Windows Vista / Media Center

[kevbeck122]

Just thought I'd let everyone know-I've been testing Vista RC2 x64 along with Media Center for the past few days.  The drivers for my analog tuner were automatically installed, but I had to install the x64 drivers for my HD card.  Media Center pretty much is the same as in XP, except for different animations, sounds and of course a whole new look.  The picture remains full screen when going to the home screen while watching TV instead of going PIP.  The XBOX360 extender portion seems to be working fine also.  I haven't tried recording yet, but playback seems fine.  It can get jittery though sometimes because I'm not using NVIDIA's video driver and PureVideo doesn't work in Vista yet.  I really wish I would be able get the CableCard add on for this... thanks to CableLabs that's not going to be possible :mad:.

The thing I hate about Vista is that nearly half of my memory is gone right now when all I'm doing is using Firefox (close to 1GB is being used).  Right now I'd say those of you with XP MCE.. stick with it when Vista comes out.  You won't see much of an improvement other than CableCard support.  Even then, you'll need to get a whole new computer just to be able to use that feature.

[flash]

I'm running RC1 on an AMD 64 3700+ with 1 Gig of dual channel DDR Ram and a
256 MB PCIe video card and Vista definately is a resource hog! Areo glass is "kinda" neat but I've been hearing that 2-3 Gigs is a more appropriate amount of ram for Vista. I even noticed that in my display properties that is says Vista is using over 500 megs of video ram when I only have a 256 Meg card!

Do you like RC2 better than RC1?

I've downloaded RC2 but have heard mixed reviews so I was wondering your opinion.

[kevbeck122]

I only tried RC1 on Virtual PC, so I can't really comment on it.  It ran fine in the Virtual PC, but none of the special visual features worked.  I'm using RC2 as my main OS right now (along with Office 2007).  I've got it running on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 with 2GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM, and a GeForce 7600GT.  Everything works fine, except when I install the NVIDIA drivers, it disables any sort of visual effects... only the Microsoft provided driver gives me effects.  I can say that media center works a lot better than previous versions and seems to be pretty finalized.  I'm glad they got rid of the constant security alerts whenever you did small things like empty the recycle bin.  

Other than being a memory hog, it seems to work great.  I haven't tried any games yet though, but I doubt they'd work well at this point seeing as though NVIDIA drivers haven't been released for RC2.

[flash]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600..........was I drooling on my keyboard?  :eek:

[kevbeck122]

Yeah I was getting sick of my Athlon XP1900+ so I decided to go all out and build a new system.

[Doug Mohr]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600..........was I drooling on my keyboard?  :eek:

Damn, that would be sweet.  I thought I was cool with my new T7600 laptop, but that in no way compares to a 1GHz FSB speed :rock: