Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Fury on May 19, 2006, 10:59:17 am
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I hope I am not sounding too much of a corporate shill here, it's just that I am awaiting Vista with extreme curiosity. :)
Since Beta 2 of the upcoming incarnation of Windows will most likely be released sometime May 23th-25th, I decided to review what information is available so far about Windows Vista. As expected today, all the relevant information was found from Wikipedia, although there are several interesting beta-reviews around the net but which may be a bit outdated by now. I am eagerly awaiting reviews about soon to be released Beta 2.
Even though Vista's development has been one hell of a rocky road, the new OS is beginning to shape up nicely and should be a welcome successor to the aging Windows XP, which is soon 5 years old. 5 years is a long time and it is beginning to show as Windows has been steadily falling behind rapidly advancing Linux and OS X, but it looks like Vista is going to be a serious contender even if we overlook the fact that Windows is favored by OEM manufacturers and thus the most common desktop OS, but this time Windows will also be a serious contender when it comes to features of the OS itself.
Instead of listing and going through each new or improved feature, I'd like to point everyone to read following two Wikipedia articles;
- Windows Vista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista)
- Features new to Windows Vista (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista)
Some of the new features are very interesting, of course if you aren't interested in tech stuff like this, it can't be helped. :D
The less computer savvy people here might be wondering what's the fuss about. To put it into a nutshell, Windows Vista is much bigger upgrade from Windows XP than Windows XP was from Windows 2000. The difference is more comparable to upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 or from Windows 98 to Windows 2000. The next question you probably ask is if Windows Vista will even run on your computers, the minimum computer requirements have been set to 800MHz Pentium 3 or Athlon, 512MB RAM and DirectX9 driver-compatible video card, you won't be able to run the new interface with all the bells and whistles but you can use classic Windows 2000/XP style interface.
I don't know about the lot of you, but unless MS screws up really bad, Vista is going to end up replacing XP on all of my computers soon after it is released. Not all of my computers can run the new interface and have to use classic W2k/XP interface instead, but with rest of the features still usable, I don't really care. :)
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Yay! Security holes a plenty, with an all new shiny interface!
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Have you looked into Vista's security improvements? It starts with redesigned user account management and usage, new IE that is no longer part of the shell and ends to completely recoded network stack. Since Vista is going to become the next mainstream OS, of course security holes will be found but with the looks of it, Vista's security is laying on solid rock as opposed to W2k/XP. I have quite high hopes that MS really gets security right from the beginning for Vista.
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I am not going to hurry. I'll give them a year to iron out the biggest bugs. Then, depending on what kind of feedback the thing gets, I might upgrade. Thats what I did when XP was sneezed out.
I am not really exited at all. To me it looks like Fury there is jumping around and clapping hands happy-happy-joy-joy. But me, I'll get another beer and watch how Lordi conquers the world.
And it is a Mikceysof product after all. That alone gets it a few minus points. Nothing I can do about it but thats how it works. :p
Not being a real tech geek, my biggest interest lies in the interface. How much darker and depressing I can make my desktop. :mad2:
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I've been working in a tech support last 4 years and I guess that has made me long for better Windows, Vista is holding promise to be a great OS and that's what makes me excited. A great OS makes my job easier and being a tech geek, the new features are quite interesting. :) There's always potential for a major screwup from MS's part, but I try not to think too negatively...
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Man, I am so behind it's not even funny. My machine is getting a massive overhaul this weekend, and I'm just about to move from 2000 to XP.
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XP features excluded:
IPX networks are no longer supported.
Will this mean trouble when I want to LAN older games like C&C95 or Red Alert? If so.. :( :doubt:
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What happened to the Mr.? :D
Anyway, as with all my previous Windows upgrades, I will only switch to Vista once I have a specific reason to do it, like running a program or driver that requires it. Until then, XP is working fine, and I could do without any further memory bloat (see my other thread).
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Vista seems to be a step in the right direction, but it's basically a more *nix-like Windows with a shiny new interface.
I'll wait and see what's happening with the DRM mess. If it's as bad as it sounds right now, this might be the final push for a Linux-only desktop for me.
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Will it have viruses pre-loaded to save us the trouble of dl'ing them? :p
I'll wait and see what's happening with the DRM mess
The DRM issues is the biggest reason I am unwilling to upgrade to it until I have to.
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I am actually quite looking forward to upgrading to Vista, I think a lot of the interface changes are very interesting and useful, there are some brilliant features tucked away into it, and I can only hope that they've learnt thier lesson security wise from the fiasco that is XP.
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XP features excluded:
IPX networks are no longer supported.
Will this mean trouble when I want to LAN older games like C&C95 or Red Alert? If so.. :( :doubt:
Probably. Offhand a few of the security measures involve locking off hardware such as sockets.
Another side thing is that DirectX10 acts in such a way that it bind the accessible 'features' for graphics; i.e. rather than ATi or Nvidia being able to chose what features their card provides, it means MS can dictate them (there are also big questions about OGL support, which may run significantly slower due to wrapper or software emulation). The apparent (bitlocker) restriction upon dual-booting with different OS' is also annoying, as is the oddles of DRM.
Offhand, a number of consultants/researchers have popped up and noted Vista doesn't actually offer anything new that 3rd party tools don't do. I doubt that Vista will be any more free of security holes than XP or 2000 are; there's a very simple law of averages that means any complex code will have errors within it.
And I have to admit, the thought of needing to upgrade my PC for a ****ing operating system, when my PC runs perfectly well for normal applications, is more than a little galling.
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Well my computer could run it.. but like others here the DRM restrictions realy have me worried.
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Vista seems to be a step in the right direction, but it's basically a more *nix-like Windows with a shiny new interface.
*nix-like would imply you have more control over your system, not less. Somehow I doubt this. :(
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but like others here the DRM restrictions realy have me worried.
It's unfortunate that most people in the world don't mind being locked out of content they paid for. MS gets away with things like this because of that and because there are simply too many DRM apologists.
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All I can say is that I hope it does get released sometime around november so I can get it for 6 bucks from my MSDNAA supplier next fall. That'd be the shizz-NIIITE. Hopefully they'll bundle the 64 bit version with the 32 bit version like my XP set I got this year from them.
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Hopefully they'll bundle the 64 bit version with the 32 bit version like my XP set I got this year from them.
Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista Home Basic, Home Premium and Ultimate will ship on same retail DVD's. Upgrading from Home Basic to Home Premium or Ultimate is supposedly made easy.
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And, as always, get the Ultimate version, over the other versions. I still pity those who got stuck with XP Home. I mean, come on.. isn't there an easier way to change permissions in Home, without booting to Safe Mode? Gah, I hate that home crap.
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i dont like the way most operating systems have to be resource whores. meaning an os should have a very small footprint on the system. at its most active state it sholdnt use more 10% of a systems resources. i like the way the interface now uses more video card resources, but no doubt it will be bloated with otherwise useless graphics. i dont worry about that much cause they offer a legacy mode. question is is it just made to look like the old interface or does it infact use less resources. this doesnt seem a problem to me if what they say about dx being 8 times faster is true. i hope the way it handles services is better. there are just so many useless serveces installed by default in windows xp, and poor descriptions of them make it difficult to know what the machine absolutely needs to run. reverse compatability better be damn good, i dont want any more old games rendered unrunable. loosing reverse compatability and thus rendering all my software useless will likely make me use linux instead of buying all new sopftware. unless reverse compatability is absolutely perfect, it will destroy my intrest in upgrading. last issue i have is indeed drm. i can accept having drm if it is meant only to protect drm protected content. i cant have my mp3 and video collections rendered unuseable now can i? likely the drm will only protect mediea only on windows' applications, but 3rd party apps like winamp, should be able to continue functioning without henderance. if drm forbids use of legacy formats, it will be an absolute reason for me not to perchace the software. infact as of now theres only a couple reasons i use windows, photoshop for one (is adobe smart enough to make a linux version yet), and truespace. should i ever learn gimp and lightwave, and freespace modding tools get ported to linux, microsoft will immedeately loose a customer. :D
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My present computer can't run it, my future computer(s) won't run it. There hasn't been any new games out I'm interested in either, so I'll just keep an install of XP around and switch to BSD.
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I'll believe it when I see it.
From the betas I've seen so far, it's just more eye-candy, and not stable.
Lots of vulnerabilities have already been found in it - I just hope they get fixed before release!
They've always touted the next release as being more secure than previous - Esp. with 2k and XP, but it's always turned out to be BS?
Heck, my Win98 partition required less effort to secure than my 2k partition, and was never vulnerable to stupid worms like Blaster and Sasser.
Now, as these are betas, I'm reserving judgement, but to put things in perspective, I was running the Opera9alpha2 (And now beta1) and it was STILL more stable and faster than both Firefox and Internet Explorer...
If Vista was showing that kind of stability in beta I'd be a lot more hopeful, but it isn't.
Worse yet, testing in the office has shown that several apps, both retail and custom, have 'unexpected behaviour', which means re-tooling them and/or waiting for new versions...
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You're judging stability by the Beta? Betas are never stable.
The kernel of Vista is more like UNIX than any previous Windows. It does allow tight control over the system. The problem is that every Windows has a colossal amount of junk around the kernel to make it usable for the average luser. That's the junk that differentiates *n[iu]x from Windows; MS kernels are usually pretty good but get ruined by the interface.
Anyone else find it funny that UNIX is ancient and hasn't changed much since the 80s but every other OS has steadily become more like UNIX?
In a similar vein, LISP in its current form is thirty years old but every other language is trying to catch up with it.
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there really isnt any reason to constantly write a new operating system every time the electronics improve. faster processors realy isnt an excuse to allow more unnessicary bloat into the os, this is something id wish mycrocrap would notice. id rather have something like unix/linux, which rather than add "new features" (which really are the same old features with different names) they focus on refinement of something that already works quite well. id rather have microsoft make an operating system which is open enough to allow for technologigcal advancement, and slowly refine it in thye unix/linux way. imagine having windows 98 (the best windows i think), but with a more refined (and less buggy) functionality. computers really havent changed much, why should the operating systems?
another thing i cant stand to see is computers being dumbed down for stupid people at the expense of effietiency. the file list feature for example, i can see it causing more confusion rather than making managing files easy for the dumb. it would be nice to have expert and novice modes. really people will use whatever theyre given, the product need not be good, just marketed well. if you give them something effitient they will be forced to live with it, but in the long run it would be more productive for them. youd figure with people getting computer education in grade school for the past 15 years, they could handel a less bull**** oriented operating system.
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By that analogy PC's has not changed since the first IBM PC's, but does that mean we should still be using MS-DOS? Linux is also going to same direction as Vista and Tiger/Leopard (OS X) are, just check out Compiz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz), Xgl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl) and AIGLX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLX). As with Vista and Tiger/Leopard, nobody is forcing you to use "bloated" user interface in linux.
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By that analogy PC's has not changed since the first IBM PC's, but does that mean we should still be using MS-DOS? Linux is also going to same direction as Vista and Tiger/Leopard (OS X) are, just check out Compiz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz), Xgl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl) and AIGLX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLX). As with Vista and Tiger/Leopard, nobody is forcing you to use "bloated" user interface in linux.
Exactly, I've always used the Classic theme in XP, and will not change my ways with Vista. I was very happy they are packing it with a classic theme.
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I've been following this one for a while. I'm definately interested to see and very impressed by the fact that they are finally, although it only took them 5 extra years to realize it, upgrading the way the interface is rendered and using the 3D accelerator to actually do the work. One of my biggest gripes is that the Windows interface has always been sluggish...redrawing icons randomly...unable to display something while the CPU is engaged with loading...when you get into a game you breath a fresh sigh of relief. Well finally thats no longer the case. As a GUI/HID person I see this as a positive step. I'm still interested to see how the UI evolves as there are a few HID problems that I'd like to see solved but we're getting some steps in the right direction.
The DRM doesn't scare me as much as it used to. I'm hoping its not an issue. But we'll see how it goes. Basically if consumers can't get their stuff to work there will be backlash and several companies pushing the DRM totem around have stepped back a bit and glanced around. Progress! But this is a major factor indeed. If I can't get my Zen loaded up with my MP3 files then I will be pissed.
Vista sounds as if its had a security overhaul. Apparently the UI for managing escallation of priviledges is still not very good yet....but the actual concept seems to be better than ever before. We'll see how that carries through. Re-written networking stack and other things leaves me thinking that maybe progress has been made. But don't expect a perfect track record...not even Linux or MacOS has that.
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I'm pretty sure my uncle is gunna buy it a few weeks after it comes out so I'll just use his copy :nod:
XP has been acting very badly for me lately and I dont know when Im upgrading so i'll rpobably start using it when it comes out.
I got a feeling that it will work alot better than XP.
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If they decide to screw up Open GL I'm going to Debian or SuSe, if not, I'll buy it.
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If it has anything like XP's product activation, I may just bite the bullet and give Debian a shot.
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If it has anything like XP's product activation, I may just bite the bullet and give Debian a shot.
damn skippy, activation always pissed me off. especially when you switche to a new computer every couple years. i want an os i can migrate between machines. it would be totally awesome if it was like 98, where you can take a hard drive out of one machine, stick it in another, and it would boot. of course your drivers were always screwed. 98 was the only os i knew of that could do that, making it a perfect os for hardware testing.
By that analogy PC's has not changed since the first IBM PC's, but does that mean we should still be using MS-DOS? Linux is also going to same direction as Vista and Tiger/Leopard (OS X) are, just check out Compiz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz), Xgl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xgl) and AIGLX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLX). As with Vista and Tiger/Leopard, nobody is forcing you to use "bloated" user interface in linux.
the computers havent changed in the way they work, the only thing thats changed is they now have suffietient power to run multiple apps. what made dos so great is that it was very simple to work with. only a couple basic concepts and a few commands needed to be learnt. of course dos came about when people had no clue what theese computers were capable of. once the technology was better understood and the machines grew powerfull then the need for multitasking arose and the best means of handeling multitasking was through a gui. if you look at early versions of mac os (what you would find on mac classic or a mac se, i forget the version) you have a simple, easy to use gui based operating system with support for multitasking, printing and to a small degree networking (apple's proprietary standard), all fit on a single disk (and usually your word processor and games on another disk). the purpose and features of the os havent changed much, yet the amouant of space it eats up in both memory and in drivespace is huge. a fresh install of xp is about a gig, over a thousand fold over early mac os. i just think the perpose of the os is to provide basic support for all your other software, to manage your files and your networking. theres no reason there be so much code there to handle a relatively simple job. the os simply makes the computer useable, the software makes it usefull. il probibly go for the classic interface cause its familiar. the os need not look good if its gonna slow down human-computer comunication.
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That's your view of what an OS should be, and I appreciate it. By the looks of it, only linux or BSD is the right OS for you because with them you really can choose what to install and run. However, a mainstream OS cannot afford such an approach, a mainstream OS needs to be feature rich to please the masses. Even though I could be considered a geek, I still prefer feature rich OS over "lite" OS because that means I don't need to go and hunt down 3rd party applications to do stuff that OS should already have, but that's just a matter of point of view. I still would like Vista to have its own anti-virus and perhaps a lite version of MS Office (not MS Works! :mad2:).
I'd still like to point out the difference between "bloated" and feature rich. This again is a matter of point of view, but in my books an OS becomes bloated after it uses RAM and CPU cycles for stuff that are completely useless. For example, the new Aero graphical interface does not make Vista bloated because Aero can be turned off. However, Aero would make Vista bloated if it would still use the same amount of resources when it is both on and off.
Anyways, althought not officially confirmed by MS yet, it has been rumoured that Windows Vista Beta 2 will be available for download for free by end of this month. Of course there will be a time limit, most likely 180 days. I have already prepared my secondary PC for Vista Beta 2. :)
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If it has anything like XP's product activation, I may just bite the bullet and give Debian a shot.
damn skippy, activation always pissed me off. especially when you switche to a new computer every couple years. i want an os i can migrate between machines. it would be totally awesome if it was like 98, where you can take a hard drive out of one machine, stick it in another, and it would boot. of course your drivers were always screwed. 98 was the only os i knew of that could do that, making it a perfect os for hardware testing.
Yeah, last time I had a big update I replaced the motherboard, graphics card and processor. My brother wanted his PC upgraded too so I took all the old bits and built his Pc out of that. The only original thing in his was the hard drive. I was running XP he was using 98 SE.
XP refused to boot up no matter what I triead, I had to wipe and reinstall the bugger. Win 98 didn't give a stuff, booted up straight away, noticed all the new hardware and bam. All done.
It's obvious something has taken a step back along the way. :rolleyes:
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Could that have somthing to do with XP's security "features"?
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windows 98 was a troubleshooters dream. but with the next few versions up microsoft thought, why let em reuse their os, when we can jack em some cash? and thus they did. i just hope when mycroblow no longer supports xp they will remove the activation crap with a service pack or something. but who knows, vista might actually be good.
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eh, i'll prolly end up getting vista when i build me a new PC, the idea of a 3d desktop space does intrigue me somewhat, i'd imagine it'd work even better with a touch-screen type interface, or a stylus-based system, like tablet PC's, or the uber expensive wacom cintiq's.
Either way, all this conjecture over operating systems leaves me to say only this: It's not the operating system that counts, it's how you use it.
i do wonder what vista's compatability is like with "Legacy" games, and whatnot, however.
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Regardless of whether or not Vista is any good, I'll have to use it. Being a .NET developer is shaping up to be an easy life, but it does mean that I have to keep up with MS technologies.
From a dev PoV, Vista looks good. From a UI PoV... I hope to the gods the Beta is no indication of the UI quality. I'll probably stick to WinXP for games for the moment.
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Regardless of the performance of the new OS, 96% of regular computer uses suggest they'd still consume donuts and read cartoons. :)
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If they decide to screw up Open GL I'm going to Debian or SuSe, if not, I'll buy it.
They did. It is now "emulated" instead of being fully supported. This is really going to **** up anything that uses OpenGL (Doom 3 is what comes to mind at the moment, but surely there are others).
That's another reason for not buying/pirating it. Maybe it has lots of other features, but OpenGL support is a very important feature that they "forgot" to include.
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Looks like I have to explain and correct Kosh's statement.
Windows Vista's Desktop Window Manager (Aero) is a hardware-accelerated full-screen Direct3D application. As it stands today, you cannot run full-screen OpenGL application on top of full-screen Direct3D application and vice versa. So to provide a workaround Microsoft implemented OpenGL wrapper which supports OpenGL 1.4, of course it won't be as fast as native OpenGL implementation as it is a wrapper. However, video card manufacturers will bundle their own OpenGL wrappers with their own drivers which will be optimized for their hardware and also support OpenGL 2.0 and future versions of OpenGL. So in the end how big of a performance hit will hardware optimized OpenGL wrapper have as opposed to native implementation? Most likely minimal after their wrappers have matured. And this is only when you use Aero, it should be perfectly possible to provide native OpenGL implementation with video card drivers but you need to switch Aero off.
I hope this clears up any misunderstandings regarding OpenGL and Vista.
Edit: Almost forgot, if your PC has enough horsepower to run DWM (Aero) and a DX9/DX10 game on top of it smoothly, any performance hit from running an OpenGL game through your video card driver's own optimized OpenGL wrapper is most likely negligible. And if you aren't using Aero, you most likely won't even need a wrapper to run an OpenGL application.
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This remembers me to Glide wrappers performance, well Software mode can be a choice sometimes...
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They should go back to the old times when you'd have to reboot out of windows into DOS to be able to play games. :p
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After I looked for more information regarding the OpenGL issue, I noticed that even though english Windows Vista wikipedia articles did not mention OpenGL, german article did and so did a seperate english wikipedia article. Both links below.
- The Windows Vista Issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct3D_vs._OpenGL#The_Windows_Vista_Issue)
- Kompatibilität von Aero-Glass und OpenGL (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows_Vista#Kompatibilit.C3.A4t_von_Aero-Glass_und_OpenGL) (Use Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/))
So the bottom line is; OpenGL will work just fine under Vista. :)
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They should go back to the old times when you'd have to reboot out of windows into DOS to be able to play games. :p
Every once in a while, I encounter a rig that really has DOS. When that happens, I like to go "hang around" in DOS. See ho many neat commands I still remember, and basicly go trought the hard drive. And read text files. And all that stuff. It makes me feel so emotional. The command prompt isn't the same.
You all still remember how to meet with the badass in the red armour?
type:
C:\
C:\cd regret
C:\REGRET\regret
And let the killing begin!
(I feel like such a geek :nervous: Maybe some beer will return my credibility)
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They should go back to the old times when you'd have to reboot out of windows into DOS to be able to play games. :p
Every once in a while, I encounter a rig that really has DOS. When that happens, I like to go "hang around" in DOS. See ho many neat commands I still remember, and basicly go trought the hard drive. And read text files. And all that stuff. It makes me feel so emotional. The command prompt isn't the same.
You all still remember how to meet with the badass in the red armour?
type:
C:\
C:\cd regret
C:\REGRET\regret
And let the killing begin!
(I feel like such a geek :nervous: Maybe some beer will return my credibility)
:lol: :p
Someone's met a match.
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Ugh. I'm not looking forward to Vista. I'm quite content with the OSes on my computers (98SE and XP). I'm glad to read that there are other people out there who believe Windows 98 is the best thing MS did with Windows. How many versions are being released? Five? Six? How much money am I going to pay so I can utilize the OS to its full potential? I believe XP Home costs roughly a hundred bucks in a store; therefore, I don't have high hopes for all the fancy versions of Vista.
As for this AERO thing, I could care less. I want my UI to be simple and effective. If I want to be wowed by the pretty colors, I'll load up a game.
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If it has anything like XP's product activation, I may just bite the bullet and give Debian a shot.
damn skippy, activation always pissed me off. especially when you switche to a new computer every couple years. i want an os i can migrate between machines. it would be totally awesome if it was like 98, where you can take a hard drive out of one machine, stick it in another, and it would boot. of course your drivers were always screwed. 98 was the only os i knew of that could do that, making it a perfect os for hardware testing.
Yeah, last time I had a big update I replaced the motherboard, graphics card and processor. My brother wanted his PC upgraded too so I took all the old bits and built his Pc out of that. The only original thing in his was the hard drive. I was running XP he was using 98 SE.
XP refused to boot up no matter what I triead, I had to wipe and reinstall the bugger. Win 98 didn't give a stuff, booted up straight away, noticed all the new hardware and bam. All done.
It's obvious something has taken a step back along the way. :rolleyes:
Its good form to reformat after a big hardware change anyways...even with Win98. You always run into trouble. The difference between Win98 and WinXP in that regard is XP is more strict on what drivers are allowed and not allowed to do. So in Win98 they just festered with screwed up commands that may or may not be doing good things for the system. It looks on the surface as if its ok...it may even run fine for a while but put the right combination in and bammo. Really I've found Linux to be much the same way. If you can cajolue it into fixing it yourself after a big change then power to you but its the same deal. WinXP just tells you...no this is bad...go and do it right. So we've got a bit of a spread on how to achieve the best result but its the same issue.
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If they decide to screw up Open GL I'm going to Debian or SuSe, if not, I'll buy it.
They did. It is now "emulated" instead of being fully supported. This is really going to **** up anything that uses OpenGL (Doom 3 is what comes to mind at the moment, but surely there are others).
That's another reason for not buying/pirating it. Maybe it has lots of other features, but OpenGL support is a very important feature that they "forgot" to include.
Actually its only emulated if you don't have a video driver that supports its own full OpenGL implementation. As both ATI and nVidia do this already its not a problem. Lots of games now use OpenGL 2.0 but Windows XP supports only upto 1.4 and yet its still not an issue. We've heard alot about this in the flight sim community as IL-2 is OpenGL native. After some considerable discussion the game developer weighed in and was not concerned in the slightest. OpenGL is still the choice for them.
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So its agreed taht Open GL will work fine.
I have a question!!!
Is Freespace 2 gunna work on Vista?
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So its agreed taht Open GL will work fine.
I have a question!!!
Is Freespace 2 gunna work on Vista?
I doubt it'll be a huge problem for our team. Many WinXP programs work just fine in Vista. I think the biggest problems to overcome are the new permissions structure and the rights elevation that causes a problem with some programs that think they must have administrator access to run (even when they don't really). I figure the SCP team will fix whatever is needed for Vista and this gives us alot of flexibility that we have the luxury of because we have the source. Otherwise it might be a problem.
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Freespace 2 already runs on Vista.
Vista is really nice. But i can tell you right now, the first thing I'm gonna do is turn a bunch of stuff off. Windows Defender, goodbye. Windows Sidebar, see you later. And I'm gonna trim down those services. Because Vista is a nice, advanced, speedy OS with amazing software compatibility underneath it all; it's just got WAY too much stuff running by default.
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I'll be getting it when it's cracked and patched sufficiently not to give me any headaches.
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Freespace 2 already runs on Vista.
Vista is really nice. But i can tell you right now, the first thing I'm gonna do is turn a bunch of stuff off. Windows Defender, goodbye. Windows Sidebar, see you later. And I'm gonna trim down those services. Because Vista is a nice, advanced, speedy OS with amazing software compatibility underneath it all; it's just got WAY too much stuff running by default.
yes you got to love the wireless autoconfig service running by default dispite not having any wireless hardware installed. that one always seemed abit dumb :D
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Freespace 2 already runs on Vista.
Vista is really nice. But i can tell you right now, the first thing I'm gonna do is turn a bunch of stuff off. Windows Defender, goodbye. Windows Sidebar, see you later. And I'm gonna trim down those services. Because Vista is a nice, advanced, speedy OS with amazing software compatibility underneath it all; it's just got WAY too much stuff running by default.
Single greatest problem with Microsoft. I understand their pain in that the average user is going to have trouble finding Windows Defender and Windows Sidebar even with them staring you down in the face but the fact remains that if they turn them on they may get more use out of them. What I'd like to see is a more robust and simple interface to allow power users to easily turn on and off services without playing guessing games. Major features should be easily turned off if not wanted in an advanced user control panel....with no nagging!
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MS needs to just come off it already!!!
They should like let you choose what programs and services you want enabled at installation, so you dont have to fuss to turn them off..
Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
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MS needs to just come off it already!!!
They should like let you choose what programs and services you want enabled at installation, so you dont have to fuss to turn them off..
Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
Of course activation is going to be in. MS loves that little bit...its a great way to make legitimate customers feel like criminals.
I do agree...it should be an option during the install process.
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If I can figure out Linux sufficently (I'm working on it, with Knoppix and Kanotix) I've decided to go to Linux and damn the consequences.
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Should MS let users decide what should be enabled by default and what not, it should be optional as regular end-users won't know what the heck to select and what not. Yes, regular users are that stupid and uneducated.
Activation is only present in Home Basic and Home Premium, besides these two only Ultimate will be seen in retail channels and Ultimate does not have activation. Rest of the Vista versions are for businesses and available through volume licensing and these business versions won't have activation either. Starter edition is another story and similar to XP Starter edition, it will be seen in poor countries.
I don't think activation will be really a concern for most people, Home Basic and Premium will be commonly used by OEM manufactuters and in retail I believe Ultimate to be the most popular even though more expensive than Home editions.
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I don't think activation will be really a concern for most people, Home Basic and Premium will be commonly used by OEM manufactuters and in retail I believe Ultimate to be the most popular even though more expensive than Home editions.
Would happen to know what it will cost?
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No prices have been yet revealed.
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No prices have been yet revealed.
You can rest assured that it will be unaffordably high.
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I sense negative vibes from you. ;) As prices are still officially unconfirmed, it's hard to say either way but it has been cited from several sources that Vista is supposed to be cheaper than equivalent versions of Windows XP, still it's not confirmed.
And like with previous Microsoft products, students can buy Vista even cheaper, non-students should still have the option to buy Vista as an OEM-product. If you are unfamiliar with the term, you can buy Windows cheaper than retail if you buy it along with some internal hardware that is required to run a PC, such as an IDE or SATA cable, hard-drive, video card, etc. Of course, when you buy Windows this way as an OEM-product, Microsoft won't provide free technical support.
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As great as technical support is from those who english is their second or third language... no thanks.
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another thing that concerns me is that the licens might not let you migrate the software to a new computer. i dont want to install it on this computer to find out its illegal to install it on my next. i want to be able to install it on as many computers as i want, provided i only have it installed on one computer at any given time.
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There're already some games on the way which will require Vista, and at least one is on my shopping list.
Looks like I'll be 'acquiring' Vista earlier than planned.
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Any game requiring Vista within the next two or three years is just sticking a gun in its mouth and pulling the trigger. Heck, a lot of new games still run fine under Windows 98! Smart game developers acknowledge the installed base.
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Games like Crytek's Crysis will have both DX9 and DX10 API, Halo 2 will be excelusively DX10 to promote Vista sales. I don't know any other game that has been announced as DX10-only.
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I sense negative vibes from you. As prices are still officially unconfirmed, it's hard to say either way but it has been cited from several sources that Vista is supposed to be cheaper than equivalent versions of Windows XP, still it's not confirmed.
Windows has always been expensive. That's why 90%+ of the computers in China have pirated versions pre-loaded when you buy them: Windows is simply too expensive.
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Any game requiring Vista within the next two or three years is just sticking a gun in its mouth and pulling the trigger. Heck, a lot of new games still run fine under Windows 98! Smart game developers acknowledge the installed base.
Yup. You'd think that developers would realize that the PC gaming market is small enough as it is. Do they really think that forcing their customers to upgrade immediately is going to help reverse that trend?
Regarding the whole Vista question, as far as I'm concerned, XP's doing everything I need an OS to do. Unless something really huge comes up, I don't see myself upgrading anywhere in the near future.
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Speaking of upgrading-- I'm about to finally bite the bullet and ditch Win98 entirely, since new video cards don't offer Win98 driver support anymore. I've been running a dual-boot system-- Win98 for games, Win2K for stuff that requires it. I've heard that XP has better legacy gaming support than 2K. Any truth to that?
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Legacy support is better but only marginally, if a game won't work on W2k, there's a high chance it won't work on XP either.
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Speaking of upgrading-- I'm about to finally bite the bullet and ditch Win98 entirely, since new video cards don't offer Win98 driver support anymore. I've been running a dual-boot system-- Win98 for games, Win2K for stuff that requires it. I've heard that XP has better legacy gaming support than 2K. Any truth to that?
No truth whatsoever.
The only major thing is that XP has the Application Compatibility tab, but this can be added to Windows 2000 quite easily (It's in a folder on the install CD IIRC).
If you mean DOS games, then both are much worse than Win98, but we have DOSBox which works with almost every DOS game worth playing now ;)
It also gives us one thing that we can't otherwise have: SoundBlaster and GUS compatibility. I really wish Creative Labs were not such a crap company; They could have easily kept ISA AWE-32 support in the Live! and Audigy cards...
And if Gravis hadn't died Creative wouldn't have such a monopoly on sound cards now! IF if if....
For Win32-based games, both XP and 2k are the same - Both can't play Glide games on a Voodoo2 properly, and stuff that is written a bit too close to bare-metal (Shock2, MW3, DF2: Jedi Knight, Project Eden and XvT are some that spring to mind) either won't install, won't run or will run equally weird in both.
The same hacks that you can use to get them to work in XP also work in 2k.
My current hope is that WINE reaches a level where it can emulate Win98 pretty well, then I can drop Win98 and just dual-boot Gentoo and 2k instead of all three.
I only stopped quad-booting a couple of years ago since DosBOX became mature enough to run stuff! ;)
The ONLY reason to get Vista is hardware support, but that's the thing that pisses me off about all versions of Windows:
Win98 is perfectly capable of handling things like IPv6, NTFS, USB Mass Storage devices etc - It's just that MS won't write the drivers for it to try and force you to upgrade to the new version, even if you don't want all the crap that comes with it!
This is what I've liked about Linux; You don't have to re-install a completely different system just to get, say, WiFi support or USBirewire3941zzalpha support.
IMHO, Microsoft should turned into public company - I've always held the belief that infrastructure should NOT be in the hands of a private for-profit company.
Things like utilities and comms for instance. In the UK, a lot of our public services were privatised, and it's been disasterous - Quality of service has dropped like a rock as the companies chase profits and shareholders above all else,
Either that or they be forced to open up the API so that other firms can write their own versions of Windows without being sued up the ying-yang.
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AFAIK, wine has made big progress in D3D compatibility. None of the new fancy pixel shader stuff from DirectX9 yet, but DirectX 5/7 stuff should work now. At least I've heard of people playing WoW with wine.
Although for the latest games with full graphical bells&whistles CeDeGa is still the only way for Linux users.
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Although Windows is expensive I've recently thought about things a slightly different way. If Vista has the longevity that Windows XP did then consider that it'll be another 5-6 years between Vista's release and the next product (Blackcomb?) and then consider that every Mac OS release sells for about a 1/3rd of the average Windows package and that Windows gets free updates throughout its product lifespan including service packs then ultimately you're getting a decent deal out of it. I agree that the cost is too high but its not rediculously out of the ballpark considering the time. I got my WinXP Home Upgrade package that has lasted me for a good long while at around maybe $150 Canadian and that was back in....oh I can't even remember...not that long after XP came out. Its been a pretty good deal.
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Windows Vienna is the codname for the release of windows after Vista.
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Originally Vienna was going to be the next OS after XP, like Vista which was momentarily codenamed LongHorn, Vienna was codenamed Blackcomb, it seems that it will be released between 2009-2012 since Vista took it's place, here is the brief article from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vienna
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Then there's Linux which allows you to get it and update it for free (except for the time spent learning it)
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Windows Vienna is the codname for the release of windows after Vista.
Like the sausage, eh? Now that's fitting.
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Originally, internal sources pitched Vienna as being not just a major revision of Windows, but a complete departure from the way we have typically thought about interacting with a computer.
Suuuure. I'll believe that when Satan starts buying antifreeze.
Projects such as GroupBar and LayoutBar are expected to make an appearance, allowing users to more effectively manage and keep track of their applications and documents while in use, and a new way of launching applications is expected—among other ideas, Microsoft is investigating a pie menu-type circular interface, similar in function to the dock in Mac OS X.
Yup. Sounds like more GUI gimmickery to me. Changing the shape of the GUI is not revolutionary.
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Maybe the "Start" will be replaced with a "Sausage" bar, whatever that means, here is a preview on MS product:
(http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c254/Shadow0000/VIENNAOSES.jpg)
More yummy than any other OS :p
---------------------------------------------------
Actually Vienna is the name of Austria's capital city, from there the name of the sausage...
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Projects such as GroupBar and LayoutBar are expected to make an appearance, allowing users to more effectively manage and keep track of their applications and documents while in use, and a new way of launching applications is expected—among other ideas, Microsoft is investigating a pie menu-type circular interface, similar in function to the dock in Mac OS X.
Yup. Sounds like more GUI gimmickery to me. Changing the shape of the GUI is not revolutionary.
Actually, human factors research indicates that pie menus are significantly easier to navigate than traditional linear ones. Probably because the mouse transit distance is equal for all options. Downside is that it's not easy to cram all available options into a circle.
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I'm stoked about the modular design rather than the unwieldy design that we currently have. It's nice to just shut down and restart a component such as a videocard driver upgrade in Linux, without having to restart the machine. Shutdown X, install, edit config file, start X. That's how it should be. We shouldn't have to uninstall current drivers, restart in safe mode, use third party software to REALLY remove the drivers, reboot and install drivers, reboot again and tweak and reboot again. Seems to be awfully brutal on computers, but as rebooting doesnt really hurt them.. it's just an inconvienence.
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Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
Contrary to your beliefs Windows does not contain subliminal messages that turn you gay. Those thoughts you have about sucking dick are purely your own :p
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:eek:
be nice, karajorma ! :ick:
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Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
Contrary to your beliefs Windows does not contain subliminal messages that turn you gay. Those thoughts you have about sucking dick are purely your own :p
I disagree
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/zer.png)
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Dale Winton :lol:
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Live anywhere is going to be awesome.
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What, like a hotdog?
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Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
Contrary to your beliefs Windows does not contain subliminal messages that turn you gay. Those thoughts you have about sucking dick are purely your own :p
I disagree
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/zer.png)
:lol: :lol:
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Is that gay activation gunna be in Vista? I just cant take that!
Contrary to your beliefs Windows does not contain subliminal messages that turn you gay. Those thoughts you have about sucking dick are purely your own :p
I disagree
(http://www.sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/zer.png)
thanks for that..... :hopping:
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(http://sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/capacity.png)
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(http://sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/capacity.png)
:lol:
*gives aldo_14 a high-five
Sorry Zman, but it WAS funny!
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roofle!
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Live anywhere is going to be awesome.
What the hell *IS* LiveAnywhere anyway?!!
It sounds like some scary mixup of Gamespy, MSN/ICQ and Steam :eek2:
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I'm pretty sure my uncle is gunna buy it a few weeks after it comes out so I'll just use his copy :nod:
XP has been acting very badly for me lately and I dont know when Im upgrading so i'll rpobably start using it when it comes out.
I got a feeling that it will work alot better than XP.
sorry to crash your hopes, but like XP, they are going to make sure that you can only install en you enter it, it checks the internet and if your uncle is connected to the net, it detects him(with the same serial #) and tells you your serial in wrong while it is right and you are stuck forever, entering the serial again and again(i know from experiance ;) ). also like xp, by 30 days, if you dont register your serial number, they dont allow you to use it any more, and if you do it around the same time your uncle does, they are going to find out that it is on 2 computers. and say its wrong and once again. you'll be stuck :mad: ,just to let you know.
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I'm pretty sure my uncle is gunna buy it a few weeks after it comes out so I'll just use his copy :nod:
XP has been acting very badly for me lately and I dont know when Im upgrading so i'll rpobably start using it when it comes out.
I got a feeling that it will work alot better than XP.
sorry to crash your hopes, but like XP, they are going to make sure that you can only install en you enter it, it checks the internet and if your uncle is connected to the net, it detects him(with the same serial #) and tells you your serial in wrong while it is right and you are stuck forever, entering the serial again and again(i know from experiance ;) ). also like xp, by 30 days, if you dont register your serial number, they dont allow you to use it any more, and if you do it around the same time your uncle does, they are going to find out that it is on 2 computers. and say its wrong and once again. you'll be stuck :mad: ,just to let you know.
That's tosh. My old office had 2 or 3 computers, constantly connected, running the same versions of XP (we had a site licence, but lost the key); all you needed to do was phone up to activate, tell them you'd had to reformat because of a virus, and roberts your fathers brother - activation.
They can't realistically block out individual machines (even if they have the capacity to do so, I'm not sure), because if there are 2 copies of the same XP (key), then odds are one is a legit user (who you do not want to punish) and the other is the illegit one. Not to mention the technical difficulties where you have several million+ machines and thus several million keychecks to make.
Also, any properly hacked pirate version of XP would likely remove the code for both checking and any check for blocking machines anyways.
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Then we have corporate site licences where many machines are supposed to have the same code.
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(http://sectorgame.com/aldo/aw/capacity.png)
:lol:
*gives aldo_14 a high-five
Sorry Zman, but it WAS funny!
I admit, I was laughing myself...
How did he make those?
I'm pretty sure my uncle is gunna buy it a few weeks after it comes out so I'll just use his copy :nod:
XP has been acting very badly for me lately and I dont know when Im upgrading so i'll rpobably start using it when it comes out.
I got a feeling that it will work alot better than XP.
sorry to crash your hopes, but like XP, they are going to make sure that you can only install en you enter it, it checks the internet and if your uncle is connected to the net, it detects him(with the same serial #) and tells you your serial in wrong while it is right and you are stuck forever, entering the serial again and again(i know from experiance ;) ). also like xp, by 30 days, if you dont register your serial number, they dont allow you to use it any more, and if you do it around the same time your uncle does, they are going to find out that it is on 2 computers. and say its wrong and once again. you'll be stuck :mad: ,just to let you know.
Yeah like whatshisname said, I have XP on 5 computers all on na router all connected at the same time. i dont see ms coming to my doorstep...
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You soon learn to turn off all the bells and whistles anyway, I turn off all non-essential faff from Task Manager before I run any games, I even shut down explorer.exe, for the most demanding games. Although Microsoft dump a lot of junk onto your computer, once you get the hang of the Admin panels, they are more a case of disk-space than memory.
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The funny thing with "turning off bells and whistles" is that it might result in worse performance in Vista. For example, turning off Aero also disables hardware accelerated user interface, resulting that user interface is drawn by the CPU instead of GPU/VPU.
Back to Windows XP. Turning off 3rd party programs such as anti-virus programs before running games is fine, but killing Windows processes such as explorer is completely unnecessary and might actually result in worse overall system performance. Don't go overboard with your "optimizations" as uneducated optimizations will make your PC's performance worse, if you have read and collected multiple tweaks from different sources, you might want to re-check whether these so called tweaks actually make things better or worse. I have tested many of the most popular "performance tweaks", and I have often come to the conclusion that default WinXP SP2 system settings are the best, there is hardly no need to do any system performance tweaks as many of these tweaks actually make your system performance worse.
The only thing in Windows XP SP2 that needs tweaking, are the system services. Many of the system services that are set to start up automatically, are unnecessary and thus can be started up manually by XP when needed. I have to stress that do not disable services in WinXP SP2 that have been set to automatic or manual, otherwise it may lead to unexpected behaviour. Setting services to manual is pefectly fine, as these services will be started only when they are needed. However, there are some important system services that should always be set to automatic, otherwise it may lead to unexpected behaviour.
SP2 is recommended update as it applies many fixes and updates to the core OS that are otherwise unavailable, forget any and all system performance tweaks you have collected and use the default XP SP2 settings. You may set many system services from automatic to manual and move XP's pagefile to another physical hard drive to improve paging file read/write performance but that's it, everything else is unnecessary. Of course, installed 3rd party programs that are running in background are entirely another matter.
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I forgot to mention one thing. When people tweak their OS, they often blindly look at how much RAM is used and try to get it to as low as possible. This is wrong approach, if XP cannot use the RAM you have installed on your computer, it will have to use disk caches which will make XP perform a lot slower. There is no point in trying to make XP consume as little RAM as possible, instead make note of your pagefile usage. The more your OS and applications have to use pagefile, the slower your system is. RAM is there to be used, so let your OS and programs use it. Now you might want to argue that you want your games to use the RAM, not XP. Now this is where intelligent memory management comes into play, even if XP is not the most advanced OS on Earth, it is smart enough to allocate the needed amount for your games and use pagefile for sleeping processes and programs. Updating to SP2 will also improve XP's memory management a little. Let XP to do its job in managing the memory, you don't have to do it for XP.
Memory management in Vista is vastly improved and quite similar to unix/linux/bsd/osx systems. You will find that Vista uses a lot of RAM because it uses free RAM for caching and thus improving performance. Free RAM is wasted RAM, remember that before you get your hands on Vista, beta or not.
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Memory management in Vista is vastly improved and quite similar to unix/linux/bsd/osx systems
In otherwords they "borrowed" some code from FreeBSD. :p
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Oh give me a break. There you go making up ****. Just because something's been out for a while already, and M$ does the same thing, doesn't mean they borrowed ANYTHING from anyone. I'm sick and tired of the M$ bashing before we've all had a decent chance to see what Vista can REALLY do. Hopefully, Vista will be the wake-up call to every other OS producer in the world. I REALLY hope it will shut those damn marketers and advertisers over at Apple up. All the stupid "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" commercials are not funny at all. The PC guy would correctly represent Windows 3.1, or even DOS, maybe a little bit of 95/98, but not XP.
whatever. venomous mood tonight.
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You're right Nix, bashing MS for everything they do is getting old and tiresome. Personally I'm giving them the equal chance of getting things right as every other company. I deserve final judgement of their products when I review them personally. It is annoying when people take rumors or second hand opinions as facts when they might not be true, a good example of such inaccurate rumors is the bad OpenGL support which was already proven to be incorrect earlier in this thread.
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Oh give me a break. There you go making up ****. Just because something's been out for a while already, and M$ does the same thing, doesn't mean they borrowed ANYTHING from anyone.
So you are saying that MS never has borrowed anything from anyone before?
I admit I was wrong before, but MS does have a history of borrowing things......
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Oh come on, there's not a single OS out there which has not borrowed anything from any other OS. So who cares if they have borrowed some code or not?
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Oh come on, there's not a single OS out there which has not borrowed anything from any other OS. So who cares if they have borrowed some code or not?
It would be quite interesting if they had, given that one of MS' main strategies for attacking OS in general is the vague insuation it might contain copyrighted/otherrighted code covered by other peoples' patents.
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I don't remember hearing of any such "attacks" from MS in the recent history. But I remember the SCO case very well, the whole case was laughable.
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I don't remember hearing of any such "attacks" from MS in the recent history. But I remember the SCO case very well, the whole case was laughable.
For a while, it was their entire anti-Linux strategy. Last year, I think it was, they were having 'roadshows' which were basically long pro-Ms/anti-OpSc PR pieces. Not SCO-type suing, but basically saying to companies using open source programs left them open to attack on patent, licensing, etc areas.
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Then they tried going after Unix on the server end........with a website that used FreeBSD instead of windows
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as long as it works, and does what it's supposed to, i don't care if it's unix distro #44567, MacOSXIIIIIIII or Windows Balcony.
really, all this OS vs OS bullcrap is pointless to the nth degree.
so who doesn't take features or coding present in another product, that's how corporations work, Sony is more blatant about it than anybody else, but it's general one-upmanship that keeps the bloodsoaked wheels of capitalism turning.
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i'm just like to hate DRM and trusted computing
they are the real bad guys
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All Software Sucks.
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All Software Sucks.
...That would include SCP!
BURN HIM!!
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Memory management in Vista is vastly improved and quite similar to unix/linux/bsd/osx systems
In otherwords they "borrowed" some code from FreeBSD. :p
So you car is still Steam-Powered, right?....
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All Software Sucks.
...That would include SCP!
BURN HIM!!
heh, software does suck, but burn you for dare calling freespace software, it is much much more, it is self aware, and it will hate you if you keep calling it dirty names like software, :D
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You're right Nix, bashing MS for everything they do is getting old and tiresome. Personally I'm giving them the equal chance of getting things right as every other company. I deserve final judgement of their products when I review them personally. It is annoying when people take rumors or second hand opinions as facts when they might not be true, a good example of such inaccurate rumors is the bad OpenGL support which was already proven to be incorrect earlier in this thread.
I still wish a newer operating system would be able to play my older games. :( Oh well, that's what the DOSbox is for! :nod: Crusader, here I come..
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At the moment, program compatibility is iffy - If it was coded during Windows XP's life, it will probably work okay; Anything before that will probably have 'issues', depending on complexity. (Blame this on Microsoft constantly 'tweaking' old Windows API calls instead of making new calls)
For good games performance, it looks like you will NEED 2GB of RAM.
Memory Management does not seem any better - On systems with 512MB, Vista thrashes a lot more than XP still. At 1GB, both touch the HD a lot less; I'd recommend 1GB as the absolute bare minimum RAM if you want to use Vista and run more than one app at a time.
Aero is a massive resource hog - It uses up massive amounts of system and videocard processor time and RAM. You don't want to have lots of Windows open with Aero (I routinely browse with 50-60 Opera windows open; You can't do this in Win98 because it runs out of resources/handles. You can do this in Linux, 2k, XP and Vista. You can't do this in Vista Aero. Curiously it seems to make Vista run out of resource handles in a similar Win98 does?!?!?! :eek:)
You will need a 512MB Graphics card. A 1GB one would be better, when they come into existance.
256MB will be slow but usable.
128MB will be painful.
Disabling Aero speeds things up considerably - It does not disable hardware acceleration, just 3D acceleration. 2D window acceleration functions as it did before. You do loose a lot of the cool-guy window effects obviously.
One cool thing about Aero is that you can play (multiple) accelerated videos and they'll show through any transparency properly instead of being a big purple/green/blue/black rectangle.
Disk Cache is good - Linux like. Unused RAM is turned into disk-cache, apparently similar to how Linux does it.
Unfortunately, it seems to be reluctant to actually let go of the cache once it is made; There seems to be some minimum cache it will try to maintain that varies by some as-yet unknown factors (System load maybe?)
We think this is why we have problems with some high-end games - With FEAR and 1GB it seems to try to cache the large texture swaps that go on, but then runs out of main RAM for the actual game and ends up hitting the swap-file, resulting in nasty slowdowns during 'high-action' scenes.
2GBs of RAM seems to solve this - We can run everything at max without negligible difference between Vista and XP.
Disclaimer: Most of this is hypothisis based on observations; At the moment Vista is looking to be on par as an OS update, but with a metric arse-ton of eyecandy.
Purists like me will hate the new interface (I don't mean Aero effects etc, I mean the UI) - It tries to help, like XPs, and gets in the way, like XP's. Classic Control Panel forevaaar!
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Oh give me a break. There you go making up ****. Just because something's been out for a while already, and M$ does the same thing, doesn't mean they borrowed ANYTHING from anyone.
So you are saying that MS never has borrowed anything from anyone before?
I admit I was wrong before, but MS does have a history of borrowing things......
Not to be off topic but the great classical/baroke composers that everyone knows and loves (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) copied/borrowed/stole music to create their masterpeices. It wasn't a conspiracy...it just was how it was done. Its the composition overall that matters. It's true that Microsoft isn't very good at being innovative...what they do is take a look at what the competition is doing and try and replicate it/do better.
Sometimes they do worse...sometimes they do some good things but you shouldn't blatantly go off down the trail because Microsoft is using the same technique as someone else for their security. Its about damn time that they started getting smarter about programming the OS...people have been saying that for years and then they turn around and jump on them for doing it. Its not just you...there's alot of that sort of double standard all over the place and while I'm loathe to defend anything that Microsoft does I prefer to judge on as even a footing as possible.
Vista looks and sounds smart from many perspectives...its the composition of how they weave all this together will matter on how well they do and how quickly I jump on the new OS.
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The funny thing with "turning off bells and whistles" is that it might result in worse performance in Vista. For example, turning off Aero also disables hardware accelerated user interface, resulting that user interface is drawn by the CPU instead of GPU/VPU.... Snipped for space
I don't use optimising programs as such, I just make sure that I know what everything running on my computer at that moment does. I only ever shut down Programs that are running under the User I am on, System programs get controlled from the boot up menu (damn you MSN Messenger and your spyware like addiction to adding yourself to the boot-up menu :(). I agree that sometimes shutting down explorer can worsen performance, things that access the Hard Drives a lot perform better with it on, but most games are optimised to load everything into memory that they can, so for games playing, it's often better to have the extra memory available. A rendering program, however, uses the Drive by default, so it's better to keep explorer on ;)
Edit : I'm actually moderately interested in Vista, I'm going to wait for the Kinks to get Ironed out and see how it performs before I make a decision, but if MS really have optimised out all the junk, Vista may be a pleasant surprise.
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Cyker, what I've read majority of Beta 2 users tend to agree with your points. I hope the RTM version of Vista will be much smoother. Part of the performance problems are shoddy drivers which still need work, especially video card drivers. But the drivers will improve over time. At least officially MS does not want to release unfinished product and if necessary, will push release date later. I hope that remains true unofficially and they will indeed do that if Vista is not RTM quality by October.
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All Software Sucks.
...That would include SCP!
BURN HIM!!
All Software Sucks, because it is software (even SCP has its moments). The level of suckage varies widely, though.
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my optimisation tactic is less code is faster. this involves mainly shutting down services and 3rd party apps that try to make themselves boot at startup. why is it that every piece of oem software that comes with any periferal device (wether it be an mp3 player, digital camera, webcam, printer, ect.) tends to not only be very poorly coded, but try to load themselves at startup? i mean i dont leave my camera plugged in all the time, and i only need to load itunes when i add tracks, and i only turn my printer on when i want to print. things like my logitech drivers (which make the extra buttons on my wireless keyboard and mouse work), and my sound drivers can stay in, because they are offten usefull (yet ineffitient as hell, 7 megs so i can use about a dozen extra buttons on my kb and mouse, hell even trillian uses less ram). i also notice that oem software lately seems to be lacking the dont run on startup checkbox. its just mad. i hope vista does something to fight this phenomena. perhaps a stricter registry. i wish software makers woul;d avoid using the registry, so i can reinstall the os without having to reinstall photoshop (importing all my settings is a *****). another feature vista should have (and probibly wont) is the abity to clean the system directory of files that do nothing. i personally thnk an os should be more compartmentalized. subsystems should be seporated from eachother as much as possible, for security as well as crash proofing. for example internet explorer shouldnt have a direct path to the registry, and when i uninstall it it should be gone from my system all together seems in any other windows all uninstalling ie does is remove the icon in the start menu. im glad that they liberated windoes update from ie for example.
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The Office 2007 beta2 looks pretty spiffy too. Looks even purtier in Vista. :)
Anyone can sign up and download it for free over at microsoft infact. (office 2007) :)
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my optimisation tactic is less code is faster.........
But writing less code is taking steps away from creating a run-away AI that will try to wipe out humanity!!!
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Windows graphics system to be overhauled (http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/06/193/windows-graphics-system-to-be-overhauled)
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Windows graphics system to be overhauled (http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/06/193/windows-graphics-system-to-be-overhauled)
this could hurt microsoft, it means if you want to upgrade windows, you will need to buy a new video card as well. that will cut into their upgrade market profits. of course lack of reverse compatability has always been an issue with them.
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Damn, I was just about to buy a video card too... should I go ahead?
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This is just yet another in a long line of FUD-spin anti ms article types.
The WDDM driver overhaul has been known about for at least a year. It doesn't mean you have to upgrade your graphics card to upgrade to vista, it doesn't mean you won't get aero glass, it simply means that during the testing of aero, they realized that they could improve the experience even further by changing the way graphics cards are made in the future.
Currently 0 percent of the market has WDDM 2.0 enabled cards, WDDM 2.0 drivers don't exist, and won't exist until next year.
All it means is that the upgrades to UI techonology won't stop with Vista's release. You'll still be able to run Aero on modern cards without any issues. They just want to improve it going forward, is all.
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Windows graphics system to be overhauled (http://www.apcstart.com/site/dwarne/2006/06/193/windows-graphics-system-to-be-overhauled)
this could hurt microsoft, it means if you want to upgrade windows, you will need to buy a new video card as well. that will cut into their upgrade market profits. of course lack of reverse compatability has always been an issue with them.
Nope....modern video cards are just fine. To run the Aero UI you need a DirectX 9.0 capable card with Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9700Pro would run Aero fine and thats from 4 years ago. You can get a card for less than $99 that fulfills the requirements of Aero. If you can't run Aero then its not like Vista won't work...it'll look like Windows XP does...infact it will look exactly like my Windows XP because I'm running a Vista theme. And Classic Windows still is present so you can make Windows Vista look like good ole Windows 2000.
There's alot of garbage information out there about Vista's requirements. The folks running the beta test are running it on all sorts of minimum hardware. They DO say that its a memory hog in comparison to XP...but XP was a memory hog in comparison to 98...and 98 was to 95...and 95 was to Win 3.1...I'm sure you see the connection. I'm very much hoping they optimize like crazy for the next few months. One would expect. But you don't need a SLI GeForce 7900GTX to make Aero work....thats not what they are saying.
I figure my 6600GT will be fine.
What will benefit on a new DX10 related card with the WDDM 2.0 stuff is games. Not sure if the DX10 cards are due out by the end of this year in that comming generation or in the next.
I'm actually excited to see what benefits the 3D accelerated desktop is like. If it brings some of the advantages that the MacOS has under Quartz then I'm very interested to see. No more waiting for the icons to redraw themselves, no more waiting for the interface to redraw because the CPU was already busy loading a program, no more problems displaying video while moving windows and trying to manage a multimedia project. If they do it right...I think its going to be a big boon for myself...if not for everyone (I realize the flash and detail isn't for everyone).
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the article was a little misleading, however i have a feeling there will be a major difference in perforance between running aero using a wddm 1.0 card and a 2.0 compatable card.
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Hopefully the upcoming nVidia G80 and ATi R900 will support WDDM 2.0 fully. I believe driver level task scheduling would also improve performance.
Edit: BTW, ATi has published a Windows Vista technology page.
http://www.ati.com/technology/windowsvista/index.html
There is also a link to a tech brief pdf file. The pdf is a good read.
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Nope....modern video cards are just fine. To run the Aero UI you need a DirectX 9.0 capable card with Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9700Pro would run Aero fine and thats from 4 years ago.
That's still going to lock out a lot of laptop owners. Lots of them use integrated "solutions", IIRC.
EDIT: Although I see why they would want to do it, still it is going to bite them a bit.........
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The "new" Intel 950 video Chipset is a fully DX9 256 MB compliant card.... Comparable to Ati's X200 chipset, performance wise.
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/
So, if you're buying a new laptop, it should run Vista no problemo.
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Maybe Intel might start making some good integrated solutions for once because of this.
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Kosh: Yeah...Intel and the other vendors have been anticipating the need for that kind of spec so they are beefing up the video cards on laptops...and have been for the last year or so. Even Intel!
An artical I read today suggested that the AeroUI may be a bit of a hit on battery life as it'll require a little more juice to the video card. So it may be a mixed blessing on laptops. I think they are trying to optimize...I understand they are now working on RC1 so I think there may be some big changes in terms of memory and performance between Beta 2 and RC1. One would hope.
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I have Beta 2 and I've been testing it and I can tell you this :
1.) Memory management is different in Vista than it is in XP
2.) It appears to use more memory, but it's just because 1.) is different.
3.) There are several bugs in the new explorer.exe that inhibit the performance
4.) Aero glass means : no more corrupted glitchy desktop redraws. If an application dies, instead of other applications painting all over it and making everything look a mess, the last draw to the window gets nicely faded out and a non respoding app tag gets put on the window. There are no redraw or overpaint issues. It's clean.
5.) Desktop is smoother, like Mac OS X
6.) Windows feel slightly sluggish moving around, a la OS X
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Thanks for the update neoterran...thats what I had been reading over the last few days. Number 4 particularly makes me excited.
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Number 4 particularly makes me excited.
Yes, and numbers 1, 2, 3 and 6 worry me. :rolleyes:
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I've been using Windows Vista x64 for half a day now and generally I am quite impressed with it. Almost everything has been clearly improved from XP, including user interface (Aero), new Start-menu, Internet Explorer, Media Player. Internet Explorer 7 deserves a special mentioning since for the first time I actually felt like I could abandon Firefox and Opera and use IE7 instead.
I think I should also mention that Vista does support Windows XP drivers on some hardware. I have 3COM 3C940 as my NIC card and it is integrated on my Asus motherboard, Asus has not released XP x64 drivers or Vista drivers. So I grabbed Marvell XP x64 drivers and surpisingly enough the XP x64 drivers did work.
There are a few things worth nagging about though. During installation the user is not prompted to type a password for the Administrator account which I think is foolish. The user account created by user after installation is finished is by default an admin and not a standard user. UAC is annnoyingly nagging about everything, I have sent feedback to MS that there should be at least three levels of nagging and disable, currently it is only either enabled or disabled. The default two quick buttons to shut down your computer are sleep and lock, IMO the default buttons should be user selectable and be by default restart and shutdown. Then there's folder icon grouping, once I enabled it in control panel, I couldn't figure out how to disable it again. I also reported this so I hope it is more obvious in the first release candidate.
I'd like to continue using Beta 2 of Vista longer but bloody Creative still has not released Beta 2 compatible Vista drivers and neither Vista Beta 1 or XP x64 drivers worked for me. Some people have reported that Beta 1 drivers do work but no luck in my case. I think there's a good chance that I will install Beta 2 again once Creative releases Beta 2 drivers, or if not Beta 2 then the first publicly available Vista release candidate.
From the initial impression I got, Beta 2 is good enough to be installed on main computer if you have all hardware drivers covered. If not, it's still good enough to be tried out on another rig. The public beta is available from http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista/
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I'm sure I read somewhere that XP drivers would work only for the Vista betas because of the lack of native ones. Will this compatibility layer still be present in the release versions?
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Umm i've raed that to run windows vista you might ned a little more memory than usual like 1 GB of RAM if you want to run it smooth. And one hell of graphics card.
That bites. Oh well better go ahead and start upgrading the PC again. Umm i'l just use XP for now anmd if its worth while then i'l go ahead and get a Vista!
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SadisticSid, probably rumors again, I haven't read anything like that. There's an official document about driver compatibility in Vista here (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/driver/WDK/DrvCompat_Vista.mspx). I only viewed it briefly but didn't see it mentioning that compatibility is only temporary. Still, there are considerable changes in Vista which will break most current XP drivers. Good example of this are the XP x64 Audigy drivers which did not work while 3C940 NIC x64 drivers did.
AlphaOne, please read the very first post in this thread. Minimum and recommended system specs for Vista are mentioned there.
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Thanx i rad it! I guess I wasnt paing enough atention sorry!
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No worries.
And so I am back to using Windows XP Pro x64, I already miss Vista. :sigh: Damn Creative...
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I'm kind of interested in trying out the Beta 2 but so far I've decided to wait for the RC1.
Unless I get somekind of energyboost along the way.
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I'm sure there will be tons and tons of bugfixes and usability improvements between now and RC1 now that the development process is basically switching into debugging mode. RC1 might be a good time to get it if you've never checked out vista before, since that will likely be the build that will really be usable as a full time OS.
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http://databsod.ytmnd.com/
LOL Not really worth a thread of it's own, but it sort of fits in here ;)
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No worries.
And so I am back to using Windows XP Pro x64, I already miss Vista. :sigh: Damn Creative...
i'm actually planning on buying that, as my next computer purchase will be the parts necessary to build a 64 bit PC.
i'll look into vista later on, too.
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I'm kind of interested in trying out the Beta 2 but so far I've decided to wait for the RC1.
If you have any common sense, you'll wait for SP1.
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True dat.
"Never trust an unpatched realease of anything."
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True dat.
"Never trust an unpatched realease of anything."
what, even trousers?
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True dat.
"Never trust an unpatched realease of anything."
what, even trousers?
Context: Software.
Please reparse and try again.
:p
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Well, they're soft and I wear them, does that count?
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Warning!
SOCKS!
We have detected your system is using an out of date driver for the device listed above. To avoid stumbling, falling, atheletes foot, and "wank-sock-syndrome" please visit the manufacturers website to get the latest drivers now.
"Continue" | "Take off Socks"
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nah, I not going to upgrade to vista until next year at least...
Why?
1) BUGs
2) Memory usage
3) I dint like to have my card working 24/7 on 3D.
4) DX10.
5) I hate to loss performance in DX9 Games.
6) I hate that microsoft kills OpenGL.
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Most importantly, Will it have a 3d version of solitaire /minesweeper ???
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If you have any common sense, you'll wait for SP1.
Most likely. But hey one should have some adventure spirit too.
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solitaire and minesweeper have been upgraded with new vector graphics, yes.
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WOW!!! I cant wait for Open GL minesweeper with 3d box action, WooT!
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Shader based cards with self-shadowing! W00t!
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Dare i say, bumb mapping and procedural texures on......................... NOTEPAD !!!?!?!
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You think you're being cynical, but it's only a matter of time before they actually do that.
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WOW!!! I cant wait for Open GL minesweeper with 3d box action, WooT!
What part of "Direct" and "X" did you not hear ? ;)
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It'll happen, someone will release an unofficial fix.
:nod:
Dont shatter my hopes and dreams :(
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A rather interesting article (http://blogs.msdn.com/philipsu/archive/2006/06/14/631438.aspx) to read.
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1000 lines a year,............. :mad: :no:
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That's redolent of bad practice, 1000. I'd also suggest a 6th (less than) of other companies output per-programmer is an order of magnitude worse. Particularly if other companies are engaged in multiple stop-start projects, with various planning stages that naturally restrict coding, rather than an ongoing development (code writing) program. i.e. I don't write much code at present, but I'm working on stuff still in prototypical stages (plus, i'm a newbie :D)
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A rather interesting article (http://blogs.msdn.com/philipsu/archive/2006/06/14/631438.aspx) to read.
When bold is used that much, I just stop caring and start getting annoyed.
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so how hard is it to troubleshoot vista? is it like 98 which was hella easy, or is it more like xp or 2000 where you got more stuff to sort through. also hows the driver management, has it improved any? id rather a system where you just brows for the driver file, rather than try to find it automatically through the wizzard like in previous versions. that always annoyed me. infact if vista has wizzards, i refuse to buy it.
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When bold is used that much, I just stop caring and start getting annoyed.
I know, I mean seriously, why the hell did they do that?
Were the other releases of Windows this... contraversial... I mean, did people talk about it as much as people talk about vista?
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Not that I know of.
But then, this release of Windows is entering into a market where - for the first time - another OS is really mainstream knowledge and is considered an acceptable, if not better, alternative. That being OS X.
Now that Microsoft can't just use the "Things could be worse" excuse, the stakes have been raised and the standards as well.
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Just a shame OS X runs on overpriced plastic tat.
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Is Windows pay-per-load yet?
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The way Gates ois going in ten years itll be pay per click....
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Or even worse... pay-per-crash.
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Lines of code per week is a poor metric for judging performance.
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i wonder how much of windows vista is actually new code.
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Well I wouldn't blame them if they adopted a partial "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" attitude. For instance... there's only so much code you can apply to Windows calculator before it does its job.. end of story.
However they really shouldn't carry over the core code IMO because it's going to get bulky, cluttered and not do the job properly for a new OS. They could do that with NT to XP - but not here.
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the only real reason to upgrade an os is because you need code that can take advantage of newer hardware technology. running an old os on a new computer is just a major performance hit. so that part they had best do from scratch.
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They could do that with NT to XP - but not here.
Little correction. Windows 2000 is NT5 and a lot of code was rewritten between NT4 and NT5. XP on the other hand is "just" NT5.1. However, it would seem like a lot more code is being rewritten for Vista than when W2k was developed.
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the only real reason to upgrade an os is because you need code that can take advantage of newer hardware technology. running an old os on a new computer is just a major performance hit. so that part they had best do from scratch.
Not really. There's not much, apart from the use of 64-bit and multi-core processors, that has been introduced in the last five years. XP drives practically every bit of modern hardware in native mode. Vista will come with support for both, although which of the 20-or-so versions will allow it I couldn't say. I can't imagine how an average Vista system running Doom 3 or whatever will be able to outperform the same one running Windows XP, purely on the basis that Vista will occupy more memory. It will also very likely consume more CPU time, as unless they've optimised things immensely, or taken out unnecessary services, the extra functionality trumpeted by Microsoft will need to be running too. I hope I'm wrong though.
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Hey, is one of the new features in Vista a new and improved BSOD that actually tells you why you're screwed?
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Hey, is one of the new features in Vista a new and improved BSOD that actually tells you why you're screwed?
hey thats a good thing. End users hate BSoD's....
Especially me!
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...remember from Win 9x:
'This program has performed an illegal operation. Please wait for the computer police to arrive.'
:lol:
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I thought Vista will have a RSoD
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I thought Vista will have a RSoD
Aha, I knew it!! There's the improvement! Ladies and Gentlemen, after five years of extensive coding, Microsoft is proud to announce that they will be changing the color on the Automated Capillary Blowing feature that has been included with WinDOwS since its inception. This decision was made after research found that the new screen color will more closely match the faces :mad: of WinDOwS users when the ACBf activates.
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Hey, is one of the new features in Vista a new and improved BSOD that actually tells you why you're screwed?
I haven't seen a BSoD since...since...Jesus, since I last tried to run Battlecruiser Millenium. I wouldn't even have known XP HAD a BSoD if not for Derek Smart.
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I hit a few of them when I first got my compter and the BIOS settings were a bit wacky and the primary hard drive was fuct.
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Just gotta love it when the main hard disk goes. Only thing worse is having bad RAM and thinking that it's the hard drive.
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windows vista better be less sensitive to bios tweaks. sence ive been using xp ive actually been afraid to tweak my bios. i did once and windows freaked, i changed it back and windows was still dead, so i had to reinstall. not that i dont back up but god damn i have alot of stuff to reinstall.
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windows vista better be less sensitive to bios tweaks. sence ive been using xp ive actually been afraid to tweak my bios. i did once and windows freaked, i changed it back and windows was still dead, so i had to reinstall. not that i dont back up but god damn i have alot of stuff to reinstall.
you'll find that XP will freak out to a completely new motherboard, too.
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Hey, is one of the new features in Vista a new and improved BSOD that actually tells you why you're screwed?
I haven't seen a BSoD since...since...Jesus, since I last tried to run Battlecruiser Millenium. I wouldn't even have known XP HAD a BSoD if not for Derek Smart.
:lol:
Derek Smart: Introducing New Fu(n)c(k)tionality of windows.
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A RSoD is just going to make you more angry surely.
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the only real reason to upgrade an os is because you need code that can take advantage of newer hardware technology. running an old os on a new computer is just a major performance hit. so that part they had best do from scratch.
Not really. There's not much, apart from the use of 64-bit and multi-core processors, that has been introduced in the last five years. XP drives practically every bit of modern hardware in native mode. Vista will come with support for both, although which of the 20-or-so versions will allow it I couldn't say. I can't imagine how an average Vista system running Doom 3 or whatever will be able to outperform the same one running Windows XP, purely on the basis that Vista will occupy more memory. It will also very likely consume more CPU time, as unless they've optimised things immensely, or taken out unnecessary services, the extra functionality trumpeted by Microsoft will need to be running too. I hope I'm wrong though.
Maybe not an old game like Doom 3 but most likely for newer game such as Oblivion and the ones that will be released after Vista are released you will gain a performance boost since they will be able to take advantage of the fact that Vista have better support for Multi core processors and 64-bit processors and the new Direct X 10, even thoug that one will come to Xp aswell I guess.
Besides it looks better ;)
/Dice
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If an app is single-threaded, it can't make use of multiple CPUs no matter how good the OS is, and if it's not compiled for 64-bit CPUs it won't receive any benefits from running on a 64-bit CPU.
There'll be a small performance boost, though, because the OS has to run stuff in the background while the game is running. Also, many games run sound on a seperate thread.
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Well, sorry to necro this, but it's better than starting a new one.
So Vista has been final for a month now.
I've recently had the chance to upgrade my FS:SCP installation to the latest things (thanks taylor) and I have to say, it works flawlessly on vista with the very latest video card drivers. In fact, since nvidia had to redo their video card drivers, i actually think my openGL is better than it was before.
I had some serious problems running freespace on the late beta and RC1 builds, so I'm glad this cleared up nicely. I think most of the problem was the poor graphic card driver support during the beta process.
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ATi is still yet to offer good drivers. The current crop for Vista lacks OGL, and crashes my card. (Though, admittedly, the drivers are for the RTM version of vista. not RC1)
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So the latest special nvidia betas include OGL now? GAH.
I am still raging at the lack of OGL for the ATi drivers.
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So, when is Vista going to be released?
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So, when is Vista going to be released?
January 30 is the set date for the general populace.
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I hit a few of them when I first got my compter and the BIOS settings were a bit wacky and the primary hard drive was fuct.
cables touching motherboard :)
Fun!
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http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/vista_crack_means_big_trouble.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535
Looks like it has been crqacked already. Surprise, surprise.
And also Acer is unhappy with M$ over the higher price of vista
http://news.com.com/Acer+Vista+is+an+excuse+for+Microsoft+price+increases/2100-1016_3-6130136.html