32bit Vista can't fully utilizes 4GB RAM?

When directx10 games do come out I would just run a dual boot system and only use vista when playing those directx10 games.

Is it possible to do dual boot with Vista? Amongst all the wailings and nashing of teeth, I have a vague recollection that Vista isn't supposed to play nice with dual boot.
 
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There are no directx10 games on the market currently so why on earth would you upgrade now, buying vista is like DOWNGRADING your system. You get less performance and have to worry about things like DHCP.

I think it depends on your system. For a lower end system, you certainly might have a point. On the other hand, I have a Core 2 Duo E6600 running at 3.1 GHz and if there's a performance impact I certainly haven't been able to notice it. I also did fairly extensive testing using PCMark05 and 3Dmark06 and the overall numbers were pretty close. Best scores for each OS/benchmark:

.........................WinXP SP2.....................Vista 32
PCMark05..........8159.............................8370
3DMark06..........6594.............................6395

WinXP did slightly better in the gaming oriented 3DMark06 and Vista 32 did slightly better on the office-oriented PCMark05. I'm actually surprised WinXP didn't pull further ahead in the 3DMark06 tests given the immaturity of the Vista 32 video drivers. So I don't consider Vista a "downgrade," though I am more than willing to admit that other people's mileage may vary, perhaps based on their hardware and/or their proficiency with tweaking Windows based operating systems.

As to your remark about having to worry about DHCP... If by DHCP you mean the "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol," I'm not sure what you are referring to. Setting up fixed or dynamic IP configurations works exactly the same as it has since Windows 95.

When directx10 games do come out I would just run a dual boot system and only use vista when playing those directx10 games.

Certainly a viable option, but I personally prefer to use one primary OS.
 
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About that X-Fi: I finally got mine.

(1) Yeah, it does sound better. Clearer, crisper, more dynamic, more three-dimensional. (And yes I have decent headphones; Sony MDR-CD580 if anyone cares.)

(2) After fifteen minutes, I stopped noticing.

Perhaps I'm just tone-deaf, but it honestly doesn't make a significant difference on the way I experience a game. I'm sure someone who's more audio-oriented than I am would experience it quite differently.
 
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Would you want to notice it all the time?

Wouldn't that distract from the game experience?
 
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Perhaps my wording was poor. Point is, I notice if something isn't right -- for example, I hate playing games at very low resolutions or poor frame rates or short draw distances. The value of a really good video card is not noticing the graphics -- they're so good you stop paying attention and get completely immersed in the game.

Thing is, the difference between my onboard sound and X-Fi doesn't change the way I experience a game at all. The flaws in the sound didn't bother me before, so the improvement doesn't make much of a difference to me.
 
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I look at this like any other upgrade - people say 'make sure you always have the latest drivers, etc ... but blindly accepting every upgrade for every component can cause as many problems as it fixes ... I will move to Vista when forced for some reason.


Yep, my thoughts exactly. As far as RAM goes, I like to use as much as possible. I just installed an extra 512k (1.5 gb total). It's kind of a small upgrade, but it's actually really helped the performance of games like Gothic 3 and Jade Empire. I still have some performance issues with Stalker; I've spent more time tweaking that game than actually playing it.
 
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I found more answer and solution on the issue "32bit Vista can't fully utilizes 4Gb RAM".

Since all 32bit OS including Vista unable to use full 4Gb RAM, and if you want the benefit of dual channel memory - that will leave you with the option of installing 2Gb of RAM (two sticks of 1GB RAM). You wasted two empty DIMM slots on motherboard (if that MB has 4 DIMM slots in total), plus your 32bit Vista should still can handle another 1 - 1.5Gb RAM capacity. To solve this, add-in another two channel memory but in the combination of 2x512MB RAM.

Here's one parting bit of advice: if, like me, you're planning to stick with a 32-bit operating system for the next few years, don't waste your money on 4 GB of RAM. You won't be able to use it all. Buy 3 GB instead. Every motherboard I'm aware of will happily accept 2 x 1 GB and 2 x 512 MB DIMMs.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000811.html

Anandtech suggested 3GB memory for Vista:
We then upgraded the Vista machine to 3GB and ran the test again; thanks to faster application load times and intelligent prefetching, Word started in 1.31 seconds. If you thought that 2GB was the sweet spot for Windows XP, chances are 3GB will be the new minimum for you under Vista.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=3

And on top of that if you need more performance boost, plug in USB flash memory (using Readyboost feature of Vista) to reduce hard drive swapping, although the performance improvement is not much campare to real memory upgrade:

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2917&p=6
 
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