[Mitlov]

I was thinking about breaking down and doing the Boot Camp thing. I've found threads on the XP versus Vista issue, but no threads comparing the different versions of Vista. If the ONLY thing I'm going to use Windows for is gaming, do the more expensive versions of Vista offer anything of benefit over Vista Home Basic? Thanks!

[bobbob]

No, not for gaming. Home Premium has the compositing window manager, though. That's about the only useful difference.

[J'nathus]

I'd wait for Windows 7. Buying Vista right now is sort of like throwing your money into a fire.

It's rumored Windows 7 will be out as early as this summer.

[jgwdoc]

My understanding is that you need the premium edition to get the 64-bit version, which will make a difference in your gaming.

[bobbob]

jgwdoc, on February 2nd 2009, 05:55 PM, said:

My understanding is that you need the premium edition to get the 64-bit version

Nope.

Quote

which will make a difference in your gaming.

Maybe a little difference. If you have more than 4GB of RAM, and the game uses 2+ GB. There aren't a whole lot of 64-bit games to get any other benefit, right now, and even those are pretty much a wash.

[jackdawsson]

J, on February 2nd 2009, 11:45 PM, said:

I'd wait for Windows 7. Buying Vista right now is sort of like throwing your money into a fire.

It's rumored Windows 7 will be out as early as this summer.

That's what I'll be doing, for similar reasons. I've read that WS 7 beta is going straight to "release candidate stage" - no more betas - so a late Summer/early Autumn release looks likely.

[Mitlov]

Not to take the unmentioned third door, but after finding out that many new games (such as Fallout 3) are still Windows XP compatible, and that my favorite game of all time (IL-2 Sturmovik) isn't formally compatible with Vista (and certainly not with Windows 7), I went ahead and ordered a copy of XP. I'd rather have 18-month-old games run beautifully than have new-for-late-2009 games run "pretty well for being on a laptop," so XP won over Windows 7 in my book.