Dual-boot for gaming, which OS is best?

[eirrac54]

Hi there,
my first post will probably start an argument, so here goes

I want to set up my laptop to dual-boot, to be a dedicated gaming machine on one side and a 'domestic' multipurpose
pc on the other, is it worth it?

I own an Asus G74sx, i7, 16GB RAM, NVIDEA GEFORCE GTX 560M-2GB, Win 7 OS, dual HDD X 7200... blah blah blah.
I want to set it up for WoW, Dark Knight Arkham City and Diablo III, it already handles 'Arkham City' on high settings brilliantly.
I've never done anything technical like this before, but am an 'experienced noob', never used a tech guy ever, have been gaming since I owned a Commodore 64 (with the cassette loader... aaarrrgh , thru to pc based stuff on my 'generic' Pentium 100, WoW 'Orcs & Humans', Wolfstein, Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake etc etc etc... (yeah, I'm old... kinda, so bear with me ~
Now that 'games' have matured into what we all were hanging out for, with 3D graphics and sound etc (hmmm, whatever happened to 'VR' for the masses, oh well... I just want to boot up and play in the best environent my pc will allow (before upgrading my hardware again, of course).

So, the question is, can I get what I want by 'dual-booting', and which OS should I use for that purpose, I've already decided that Windows 7 is the best OS for 'MY' SOHO , is XP the OS of choice for gaming? any suggestions would be appreciated, I would not have a clue where to start, I'm even open to suggestions re 'overclocking' etc...
thanks guys, am looking forward to your help.
john

[xeromist]

You want to go with Windows 7. Granted, XP can be lighter weight but with 16GB of memory that won't be an issue. Trying to get games running on XP64 (required for 16GB of memory) would be a pain and they simply wouldn't run as well since they are now designed for Windows 7.

If you want a sand box where you can install junk, browse unsafe websites, and potentially nuke it all without destroying your gaming install then you might consider setting up a virtual machine. The basic VMware player is free I believe.

[eirrac54]

You want to go with Windows 7. Granted, XP can be lighter weight but with 16GB of memory that won't be an issue. Trying to get games running on XP64 (required for 16GB of memory) would be a pain and they simply wouldn't run as well since they are now designed for Windows 7.

If you want a sand box where you can install junk, browse unsafe websites, and potentially nuke it all without destroying your gaming install then you might consider setting up a virtual machine. The basic VMware player is free I believe.

Thanks for that,
but wouldn't a 'virtual machine' defeat the purpose of a dedicated gaming machine and a 'sand box' I looked quickly at VMware and as I understood it it was similar to having a 'server' and a console.

My current config is a 'sand box' I suppose, everything is under my main login (there is a guest login too), can't I just partition the second drive and have a dual boot system... have the gaming side seperate, including Asus'GPU tweak' and other performance and graphics boosting stuff, I thought by doing it that way it would keep that environment 'sterile' and safe from any infections etc, the only connection to the internet would be directly to the game servers (Diablo3 and WoW) and for updates to other games (played offline).

How do I set up a 'dual boot' system and 'partition' etc, like I said, I'm a real noob when it comes to this stuff

Did I post this in the wrong place too, because I couldn't find it in 'new threads' I only found your reply by checking my settings d'oh.... noooob

TIA
john

[Zygomorphic]

Go into disk management and select shrink volume on your second drive ("D:") most likely.

Select the amount of space that you want to have for your second OS and data, and select "Shrink". This process can take some time, so be patient, the system may look like it hung, but it is really working--check your HDD light.

When it's done, reboot your computer and boot off the installation DVD. In the installer, select the free space on the second drive, and create a partition. Creating a partition takes a minuscule fraction of the time it takes to shrink one. Follow the Windows installer prompts, and you should be all set! Good luck!

Yes, you will want a second Windows 7, since Windows XP won't run anything more recent than DX9, so all the new DX10/DX11 titles won't get all the eyecandy, and your GTX560M hardware will be wasted. If you are looking at a VM, try VirtualBox, it is free and open source--mostly, and runs like a champ! Link: https://www.virtualbox.org/

[sectionate]

http://www.ubuntu.com/

[Zygomorphic]

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Ubuntu has been really buggy in recent iterations, so I switched to Fedora. I run a recent ROG notebook, and the older--more stable!--versions of Ubuntu did not properly support features in my computer such as better power-saving, and principally the back-lit keyboard. The wifi card was also problematic, so I got fed up with programs crashing and hardware not working.

I have switched to Fedora, which has been really reliable under "Beefy Miracle" (F17). They even managed to support my back-lit keyboard, which is really nice. It is stable, and the only thing you have to do is install the NVIDIA drives to obtain better 3D (actually, if you want 3D support at all). Otherwise, LINUX is a great OS, and boots (and shuts down) really fast. Truth be known, it takes longer for my Fedora installation to sleep than it does to shutdown...maybe a little exaggeration, but not much

[Silver Wolf]

Linux is nice if you are an advanced user but for your average Joe Linux is a whole new world and requires them to learn everything again. Granted it is safe from Virus' and has no use for an AV.

As for Dual Booting what do you actually want to dual boot for. You say you want a gaming OS and another partition for your other stuff but the question remains why? Like has been said before if you want another setup you can browse unsafe sites and generally do anything you want with and nuke it when it has issue without affecting your gaming partition then a Virtual Machine is the way to go. It doesn't defeat the purpose nor is it like a client server scenario thats more of a business level version of it. Think of it like a PC within a PC its a second PC completely separate from your currently PC but uses the same hardware.

XP is lighter but with today's resources that doesn't matter and the support for XP 64bit is a joke. MS don't support it and half the 64bit software out there is compatible with it. Your best option is Windows 7 64 bit (Stay away from 8) there is tons of support out there for it, everyone and everything has drivers for it and there is very little you will have to worry about compatibility wise.

[Zygomorphic]

The only problem with browsing unsafe sites via a virtual machine is that the virtual machine is connected to the internet through the host operating system! This makes the host OS connect to the unsafe site even though the traffic is being tunneled through to the VM. VM's are great for playing around with strange settings, or trying beta software, but for doing potentially virus-laden activities, definitely go with a second Windows 7 installation. Great choice of OS, @Silver, XP 64 bit was almost worthless, at the time nobody had more than 4 GB. Nowadays, that's a different story, a number of us have 8-16 GB, and @fostert, well let us just say he is @fostert (32 GB in a lappy when ASUS officially said it wasn't supported).

[Silver Wolf]

Zyg unfortunately you are a little bit off there. If you create a virtual machine it is an entirely virtual environment and Virus' cannot get outside the VM. However if you get a second windows 7 installation it can easily infect the other OS installed take it from me I have seen this happen many times over.

[Dylander]

i use vmware workstation and within there you can config the sort of connection your virtual machine had to the internet you can simply bridge your network adapter, and if you do not like that being bridged. vmware workstation has a build in nat server (not that its make much difference)

i use a vm ware to test software from publisher that are not trusted even to run games that are not 100% legit
if the vmware goes down you can simply delete the current vm and install a new one
if you dual boot you kinda have a lot more work on your hands
and if you have 16gb ram you have no problem making a win 7 vmware
win 7 requires 1gb ram at least i advice to use 2 at least just that it kinda fluent in use (best 4gb or more)

i also use dual boot on my lap top one part is win 7 to run all that software that i might need and the other part is BackTrack 5 ( a linux distro )
mainly i use the BT5 on my laptop as main OS version and win 7 is my second os (hardly use it but just incase)

i strongly advice you not to dual boot 2 windows distro's its kinda like making 2 user acc's for your pc 1 admin and 1 regular user
you will always log in to the admin because you get all options in there.
same goes for 2 linux distro's next to each other (you can easly get all the tools that make the other os appealing)

awnser to the guy that said that you need to be an advanced linux user to use linux, that is not true
ubunto and fedora are made so user friendly its kinda an out of the box distro just like windows. i kinda prefer linux above windows just the gamer inside me is the only thing inside me that is holding on to windows. (thanks to win vista)
if you know some about linux than you can do amazing stuff, if you never have use any linux distro you can't judge it

Best regards, Dylan