Games for Windows editors not sold on Vista yet

by Jared Rea { Feb 1st 2007 at 6:05AM }

"Speaking of things that suck ... hey! How about that Windows Vista?"

In the latest Games for Windows: The Official Magazine's podcast (01/31), four of their editors (Editor-In-Chief Jeff Green, Ryan Scott, Darren Gladstone, Shawn Elliot) sound off on whether they'll upgrade to Microsoft's latest operating system and if it's wise for anyone to fork over the $99 to do so.

Despite receiving a free copy, Jeff Green stays adamant in his decision not to upgrade to Windows Vista saying, "I'm afraid it's going to break my machine." While Green goes on to say that he'll wait for the first service pack update, Gladstone already has Vista up and running on his test machine.

When it comes to encouraging others to take the Vista plunge, Gladstone advises folks to hold back the urge and wait until they buy their next computer and for more Direct X10 games to be made available. The duo also harp on the hassle new security measures cause casual and indie games.

News Editor, Shawn Elliot, will be hitting up Green for his free copy and installing it on his back-up machine -- not quite willing to fully commit just yet. Ryan Scott doesn't give his opinion on the matter, but the mixed signals make for an all-around low opinion of Vista in its current state. As Games for Windows, formerly known as Computer Gaming World, remains an independent publication, this wouldn't be the first time editors from an official Ziff Davis outlet haven't wanted the shiniest new toy.

[Update: We checked our calender and yes, it was January.]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Zeromaru @ Feb 1st 2007 7:01AM

Well, WildTangent is all up in arms about their games not running. But they classify as malware anyway, how many times did I install something or other and find a slew of WT games on my machine that I didn't want? I can't count!

And though WiltTangent may be harmless malware, there are lots of games out there that are free and come with malware that'll shred your computer to bits. Vista's new security model (following that of Unix and thus OS X) makes such attacks damn-near impossible.

And for the record, I'm not some Microsoft fanboy. When everything is said and done, Vista and OS X are on equal grounds, just one may do a better job at one thing than the other (I happen to dislike the dock and prefer the taskbar, so I'm using Vista). That being said, they are both, without a doubt, miles ahead of XP. Vista is like the Corvette. OS X is the Viper. Windows XP is the Model T in comparison.

So I say upgrade. If you have a computer less than 4 years old, or a high-end computer less than 6 years old, you'll be able to run it. Even if it breaks a few programs at first, and for FFXI it may just be that forced break you need, Vista is definately worth it. And hell, if there's something that's so horribly designed that it just won't work with Vista's structure and you really need it, you can always run it as an administrator, opening up that software to virtually bitchslap your computer, but it'll work like it did in XP.

dirtyone @ Feb 1st 2007 7:05AM

heard all the same crap when xp came out, but i am waiting and saving all my pennies to build a intel quad core super beast so i can troll gaming blogs some one please beat me with a stick

IslandLife @ Feb 1st 2007 7:36AM

@ Zermaro
Of course Vista would be similar to OS X when MS spent all theses years stealing from it, and It still won't be as good, because I can run OS X on an 7 yr old G4 quite nicely. Can you say the same about Vista.

The Leopard is coming!

majortom @ Feb 1st 2007 7:48AM

"@ Zermaro
Of course Vista would be similar to OS X when MS spent all theses years stealing from it, and It still won't be as good, because I can run OS X on an 7 yr old G4 quite nicely. Can you say the same about Vista.
"

You do realise that most of the features that vista has were announced for vista before apple even thought them up right? Vista has been in the works since 2001

rfom @ Feb 1st 2007 7:53AM

"Vista's new security model makes such attacks damn-near impossible."
heard that before mate
If its so great..make DX10 compatible with XP, and no one will buy Vista. Funny, how 360 fans kep talking about the "choice" offered by MS..while they force change on you (at a steep price).

"So I say upgrade. If you have a computer less than 4 years old, or a high-end computer less than 6 years old, you'll be able to run it"
I say upgrade...to Mac.

Anonymous Rep @ Feb 1st 2007 7:51AM

This will probably just give a lot of people on here the chills. I had to work launch day and there were a LOT of customers coming in to either buy a new computer or to see about upgrades for their old one. (As in, selling 12 laptops and 5 desktops in the first hour the store was open!)

Anyway, I heard - from what I would consider the average consumer, not any kind of computer geek (aka people 40 plus years old that obviously DON'T have as strong of a computer background as I do) - that they TRUST Microsoft and its products.

I asked a couple of them why they said that. They said that XP always updated itself, and with the system restore feature, that they never had to worry about doing something that would really break their machine. That, I think, is one of the big worries older consumers have - that they're going to break something by hitting the wrong key.

By the same token, I had one guy come in who was 40 something that has built his own machine and HAS been for years. Given the stats of his machine - which would make Alienware jealous - and that he built it himself - I was suprised that he wanted Vista. But as he said, Linux is good, but the commercial software that he needs for his business runs on Microsoft products - so he's upgrading to Vista Ultimate.

Honestly, if your computer can only (or barely) run Vista Home Basic, then just stick with XP until you get your next system. But if you've got a couple gigs of RAM and a 256MB video card, then I think you'll find that the upgrade to Vista Home Premium is probably worth it. Stop in at your local Best Buy and play with any of their computers and see how you like the new search features and desktop. Sure, it may be something similar to what was out years ago for Mac - but remember, 95% of ALL PC's on the planet run a Microsoft OS. They've done SOMETHING right.

(And remember, too, that driver compatibility is NOT the responsibility of Microsoft. It's the responsibility of the manufacturer of your particular piece of hardware to make sure that it runs on Vista or XP.)

IslandLife @ Feb 1st 2007 7:56AM

@majortom
Vista was in the works from 2001 and OS X 10.0 was released in 2001. The only thing your telling me is MS had more time to to observe and steal from Apple.

attack11 @ Feb 1st 2007 8:09AM

rfom, the xbox team and the windows team are drastically different in age, approach to their product and general quality.

x360 rocks, vista is uh .. well a bloated xp with crap piled on top to make it somewhat of an osx competitor.

Alex @ Feb 1st 2007 8:03AM

I might wait until I'm forced to adopt it at work before I get on board. I've got my four-year-old machine working pretty damned perfectly at the moment, I don't want to upset the delicate balance.

Karttikeya @ Feb 1st 2007 8:09AM

Let's get a few things straight:

(1.) There are new and original features that Vista has, but Steve's Jobs propoganda tries to not let you see that.
(2.) There has been five major upgrades to OSX 10 once Leapord releases. All of its features weren't there since day one.

It's amazing how many Joystiq commenters attack others, when they talk negative about Nintendo and their wrong decisions, but when someone has a positive opinion about a larger corporation, you want to kill them.

Rooting for the underdog doesn't make getting to heaven easier.

J @ Feb 1st 2007 8:29AM

I was in Virgin Megstores and spotted OhEssTe... Vista. Had no idea it was launching. After all these doom reports and comments about Vista I'm just going to wait. I've got my iMac dual booting with XP (games only, as if you can do anything productive with this horrificly shoddy OS).

Just to keep those MS fans at bay - I will get it eventually. Please sort out the problems soon MS. You've had GOD knows how many years on this. Why can Apple release major updates that add significant features every 12-24 months and for the most part have them work completely perfectly?

Matthew @ Feb 1st 2007 8:37AM

Please, don't start up with the old Apple/Msft (used to be IBM) debate. It's just old.

As a gamer though, I still wonder just what we're getting that's so great in Vista. A more standardized platform? A different security scheme to for licensed games? DirectX 10...and why couldn't I run DX10 on XP? Microsoft has been doing a poor job of giving me a compelling reason to upgrade, but that's one of the issues they've had with most of their OS's.

I really have to wonder about Micrsoft's growth strategy as well. It seems like they're putting their hands into EVERYTHING (IPTV, Zune, Games for Windows, Xbox) but they're energies seem awfully scattered. In fact, a key exec for their Zune division just left and overall, it has not been much of a competitor to the IPod. It's like their going to fall into a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation.

As a gamer, the only thing about Vista that interests me is the new Direct X and Games for Windows. Games for Windows in particular leaves me scratching my head though and wondering how it's not a competitor to their own 360 product. I know as a consumer I'm definitely leaning more towards a 360 purchase just because upgrading OS's can often be a painful process. My first commercial OS was CP/M, for those of you old enough to remember that, so I've been around the industry for quite a while.

I really am all about the games, but unless a 'system-seller'...I guess in my case, an 'OS-Seller'...comes out that only runs on Vista, I don't foresee an OS upgrade until I absolutely have to.

ngs @ Feb 1st 2007 9:33AM

"Vista is like the Corvette. OS X is the Viper. Windows XP is the Model T in comparison."

Linux must be a freakin Lamborghini then, without the price, in any color you want, and if it could run on any road you hand it. Come to think of it...Linux is more like a tank. Massive power under the hood, drives anywhere, nobody is getting in unless you want them in, you can flip it over and it will still run, configure it to look and work in just about any field, you could shoot down Corvettes and Model Ts from 2 miles away...

Josh @ Feb 1st 2007 8:54AM

"Of course Vista would be similar to OS X when MS spent all theses years stealing from it, and It still won't be as good, because I can run OS X on an 7 yr old G4 quite nicely. Can you say the same about Vista.

The Leopard is coming!"

You are on a gaming blog, talking about MacOS. That seems a bit out of place, don't you think?

Hey, but I hear Leopard is going to match DirectX 10 feature for feature! So at least you have that to look forward to. Oh wait...never mind. Apple doesn't care about gaming.

But at least you can record TV using front row! Oh, that's right, Apple doesn't want you recording TV. They want you to buy your TV programs from them, so they don't do free DVR stuff in their applications. I suppose that is one thing that Apple didn't copy from Media Center. ;-)

Vista is a good OS. I have it installed on my Core 2 Duo E6700. There are changes all over the place. Check out the changes to the audio subsystem, for instance. That is a HUGE plus over XP's audio system. Readyboost really does speed up application startup a ton. Photoshop loads up all of its plugins in a fraction of the normal time, for instance.

F1ghter @ Feb 1st 2007 8:54AM

First, I think you mean 1/31, not 11/31 (for date of podcast).

I honestly don't see any reason for Vista. It is unnecessarily resource-consuming, it has known problems, and offers very little new that I care about. I happen to dislike the new start menu, and hate sidebars in general. Flashy graphics don't do anything for me. What is there for me?

I don't plan on ever buying Vista. I am older and more experienced than I was with XP, and this time I have a choice. Disregarding the merits of XP and Vista as operating systems, I will no longer support Microsoft's stranglehold on the OS market. No matter what you say about how awesome Vista is, you simply can't deny that the lack of competition has brought with it a lack of innovation and improvement.

Vista? No thanks. I'll get a free OS that doesn't require new hardware.

steve @ Feb 1st 2007 9:01AM

You'd think these guys would know more about Vista.

I mean, come on: "I'm afraid it's going to break my machine."

OK. Do you apply patches to XP? Did you install SP2? Do you install new drivers? Any of those things can "break" your machine. The only way not to break your machine is not to use it. Ever. (This is also why God invented backups, so you don't worry about something breaking something.)

Is there a chance it'll "break" your machine? Sure. There's also a chance your machine will break when you turn it on in the morning.

Anyway, Vista is a relatively painless upgrade/install. During an upgrade install, Vista copies an image of the entire OS to your hard drive and ignores your existing XP install. (A full install only takes about 15 minutes; compare that to XP). It only pulls from an existing XP install what it needs. It isn't the same upgrade headache like there was in 98 to XP.

You'll hear horror stories for the next few weeks, and the Intartubes will be all, "OMFG, VISTA BROKEN MACHINES!!1! LOLZ!!1!" But you only hear the handful of horror stories, repeated over and over again. Meanwhile, the people who had no problems shrug their shoulders and keep working.

"Gladstone advises folks to hold back the urge and wait until they buy their next computer and for more Direct X10 games to be made available."

That's sound advice because it's true, there's no reason to have Vista today.

But what people don't seem to get is that the upgrade market for a Microsoft OS is a rounding error. The vast majority of Windows licenses are OEM copies that comes with a Dell PC. Vista will have a near 100% adoption rate on new PCs starting right... about... now.

"The duo also harp on the hassle new security measures cause casual and indie games."

Man, they just bought that crap from Alex St. John lock, stock, and barrel. The only difference between running a casual or indie game on Vista vs. XP occurs if you want it to appear in the Games Explorer. That's it.

Today, if you download a game on XP, you click on the .EXE, download it, launch it, Windows warns you that it could be a "very bad thing," you install, it puts an icon on your desktop or your Start menu, and you run it.

With Vista... the same exact thing happens. There is absolutely zero difference. You download, it gives you a security warning, and it installs.

If people were able to launch casual and indie games from their desktop or Start Menu on XP, why would they suddenly lose that ability in Vista? So it doesn't appear in the Games Explorer; few people are going to use that thing to launch every game anyway.

(At least until it adds more features, like having more games support launching directly from saved games instead of having to pull them up in-game.)

blamecanada @ Feb 1st 2007 9:00AM

For all the time I hear Apple talk about Windows, MS never talks about OSX. Thats because Apple and OSX isn't a threat to MS in the desktop computer market.

Steve @ Feb 1st 2007 9:27AM

When it comes to a computer always use this rule:

If it ain't broke to the point of being nearly impossible to use, don't fix it.

I can't tell you how many times the cure was worse than the disease. It's laughable how unreliable Microsoft software actually is.

Virtua Fanboy @ Feb 1st 2007 9:45AM

Just my opinion but people who argue about consoles are bad enough, at least they have hope of a normal life. People who argue about the 3 OS's, I don't think that you have a hope for a normal life, lol. If your just commenting on Vista or Apple that's cool, but to defend them w/your life and say, "Oh their stealing, waahhh waaahhhh!" your just a hopeless cause. LOL

Good Luck on upgrading everyone!

Goober @ Feb 1st 2007 10:02AM

Yeah, Linux is the answer. I look forward towards installing an OS onto my computer that I have to specially order software for and need to wait until someone hacks drivers for to make my hardware work.

When I can walk into my local Best Buy, Gamestop or Walmart and buy any game or accessory that I want and it'll run on Linux OUT OF THE BOX then I'll consider that OS

Crono @ Feb 1st 2007 10:03AM

It is unfortunate that MS has a forced monopoly in the OS industry. The consumer really has no choice. If I want to play Spore, I need a windows machine. If I want to use Photoshop, I have to use a windows machine.

If that kind of software were available on linux, I'd switch right now in a heartbeat. Its too bad there can't be a law that developers have to make their software available on competing OS's. Because if the games I like to play were available in linux, MS Windows would be only a memory.

And MS knows it.

nick_vs @ Feb 3rd 2007 5:09PM

>>If I want to use Photoshop, I have to use a windows machine.

dont most ppl use Macs specifically for Photoshop and other graphic/video applications?

Goober @ Feb 1st 2007 10:33AM

So if I were to design a new OS of my own and sell it on my website according to your logic EA would have to make compatible versions of their games for it?

Okay....

People, stop blaming Microsoft for creating a monopoly. Blame companies like Dell, HP, Sony, and all of the hardware and software manufacturers. They're the ones choosing to pre-install their PCs and design their products to only work with Windows. Sure, Microsoft isn't going to make it easy but why should they?

steve @ Feb 1st 2007 10:34AM

"It is unfortunate that MS has a forced monopoly in the OS industry. The consumer really has no choice. "

Well, you do have plenty of choices, from MacOS to Linux to FreeBSD, blah blah blah.

But it's actually kind of a good thing one company has a monopoly on your OS. It's why MacOS works well with all Macs. One of the primary reasons Windows doesn't work as well as MacOS is because Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly on the hardware like Apple does.

Consider the software hell if it was a free for all. Imagine if Linux was the dominant OS on the PC; you'd have chaos at retail as you looked for software that matched your distro. Or if anyone could produce a version of Windows, but they all sorta worked a little differently. Would your game work with Novell Windows, or Apple Windows, or Red Hat Windows? Who knows?

"If I want to play Spore, I need a windows machine. If I want to use Photoshop, I have to use a windows machine."

Well, no. Photoshop is quite available for the Mac. And Spore probably will be too.

But why stop there? If I want to play God of War, I need a PS2. If I want to play Halo 3, I need a 360. If I want to accidentally throw my gamepad at my TV, I need a Wii.

"Because if the games I like to play were available in linux, MS Windows would be only a memory."

There are plenty of ways to make Windows games play in Linux, but consider this: If Linux had to deal with gaming and consumers and millions of people asking for all of these different, contradictory features, Linux would be as fucked up as Windows is.

"And MS knows it."

Ooh, ominous! It's like they're a dark lord sitting over our shoulders, MAKING US BUY STUFF.

F1ghter @ Feb 1st 2007 10:34AM

"I look forward towards installing an OS onto my computer that I have to specially order software for and need to wait until someone hacks drivers for to make my hardware work." ~Goober

Wait...what? 'Specially order software for'? That doesn't even make sense. No, it isn't likely that you can walk into a store and buy Linux-compatible software, and for good reason: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE. Where do you get the idea that you have to order Linux software?

And as far as drivers are concerned, Ubuntu Linux has better hardware support out of the box than XP. The only thing you really need to worry about is obscure hardware or *really* new hardware.

Scarabus @ Feb 1st 2007 10:45AM

So Jeff is afraid to install Vista? Could he at least TRY before sounding off about it?

Bladestar @ Feb 1st 2007 10:44AM

LOL. This is funny. Ohh wow. It's interesting how so many of you were critisizing microsoft because they were late releasing vista. So many of you were critisizing XP, now XP is the best OS as long as people don't use vista? Let's be honest, the only reason why most of you talking $h!t it's not because vista is a bad OS but because the company behind it is Microsoft. Plain and Simple; no need to try to sound like you have good reasons. If Vista would be another version of linux or new MAC OS than you would all be praising it.
It's funny how so many articles of people like "Jeff Green, Ryan Scott, Darren Gladstone, Shawn Elliot" telling people that vista it's not worth upgrading to because "I'm afraid it's going to break my machine." @#$$% you are telling me that this guy can't afford a PC? And does he mean by "break"? Hardware? How about reformat drive and re-install linux or xp?
Some of you should get yourselves checked out. this hate for an entity or corporation it's not normal. It's ok to not buy products you don't like, but what's with this crusade that some of you have to destroy microsoft (the evil empire)? Most of you(Notice I said some) use linux because you learned how to change your ram, format and install an OS and you believe using Linux makes you cool. Others like MAC because it's from apple and apple makes ipod and apple it's cool, considering the fact that it's over rated and it lack features like built-in FM features that pretty much every mp3 player has. Both OS (Linux & OSX) can't run 90% of the software in the market, and 95% of the games I wouldn't call that cool. You hate vista because it made by microsoft then good for you. but some of us buy computers to work and to play games, so until OSX or linux allow me to do that at the same level that windows does most of you will not have a choice but to use it.

Crono @ Feb 1st 2007 11:09AM

I guess I should have been a bit more clear. I didn't mean ALL OS's, just 1 major competing OS, to make it LOOK like there's a choice in the market.

I do realize the slippery slope of my idea extending into the console arena. But I think OS's are a bit different in that, for the big 3, they are largely hardware agnostic (as long as its x86/x64). Sure there are linux distro's of all flavors, but most linux software works on all distro's as its basically all the same when you dig down into it.

Epic doesn't seem to have a problem including linux versions of their software on the same discs you buy from the store (UT, UT2004, and UT2004 all come with a linux installer on the last disc. It uses all the same libraries as the windows version).

Why is it so unreasonable to expect software vendors to at least support SOME compatability with other OS's?

DirectX is the problem. Its great for developers, great for gaming, but only available on windows platforms. If there were a common, open source platform to develop on that was OS agnostic, a "standard" if you will, there could be real competition in this market again.

Because, lets face it, its Windows and all its goodness and easy-ness and software library, or its something else, with practically nothing by comparison.

William @ Feb 1st 2007 11:18AM

3 years from now people are gonna be like

"Wow wtf I can't believe anyone used the piece of crap Windows XP"

In time vista will be patched and will be hella good. It happens everyone time.

mj @ Feb 1st 2007 11:31AM

Games For Windows' objectivity about Vista will last about how long it takes for Bill to reach for his diamond-encrusted Moto Q and call the editors up.

I'm guessing people in 5 years will really think Vista is crap. They fired the Vista leader it was so bad, and UAC is driving everyone crazy.

Maybe i'm just well-informed and all, but Windows 2000 WAS WAY BETTER than XP. Even XP SP2. But they just dropped it so that Dell and HP can sell more crappy boxes that are slightly faster than last year's.

Ritz @ Feb 1st 2007 11:35AM

I don't care if it isn't Microsoft's responsibility to ensure hardware manufactures have Vista ready drivers. The fact is that some of the hardware I have will still be disabled/non-functional with Vista right now. On the other hand, thanks to current drivers, XP handles all my current hardware and software without problems. Until I see the kind of support XP has, Vista can wait.

uh_oh @ Feb 1st 2007 2:59PM

That's always how it is, no one jumps to a new OS unless they're getting it free, otherwise they will wait till drivers and fixes are out before upgrading. I got my copy but i'm still waiting for scanner drivers and chipset drivers.

raquor @ Feb 1st 2007 11:56AM

"DirectX is the problem. Its great for developers, great for gaming, but only available on windows platforms. If there were a common, open source platform to develop on that was OS agnostic, a "standard" if you will, there could be real competition in this market again."

Common platform? Open GL!?!? But it's kind of crappy compared to DX. Of course there are other options like the allegro library that is more or less a wrapper around the "game libraries" for each OS. That being DX on windows, and whatever passes for game libs for Linux and Mac. And it truly does work, I've written a Pong clone using it. Compiled with no code changes on Windows and Mac.

staxontoplyon23 @ Feb 1st 2007 12:09PM

I still don't see a reason to upgrade from win2k. My PC runs for days crash free, downloads and runs just about anything I throw at it without caring if its pirated and uses less of my precious little ram and CPU cycles. (512MB and 1 GHZ) And screw MS for artificially tying DX10 to Vista, theres no reson for it technicaly, they just want to force an upgrade. (Yes I plan on getting a better CPU and vid card in the future, and I'll be damned if even 100 of that upgrade budget goes to having a screenshot of my game there before I play it, or some crappy exploitable DRM scheme)

http://www.sirlin.net/archive/windows-vista-a-time-bomb/

"All your device drivers checking to make sure you aren’t trying to copy premium content…every 30milliseconds! Real-time encryption and decryption in paged memory (slowing down your computer for no good reason)…but only DRM’d movies/music are encrypted in this way? Your credit card numbers, bank PIN, and social security numbers are stored as always in plaintext paged memory. (We see who’s running the show.)"

Yeah, so worth it. Have fun guys.

VampireHunter Z @ Feb 1st 2007 12:20PM

People keep saying they will wait until MSFT sorts out the problems with Vista but yet no one can name these problems. The driver compatibility problems are for 3rd parties to sort out. I tried Vista yesterday and it was a lot faster than I think it would have been. Changing desktop is like changing a slide in Powerpoint.

I guess it's a matter of trust and the fact that it IS MSFT. No one has any legitimate issues with the OS. Resource hog? Hardware technology is moving at an amazing pace why should the software sit back and not use it?

OmegaRed @ Feb 1st 2007 12:57PM

@32.

My Windows XP machine NEVER crashes.
Next time research something before posting about it. Read about DX10 and how it is built. Most importantly, don't bring up the DRM from the new high def disc formats into the Vista discussion. The article you quote (out of context) uses quotes out of context. For those of you who don't know, the only added DRM in Vista is to ALLOW you to play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. If you aren't watching those on your PC, you will not notice "device drivers checking to make sure you aren’t trying to copy premium content…every 30milliseconds!"

LOL, people never cease to amaze me here. Vista has been out all of a day and you are complaining that some of your (likely obscure) hardware doesn't have drivers? LOL, get a clue.

Dave R. @ Feb 12th 2007 9:09AM

I've run XP since it came out (thanks to an MSDN subscription) and it's stable, quick and I've never had any virus or adware problems. I think Microsoft has more to worry about with people who are satisfied with their current OS rather than anything else. Same with Office 2007. I think the new interfaces are great, but that's not enough.

The other thing is that the cost is extortionate here in the UK - a $99 Vista Home Premium pack is £99 here, which works out as near double the price. Microsoft can go take a hike if they think I'll support that sort of practice; same goes for Sony with their PS3 (more than £100 more expensive).

Crono @ Feb 1st 2007 1:10PM

I heard recently that OpenGL got canned, either in hardware, or maybe just in Windows. Not sure.

And like you said, Open GL couldn't (or wouldn't) keep up with other platforms.

In the end, it is the end user (you and me) who get boned by this.

Crono @ Feb 1st 2007 3:24PM

Honestly, I'm waiting for x64 total support (drivers and backwards compatability). Compatability, even in RC2 was atrocious.

Each and every one of my PC's has a 64 bit processor, but all run 32-bit windows (I have xp64, but there are no drivers, and Vista drivers don't work on it, generally). I'd love for all the software makers to go ahead and make the plunge into 64 bit development. I don't even think they sell 32 bit chips anymore in new PC's, do they?

The time has come. I'm ready for 64 bit to wow me now as much as 32 bit did in the 90s. 64 bit processors, with 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications should be almost twice as fast as their 32 bit counterparts.

Danny @ Feb 1st 2007 4:52PM

What a yawnfest all the vista backlash - there isn't a single thing being said by these guys that wasn't said about XP.

>I can run OS X on an 7 yr old G4 quite nicely.

That's funny because I'm sure you read the mac editor who found that vista ran faster on his core duo than OS X did.

Zeromaru @ Feb 1st 2007 4:28PM

I don't have time to read all the comments, but I see a lot of people still believing they need to upgrade their system.

The first time I ever ran Vista was back just after it got renamed from Longhorn. I had a 2.5GHz 2nd-gen P4, 1 GB RAM, and a 64 MB Radeon 7000. And it ran fine. With each build, it ran better and better. I ran Vista Beta 2 as my primary OS for months (went back to XP after I got a TV tuner that didn't officially work with Vista, but I found a simple workaround some time after so I went back to Vista). Unless you have a really old and really shitty computer, you can run Vista.

And you want to know the killer app? The security. The same reason why I would suggest switching to Linux or Mac. There is the matter of 64-bit, but unless you're doing high-data applications like digital video editing or CG rendering, you will never see a performance increase.

Zeromaru @ Feb 1st 2007 4:31PM

Josh @ Feb 1st 2007 6:06PM

"The time has come. I'm ready for 64 bit to wow me now as much as 32 bit did in the 90s. 64 bit processors, with 64 bit OS and 64 bit applications should be almost twice as fast as their 32 bit counterparts."

No. 64-bit programs are just about the same speed as 32-bit programs. I don't know where you got the idea that it should be faster.

There are more registers under 64-bit mode, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference in real applications.

Rob @ Feb 1st 2007 7:57PM

@34

A day? More like three months. It was released to business before yesterday.

dirtyone @ Feb 1st 2007 11:00PM

mactards osx is freebsd running a striped down version kde if you want to blow your money and seem all leet just buy a dell and put opensuse 10.2 on it and give the rest of money that you would have flushed down a toilet to Charity instead of being clueless dickwads . hate to be the one to break it to the mactards your paying a premium for software that apple didn't even make and bashing ms talk about penis envy here's a big Icock for you

che @ Feb 2nd 2007 10:14AM

Number 16 i`m agree with you...

spl1nter @ Feb 5th 2007 11:03AM

"It is unfortunate that MS has a forced monopoly in the OS industry. The consumer really has no choice. If I want to play Spore, I need a windows machine."

Woah there!

And if Apple owned the industry it would be open? The reason IBM/MS-DOS nailed Mac was because it was easier to develop for and more open. Apple is possibly the most limiting computer company around!

Spore requires DX10 which is made by Microsoft. And to answer a number of enquiries, DX10 uses a new graphics library built into Vista. So yes, they could have possibly rewritten DX10 for XP and such but there's such thing as progress. It would also have been a waste of resources.

When other platforms get as brilliant a graphics API as DX10 then you'll see these kind of games on other platforms...but no-one else really is.

kinkood @ Mar 14th 2007 5:17AM

You all act like Microsoft should just ignore new features that are on OSX that are nice. Then if they had you would slam them for not having it, "Oh, well Mac can do this, this, and this, Windows can't, they suck for not having it". But because they have it you slam them for "stealing it from Mac".

When the first car upgraded to include seatbelts did people insult other cars for having them too? Maybe because they were close minded about seatbelts, but not for them "stealing" them.

Everybody just likes to complain about the company that has the most market share. It's trendy to bash Microsoft. I have a Linux Box, a Vista Box, a XP Box, and I intend to get a Mac Powerbook as soon as possible. All of the OS choices are good in their own way and they all steal features from each other because it would be stupid not to.