[Agonee]

Well let me post my experience as of late, since I built my new PC.

My new PC is:
BFG 8800GTX 768
2 gig (soon to be 4) crucial ballistix
Intel e6600 (stock speeds)
Asus P5N32-E SLI
Dualboot Vista 32 bit/XP 32bit
Dell 24" LCD
2x250gig WDs
1x36gig raptor (10krpm)
SB XFi sound card


So, when i first got everything up and running (drivers etc) in Vista I installed VG and went in to see how beautiful it would be. And it was. 55-70ish FPS solo with all settings maxed, 35-50 in full group grinding, 25-30 in towns depending on size and population, and 20-25 with more than one group in same spot (all particles turned up). The problem here was that the game crashed no less than once per 30ish minutes. When I would chunk, possible crash. When I would go to a big town, hitching, followed by possible crash. It was too much crashing for my taste. So I ended up dual booting to Win XP, got everything set up there, installed VG and tried again. (The vid drivers for xp are different from vista, that might be a big reasoning for the differences). Same FPS in the same situations as above. Difference was that there was no hitching at all, and no crashes. I crash under XP maybe once every 6 or so hours. THIS was what I expected after upgrading my system. (I didn't build this system just for VG mind you, I also play some other intensive games like NWN2, SupComm, Fear, etc). Under Vista, every game outside of VG ran perfect, whereas under XP everyone including VG ran perfect (well, not really perfect, but you know what I mean).

Conclusion? I think that vista has a lot to do with why newer PC builds are having issues. I love the look of vista and the tools incorporated therein. I prefer it over XP actually. But when it comes time to play VG, I reboot and go into XP so that I don't go crazy from crashes.

Hopefully this helps in some way to the OP's issues.