Vista and Production Premuim

[Steve Roberts]

By most accounts, Vista is very bad with pro apps like AE. I recommend you get a different laptop that comes with XP Pro installed.

[Deleted User]

so there is no way to downgrade to xp once vista is installed

[Steve Roberts]

Sorry, I’ve never tried that. Maybe you might have to dual-boot …?

I don’t think that kind of downgrade is possible, but maybe someone with better info will chime in.

[Deleted User]

thanks so far steve

[Shawn Miller]

Bold Data Systems sells laptops with no OS or WinXP (if that helps).

https://www.boldata.com/config.cfm/model_id/408/config_for/base

Thanks,

Shawn Miller

[Amit Zinman]

4 Gig is a limit of both Windows XP and Vista. YOud would most probably work faster with just 2 gigs. It’s a limitation of 32bit.
Vista works well with some tweaking on the latest machines. My testing shows it to be actually faster on new boards and of course slower on boards even a year old. You would need to be using CS3, but that goes without saying.
Bearing that in mind, why not get a mac?

[Rob Webster]

Well, you can always just wipe it clean entirely and start over with a Windows XP install disk. You can always downgrade an OS as long as you’re willing to re-format and start over. And with a brand-new computer, that wouldn’t be hard to do, since you wouldn’t have tons of other apps and personal files on there already. And you probably wouldn’t be out any money, either, since you likely have the Windows XP disks that came with your current computer. The only money you’re out is the cost of the OEM install of Vista.

[Rob Webster]

I must say, that’s the first time I’ve heard anybody suggest that AE would run faster with less RAM. With Vista being such a RAM hog anyway, are you sure about that? You might be right, but it certainly flies in the face of conventional wisdom around here. If there’s some 2GB limit with Vista, why would they even make 4GB computers? Please forgive my skepticism; I’ll admit I’m not the most knowledgeable in these areas.

[Amit Zinman]

It does seem weird but fact is that there are limitation for memory use in 32-bit operating systems. I was a PC tech before so I know a little bit about this. Vista might use memory a bit better but only Windows XP 64-bit or Vista 64-bit can really use 4 Gig of memory. I’ve heard that you can run 32-bit AE on 64-bit Vista but had not tried to do it myself so I don’t know how well this setup work. I heard that Vegas is going to go 64-bit soon. Adobe say that they are waiting for next year (at least).

[Jimmy Brunger]

Yeah, I heard x64 is best bet for RAM hungry AE work..you can dedicate all 4GB to AE and then any left over will be used by the multiple instances of AE fired off when Nucleo or CS3 previews/renders.

Why not get XP and x64 on a dual-boot. I’d hazard a guess that keeping your pro apps and eveyrthing else completely separate would be more stable. I think this is what I’m going to do unless Vista64 gets a little better.

Adobe really do need to pull their fingers out and go 64bit ASAP. All the other big compositors out there already have or are doing very shortly.

*Production Studio Premium CS2 / *Combustion 3 / Mocha v1
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Win XP Pro SP2 / Intel P4 3GHz / 2GB RAM / GeForce FX5200 / DeckLink Pro / Roland DS-5 monitors / Sony BVM-20G1E / DVS SDI Clipstation / Wacom Intuos 3 A4 / 110GB boot/80GB media/600GB RAID-0