Vista Gaming Performance Improved
I have been a big Windows Vista detractor, and continue to be skeptical that Vista offers the average corporate user any advantages over XP, while carrying substantial disadvantages in terms of legacy equipment and software compatibility.
But, credit where it is due, service pack 1 combined with better graphics drivers have at least apparently eliminated the Vista-XP gap in gaming speeds, with graphics applications performing now nearly as well in Vista as in XP.
Brad Warbiany:
Wow... So the "upgrade" is nearly at parity with what it replaced.
Call me underwhelmed.
Granted, I'm one of those corporate users, not a gamer. But I'm using XP and DREADING the day that I have to turn in a laptop to be replaced by one loaded with Vista. I've only played with Vista a few times, but each session has been painful in its own way.
May 13, 2008, 8:46 amCaptain Obviousness:
After 10 straight years of Windows (and 10 years of Mac before that) I've switched to Linux on my home computer and I'm never going back. You can set it up for dual boot Windows/Ubuntu, but I haven't even booted Windows since I installed Ubuntu. Probably not a solution for corporate users or hardcore gamers, but for just a PC for internet and office applications, I can't imagine ever using Windows or Mac ever again.
May 13, 2008, 10:00 amErik The Red:
As an IT guy-for-hire, a few of my customers are moving to Vista (and don't get me started on the problems), but a few are looking at Macs and Linux as there's no particular Windows application that they really need on the desktop.
May 13, 2008, 10:14 amDr. T:
Considering the continuous advances in computer hardware and software, stating that the new service pack almost brings Vista's graphics capabilities up to par with Windows XP is pretty damning.
May 13, 2008, 4:31 pmJohn Moore:
Microsoft has finally hit the limits of their monopoly revenue model. Their "new version" tax is not working - people are demanding that XP be continued. (Bait to free marketeers - the world would be a better and safer place if the Microsoft had been legally recognized as the monopoly it is, and busted up appropriately).
Ultimately, Microsoft has been mostly one large scam - using monopoly power to foist poor quality software (the ideas for which were almost always copied from someone else) on the world, while claiming the invention of ideas the rest of us were using decades before.
I'm glad I finally dumped their stock.
BTW, virtual machine monitor (hypervisor) technology, now 40 years old, is finally mature enough on PC's that it can pretty well mask the differences between machines and OS's. Hence I have a laptop that boots XP, and runs Linux under VMWare at the same time. I have another that boots Linux, and runs Windows under VMWare. When all my special, very hardware dependent software can be run this way on a Mac, I'm probably going to say bye bye to the PC world - at least for my laptop.
Check out VMWare (no, I have no financial interest). They have very good products (some free) for making your installation portable. For that matter, you can install an XP in a virtual machine, and the entire installation is just a file on the host OS (which could be another XP, Linux or maybe Mac OS). That means you can actually back it up, hidden files and registry and all, as just one ordinary file.
As an aside, I first used this technology on an IBM 360/67 in 1967! IBM has been using it for decades on their mainframes, allowing multiple operating systems to coexist on the same machine at the same time.
May 13, 2008, 9:09 pmRob:
I decided to give Vista: Home Premium a whirl. Apparently there is an issue with my raid drivers, vista, and iTunes. The drivers do not properly protect the raid 0 volume from the way iTunes is accessing the hard drive. It corrupted my volume :( ...
As far as gaming, I typically like to run in windowed mode so that I can change songs or browse the internet in between games or waiting for people to get online. In Vista, I can't run windows mode because my framerate drops from 60fps to 28fps and with Aero on in windowed mode I get 12fps. So, now I alt tab which is slightly annoying.
May 14, 2008, 4:36 amAnonymous:
Vista's working just fine on both my machines (old AMD 2800, bit sluggish but good enough for email and blazing 3Ghz quadcore - xp in a virtual machine is faster than it was on the old machine :). No probs with drivers, never had any on my laptops either - my experience is that folks who buy vista preinstalled with typical vendor crapware and computer brake.... errr... antivirus software have no ends of trouble but folks who do fresh installs end up all good.
Now, at work I am using Windows 2008 Server. And that one's a blast. Superfast, and you can get all the fancy glass effects if you want. Might go to that on the home boxes as well. Definitely more appropriate to a business environment.
May 14, 2008, 6:49 pm