Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: Vista, Guide, Anniversary
Categories: Consumer Electronics
Disappointed gamers
It wouldn’t be a review of an operating system without mentioning gamers. Today, all the new releases are run under Vista, there are few second party game editors (situated in Western Europe...) that are not yet compatible with Microsoft’s latest operating system. However, there is a real difference between Vista and its predecessor.
In Vista, games are much less fluid, and this is obvious in the monitor and to the naked eye. The DirectX 10 is the probable cause. To be able to take full advantage of games in Vista, you need to know how to configure your PC perfectly, which involves deactivating a bunch of options and programs running in the background (firewall, etc.) which is not only demanding but requires an intricate knowledge of IT. As for DirectX 10, its possibilities have not yet been fully exploited. We aren’t expecting “new generation” games capable of exploiting DirectX 10 until 2009.
6. Questions for Nicolas Mirail, product chief
We interviewed Nicolas Mirail, chief of Windows products, on this the anniversary and he gave us some pretty interesting insights on Vista a year on.
What conclusion do you make from this first year of sales of Windows Vista?
A year after its launch, the sales of Windows Vista has been very well received in the public domain. This took place over time, of course. It was first more sold with PCs for public consumption rather than for businesses which is normal due to the constraints involved in the latter. In the public domain we estimate that the majority of Windows PCs are equipped with Windows Vista since September and that more than 400,000 PCs equipped with Windows Vista are sold each month (in France).
What are the objectives in terms of market share for 2008, seeing that XP still has a huge dominance especially in businesses?
We think that near to six million PCs will be equipped with Windows Vista by the end of June in the general public (French figures). It will balance itself out in the next few months, probably with the arrival of the SP1. In France we predict that in the next 18 months, two million machines will be deployed in businesses. Actually we have had exceptional growth of our bulk-sales of licenses, which shows that businesses do buy Vista.
Certain flaws remain (lack of fluidity on many games, annoying UAC), when and how do you plan on answering the problems users are encountering? Meaning will there be a SP2 to come this year? There is no SP2 on the horizon but SP1 has the objective of solving the reliability and performance problems encountered. Yes, the modifications made by Vista disturb the interaction that the programs (from the drivers to the applications) have with the core. Thus, the UAC whose pop-ups will be diminished by a factor of four is a concrete example. However it is necessary to recast this architecture to improve the security of this platform. The SP1 is there to correct a certain number of the problems...
Support of the material:
- DirectX 10.1 support, some exFat, some SD Advanced DMA;
- Adding of icons for Blu-ray and HD-DVD or even a new MPEG-2 decoder.
Reliability:
- Correction of encountered bugs (calendar, Windows Media Player);
- Improvements of Wifi connections
- Improvement of the reliability of IPSec on IPv6 connexions ;
- Improvement of P2P connexions between two machines separated by firewalls;
- Improvement of performances and energy consumption ;
- Better performances for the consultation of files in a network;
- Better performances during the creation or extraction Zip files;
- Better performances for copying/ moving files;
- Reduction of shutdown time of the machine. Security:
- Inclusion of all the security corrections;
- Improvement of the security of wired networks;
- Improvement of BitLocker ;
- General improvement of the install speed and the reliability of updates.
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I would have thought that you would have been far less naive in your statements about this. On a reasonable system (dual core cpu, 1.5gig ram and a decent graphics card) there is no noticeable difference. On my system running at 1680x1050 i cap my fps at my monitor's refresh rate in most games (the exception being crysis), so making that comment is wrong as for me there is NO difference between xp and vista gaming wise.
I swear this date gets further and further back. I'm also pretty sure we'll be getting a decent number of DX10 games as this year runs.
Or are Microsoft really going to name the next version of windows after the (very good) psycho serial killer film?
It’s been shown that Vista has hardly ever been pirated. This can however be chalked up to the outstanding performance of its verification of licenses program WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) which is a real kick in the pants to anyone using a pirate copy. Finally, Microsoft even go so far as to say that Vista is the most secure OS on the market!If you ask us that’s just fanning the flames ...
hmm more likey that its not worth installing, there are perfecly working copys of Vista OEM patched disks its more likey that users find XP better, not sure about SP1 yet as i have it but it has not disabled it self yet on my on my test pc
I've used Vista when I've "fixed" computers for friends and friends of friends (I'm no expert but I do know the ins and outs at a pretty good intermediate level) and I hate Vista, it's a pig to work with, all those "security" pop-ups which I presume are the UAC thing, I installed Office 2007 on one computer and do you know what? It refused to install, claiming I didn't have administration priviliages when I'd double checked I had, there was another error too but I can't recall what, in the end I had to use a "hacked" Office 2007 downloaded version along with the original official MS product key to get it to install. Now that's what I call brilliant compatibility.
With regards to games, it's a massive issue in my opinion, the majority of people expect quite recent old games to run, such as Sims/Sims 2, I've had reports that the original game(s) run but install the expansion packs and you quickly run into a brick wall.
The transfering of files and un/zipping are no way near as smooth as under XP. Vista just seems a bit clunky and not so user friendly. OK, it's pretty to look at and is more secure but is it my choice of an OS, no way!
I'm sticking with XP for as long as possible, reports were a year ago Windows Vienna/7 that is would be released around 2010, at the time that was only a 3 year wait, plus Microsoft planned to "support" XP upto until 2012 at the earliest which means they'll continue to provide "updates".
So why the need to buy Vista when it weighs a ton and a clean streamlined new platform of Windows is being talked about for what I see as a 2010/11 release!
The only reason I can see to go down the Vista road is to take more advantage of the Dual Core and "extended" memory, but how many programmes are fully going to take advantage of the full power of that before a new Windows OS arrives!
With regards to the gaming performance, side by side on a single core CPU XP will always out gun Vista purely on the fact that Vista bares a heavier load on resources and single core is how Vista should still be judged, I suspect that the majority of the typical home user will still be using a single core machine.
Single core systems sold have dropped in price and regardless whether it's AMD or Intel a 3Ghz (or rated) CPU offers a very attractive buy for first or even second time buyers and from last January all machines were sold with Vista already installed with the exception of Dell (after consumers demanded XP - well done to Dell).
Personally I'm still running a single core AMD XP3200+ 'Barton' clocked to 2.5Ghz under water cooling, with Windows XP running on it (with a Windows ME dual boot, purely coz when I first got XP a few games as well as my scanner refused to work under XP) next time I "spring clean" and format my hard drive ME will be leaving and Linux will be introduced. I tried a Linux install last time but I partitioned my hard drive wrongly as I was a Linux newbie and I didn't need to create a dedicated Linux partition as it would create it's own from one of the others I selected).
Hardware upgrade wise I'm waiting for the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year as it seems another step will be taken regarding CPUs, we all know Intel have been holding back due to the lack of real competition in the dual/quad core market, so I thought there's no real need to upgrade just yet, as soon as AMD start closing the gap Intel have capacity to blow them away again. My XP3200+ still does what I ask of it, the only thing I am pushed for is in the graphics department but I'm not going to upgrade on an AGP platform when ePCI is what all new mobos come equiped with, it would be just a waste of money.
If you have the option, in my opinion forget Vista and hang on for the Vienna/7 platform.