Gaming Should I update to Windows 7?

[Jakob95]

I currently have XP on my computer. I already have a real Windows 7 disk that came with the computer but I decided to install XP instead for some reason. I was wondering will Windows 7 make my computer any slower and I should keep XP? I heard that new web browsers have hardware acceleration which only work with Windows 7, so I was wondering if I update will websites load up faster? Will flash work better? Will I be able to watch 720p YouTube videos on my computer without them buffering forever? Should I do the dam update?

My computer specs are these:
4GB of RAM, but on XP it says 2.7 for some reason.
3.06GHz Dual-Core Processor E6600
Integrated Intel Graphics card.

 

[Rydian]

Websites will not load faster, that's due to network speed (not rendering speed).
Youtube videos will not load faster, that's due to network speed (not rendering speed).
Flash will not work better, it's rendering can already be done on XP.

You should update to windows 7 because it's got more security features.

EDIT: Though you should know you can't update from XP-7, you need to do a clean install, which wipes everything.

 

[Jakob95]

Oh that sucks. What do you mean for security features? Will there be a new cool features in Windows 7 that XP doesn't have?

 

[pikachu945]

My computer specs are these:
4GB of RAM, but on XP it says 2.7 for some reason.
3.06GHz Dual-Core Processor E6600
Integrated Intel Graphics card.
[/quote]

hmm is your XP 32bit?? or the Integrated Graphics is eating your ram lol

 

[Wizerzak]

Websites will not load faster, that's due to network speed (not rendering speed).
Youtube videos will not load faster, that's due to network speed (not rendering speed).
Flash will not work better, it's rendering can already be done on XP.

yh i thought the same, but i had a really old PC (windows Me i think) before this vista one, and as soon as i got it i noticed an immediate change in internet speed, games loaded a lot faster and youtube could actually load a 5 min clip in less than 7 minutes.

 

[Jakob95]

My computer specs are these:
4GB of RAM, but on XP it says 2.7 for some reason.
3.06GHz Dual-Core Processor E6600
Integrated Intel Graphics card.
QUOTEhmm is your XP 32bit?? or the Integrated Graphics is eating your ram lol

My XP is 32bit. The Windows 7 disks are 64bit.

 

[Rydian]

Oh that sucks. What do you mean for security features? Will there be a new cool features in Windows 7 that XP doesn't have?Windows 7 has built-in features to automatically stop more types of hacking and viruses.

Yes, 7 has a bunch of stuff XP doesn't have. XP is over 9 years old for crying out loud.

QUOTE(pikachu945 @ Dec 24 2010, 11:14 AM) hmm is your XP 32bit?? or the Integrated Graphics is eating your ram lol

This. For technical reasons 32-bit OSes can't recognize a full 4GB of RAM (depending on certain factors it may show as 3.5GB or less), and integrated graphics take video RAM from system RAM (since it's not an actual graphics card so it doesn't have all that RAM of it's own). upgrading to 7 would free up more RAM, but maybe not the full 4 gigs.

 

[RupeeClock]

Sounds like a laptop you're using, I'd advise upgrading to Win 7.
It's full of improvements over Vista/XP, better connection to wifi hotspots for one, better power management for another.
You can optimise the OS by disabling services and processes you don't need, and perform all sorts of tweaks.
With your current hardware I think you can run Win 7 comfortably, better than Vista would handle.

 

[Matthew]

If you want to actually use the extra 1.3 GB of RAM and want up to date security then go for it.

 

[Rydian]

Actually Vista's "platform update" gave it a bunch of the new technologies 7 has...

But still, you should go with 7 anyways over Vista at this point.

 

[Pyrmon]

You should install windows 7 65-bit as it will boost performance. Instead of 2.7GB of RAM, you will use the whole 4gb of your computer.

 

[pikachu945]

If you are a heavy gamer get rid of the Integrated Graphics and buy a Dedicated Graphics Card to get the full 4gb of ram

 

[Rydian]

If you are a heavy gamer get rid of the Integrated Graphics and buy a Dedicated Graphics Card to get the full 4gb of ram

Laptop, not possible.

 

[pikachu945]

If you are a heavy gamer get rid of the Integrated Graphics and buy a Dedicated Graphics Card to get the full 4gb of ram

Laptop, not possible.

oh lol I thought he had a Desktop

 

[Pyrmon]

My laptop as a dedicated graphics card...

 

[Rydian]

My laptop as a dedicated graphics card...

That's not what I'm saying, I'm saying you can't upograde one using integrated to have a dedicated card.

There's no slot, first off. Even if there is, there's no space.

 

[Jakob95]

I don't play games on my computer.

And its actually a desktop

 

[iSneeze]

Definitely upgrade. Windows 7 is wayy more secure and has alot of neat features. And yes there's a chance (but not a guarantee) that your youtube videos will load faster since overall internet speeds depends on your available bandwidth and the performance of your computer. And the same applies to website loading speed. As for flash, I can't tell really. But seriously upgrade to windows seven, install TuneUp Utilities and a reasonable antivirus (Avira for example which is free), and you'll NEVER have to worry about your computer's performance decreasing over time.

 

[Rydian]

And its actually a desktop

Oh, I must be thinking of another thread then. If you buy an install a cheap graphics card (you can find one for $30 or so online) it'll free up the RAM your onboard is using... but it won't make much of a difference so you might not want to bother.

Also, iSneeze, while a computer being slow in general will slow down the visual rendering of web pages, data streaming is network-dependant, so youtube stuff and downloads would not go faster (unless there's some unmentioned problem in his current OS).

 

[Kwartel]

I think it looks better. It organizes better in the taskbar and it's more secure.