Slashdot Mirror
Windows Vista From A Gamer's Perspective
mybrainonfire writes "1UP has an article looking at Microsoft Vista and its implications not only as an operating system as a whole, but what it means for gaming, based on a recent visit to Microsoft. 'According to the Microsoft message: Windows games is becoming a big priority. A study done among thousands of users determined that 35% of people use the PC for Web surfing, 18% use it for games and everything else is an also-ran. The next biggest thing, email, is only 9.2%. This gave Microsoft the boot in the proverbial ass to get back to its PC gaming roots.' It's a little rambley, but it's an interesting take on what to expect whenever Microsoft stops delaying things."
The XboX killed PC gaming. MS did it to themselves.
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FTFA: "X360 controllers working on the PC is just frosting."
I can't see that. This is potentially huge. We can finally get beat-em-ups, platformers and several other genres on PC, where they've been pretty scarce before. If it's taken up by developers it means I won't need a console again, and can go back to just having one box.
Of course, Microsoft isn't that likely to marginalise the console industry now it's a player in it, so there must be some kind of catch.
P.S. yes, I already have a USB doodad for using my controllers on my PC. What I don't have is a PC version of Tekken 4 or Super Monkey Ball.
Slashdot - Mutual Assured Discussion
Some of the nifty new features of Vista that might not go over so well with gamers:
1. Restricted user mode. This is already available on XP, Vista just makes the transition easier. The problem is that virtually every game makes this useless. Thanks to the incredible distrust of their market, PC game makers require players to allow their games to run as Admin, and don't apologize when remote exploits in their netcode appear two days after release. So basically, this is worthless.
2. New shiny interface. The shine lasts for all of about 30 seconds while you're not playing games. After that, every game out there takes the whole screen and re-invents the entire user interface. I'd wager that a number of gamers may simply attempt to turn back the wheels of time, back to the generally familiar win98 style, as they did for XP.
3. 64bit. I hope the fundamental reason for this change is a long ways off. The largest hurdle is owning a 64 bit processor. Despite AMD having a 64bit line promoted as a gamer's system for some time, Intel's (much larger) side has only just begun. The other big hurdle is device driver support. When switching to 64bit for the performance, you need your drivers to have the extra 32 bits as well. To make matters worse, some games don't work well on a 64bit OS, or sometimes copy protection kicks in when it shouldn't.
4. DirectX 10. Not sure what extras they plan to add, but it will probably include me buying a new video card. Sucky.
While one and three are largely the fault of game makers, part of Microsoft's task here is to reign them in, however possible. Aside from increased performance for free, the one thing I think gamers everywhere could appreciate is an enforced security model that finally curbs the tide of spyware and popups. Nothing like missing a sniper shot because some dipshit program would really like to let you know about online degrees from the university of phoenix!
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Open Source Sysadmin
One of the better ideas for Vista that's been thrown around a lot is for Windows to unload unneeded parts of the OS when a game runs. And you can even customize what it keeps loaded and unloads, so you can get rid of your anti-virus program while playing CS but keep your firewall running. Certainly took long enough.
I've been curious about this.. Will Vista's new 3d accelerated gui allow for faster or even instant alt+tabbing? i was thinking if everything is just texture mapped polygons (at least thats my understanding of the new gui) then the desktop could quickly be brought to the front, instead of taking forever to load up like usual. I know resolution changes are a factor too, but that delay seems relatively negligible.
Well, if you put it that way... yes.
Microsoft has enough resources to cater for every market segment it wants to be involved in.
There's absolutely no doubt in saying that Linux has always needed an answer to Windows gaming. Windows gaming is, as I see it, the biggest obstacle to mass market adoption of Linux. Linux does everything I could ever ask for... except game as well as Windows.
OS X... The Mac is now directly targetting the Linux niche market - everyone who has a PC but doesn't want to run Windows, the answer is no longer Linux, it's OS X. Steve Jobs has never been seen as an advocate of gaming, otherwise there would have been a bigger push on making the Mac a dedicated gaming machine. This could be a bit of a shortcoming given the huge surge in gaming in the general populace that has taken hold over the last decade.
So I'm not sure what Mr AC is trying to say between the lines, but yes. MS is more gaming oriented than Linux or Mac. This seems like a very intelligent strategy given the proportion of gamers out there, allowing MS to outcompete Linux and Mac in that market.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.