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Which OS to use on new system?

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Reply 120 of 163, by awergh

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jwt27 wrote:

I couldn't care less about XP's support ending if that only means they'll break windows update. But if Microsoft decides to remove backwards compatibility from MSVC like they did with Windows 2000, that might be a problem.

Well for now assuming the software is compiled explicitly for xp stuff written with vs2012 and vs2013 can run on xp just fine but i suspect the next version of msvc isn't going to support xp as a target.

Reply 121 of 163, by jwt27

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Posting from Windows 7 now 😀

Takes some getting used to, but it's not as bad as I feared. Look and feel can be customized to resemble Windows 2000 pretty well. The Cleartype everywhere is horrible though.

oD24WGq.png

Now I'll have to dig through 500+ gigabytes of 10-year old files to see if there's anything worth backing up from my old machine...

I got two bluescreens on Windows 7 already too. One happened right after installing a PCI IDE controller (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL pointing to iaStorA.sys again), and another right after closing FurMark (KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, in ntoskrnl.exe). Have yet to run a full memtest, but I really do hope it's not a hardware problem.
Note that I have NOT installed my Creative card yet just to rule that out 😉

Reply 122 of 163, by Tetrium

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I've only had 2 BSoD on my Windows 7 main rig and that rig is used almost daily for over 4 years now.
So better try and find out what the problem could be, 2 BSoD within such a short timeframe is not normal

Whats missing in your collections?
My retro rigs (old topic)
Interesting Vogons threads (links to Vogonswiki)
Report spammers here!

Reply 123 of 163, by jwt27

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Well I did notice this in memtest86+:

sEIaVEM.jpg

RAM settings are detected as 1550MHZ (DDR3-3100) / 19-15-15-31 triple channel... while I only have two DIMMs, configured for dual channel, and it's set to 1866MHz / 11-13-13-30 in the BIOS. Not sure if that matters but it's certainly wrong.

edit: CPU-Z works without BSOD on Windows 7, and reports memory timings 933.2MHz, 10-12-12-27, dual channel...

Reply 124 of 163, by gerwin

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Past week I tried CPU-Z x64 v1.68 on Windows XP x64 SP2: Works fine.
System details: Intel i5-2500K processor, 8GB RAM @1333MHz, Z68 Chipset with native AHCI drivers for the SATA interface.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 125 of 163, by Malik

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Windows 7 is the first MS OS that never displayed a BSOD for me. There were two instances, however, where the whole system hanged, unresponsive - both occured on my ex-laptop - ASUS G73jh - once when the Sound Blaster EAX 4.0 driver was loaded which caused a lockup when Steam was running at the same time. I got a fix around that. Another instance was when I loaded the UltraISO - the whole system crashed again with a particular version. But both occured only on that laptop and both were 3rd party software related.

Other than that Win7 has been running rock stable in my desktop (4 years) and my new laptop.

Edit : My desktop with Win7 - i5 2500K, Gigabyte Z68 Chipset, 8GB 1866, Win7 Ultimate x64.
Laptop : Schenker XMG A102 i7 3632QM 4GB, Win7 Pro x86.

5476332566_7480a12517_t.jpgSB Dos Drivers

Reply 126 of 163, by rgart

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I recently bought a new PC which was overkill. I'm using Windows 7 64-bit.

I haven't had any problems. All games are extremely stable and I have only had one windows crash in four or five hundred hours of use - gaming and web browsing.

=My Cyrix 5x86 systems : 120MHz vs 133MHz=. =My 486DX2-66MHz=

Reply 127 of 163, by BigBodZod

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jwt27 wrote:

Well I did notice this in memtest86+:

RAM settings are detected as 1550MHZ (DDR3-3100) / 19-15-15-31 triple channel... while I only have two DIMMs, configured for dual channel, and it's set to 1866MHz / 11-13-13-30 in the BIOS. Not sure if that matters but it's certainly wrong.

edit: CPU-Z works without BSOD on Windows 7, and reports memory timings 933.2MHz, 10-12-12-27, dual channel...

This is probably due to using triple/quad channel mode for memory.

Many chipsets will downgrade the timings for stability reasons.

However, in many motherboards there are what is called an XMP timing mode that can bypass the normal/defaults.

Looks for this and see if it helps in triple/quad channel mode.

My Gigabyte motherboard has these timings since I it uses the X79 Quad Channel setup, I have to use the XMP timing modes otherwise it will default down to the lower timing speeds instead of the rated speeds of the matched DIMM modules.

No matter where you go, there you are...

Reply 128 of 163, by LunarG

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I agree with using Windows 7 x64. I will never, ever, in a million years install an OS designed for touchscreen devices on my desktop computer. Until MS separate the touch interface from Windows > 7 completely, I won't upgrade from Windows 7. This "Metro" nonsense is causing Windows to start losing ground to Linux, and i they keep pushing their stupid ideas that desktops should be touchscreen based, then they completely deserve it as far as I'm concerned.

WinXP : PIII 1.4GHz, 512MB RAM, 73GB SCSI HDD, Matrox Parhelia, SB Audigy 2.
Win98se : K6-3+ 500MHz, 256MB RAM, 80GB HDD, Matrox Millennium G400 MAX, Voodoo 2, SW1000XG.
DOS6.22 : Intel DX4, 64MB RAM, 1.6GB HDD, Diamond Stealth64 DRAM, GUS 1MB, SB16.

Reply 129 of 163, by jwt27

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I finished copying most important files from my old drives. Found some really old stuff on there which I didn't even remember saving, like IRC chatlogs and pictures from when I was 13... So embarassing 🤣

I pulled the IDE card out and installed the Creative card now with the latest AuzenForte drivers by Daniel_K. First impressions: The windows 7 mixer is horrible. To get to the line-in level settings requires FIVE mouse clicks! Also the creative mode switching stuff rarely works, I often need to reboot before it will switch modes... Luckily that doesn't take long on this machine.

As far as games go, I only installed my favourite three "modern" games so far: Rune, Morrowind, and Skyrim. I haven't really tried Rune yet so can't say much about that. Morrowind runs really well on this system and looks gorgeous with MGE XE's pixel shading wizardry! 3D positional audio is entirely broken however, sounds that are meant to be heard in front (like when hitting an enemy) will often sound on the side or behind me. And while climbing up a mountain, I hear my own footsteps right behind me, so it sounds like there's someone following me. Really confusing and annoying!

And I thought the era of speed-sensitive games was over... How wrong could I be. Skyrim on a 160Hz monitor is HILARIOUS! 🤣

BigBodZod wrote:
This is probably due to using triple/quad channel mode for memory. […]
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This is probably due to using triple/quad channel mode for memory.

Many chipsets will downgrade the timings for stability reasons.

However, in many motherboards there are what is called an XMP timing mode that can bypass the normal/defaults.

Looks for this and see if it helps in triple/quad channel mode.

My Gigabyte motherboard has these timings since I it uses the X79 Quad Channel setup, I have to use the XMP timing modes otherwise it will default down to the lower timing speeds instead of the rated speeds of the matched DIMM modules.

I've set the timings to XMP profile 2, which is 2133MHz by default. I dropped that to 1866MHz to ensure stability. But how could it possibly run in 3-channel mode if I only have two DIMMs? Anyway memtest didn't find any errors after two passes (one night), so I guess it's stable. Haven't seen any blue screens since my last post, either.

gerwin wrote:

Past week I tried CPU-Z x64 v1.68 on Windows XP x64 SP2: Works fine.
System details: Intel i5-2500K processor, 8GB RAM @1333MHz, Z68 Chipset with native AHCI drivers for the SATA interface.

By "native" AHCI drivers, do you mean the Intel RST(e) drivers or the MSAHCI driver included with Windows? If I get another blue screen I think I'll give the latter a try. Not sure what the difference is really, but the Intel website recommends their own drivers for 2TB+ drives.

Reply 130 of 163, by gerwin

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jwt27 wrote:

By "native" AHCI drivers, do you mean the Intel RST(e) drivers or the MSAHCI driver included with Windows? If I get another blue screen I think I'll give the latter a try. Not sure what the difference is really, but the Intel website recommends their own drivers for 2TB+ drives.

What I meant is that I installed XP x64 with the BIOS option 'legacy IDE' or something, and Installed the AHCI sata drivers afterwards. Only then one can enable native AHCI in the BIOS without crashing XP.
It is confusing to get a suitable version of the driver "iaStor / iaAHCI". Also they don't come with a proper installer, they are meant to install by pressing F6 during windows Setup. So you need to tweak things or use this program called AHCItool.... Or stick to IDE mode.

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 131 of 163, by jwt27

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gerwin wrote:
jwt27 wrote:

By "native" AHCI drivers, do you mean the Intel RST(e) drivers or the MSAHCI driver included with Windows? If I get another blue screen I think I'll give the latter a try. Not sure what the difference is really, but the Intel website recommends their own drivers for 2TB+ drives.

What I meant is that I installed XP x64 with the BIOS option 'legacy IDE' or something, and Installed the AHCI sata drivers afterwards. Only then one can enable native AHCI in the BIOS without crashing XP.
It is confusing to get a suitable version of the driver "iaStor / iaAHCI". Also they don't come with a proper installer, they are meant to install by pressing F6 during windows Setup. So you need to tweak things or use this program called AHCItool.... Or stick to IDE mode.

I installed the Intel RSTe drivers by slipstreaming them onto the install CD, so that would be the same as installing them through F6. I don't have a floppy drive header on this board so I couldn't use that method. Running in IDE mode is probably the most stable option but that would be a complete waste of money, I didn't buy an SSD for nothing 🤣

Haven't heard of AHCItool before.. what does that do, exactly?

And something else.. I'm running without antivirus right now. Would that be a wise idea on Windows 7..?

Reply 132 of 163, by TELVM

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With 16GB of memory onboard I'd consider implementing the Samsung RAPID that comes with the 840 Pro (1GB size tops, compressed RAM cache):

a3be.png

Or even better some RAM caching software like Primocache (unlimited size, uncompressed):

7e417c07_as-ssd-benchM4-CT128M4SSD2A10.3.2012.12-28-05.png

Let the air flow!

Reply 133 of 163, by jwt27

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I completely forgot about Primocache, thank you for reminding me! I recall reading about it, or at least a similar program that could use 4GB+ as disk cache on 32-bit windows. Did you post it on these forums before?

Those numbers look really awesome. Will install it right now!

edit: It's installed, but I think I'm doing something wrong here:

VPTtgaG.png

Reply 135 of 163, by jwt27

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bestemor wrote:
jwt27 wrote:

And I thought the era of speed-sensitive games was over... How wrong could I be. Skyrim on a 160Hz monitor is HILARIOUS! 🤣 ....

Please elaborate ? 😀
(& 160hz?)

The physics calculations and event timers are completely messed up above 60Hz. The fun starts on the intro already, about 9 out of 10 times the cart you're on starts making corkscrews and loopings like a roller coaster, the horses will smash against rocks and trees and die. Once you're in-game, animals randomly drop dead right before your eyes, people who tell you to follow them just stand in one spot staring at you, clutter objects suddenly become lethal projectiles, etc. It takes the game to a whole new level 🤣

And turns out it wasn't even running at 160Hz, for some reason Skyrim won't go above 125Hz on my new machine.

Reply 136 of 163, by TELVM

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^ Yep I've probably already posted around about removing the limiter to make 32bit Windozes use unlimited RAM, and about RAM caches.

If it helps here are the settings I use with Primocache:

Primo_Settings.png

I like one cache task for each drive (irrespective of the number of partitions in each drive), with block size tailored for each type of drive.

For SSDs I use 4K/8K block size, even though this increases the overhead, as this gives max boost. Spinners are well served with larger block sizes, like 128K, that decrease the overhead (a 4TB spinner @ 4K block size = tons of overhead).

For strategy I use caching both read & write, with infinite write-delay, but this is clearly dangerous (a power outage could seriously screw the system). For starters better use only read caching, or read & write but setting a very short write-defer, like 10 seconds.

Of the 16GB total RAM I dedicate 4GB for the 128GB SSD, and 2GB for the 1TB spinner. There is also a variable-size, 4GB tops ramdisk running.

The spinner is set to turn off after 6 minutes of inactivity, and spends ~90% of its time sleeping in silence. Once the particular files in the HDD are cached, you can run programs, watch movies or pics etc. located in it while the spinner is turned off, which is cool 😎 .

Primocache works equally well in older comps with XP (provided they have enough memory to make room for a sizeable RAM cache), on my P4 Preshott with 3GB of memory I dedicate 0.75GB for RAM cache.

Let the air flow!

Reply 137 of 163, by TELVM

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jwt27 wrote:
... I think I'm doing something wrong here: […]
Show full quote

... I think I'm doing something wrong here:

VPTtgaG.png

Don't sweat, it's simply that ATTO blows a gasket above 1000MB/s 😀 , see here, here and here.

Anvil benchmark (~two years ago when it was still named Fancycache):

anvil_d_fancycache.jpg

http://minequest.com/WordPress/?p=864

Crystaldiskmark:

d2fee1bf_primocache.jpeg

http://www.overclock.net/t/1414448/fancycache … -now-primocache

Let the air flow!

Reply 138 of 163, by jwt27

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Sooo... I just switched from Primocache to Samsung Rapid and back, and got my third blue screen! Again the culprit was iAstorA.sys. I now switched to RSTe v11.9 from this site, let's hope these are better (was on v3.8 from the same site previously).

TELVM wrote:

Don't sweat, it's simply that ATTO blows a gasket above 1000MB/s 😀 , see here, here and here.

Ah that makes sense, guess they never expected anyone to hit 1000+MB/s on a harddrive 😀

TELVM wrote:
If it helps here are the settings I use with Primocache: […]
Show full quote

If it helps here are the settings I use with Primocache:

Primo_Settings.png

I like one cache task for each drive (irrespective of the number of partitions in each drive), with block size tailored for each type of drive.

For SSDs I use 4K/8K block size, even though this increases the overhead, as this gives max boost. Spinners are well served with larger block sizes, like 128K, that decrease the overhead (a 4TB spinner @ 4K block size = tons of overhead).

For strategy I use caching both read & write, with infinite write-delay, but this is clearly dangerous (a power outage could seriously screw the system). For starters better use only read caching, or read & write but setting a very short write-defer, like 10 seconds.

Of the 16GB total RAM I dedicate 4GB for the 128GB SSD, and 2GB for the 1TB spinner. There is also a variable-size, 4GB tops ramdisk running.

I've set it to 4096MB, 4KB, 10s on the SSD now, and 4096MB, 128k, 10s on the platter drive. Infinite write deferring seems a bit risky to me, I have some very important files on here I really don't want to lose. Maybe I shouldn't even enable it in the first place...
Samsung Magician has a simple benchmark tool too, and shows these results now:

b6mOkdY.png

TELVM wrote:

The spinner is set to turn off after 6 minutes of inactivity, and spends ~90% of its time sleeping in silence. Once the particular files in the HDD are cached, you can run programs, watch movies or pics etc. located in it while the spinner is turned off, which is cool 😎.

I have that on my DOS machine too with UIDE and 128MB cache, but only because those old hardrives (especially the Fireball CX) are REALLY loud. Seems a bit pointless to do on this machine, I can't hear this drive at all.

Reply 139 of 163, by cdoublejj

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Windows 7

Windows 8 is doable but, there are so many other problems and some application compatibility issues besides the UI issue that it finally pissed my the hell off. it's the new vista. 8 can burn in a fire.

7 has a lot more than dx10 and 11 as far as the original post is cornered. it can also make better use of the latest hardware than older OSes can. it also does OKAY with retro gaming as far as 32 bit is cornered but, it's not perfect.

are theses blue screens you are reporting on the new system in the original posts? windows 7 or windows 8?

EDIT: oh yeah there is setup feature in windows 7 that sets up how you like your fonts and screen settings by answering some questions. (like the eye doctor)

Also it runs really well on older hardware. I have it installed to a Pentium4 with 1 gb of DDR1 and a Nvidia 4200Ti, it gets along really well considering the circumstances.

EDIT: for those with 8 startisback.com and stardock have cheap start menu (real start menus) that let you have start menu AND still have the start screen and charms and what not if you wish. Ooorrr disable all the windows 8 crap all together. the star dock version even lets you run "apps" in windows on the desktop as if they were regular programs.