Having a bit of an issue with our new Vista system. I bought myself a new Windows XP Media Center system a few months ago, with the following specs:
Compaq Presario:
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Processor
986 MHz, 448MB RAM (officially 512MB, but you know how that is)
140GB on Drive C
20GB on Drive D (backup drive)
I use it to for all the regular day to day things, which give me no issues. I also use it to play World of Warcraft, which requires a lot of my system. It lags at the regular settings, but if I turn the graphics all the way down, it runs smoothly.
My husband bought a new Windows Vista Computer last month, with very similar specs, listed below.
Compaq Presario:
Intel Pentium 4, 3.0Ghz (2.99GHz)
447MB of RAM (officially 512MB)
150GB on Drive C
10GB on Drive D (backup drive)
The Vista Computer takes several seconds longer to load web pages and programs, taking nearly 2 minutes to open WinAmp with only Internet Explorer open. It locks up doing simple low-memory tasks, sometimes taking minutes before it unlocks again.
To play the same game, his settings are turned all the way down, just like my system, and all background programs are shut off to free up more memory, but his still lags and glitches, taking several seconds up to 20-30 seconds to catch up from time to time. It is extremely frustrating for both of us.
Why is it so tough for Vista to keep up? Are there settings that can be changed for better performance? Would buying more RAM solve this issue? What can we do to make this computer not suck? We spent too much money on it for it to be inferior to my XP system.
