[dumimare]

i have this asus laptop

intel pentium dual core t2370 @ 1.73GHz,
2gb ram,
160gb hdd,
ati mobility radeon hd 3470 with 256 mb dedicated memory
vista ultimate sp1 (aero, glass effect - on, window animation on minimize/maximize - off)

i use it for audio production editing which it handles admirably and i also play world of warcraft. thing is i'm averaging at about 23-25 fps with mid-high settings.

would downgrading to xp sp3 offer me better performance, seeing as vista munches up quite a bit of resources.

also, i've heard about people having a really hard time finding drivers to work for xp on newer laptops. is it the case still?

[Partizan]

If you're a tech savvy person, you won't have a problem findfing the XP drivers.

And yes, for a notebook, XP sp3 is much more appropriate than Vista.

[hermitd]

Originally Posted by Partizan

And yes, for a notebook, XP sp3 is much more appropriate than Vista.

well i have nothing against anyone down grading to xp however Vista has features for laptops (well Sleep) and it can be very handy instead of using hibernate or shutting down (i will leave standby out of the loop)

If you want to give it a go, i would suggest taking a backup of your vista partition and then giving xp a try (that way you can restore vista back if you want to)

[Judas]

performance improvement? not likely.... vista a resource hog... that's inaccuate.

IMO there is more cons to downgrading to xp sp3 then there is sticking to vista sp1...

your framerate is about average for an HD3470

[dumimare]

well this is the very thing that's confusing me. people saying different, contradictory, things on the matter.

it is true i've not had a single issue with vista, ever. it's been running smoothly, much to my (pleasant) surprise, as i was expecting it to be crap.

thing is, i just want a bit more power from my laptop so i figured xp was the way to go.

*confused*

[Judas]

Don't fix what isn't broken.

the HD3470 was never intended for high end gaming... that's just the way it is... i've had a few laptops with the hd3470... it does the job.. it's like a budget, it IS a budget end low performance game capatible chip.... it's for starters.... the only thing lower is a chip that isn't even really capable of running games, well not well enough to want to try to even bother playing them IF they load.

IF anyone is planning on useing a laptop for games, and you want some relatively decent performance out of it, the HD36xx or better series OR Geforce 86xx or better series would be the minimum i'd suggest. Otherwise your sitting with a mediocore chip that just basically "does the job" for the time being.

IF your vista machine is running without a hitch, don't touch it is my best suggestion. Also considering, as i mentioned before, your performance numbers could potentially go lower if you try to use xp sp3..... My BEST performance numbers are coming from windows vista..... XP for me has showed pretty significant drops in performance in comparison on the same machine, or more problems. Frankly i can't wait till xp isn't even an option at all ever and people move onto vista due to be superior in every way.