Gaming On Windows 7 554
Jason Wilson writes "Windows 7 comes out Oct. 22, and many gamers are wondering whether it will be a boon for gaming, as Microsoft promised Vista would, or a disappointment (like Vista was at its launch). Former ExtremeTech editor Jason Cross, who's covered games and tech for 13 years, discusses the pluses and minuses of Windows 7 for gamers — how it differs from Vista, if it'll run older games, and the benefits of 64-bit computing. 'Windows 7 basically takes the Vista codebase and rewrites, refines, optimizes, and overhauls most of the internal stuff without making dramatic changes to the driver stacks that Vista did over WinXP. The changes to the fundamental driver models are small and mostly serve to improve performance. Plus, the hardware makers — especially the graphics guys — are on top of the changes this time around. Nvidia and ATI have been shipping quite good Win7 graphics drivers for months now.'"
Everything works for me (Score:4, Informative)
I have Windows 7 RC installed, and I was very surprised to see every game I had installed, still worked flawlessly.
Even Starcraft, which is very aged game, worked just fine.
At the same time, I have only found 1 application that didn't work, and I couldn't get to work even with XP compat, admin rights or any other tweak.
So that's quite good imo.
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Interesting)
Why the hell is that modded as "Troll"?!
Re:Everything works for me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Insightful)
A troll wants nothing more than to see people pissed off. The first thing a troll does when he gets mod points is to mod interesting or insightful comments (like the GP, which now stands at 5, interesting) as "troll".
There are six billion people on the planet, and some of them aren't very nice. Plus, even though this is a nerd site, not everyone here is a nerd.
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Funny)
...This isn't France. We don't censor free speech.
This, on the other hand, can quite appropriately be modded Troll.
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Why the hell is that modded as "Troll"?!
Anything said about Windows that doesn't involve trashing it is oftentimes met with staunch resistance on the Slashdot forums.
Like people mod the article as astroturfing because it's a positive review of Windows 7... the Slashdot forums have moderate to heavy astroturfing in favor of Linux.
People who post here are usually very technologically inclined and love the openness, freedom and power of Linux, and I agree with them Linux is pretty awesome. But I differ from a lot of them in believing that Win
Re:Everything works for me (Score:5, Informative)
In the special case where you:
- have an Nvidia card
- don't mind using Nvidia's closed-source drivers
Then setting up dual, hardware-accelerated screens on Linux is also trivially easy -- just run nvidia-settings.
Re:Everything works for me (Score:5, Informative)
Compiz also is pretty well aware of the screens, so you can do scale ("exposé") to only one of the monitors if you wish.
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In Windows, all drivers are "restricted drivers".
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Informative)
Not sure what you were doing wrong, but I have found the Nvidia linux driver to be brilliant. You need to run nvidia settings with root priv's so it can output the xorg.conf file, but this is to be expected. Even without root privileges you can change most stuff in the current session to get dual screens working, it will just forget it all next time it run.
My setup is to have one screen running at 1200*800 on my laptops native lcd, then have a TV output using a VGA to TV converter running at 1024*768 as this is the highest resolution it supports. I do have to choose which part of the screen I want to view but that is to be expected as it cannot scale two different shaped rectangles to be the same shape without distorting one, and that would annoy me.
This might be different if I was interesting in dual heading them or something but since I want them running in clone mode where both have the same image on them I knew things would be a little clunky.
Round pegs rarely fit into square holes without a little bit of persuasion :)
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Not sure what you were doing wrong, but I have found the Nvidia linux driver to be brilliant. You need to run nvidia settings with root priv's so it can output the xorg.conf file, but this is to be expected. Even without root privileges you can change most stuff in the current session to get dual screens working, it will just forget it all next time it run.
This is the classic 'works for me' argument. This is simply unacceptable for home use by non-geeks, and what about users with non-Nvidia cards?
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X11 hasn't figured out the existence of "laptops" yet. It also has trouble with that whole "plug and play" concept that's only around 20 years old or so at this point.
The problem is that people like us go into the discussion saying, "X11 doesn't work with multiple monitors," then someone on the other side will reply, "OH YES IT DOES! Use this program which isn't installed by default on any Linux distro and it works!"
But what he doesn't mention is that he's running it on a desktop computer, and he never hot-
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Yep, that's the real killer. Whoever's fault it is, I couldn't care less; Under Windows I can plug in a display I've plugged in before and it heats right up; I can plug in a display I've never plugged in before and I can easily configure it from the nvidia tool, without restarting any applications. Sent me right back to Windows, which for all its faults is quite usable for most purposes if you have some decent antivirus (or if you never visit "scary" websites, or use the 'net without an external firewall, o
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Informative)
Oh bullcrap. just use xrandr.
Plug in extra screen, run xrandr to list displays and modes. Then run it again to switch on the new monitor at a chosen resolution and relative position.
If you've got nvidia then the nvidia-settings applet will do the same (and don't tell me that's "hard", you do the same in windows for nVidia and ATI)
I'm sure there are windowed versions, but this works perfectly for me.
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I'm sure there are windowed versions, but this works perfectly for me.
gnome-display-properties
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Strange. I thought that I had this custom Nvidia specific nvidia control panel application that was entirely different to the windows display properties box and installed with the Nvidia Driver. Maybe I imagined it though :)
Yes, you *have* one, but you don't have to use, or even install, it. nVidia's drivers just install it because it supports some really crazy configurations that the Windows control panel doesn't, like rotating a screen 90 degrees. Apples and oranges.
People who argue that X11 works just fi
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Sure, then you end up with two monitors that can't really work together and are not customizable.
The issues you're referring to are all driver related. The fact that both nvidia and ATI have already been releasing win7 drivers for months while still screwing around on Linux should make it all clear; It's about the drivers and the hardware guys just don't care about Linux enough yet. That's not the fault of the OS; it's the hardware a$$es not opening up their drivers.
As for Linux vs Windows for multimonitor:
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My multi-monitor history:
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Last time I checked you only lose 3d acceleration if you want to use multiple unrelated cards to drive multiple monitors (something Windows doesn't even support AFAIK).
Configuring multiple monitors is just a few clicks (or commands) away in Linux as well.
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In the case of some Intel GPUs (like the three and a half year old 945GM, which is found in most netbooks today), 3D is limited to a 2048x2048 total framebuffer shared between all monitors - so if your two displays won't fit in a 2048x2048 space, you can't use any 3D acceleration. So if you want to use, say, 1280x800 and 1280x1024, you can't have 3D (or a composited desktop) in Linux. This is apparently a hardware limitation.
The Windows Vista/7 Aero driver has no such limitation, and I don't think the OS
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It is a hardware limitation specific to the way the X.org driver is implemented; the Intel X.org driver only uses one framebuffer for both displays, and the 3D hardware on this GPU supports framebuffers of 2048x2048 or smaller.
Windows and OS X avoid this by using two separate framebuffers.
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I didn't say X was hardware (and in fact I mentioned X.org, not X.) I apologize for being unclear. I meant to say that the hardware limitation only affects the X.org Intel driver because of the way this driver works; the Windows and OS X drivers are implemented in such a way that prevents this issue.
I understood what he meant, and once again, I apologize for being unclear.
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The only things that didn't work for me are really old DOS games (but I had trouble with them in XP too) and such things as those 4kb landscape thingies that were discussed on Slashdot a few days ago.
So far, I've really had nothing to complain about, the new UI aside. I was pretty pissed that there was no classic theme. Now I've gotten used to it and I must say, although I certainly won't pay what Microsoft is asking, this is the first MS OS that I WOULD pay for if the price was right.
Re:Everything works for me (Score:4, Informative)
So far, I've really had nothing to complain about, the new UI aside. I was pretty pissed that there was no classic theme.
I'm still pissed about Vista not having the XP style. That one was much nicer.
Re:Everything works for me - But..... (Score:4, Interesting)
So far, I've really had nothing to complain about, the new UI aside. I was pretty pissed that there was no classic theme.
I'm still pissed about Vista not having the XP style. That one was much nicer.
I miss the Windows 2000 style!!! I always turned XP to Win2K style, and got a nice performance boost because of it. I also HATE, absolutely HATE not being able to see all my programs / start menu by default. I do NOT want Windows to organize it, I want to organize it myself.
File searching still sucks, XP/2K did this way better, and faster, ironically, than the indexed searches in Vista/Win7.
The only thing I do like is the ability to search for a start menu item (which, sadly I need to do now... ) and find it quickly. But the 'smart menu' system makes me 'forget' about programs since they get hidden. Aggravating!
I sent in several bugfix/feature requests about this during the beta... everyone I know at work (IT Dept) hates the vista file browser and searching, we are always VM'ing or RDP'ing to XP boxes just to execute searches. How sad is that? I can honestly say I don't mind that stupid search dog anymore... lol. well.. ok, I just hate him less than vista/win7 file browser and searching.
Re:Everything works for me - But..... (Score:5, Informative)
Windows 2000 (aka Windows Classic) style is present in both Vista and Win7.
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It's not the "style" I miss, but the speed. The older themes are less-demanding on the CPU and therefore run faster. Yeah Vista-style is pretty, but the XP or Classic style open-and-close windows without those annoying pregnant pauses.
Give me lean-and-fast over pretty-and-slow anyday.
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What the hell are you running? A P3 with 128 MB of RAM and integrated video? I've found that on even a P4 2 GHz with 2 GB of RAM and integrated intel video (a low end machine by todays standards), the menus were far faster with the default settings under Vista than they were under XP. Sure, you can turn off all that fading crap in XP and make it faster, but I didn't have to do any of that with Vista to get really responsive menus. And if you've got a decent 3D accelerator (even a cheap $30 one), the sys
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I'm aware of that possibility. I did try to comment on the OS itself, though. It wouldn't be useful to comment on 7's ability to mount ext4 after installing special third-party drivers, after all, so I limited it to its native capabilities.
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Old dos games should definitely only be tried in something like dosbox, or scummvm (for those old adventure games) even in much earlier OS's.
Re:Everything works for me (Score:5, Informative)
There is a classic theme, what are you talking about? Desktop Personalization > Basic and High Contrast Themes > Windows Classic.
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Creative cards working yet? I'd heard vista lacked any decent hardware sound support, effectivelly rendering headphone gaming with X-fi cards impossible.
Also I don't buy their statistics. According to the latest steam hardware survey data released (June 2007) 60% of all surveyed systems were using winXP still, even a year after win7's launch unless it manages to actually outperform XP I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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I wonder if anyone at MS has considered altering XP just enough to make it DX10/11 compatible and 64bit and then calling it a new operating system.
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Even Starcraft, which is very aged game, worked just fine.
The latest patch is dated Jan 22, 2009. I don't think that makes it "aged".
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NWN2 barfs with a DirectX error (some missing string), No idea why VTMB dies (black screen, can only kill with ctrl+alt+del). Apparently the NWN2 problem is fixed in a build more recent than 7100, not sure about vampire.
But on the whole, if it works on Vista (and really, the jump from 98 to XP broke HEAPS more gam
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NWN2 barfs with a DirectX error (some missing string), No idea why VTMB dies (black screen, can only kill with ctrl+alt+del). Apparently the NWN2 problem is fixed in a build more recent than 7100, not sure about vampire.
There is a fix on the NWN forums that works. It involves changing a DirectX file for an older version. Seems there is something different that thh RC does that NWN 2 doesn't like. Works fine now though, and the release version will no doubt be updated to use the ordinary DX setup. Obsidian just decided to not to waste time supporting what is essentially a beta OS, and are waiting for the actual release.
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Indeed, I'm loathed to admit it, but Windows 7 is great for gaming.
Out of the box, my graphics card, sounds card, motherboard controllers, etc were found by the OS, my CPU wasn't... but the "find drivers online" stuff worked. The graphics drivers worked flawlessly without the actual drivers being downloaded from Nvidia, I did grab them though for the control panel.
TF2 runs great, apart from the odd glitch (though I suspect that's an issue with Steam/HL2 rather than 7). Other games run smooth, so it seems li
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Same here. I dusted off my old gaming computer from 2006 to play games and try out this new-fangled "Windows" thing. All games work perfectly. Currently I have Spore, L4D, GTA: SA, the usual Steam/Valve suspects (hl1 and hl2 engines) and Bioshock.
This is the first Windows I'd rather pay for than pirate.
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It would be interesting to see how these games run on a bunch of different peoples computers. Just as Linux works great for some people and for others it has a huge array of annoying glitches. I personally never hated Vista that much and it actually ran quite well on a MacBook Pro. Also when Vista was first released we have a lot of what we are having now a bunch of mostly good reviews of the system. Lets wait and see what real life will bring. When it is finally tested in eMachienes and Compaqs and
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Unfortunately all of this is practically pointless. I cannot remember when I last had a bluescreen in XP or any reason to wish for a better sound implementation.
As for the new high-end tech: ... some time in the future. However generally speaking, games won't use that. Just look at how many games actually use DX10 today. At best there are a few that have a seperate DX10 mode, that's it.
There might be one or two games that will actually use DX11 or lots of memory
Game developers cannot afford to target such a
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XP
HAH! 2000 is still working fine ...
Re:Everything works for me (Score:5, Informative)
the sound implementation in Windows Vista and Windows 7 have one thing going for them over XP and older: You can now set and mix volumes at an application level. That gives you the option to quiet down or even silence a particularly annoying program altogether so irrelevant notification beeps won't interfere with a game you're playing or movie that you're watching. It can be surpisingly useful at times.
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I really wish my TV had per-channel volume adjustment. Loudness abuse is seriously annoying.
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If you have a single core box with less than 2gb, XP is probably as fast or faster.
If you have multiple cores, plentty of RAM (its CHEAP now, so if not why not), 7 will be quicker. Especially if you have a half recent 3d card, in which case much of the GUI is offloaded to it and its video memory...
Moving forward, the benefits of 7 ov
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Anyhow, since I had all 3 os's cleanly ins
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It's already in there and running. I can see the secure sound and video process running in Task Manager and get the degradation effects on non-compliant monitors.
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Works like a charm... and is available earlier... (Score:3, Informative)
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Mod Parent Down, -1 Overuse of Emoticons
Maybe he just has a facial tic?
Performance increase... (Score:5, Interesting)
I installed the Windows 7 RC pretty much straight off, I didn't jump on the Vista bandwagon, I stuck with XP for a few reasons.
1) Cost
2) Gaming Performance
3) I had no need for DX10
Anyways, What I found in 7 was that gaming performance in about 70-80% of my games had improved, even on very early drivers.
Crysis was up by on average 30fps
Source games had an improvement of about 15fps
Unreal Engine games had little improvement, about 2-3fps
So far I'm very impressed with 7.
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Are there any studies about this phenonemon. What causes the slowdown?
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It wasn't related to 'the slowdown effect'. I compared both OSes installed from fresh after a full format.
Re:Performance increase... (Score:4, Informative)
Knowledgeable users manage this problem. They still suffer from it ; even the "sensible" software we install likes to add resident tasks. And virtually nothing can clean your registry out without risking terminal damage to your OS (unless you really know what you are doing, and I used to be one of these people - but I let the knowledge atrophy because it's more trouble than it's worth).
One of the best utilities for this is Autoruns [microsoft.com].
It certainly prolongs the MTBRBICWC for Windows (Mean Time Between Reinstalls Because It's Clogged With Crap).
Linux definitely scores points here for storing application-settings in their own hidden folder in your home directory. Uninstall the app? Delete the folder. Or not, if you don't mind - it's not slowing anything else down, they all look in their own folders, not in one giant nasty binary blob database.
DX9 vs DX10 / 11 (Score:2, Interesting)
I still have problems with my overclocked dual core at 3.3Ghz to run all the DX9 games at full details at 60FPS.
And XP is usually faster for DX9 games then Vista or Win7 is.
So, until I can get an overclocked i7 at 4.0Ghz I'll stick to DX9 and WinXP. Since why overclock to gain FPS and lose them with Vista / Win7?
This is for games, so please M$ lovers don't bash me. And no I don't play games below 50FPS, th
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Source? Doesn't match my experience, other people are reporting significant *improvements* in frame-rate when comparing XP and 7.
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Just a heads up: the graphic card might have something to do with performance in 3D games. Just a heads up.
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Re:DX9 vs DX10 / 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhhhmmmm, why do you need a super duper CPU to run DX10? That is the job of the GPU. Trying to improve your video with a CPU upgrade is a lost cause. If you're using onboard video that uses shared system memory, you never see video performance.
http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/AboutGFW/Pages/DirectX10-a.aspx [microsoft.com]
Simply put, DirectX is a Windows technology that enables higher performance in graphics and sound when you're playing games or watching video on your PC.
At the core of DirectX are its application programming interfaces, or APIs. The APIs act as a kind of bridge for the hardware and the software to "talk" to each other. The DirectX APIs gives multimedia applications access to the advanced features of high-performance hardware such as three-dimensional (3-D) graphics acceleration chips and sound cards. They control low-level functions, including two-dimensional (2-D) graphics acceleration; support for input devices such as joysticks, keyboards, and mice; and control of sound mixing and sound output.
Because of DirectX, what you experience with your computer is better 3-D graphics and immersive music and audio effects.
Re:DX9 vs DX10 / 11 (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'll try it when SP1 comes out. Hopefully by I'll have a better CPU.
Does it matter, its all DirectX (Score:5, Interesting)
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3D Shooter Games [feeddistiller.com]Feed @ Feed Distiller [feeddistiller.com]
Re:Does it matter, its all DirectX (Score:5, Informative)
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Vista left me with a 3rd degree burn (Score:2, Interesting)
As an IT prof now for many years I felt it was my obligation to be one of the first on Vista. To stay on top of the current trends.
Well needless to say. Vista was an absolutely miserable failure on every front. It was advertised as being able to run on machines it point blank couldn't. I couldn't run it on top end XP machines because the drivers simply didn't exist. The user experience was an absolute nightmare, I still have nightmares with UAC pop-ups in them. The x64 version was worse than the 32 b
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Get over yourself? It's an OS, not a relationship!
What's wrong with trying it out, and if you don't like it, installing another? You might like it, you know? You make it sound like there's no turning back.
Installing an OS you don't like and sticking with it, getting nightmares and "3rd degree burns"? Shame on you.
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metaphor
Re:Vista left me with a 3rd degree burn (Score:4, Funny)
I think you mean "Fool me once.. shame.. shame on you, Fool me.. you can't get fooled again!"
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I am an IT professional, and what people here would consider a "Windows Hater".
It is true, I hate Vista. I hate it, you hate it, everyone hates it.
In all honesty, Windows 7 is really a big step forward. You should try it before dumping it just because you had a miserable experience with Vista. Hands-on experience is much better than what you may "believe". Beliefs have no room in the IT world if you really want to be 'professional'. Actually, beliefs is what make people not move forward with technology. It'
Punkbuster is broken right now (Score:2)
So one cannot play BF 2 or 2142 for more than a few seconds before being booted. Hopefully with the RTM out they'll update it now.
As opposed to last time (Score:2)
Translation: as opposed to last time, when our beloved DRM overlords were firmly in control.
Gaming is Amazing on Windows 7 (here's a list) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm an avid gamer... and my tastes are all over the place. The only issue I've had in ANY game in the following list was with World of Warcraft, and only during the loading of your character after the character selection screen. If in windowed mode, you go do something else then come back... it will crash wow. Otherwise, once it loads completely it's fine. (10-15second window).
World of Warcraft
Starcraft
Left 4 Dead
Half Life 2 (And all the mods: Zombie Panic, Team Fortress 2, Action Halflife 2... etc)
Quake 3
Doom 3
OpenArena
NeverWinter Nights (all expansions)
NeverWinter Nights 2
UT2003
UT3
Crysis
Battlefield 2
etc etc etc
Not a single error. Not a single problem with Windows 7. The only thing I can wonder about is the resources needed. I run a beef machine... GTX 275, quad core proc, 4gb ram... while not an elite gaming rig... it's pretty nice. I experience no lag, no latency... in any game, at least not due to what I would deem as a Windows 7 issue. The effects are not noticeable.
XP, while great, loads in less time, but seemed to crash more frequently with newer games. Most of the NVIDIA drivers I've used have been great.
The only complain I have about Windows 7 is how it buggers out my network when I do a fresh boot or a restart. I have to disable the network card and reenable it (5 second process) and everything is fine. Repeated motherboard driver updates and network card updates have had no change. Oddly enough... on a fresh install of Windows 7 Beta... it doesn't do this. Only after about a month. Could be hardware on my side but /shrug.
security risk? (Score:3, Interesting)
This bit gave me the worst gut reaction from the article:
Bitmob: At this point, can you recommend Windows 7 as a gaming platform?
JC: I'd almost insist on it. Windows XP is old enough that running it is sort of a security risk
... a security risk? That really sounds to me like the "Fear" in FUD. Or is there something about security I'm overlooking due to anti-MS bias, of which I am sometimes guilty?
I hate when TFA is written by a half-tech (Score:3, Insightful)
I could have written that article and saved you all some trouble.
Instead I'll debunk some of his bullshit.]
Bullshit.
First, no game as benefited from this branding. If anything it has made the 6 games it has much harder to play. Your saves are tied to your live account. Any DLC you want to get is also deadlocked into the G4W live marketplace. Can't get them anywhere else. Why is this bad? If you're like me, the G4W Live client seems to be an afterthought. I bought my add-ons for Fallout 3 and then coudldn't download them due to some cryptic error message. It took no fewer than 13 calls to Microsoft before I got the right department and even then they had no clue what the G4W Live client was. The calls couldn't resolve the issue, only time did. I would label G4W Live as an abysmal failure that only hinders the title rather than boosting it.
If you're coming from XP as most gamers are, it is. The most annoying thing about it from a gamer's point of view is the handling of the audio system. Other than that, it's quite amazing. Speed is much better than XP. The ability to pop in an 8GB thumb drive and create a readyboost cache is quite amazing also. Do games run better or faster? No, but the OS does and that in-turn makes the games experience better.
Windows 7 has compatibility options for every MS OS from windows 95 through windows vista sp2. You probably won't need to use compatibility much if ever though. Some really old games run great in the windows 7 vdm. As for some more recent games, Arma 2 has severe performance issues with windows 7.
Ugh, fact checking? 32-bit has a 4GB memory limit, not 2GB. With your video ram, it sometimes came out to be 3GB or a little more.
Windows XP is less of a security risk than Windows 7 at this point. The bugs are mostly ironed out and the security suites all run on XP natively. Windows 7 still hasn't undergone much scrutiny for bugs and most security suites don't run properly on the OS. It's more of a real security risk than XP at this point.
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Re:PC gaming is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't agree. Demand for PC games is still very high, and although they may not be coming out at the same time, PC versions of games are still coming out in decent numbers. There are also plenty of titles that are released exclusively on PC, like Crysis.
Also most hardcore gamers with the will to get the best out of their system use Vista64. There are just so many advantages, like DX10, proper 64bit support, better multi-core support, etc... I use Vista and have appsolutely no problems with it. You just have to set it up correctly, get rid of the stupid theme and animations, and disable things like the UAC and you have a brilliant OS with basically no drawbacks compared to XP (on a recent computer). And I'm not a M$ lover, I use Ubuntu for a lot of my desktop work.
Also, PCs have DRM too, its bloody irritating!
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UAC only exists because almost everything on a Windows box at some point requires super user powers.
As a UNIX user that is not the case. So yes us UNIX users do know better.
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I guess it'll have to join BSD, mice & keyboards, desktop PCs, email and all the other things that we're always been told are dead & buried; to be inevitably replaced by something newer and shinier.
The 360 is hardly a sales giant - its top selling game is Halo 3 at a mere 8 million copies. The Sims 2 expansion packs sell almost that many on their own. The original SMB has sold over 40 million copies. The PS3's top seller clocks in at less than 3.5 million copies.
Interestingly, of the Top 20 highest
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PC Gaming is dead?
Not bloody likely when it is a billion dollar industry.
Your statement doesn't bare up to the dollar facts.
I'd take .1 % of that business thank you very much.
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Not bloody likely when it is a billion dollar industry.
[citation needed]
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http://au.gamespot.com/news/6185347.html [gamespot.com]
And that's only 1 vendor.
Re:PC gaming is dead. (Score:4, Interesting)
Diablo3 and Starcraft2 will probably be the last two major PC game titles.
I'm guessing the people at Valve and a number other studios that we could mention would disagree with you there.
Microsoft worked very hard to kill off the PC as a gaming platform. It was clearly a strategic decision; they wanted people to use the xbox instead of the PC.
I don't think MS wants to kill of Windows gaming really. Many game makers would like to, because it is easier to manage their rights at the expense of the users on consoles. I'd say MS's position with the xbox family is more making sure they get a share of the console market pie rather than wanting to push people that way themselves.
What is the difference to MS between me having bought bioshock for the PC and Karl having bough it for the xbox? In both cases MS have had money from the user directly (a windows license or the console) and from the game producer (in terms of SDK/support sales and licenses to use relevant logos on packaging), and in both cases none of that income is going to Sony or Nintendo.
Consoles cost less than PCs.
As someone that has always owned a reasonable PC for other reasons that "console are cheaper" has never worked out that way for me. Paying an extra 50 quid for a better graphics card than I'd otherwise have is cheaper than plumping down 200+ for a console and from what I've seen a given PC game is cheaper than the console equivalent more often than the other way around (especially a while after release). OK, so that extra for the graphics card is not a one off as I'll probably upgrade my 18ish month old 3850 at some point in the next year but buying a console isn't a one-of either given how many new controllers and other add-ons I've seen my cousins nag their mum into buying because some games aren't as good (or just plain don't work) with the standard ones.
Consoles don't have varying technical specs like PCs. Consoles have DRM and make it easier to sell downloadable content. Etc. Etc.
Those points I can agree with and they can make console much more attractive to game developers, but in an ideal world these shouldn't be my problem as an end-user. Of course the variation of PC hardware can be an advantage - if you make a game for a fixed spec (i.e. a console) there is a limit to how far you can push things, but in the PC world you can push the boundaries for the benefit of high-sec kit as long as you make sure the game is playable and looks good enough on more common configurations.
Re:PC gaming is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone else has already moved on to consoles
Translation : I bought a Xbox 360 when it came out and since then I never play PC games anymore, which gives me the feeling that the whole world has done the same as I have.
Here's a hint : PC gaming has over the last 15 years been given about as many death knells as Apple.
Re:PC gaming is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Diablo3 and Starcraft2 will probably be the last two major PC game titles."
Your post shows your complete ignorance of the recent releases for the PC, like Empire total war and Street fighter 4 and other games
Lets not also forget PC's still have RTS and FPS genres licked in case you weren't paying attention, Battle field 1943, team fortress 2, left 4 dead, these are hardly "console only", and these are all fairly recent releases.
I really wish the "PC gaming is dead" crew would get a life, everyone has been saying PC gaming is dead and games still keep being released for the PC forever now.
The fact that Diablo 3 and starcraft 2 are being made is proof positive that it isn't dead, the truth is game developers who couldn't produce good games moved to consoles because they simply lost their mojo and couldn't control development costs. Also console players tend to be easier to please and also generally more stupid on average, you're also selling to mom + pop crowd who will buy any shit in a box for little johnny.
Every point you have made was made 10 years ago with the advent of the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox.
In case you weren't paying attention, Resident Evil 5 is coming to PC and also Street fighter 4 was released for the PC and it's heads and shoulders above the console versions, so much so I've bought a copy.
Enterprising Companies like Capcom will come into fill the PC void because they know there is money to be made by the vacuum left behind.
Only an idiot would write off the PC game market, those who say PC gaming is dead haven't been paying attention at all, or are not really into gaming that much at all. There are plenty of games on the PC.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I can give you some real data to back that up:
According to Bitkom (the German organization for IT, telecoms and new media) [bitkom.org], 73 percent of online games are played trough the browser (e.g. Flash games). And the most used gaming device by far, is the PC.
So that whole "PC gaming is dead" thing, is just a "monkey see, monkey do" parroting problem. A tiny group of uninformed but loud people said it first, and a ton of parrots repeat it over and over. Hmm... it does remind me of the 40s. :P
Re: (Score:2)
Only a handful of (horrible) anti-virus packages cause any measurable slowdown these days. Not to mention that if you have a somewhat functional brain, you don't really need one.
I can't remember any time my anti-virus has detected something I didn't already know was there and had no intention of doing anything with but delete already. Since AV is free though, I don't see a reason not to run one.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Also called astroturfing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And he's right, there is a 2GB Application memory limit, 3GB with LargeAddressAware. And then there's the 4GB OS memory limit, which you were sarcastically referring to.
Re:Question (Score:4, Interesting)
Several issues.
First, it is not easy to virtualize all dos and bios calls into windows api calls. Some of those dos and bios calls do things which are strictly verboten under windows. Additionally, if you take a gander at "Ralf Browns Interrupt List" (which is a compendiam of DOS/BIOS/DRIVER calls collected by one man back in the day) you will see that there are literally hundreds of thousands of these things. The only "solution" is to actualy emulate an entire computer, complete with emulated hardware.
Second, some of those old programs actualy expect to be able to do things only a ring-0 program can, for example configuring its own bizarre hybrid v86 memory models such as keeping the old segment paradigm but upping pointers to 32-bit. Again, the only real solution is to completely emulate an entire computer.
Third, a 64-bit computer once in 64-bit mode cannot ever thunk to 16-bit code. The 64-bit mode entirely supplants the 16-bit mode. Again, emulating an entire computer is the only real solution.
Finally, the features that some of the hardware had simply no longer exist. The SoundBlaster (and older Adlib, and its clones) had Yamaha FM synthesizer chips (the OPL2, OPL3, and OPL4) that are a patent minefield to emulate. No big company is going to emlulate them without something meaningfull to gain, and I'm sure licensing isn't cheap either (Yamaha is a bastard company which agressively protects its IP)