VISTA and radeon mobility 9600

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...estionID=19933
went pretty smooth at my end, though i did an UNinstall of the graphic card and then re-install it.

cheers ...

sorry, as i don't have any input at the moment, my upgrade (no clean install) to vista went quite well - i just followed the instruction on the vista site, small quirk at the graphic as it kept reverting to SXGA, but after the installation of the ATI Vista Beta driver, it was fine. By the way, I chose only the driver and NOT the ccc (i haven't used ATI ccc since after 6.2). I got the sound driver (vista beta) from realtek and so far it is running quite stable.

May be if Thunder_PC would/could merge the Vista threads so that we can get more inputs from the eMachines/Gateway Vista testers coming in.

Update:
1. restore my XP
2. partition my hdd
3. vista beta 2.0 now part of my dual boot (had to wipe out my Linux :-(( , time to get a 100gb hdd)
4. no issue so far, other than that one can feel the slugginess on some 3d apps, perfect example is google earth, the ball is turning so slow

cheers ...

it has been a looong night - finally got the first comparison of the my current XP home and the Vista Beta (32bit version, in my case). Please note that this is limited to my m6805 and personal no-name-brand desktop pc.

official download Vista Beta 2.0 build5384
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...y/preview.mspx

be patient: 3+ hours download and very loong installation time. i did 1st with an upgrade after backing up the current system and then 2nd with a clean update to be able to run dual boot.

just a quick recap on my current XP:
i have totally cloned the XP theme with FlyaKiteOSX3.5, RKLauncher, Finderbar, Y'Z tools, Mac Search (Spotlight clone), AveDesk, Rainlendar, ..., my system font is Finderbar/Lucinda - as in MacOSX).
The reason being is that simple, i enjoy the Mac Look but many tools and things are still being done in Windows (and Linux).
Current XP xtra features are IE7 (yes the 7th), Windows Media Player 11 (look slick and handsome witht he dark background) and Windows Defender (quirky update schedule). I must say they are good, even though i am a fan of firefox, avast and other non-MS products :-)

Vista Beta looks VERY nice, with loads of desktop applets coming stock - i would say that for a nice looking screen/theming, Vista saves users a bunch of headache going thru collecting tools and apps like i did. But then, on the other hand, with such a looong installation, setting up XP clone is much faster. I expect this will change when the official Vista version hits the ground.

With the "limited" inclusion of drivers inside the kernel, Vista is doing a decent job to get a normal system up. Setting it up is simpler comparing to XP. It is a downside that many much needed up-to-date drivers - network, wireless, graphic - are not readily available. I sense this lacking due to the coordination and participation of vendors. But then again this is only a beta version, and it is the reason why i chose to have a dual boot so not to bastardise my current good working XP.

In the next few days I would try to come up with some relevant test cases to scope out the performance of vista beta. Lot of researches for sure :-)

i found a link to read a good professional input/review of Vista Beta (i m sure that many more are out there):
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/31/windows_vista/

oh, and for the cons:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...icleId=9000829

cheers ...

Is everyone using the 64Bit version of Vista with the Emachines?

theoak has a thread mentioning vista 64bits installation
http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...04#post2200204

i myself am staying away from any 64bits OS version at the moment until all the "beta" driver issues are going away. it is however comforting, knowing that ur hardware is "64bits ready" :-)

btw, just a quick note regarding no CCC installation from ATI - at driver set up, if one choses "custom" then there is the option to UNcheck CCC; this would save quite a headache when un-installing it after the full set up. DriverCleanerPro (freeware) offers the cleanup just for CCC.

cheers ...

Well I went ahead and installed the 64Bit version anyway...

Actually I am in the 64bit internet explorer 7 as I type this.

I like the look and feel but it seems a tad slow. Perhaps I need the drive and memory upgrade for it to run faster... or maybe it is just the beta?

Any virus software that will run on this yet?

Any other pointers to tweek it?

memory would definitively play a role, fast drive does not hurt
Vista Beta is slow comparing to XP regardless. It is still in debugging mode, so u must accept the lag and sluggish here and there.
It comes with Windows Defender (Beta), i have avast and zone alarm on top.
The only tweaks so far are the ones I use on XP - check it here - http://www.tweakxp.com/performance_tweaks.aspx
do not want to strip it too much, still testing it out

update:
i am trying out the so-called SuperFetch of Vista. it seems that by using an external USB memory stick (SD Card as well)- one can use it as pageswap thus improving the performance. i see improvements when using word processing and media player. Testing it now to see if this applies to the USB external DRIVE as well (it would be a good trick, would it not?)

more reading under:
http://thelazyadmin.com/index.php?/a...uperFetch.html
and
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-108...ml?tag=nl.e132
and from the horse mouth:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvist...rformance.mspx

cheers ...

Good stuff. Defender looks to be a spyware app. I Avast is the virus protection you are using? Is it a 64 bit version?

as mentioned, i use only 32bits version of everything at the moment - well, let me clarify this, 32bits only at the moment for Windows, my Linux is however running with 64bits.

i am not sure if u can get avast free edition with 64bits. the pro version ($) has a 64bits. but i know many users out there being happy with avast 32bits under XP64

cheers ...

I found two programs that Microsoft directs you too:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/secu...istabeta2.mspx

CA and Trend Micro. Since CA is is good for 12 months and maybe the release version of Vista 64bit will be out by then I think I will give it a try... LOL

go for it. it is good that ms introduces these 2. but avast is also on the offical virus partner software of microsoft - and it is still free, unlimited trial :-)

i m interested in knowing about the activation of these 2 tools.

cheers ...

update:
http://www.approv.com/proptimizevista.html

nice reading in exploring the potentiality in Vista. most of tweaks here are already for other Windows version, interesting stuffs are desktop cleanup and leaning-up

personal thought: theming is good!

cheers ...

When I ran the Performance Rating it said that 2 drivers were slowing down the Emachine. USB Hub and BIOS drivers?

Anyone else get this?

Performance Rating says that the graphic card (in my case) is the bottleneck (?) a bit more digging about confirms that MS is in the process to re-work this tool after lots of complaints from vendors and beta-users alike.

Simply saying - results from this "embedded" tool are misleading!

it would be good for user-group to create and agree on a set of adhoc test scenarios to measure VistaBeta performance. It is just too early in Vista Beta stage for performance vendors (SoftSandra, SysTool etc ..) for them to offer a monitoring tool.

cheers ...

update - game (on my m6805):
CoD and CoD2 - "native" Vista graphic driver: not bad
CoD and CoD2 - ATI 6.5 graphic driver: a bomb, system unstable even outside games
CoD and CoD2 - ATI Vista Beta graphic driver: better at stock option, starting tweaking about would cause system crash, especially with FastWrite or AGP write.

Vista (Beta) & Game? - i would give a decent mark for this area to Vista Beta.
I can see the tendence of Vista to be shipped with bundled graphic card drivers, to make it simple for end-users.
Good idea, bloated OS :-(

MS mentions that official release would include the capability to UNload fatty/excessed system processes before starting a game, thus more power to the gamer.
Good idea to replace current registry tweak, though with a simple shorcut on the desktop, i already achieve this capability. Well it would look better with a glassy icon (or not?) :-)

cheers ...

So ATI has Vista Beta graphics? Do they have them for the 64 bit version? Do you recommend them? How about a link?

Any other drivers I might want to try with Vista?

I did try UltraVNC (which is a 32 bit app) and it seems to work ok with Vista 64.

Found drivers for 64 bit Vista. https://support.ati.com/ics/support/...estionID=19933

Will give them a try...

my approach is testing Vista Beta at stock, and then updating drivers (if they are available) as i go from one testing area to another. So just as to take ms at its words of a "friendly" os :-) as mentioned before, so far gaming - at least with my games - is passing the grade with Vista Beta. I notice that u are into audio/video craze, would u take up on ur tasks with Vista 64bits and give us inputs? cheers ...