Cougar and Vista

[VMFA-Blaze]

I know that A lot of us that have Cougars were worrying about what would happen with the release of Vista...

 

Well I've been busy experimenting and just generally getting the feel of Vista 64 now that I have it installed on my old AMD 64..

 

So I was just going to wait until the right time to install Vista 32 on my new gaming rig... Forget about Vista 64 for gaming.. The 64 bit drivers are signed, and I don't think that I'll be able to use all of my additional hardware with that OS..

 

So today I was over at Cougar World snooping around and happened to find this very interesting bit of information... It appears that Thrust master has come through with Vista drivers..

 

http://ts.thrustmaster.com/eng/index...3&pid=50&cid=1

 

(Direct download link, 48mb:

ftp://ftp.thrustmaster.com/accessori...STA_32_RC1.exe)

 

 

So for me I think the waiting period is just about over.. Its seems to be the right time to install Vista 32 on my gaming rig...

 

So with Alchemy for my X-fi Audio ... and Thrust master Vista drivers, and My BFG 8800 GPU I'm ready to experience Directx 10 in FSX...

 

The new Nvidia drivers that were just released at the beginning of May are DX 10 ...

 

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Prophet]

Links no good.

[VMFA-Blaze]

http://ts.thrustmaster.com/eng/index.php?pg=view_files&gid=1&fid=3&pid=50&cid=1

 

 

Ok this one works sorry about that...

 

:lol:

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Prophet]

Sweet. I cant wait to try it.

[VMFA-Blaze]

Enjoy .. Keep me updated .. as I haven't actually installed Vista yet on the gamin' rig.. But then I just got Flaming Cliffs reinstalled after replaceing the Motherboard.. And I need a breather.... :lol:

 

I'm planning to do this in a couple of days .. I just have to rember how to save FC on the other system.. The Vista upgrade does a fresh reformat and after all of the recent work that I've gone through.. I don't want to lose these mods and have to install them again...

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Prophet]

LOL. Yeah, I got 1 HDD dedicated to storage. I think its 80GB and almost full. I hate having to download the same things over and over.

 

I am at work until 7am (-7 GMT). But I am using Vista more and more, almost exclusively. So this will pretty much seal the deal for me.

[Prophet]

At home for lunch. But I cant download it, it keeps timing out.

 

*edit* Figured it out, site doesnt like passive FTP.

[Kuky]

This is very interesting news, please keep us updated if these drivers actually work... if yes I might consider getting Vista 32 also... at least earlier then I expected :huh:

[VMFA-Blaze]

I've just been over at Frugals Cougar World looking at the thread "Cougar and Vista" ...

 

The whole shooting match is included in the Vista driver download (that's the 32 bit drivers Plus Foxy).. There seems to be some small issues appearing in installation for some guys.. But there seems to be a work around it available)...

 

So it appears that they are working out the bugs and not letting this thing just hang there... This is very good news for Cougar owners...

 

I'm certainly going to install Vista on my gaming rig now, after seeing that all the needed drivers are now available... I've been reading posts at Simhq that state that after installing Vista their FPS have gone up considerably with FSX... So this should be the case with Lock On as well..

I'm trying to find a Vista upgrade disk for Premium without the license as I already have one... If I don't then I'm goin' with Vista Business 32 bit anyway...

But for now I'm enjoying Lock On again as I've finally found my new serial number and just reactivated Flaming Cliffs again... I'm planning to install Vista next week..

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Prophet]

I had no install issues. Fired it up, it removed the previous drivers. Ran it again, it installed.

 

I open the CCP, danced around with it a bit.

 

Everything seems to work just like off of XP.

[VMFA-Blaze]

thats great news ... :thumbup:

Thanks Prop...

 

 

 

~S~

 

 

Blaze

[VMFA-Blaze]

I just couldnt resist the urge to install Vista on my gaming rig... I mean all of the obstacles seemed to have been taken away and since I was running the 64 bit on the other PC I thought, why not...

 

So I started the process last night .. Since I've got a little experience I really didn't go too badly .. The first device that I installed was my Cougar... This was by far the best.. no problems what so ever... The software and the installation wizard were done very professionally..

 

Next came TRI 4, no problems there either.. Then I hit a very huge issue with my Creative X-fi audio. Man this was a huge pain in the butt... I finally got it to function but the consoles are disabled and I cant install the upgraded front panel... The good thing here though which makes it tolerable is the sound quality is outstanding.. I'm hoping that those other issues are addressed with MS soon...

There was one other issue and that's trying to install the latest drivers from nvidia.. My monitor doesn't recognise the newest drivers that were released "today as a matter of fact" Again this is something that I can live with as the drivers that were installed automatically by Vista are from last week...

 

I've got Flaming Cliffs installed also, that went smoothly as well.. So tomorrow I'm putting back all of my Fave, mods ..

 

Oh yeah I sold the Commando on e-bay just today so that's done.. Wheew!!! Busy,busy.....

 

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Kuky]

What version of Vista should I get then?

[VMFA-Blaze]

Actually it really depends... If your planning on building from scratch or your upgrading... But I'm going to take an educated guess that your planning on upgrading ... You can go on line and order directly from the Windows Anytime Upgrade web sight and they'll furnish you with a download plus they'll send you a disc for backup... This is most likely the easiest method, all though its expensive... And don't get the 64 bit version 'cause the Cougar wont work under that operating system... Thrustmaster is rewriting the code to handle a 64 bit but its not ready as of yet...

When I built my gaming rig in January Vista wasn't released yet. So I started with XP professional OEM which had the free Upgrade Coupon to Vista...

That offer has obviously been discontinued, and I had a very hard time getting the upgrade, but that's another story...

So as far as what version I recommend, well its Premium, this has the added security of Vista Business, it has the ability to work with DVDs, Music, and Video for Home theatre applications and has a gaming option as well..

But this is the most expensive Vista application..

Personally I'm running Vista Business on two computers, and I'm planning on upgrading the gaming system to Premium some time soon...

 

So if you plan on upgrading and your running XP Professional I would go with Vista Business or Premium...

 

I hope that this helps makes the choice a little easier for you to make KUK...

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Kuky]

Actually I don't want to upgrade, I would install it from scratch. I am thinking of getting the bloody Vista right now, I just dont know what I should get... 32bit vs 64bit... and what bloody version. There are way too many choices now in the IT world now.

[VMFA-Blaze]

I did upgrade, because that's the way I planned it... Even when following this method you have choices... You can either upgrade with a clean install or you can upgrade and save all of your existing files..

 

The 64 bit is actually marginally faster, and because your going to install a Cougar on your system I wouldn't even consider the 64 bit OS..

 

I mean the Cougar isn't yet compatible with a 64 OS... And if your planning on waiting until it is, check out Cougar World .. It might be a long wait...

 

I've been sort of absent from this forum because of FSX..

Man I was finally able to install the recent nvidia drivers yesterday and with my BFG 8800 gts OC 640 and running it with Vista I think gives you DirectX 10, at least it appears to be..

The details are really amazing.. I was flying over Paris this morning and was looking at literley 1000's of buildings, streets and traffic.. What an experience...

 

I'm going to add another GPU in a week or two and run SLI...

 

I'm hoping that ED will actually do something on this level.. But Hey! Microsoft has such a large staff and they also use a lot of professional Aeronautical company's to assist with their products...

 

But getting back to the best OS well its Premium, and I'll be adding this within a week or two...

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Rhen]

What version of Vista should I get then?

 

 

Do some research before you believe all that's being said around here.

 

 

If by version, you mean 32 v 64, it depends on your hardware and more specifically how much memory you expect to have now or in the future. If you have more than 2Gig memory or expect to buy more than that in the future, then to be able to address the memory, you've got to have a 64 bit OS.

 

 

The people that say that you can't run LO and Vista64 are full of crap. :smilewink: I currently run Vista 64 without any problems with LO. I do have an occasional problem with TS and RW since the drivers for SoundBlaster cards are still beta so there's an occasional crash from that. I did have problems with loud engine noises at one point using Vista 64/32, but that's been fixed with Alchemy.

 

 

Video drivers (64 bit) seem to be firming up as the 8xxx NVidia stuff appears pretty stable right now, at least for me. The only LO problem I have is when using anisotropic filtering and cloud densities of 9 or greater, causes LO to crash. If I turn aniso off, there's no problem. But since I run at 1920x1050, I don't notice any problems with that. BTW, all my settings in LO are maxed and antialiasing is set at 16x, and quality.

 

 

As for those that have a Cougar, well I've got one of those too, and what I've been doing is using a dual boot of Vista 32 & 64. Vista 32 to calibrate and download profiles, and everything else using Vista 64. Vista compatible beta drivers are now out for the Cougar, and despite the fact that they're for Vista 32, they'll still work for 64. Vista 64 specific drivers are soon to follow - supposedly:music_whistling:

 

 

So, bottom line, best version of Vista to get is Ultimate (upgrade - to save some money). With that you can dual boot EITHER Vista version (32/64) without Microsoft moaning about keys, as long as it's on the same computer. Between the two, you can load 32 for now and then 64 later, if you want. Still, IMO, 64 bit is the future.

 

 

Oh, one other thing. Just because you have FSX + SP1, and Vista, doesn't mean that you're using DX10. You're not. FSX, FSX + SP1, are both DX9 products. A DX10 patch is supposed to be released some time in the fall. Until then, you're using a DX9 product.

[VMFA-Blaze]

 

 

Do some research before you believe all that's being said around here.

 

What was that all about Rhen... :lol: What your stating here is very close to what I've been saying...

 

There's a very big difference in graphics when you compare XP to Vista.. The graphics in Vista at this point aren't DX10 but there is quite an improvement over XP ...

 

And I think that anyone that does have a Cougar is aware of the dual boot method.. I know that I wasn't really interested in using this, and I'm sure a lot of us considered this to be a hassle.. So with the release of these new drivers for the Cougar I felt that there wasn't anything stopping me from installing Vista on my gaming rig... And I really think that I made the right decision this time... :D

 

I have Vista business installed because Ultimate wasn't available when I purchased XP Pro OEM operating systems back at the end of Dec... But I'm certainly going to upgrade to it now.. And the cost for me will be about $145 USD... :thumbup:

 

Blaze

[Fjordmonkey]

Then I hit a very huge issue with my Creative X-fi audio. Man this was a huge pain in the butt... I finally got it to function but the consoles are disabled and I cant install the upgraded front panel...

 

Which flavor of the X-Fi do you have? I might just have a solution for you, as the drivers you download from Creative only gives you the most rudimentary of support (2-channel audio only, none of the Creative-apps working), which you've no doubtedly already found out.

 

If you have the X-Fi ExtremeAudio like I do, what you want to do is to whip out the CD that came with the card and install those drivers. They actually work, even though they're for XP, and you also get access to all the different modes (XMSS, 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel sound etc). But whatever you do, do NOT run Creative's Autoupdate after this, as that will put you back to square 1 (2ch sound only). For some utterly and completely idiotic reason, Creative has decided to NOT give out any complete drivers for the X-Fi ExtremeAudio-card (which, I might add, isn't a full-on X-Fi, but rather a slightly souped up Audigy4 LS-card).

 

If this procedure works for the other cards in the X-Fi-series is unknown at this point. I know that there are 3rd-party drivers/apps for the ExtremeGamer and above cards out that can possibly help, but just how good those are is something that I don't know as of yet.

[VMFA-Blaze]

Thanks Shadow I'll check it out...

 

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Kuky]

Thanks for all the info guys... I am starting to think getting Vista Ultimate DVD with 32/64 bit included is the best way to go. It's pricey but then if I get full retail version at least I won't have to deal with stupid activations or worry about being able to install OS on one particular hardware (machine) that you can/need to do with OEM versions,and if 64bit drivers aren't ready I can use 32bit.

 

I have 2GB of RAM right now so no need to get64bit for the moment, but eventually I know I will go higher (when I don't have a clue) and then 64bit will be a must. So for me better get "all-in-one" Vista (which is Vista Ultimate) rather then buying 32bit Premium now, then need to get 64bit later on.

 

It's still lot of hastle because right now I've been installing XP for some 20th time in the past two weeks... and yesterday spent whole day trying to get the damn RAID to be recognised on P5W DH Deluxe that I use.

 

I do want sollid drivers to be released first though before I take the plunge and shell out few hundred dollars on new OS so I will wait a few months longer.

[Prophet]

I had problems getting my RAID drivers installed with XP, but only because I dont have a FDD. I used a program called nLite to make a new XP install CD with the drivers.

 

I thought Vista was gonna be the same pain, but it actually had the drivers for my P5B-E RAID.

 

Once I have everything working in Vista, and all the programs I use migrated, I will probably format my XP partition to Vista64.

[Kuky]

Getting RAID setup on this P5W DH Deluxe was real pain in the ass. I mean, I had it setup before using ASUS EZ_Backup chipset which is really easy as it doesn't require and drivers or BIOS setings, but since my system was still restarting by itself I thought I might try and change RAID to Intel (which I've read about is faster and should be primary setup for RAID, and EZ-Backup for secondary, or expanding to RAID5 and 10).

 

Anyway, after whole day trying and thinking the motherboard chipset got messed up, I finally managed to set it up... had to install stupid floppy drive which I never ever use for years now, just so I can get Intel RAID driver you need to install OS.

 

hm... just when I think of it, I need to get new floppy drive and cable for my dad, since I had to take his one to get this working :)

 

later all, and again, thanks for all the suggestions on Vista :thumbup:

[VMFA-Blaze]

I seem to have a problem just about everytime I reformat.. I've stuck with the floppy drive method.. I usually get it to install after a lot of effort...

 

I think that after all of that you should have gone ahead with Vista, at least you would be one jump ahead of things...

 

Well I did figured out how to install the latest nvidia drivers and since I'm using the 680i chip set I installed the latest nforce as well... Vista in some respects is very different then XP.... So there are things here that I'm having to learn all over again...

 

Anyway getting back to the Forceware drivers, I was poking around in the different screens and actually discovered that the latest drivers are DX10 and since I have a 8800 the card has DX10 installed... I'm still not sure if FSX is DX10 at the present time but there really is a big jump in performance, since I installed Vista ... I mean the detail of buildings, and the shaders, Lighting effects, ground and sky textures have increased dramatically.. And there are thousands of realtime buildings... And the roads and traffic are just like real life...

 

As far as the Cougar and Foxy, this is perfect now...

 

When I first Got FSX back in Oct... I thought that it wasn't that much better then FS004.. But now this really is on the same level as Lock On, and in some cases it even surpasses LO....

 

~S~

 

Blaze

[Kuky]

Hey Blaze, can you tell any performance increase in LockOn going from XP to Vista?