Question for Windows Vista users: what are your experiences with this OS? What are the REAL system requirements for fluent and fast usage - not the min. 1024 MB RAM and 1 GHz CPU blabla said by Windows sites but the real one with using the computer for various applications (Word/Excel/Powerpoint, basic level movie making, webeditor, music/movies/some 5-10 years old games, etc.).
It depends. With notebook it's often Vista basic, and not the standard one, so less ressources are required as there's not the "aero" interface. It means that in basic version Vista requires only a few more ressources than XP.
If you have the regular Vista edition, with "aero", then 2Gb RAM is required to work properly.
Using OO Writer and OO Calc (same as Word and Excel) and browsing the web and watching a video all at the same time is no problem with 2Gb RAM under Vista.
About old games/programs : DOSBox is required for all DOS ones, XP games now almost all work fine (just have to select the XP compatibility) but there's still lots of Win9x games that don't work, even with compatibility set to Win9x.
On my computer I run 2 DOSBox sessions (one at size x1 with TB to watch track map, one with size x3 with Stunts to play) and browse the web (to see the scoreboards and know how good/bad my race is) at the same time without issue.
Some big DOS games are difficult to run with DOSBox though, as DOSBox requires lots of ressources too. Example : Geoff Crammond's F1 GP2 can't be played fluently with all graphics at the max. It's not a graphic card issue, it's really due to high ressources needed for DOSBox for that kind of game with lots of 3D/textures to be calculated.
Music/movies : install VLC for online TV and Media Player Classic (and codecs pack) to watch divx and Stunts videos recorded with DOSBox. Windows Media Player is bullsh*t that can't play numerous video formats, even with the proper codec (DOSBox videos don't work for example, only the sound is displayed).
Video editing : don't know much, all I do is suppress ads in some videos I recorded through online TV. Works fine for me with Vista standard, a good Athlon dual core and 2Gb RAM even with files of 1.5Gb, but I don't do anything else at the same time in order to let the program work fast.
Web editors : I use only Notepad++ now that I know (and still keep learning by myself) html and php programming, so I don't know. But it should not be a problem.
Poll