New HDD, best way to install vista32?

[minx]

Hi..

I have this awful problem with stuttering in games, especially driving games... they look amazing using this 8800GTX i have, but still... for some reason some games just stutter, you tell me... 3 gig ram 7200 sata HDD dual-core 64x2 4000+... i dunno, so this is what I'm intending to do...

Just upgraded my AMD chip to a DC 64x2 6000+ that should help, another gig of ram to take me to 4 gigs total (DDRII667) and a new HDD 320 gig Sata with 8mb cache... i want to install Vista32 Premium on there... and wondered besides formatting to NTFS etc should i consider partitioning the drive for the swap file access to be faster? - i actually don't use a swap file in vista with my 3 gig + of ram and it works a charm without it...

I'm sure these additions will help greatly... and I'm sure for the rest of my tasks it'll be beautiful... but for gaming i just want to remove that bug bear of mine...stuttering! - I know it could be a number of things, HDD access times, running processes, older games without dual-core optimizations, memory timings, crap mobo (it's not...) bad PSU (again 650w with a 38A 12v line) not cool enough....oooh the list go's on...

So got any advice for me perhaps?... i have Vista already running, maybe install this new drive as a slave and run games form that drive? - either way i hope to kill the stutter... although it's just driving games that do my head in, games like Lost Planet or DiRT do run very well indeed... annoying isn't the word

Any suggestions....?

-M

[Zachery]

when you say stuttering, what games is it in?

Is it your frames? or is it net lag?

[Dean C]

Take my advice. Don't install vista. I had been running it up until two weeks ago, and almost every experience I had with it was an inconvenience. It's not just MS's fault, it's the driver manufacturers. BF2 is almost unplayable with 2gb of ram and 2x7800GT's (more than enough under XP for all the highest settings), GTA:SA has lots of weird bugs that cause it to crash. These are just a few. I really can't be bothered to explain the whole experience right now. Maybe i'll document it when I get some time. But please take my advice, at least wait until SP1 and a lot more driver updates from nvidia before you seriously consider vista

[Zachery]

I've had 0 problems with vista and video games, though I am running an DX10 card.

[minx]

it's frames... A slight pause then onwards... destroys a driving game... we'll see, i'll try some demos and see whats what.... I have a DX10 card, BIOSHOCK looks and runs great...i'll try again...