and have it feed 3 tv's. Can the Vista Home system not handle that? Do i have to move to XP?

[mickp]

I guess it depends on what else you have in the box. What performance rating do you get on the Vista machine?

It's getting 5.3 (looks like I should get some better ram ) and I've not considered shutting any memory hogging guff down.

Determined by lowest subscore 5.3 
 
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 5.9 
Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 5.3 
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 512 5.9 
Gaming graphics 1279 MB Total available graphics memory 5.9 
Primary hard disk 78GB Free (466GB Total) 5.7 
Windows Vista (TM) Business

I'm only running the client on my Vista box at the moment and if anything the performance is better than I'd expect on XP. That's a fairly subjective comparison though as I've not had XP on this hardware.

From MS:

Media Center experience. If you use your computer as a media center for advanced multimedia experiences such as recording HDTV programming, then high subscores in the CPU, hard disk, and desktop graphics categories are important. Subscores of 3.0 or higher are usually sufficient in the memory and 3D graphics categories.

I reckon you're looking for a score of 4 or more to run Vista + Sage. YMMV

A search of the forums should turn up plenty of info on running Sage in Vista. I'm too lazy to do the search atm .

Mick.

[reggie14]

I usually recommend WinXP for Sage servers and clients, but Vista will probably work fine. As much as people complain about it being a resource hog, I haven't really haven't experienced that on my own Vista system.

People have had problems with Vista, although it's not usually a resource problem. UAC causes some strange things to happen. I would recommend just turning that off. UAC was/is a good idea, but mistakes by Microsoft and application developers make it problematic to use. Vista also has a completely re-written TCP/IP stack, which caused a lot of problems early on. I think Vista SP1 fixed a lot of those problems though.

So, while I wouldn't recommend that someone choose Vista over XP, it's probably not worth it to buy an XP license if you don't already have one.

[mistergq]

With 4 gigs of Ram and dual core, you are probably fine with Vista. I also always recommend XP over Vista for Sage machine. But its not worth buying the extra license.

Now if you already have the license, that is your choice. I find XP to be the better OS, despite the new commercials by M$ that is trying to make Windows look cool like a Mac.

[crimkid]

but i keep hearing some differing opinions, at least i think i do. Will my machine be able to pass thru, via media extenders, live TV fairly easily to the other TVs? in all likelihood, only 2 tv's will be used at a time for the most part.

[CollinR]

For all real purposes the SageTV backend service using hardware encoding is very little load on modern PC hardware.


However all the fluff that makes vista new and different is kinda wasted on a headless server.

I too would suggest XP but it's probably not worth buying another license for.

[Ryokurin]

At least in my experience, vista fixed a problem I always had with my system. I had to reboot every week or so, or basically the system would become unstable and crash sage (I could figure out it was Java, not sage but couldn't stop it) and the Geforce 8500GT's acceleration actually worked. (still can't do vmr9 1920x1080 however) I run a Opteron 170 with 1.5gb of memory. The only negative I had was that it was a pain to get the MCE remote to work. Its not hard, but having to go in the registry, get 3rd party software to remap keys and so forth is quite a bit different than XP pro's plug and play. Can't be helped however.

[Polypro]

From '05 to '07 I ran Sage with XP. From '07 to present I'm running Vista. I would NEVER go back to XP. I remember BSODs on XP...Vista has never crashed. Install Vista, disable UAC, ReadyBoost, and SuperFetch...and then modify your NetworkThrottlingIndex reg key to 70 or better....Done.

P

[wayner]

Why disable ReadyBoost and SuperFetch? How do you modify NetworkThrottlingIndex?

[Polypro]

On my box they caused stuttering. Disabling them A. Fixed the problem & B. Didn't cause any noticeable performance loss.

NTI: http://www.anandtech.com/systems/sho...spx?i=3233&p=2

P

[wayner]

This brings up another point - I am running Vista but have not installed SP1 yet. Is it worth installing SP1? Does SP1 break anything - I think it does cause a bit of havoc if you have applied the hack to allow Remote Desktop Server to work in Vista HP.

[loomdog32]

I used Vista since RC2 w Media Center in a dedicated HTPC... I bailed on VMC and switched to Sage in XP as I was having wierd playback issues of 720p mkv files in Vista..

Having said all that, the HTPC box running Sage and my unRaid box are the only non-Vista PCs on my network (There are 2 PCs and 3 laptops running home premium or ultimate)... From my experience from VSP1 on the oher machines, is that it dropped some security to make it play more friendly with non-Vista software/hardware, general rollup of hotfixes and (massive) driver updates..

I have recently been looking at upgrading the HTPC with a quad-core cpu and going back to Vista..

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by wayner

This brings up another point - I am running Vista but have not installed SP1 yet. Is it worth installing SP1? Does SP1 break anything - I think it does cause a bit of havoc if you have applied the hack to allow Remote Desktop Server to work in Vista HP.

Are you talking about concurrent connections via RDP without logging the main user off? You can find a SP1 patch for that. Of course, back up incase you have something weird, but If I were you I would have put SP1 on it months ago. At least for me it took care of basically all the little issues I had with Vista. Everything else I know is just drivers and they are still getting better with time.

[wayner]

Don't forget that out of the box Vista HP will not work as a RDP server. The patch allowed it to work as a server as well as allow multiple connections.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by Ryokurin

but If I were you I would have put SP1 on it months ago.

Anything to watch for after I install Sp1 that would affect Sage?

[stevech]

XP Pro here - no problems with crashing and it runs Sage and much more 24/7.
I never do web surfing or email with the computer though.

XP Pro on my home office PC; never crashes unless I cause it. I sometimes use the Sage Client on that PC.

Main use of Sage is to an MVP via WiFi.


On RDP: I use Ultra VNC to access my always-on garage PC. Does not trigger a user login per se and all that can come from that and the RDP logout.

[Polypro]

TeamViewer works well too. Back to Vista benefits over XP...if you use the Nvidia decoder, the "Smart" mode works fine with Vista (On XP there was a bug that would cause it to toggle Film/Video all the time...you had to use "Automatic"). No FSE is needed and secondary (touch) screens are easier to use. Quality looks better as well (to me/subjective). But if you're strictly setting up a server, XP is great...or WHS for the backup capabilities. I just think Vista rocks for same machine Server/Clent or Client only Sage installs.

P

[ghostlobster]

Gotta toss my 2 cents in here...
I just recently went from using my main playback machine acting as my Sage server for a couple other clients to a full client/server architecture. I've got a dedicated box running as a SageTV server and a couple clients hanging off of it.
Originally, I went with XP Pro on the server box, thinking that it'll be more stable and chew up fewer resources. Whoops! Bad move! After 2 wipe/re-install cycles due to lock-up and swapping out the power supply, RAM and video card with absolutely no different results, I figured I'd us my Vista Ultimate license and try installing Vista on it. Boy, am I glad I did! Since setting up the server on Vista, I've not had a single lock up problem. All of my clients are running Vista Home Premium as well.
Additionally, for playback, I've really become sold on the MS Audio Decoder for S/PDIF passthrough, it's easy and just plain works. On 2 of my machines, the MS video decoder performs best for TV playback, and for DVD playback, it looks best on all 3 of my clients.
As has been mentioned here, and several other places, disabling UAC is generally the best move. Whenever I do a Vista build, upon the first boot, I always disable that piece of garbage. Also, I recommend SP1 if this is a new install. However, if you're not running SP1, and everything is working, why bother installing it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[x[corwyn]]

I was using XP for a number of years. I switched to 2003 standard for my server. Nothing more reliable than setting that up properly. Well unless I can get a good linux setup with the right drivers, then I could probably leave that alone for years without a reboot.....

[Ken C]

It would seem to me the only reason to go with Vista is if you want Bluray. A dedicated Sage system runs great on XP Pro, which I have already paid for. Of course, if you have to buy something, no choice other than Vista.

Save your money, go with XP Pro and wait for (trumpets sound) "Windows 7" !!