Bulky System Requirements for Windows Vista

unsurreal writes ""A Tech Strategist within Microsoft, Nigel Page, has gone on record to discuss the hardware requirements for Windows Vista, due out next Christmas." The next year is going to be an interesting one as hardware vendors smile towards the shocking new recommended hardware needed for the next generation Windows operating system." From the article: "Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships." Coverage available at Tom's Hardware as well, with a semi-transcript at Tech Ed.

Comments

Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

For any other company sysreqs this high with such a small increase in functionality would be suicide.

Blizzard could make an operating system that had lower sysreqs and decent graphics capabilities. And people would love it for saying, "Zug Zug."

Hopefully it's a nail in their home-desktop coffins that suddenly you can't put their OS on a machine that costs 600$, but somehow I doubt it. Xbox 360 for what most people currently use a home PC for, Vista for everything else.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[CDMA_Demo]

I think people getting ready to do some M$ bashing should look into the past and go over microsoft's releases. When they released NT, windows 95, 98, 2000, xp they always went for the median hardware configuration of the upcoming 6 to 10 years. That is part of the reason you could run windows XP on a 32MB Pentium-II (I've done it, and it chugs along just fine, enough to run a browser for surfing and playing flash games).

From the article: 2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB. Nigel mentions DDR3 - which is a little odd, since the roadmap for DDR3, on Intel gear at least, doesn't really kick in until 2007. Unlike Linux, windows is not under released constantly for free, so M$ releases snapshots of Windows: in 95, 97, 98, 99, 2000 etc. Such foresight is good in many ways, I mean how many features that Vista has are currently available in Linux distros? Maybe we don't need them, or maybe Linux developers haven't developed such good relations with hardware companies yet.

Now, for the XBox 360 issue, you should know (if you are interested in further scrutiny) that it uses IBM Power PC chips (similar to those used in Apple G5). Add a couple of perks to that architecture and remove some and it seems that 360 isn't that badly priced at all. I'd like to see the people trashing 360 show similar zeal in ridiculing the PS3 which ironically isn't all that different (except for its cell architecture) and could be priced in the same bracket as the 360.

Please continue wanking...

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[KillShill]

hardly.

have you seen current 600 dollar pcs?

they far outclass the 600 dollar mac mini and those run tiger.

by the time vista ships, 600 bucks will buy you a lot more power than you "need" to run vista.

if you turn off the eye-candy , it'll run as well as xp does today.

you have it wrong, hardware requirements are not a good reason not to get vista. there are much better reasons not to get it, like the massive DRM and financially supporting ms, which is as good reason as any.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Harbinjer]

While the PowerPC chips in the Xbox 360 may be similar in instruction set to the G5, the chips are VERY different. It uses only in-order instruction execution, and not out-of-order, which has been standard(for powerful CPU's) since at least the Pentium Pro(?) era, excepting the Itanium, which has the compiler do the OOO scheduling.

The XBox 360 has 3 very small and rather simple PowerPC cores, and the Cell uses 1 such core, and the 7(?) SPU's along with it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[CDMA_Demo]

I agree, but the requirements for a G5 cpu are different from those in the 360, and I stressed that M$ has removed some perks. Infact, the older Xbox cpu is more efficient for the very reasons you mentioned as it uses a pentium. Your facts are correct, but they justify the pricing of XBox 360 nevertheless. As far as the PS3 is concerned, the facts are here: cell.scei.co.jp and IBM's Overview

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jason1729]

Let's see a link to a $600 SFF PC that far outclasses the mac mini.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

if you turn off the eye-candy , it'll run as well as xp does today.

Vista is nearly all eye-candy, if you strip off the eye-candy, all you have is XP with staggering DRM.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Tim C]

Hang on.

However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.

64bit data is double the size of 32bit data? Just installing a 64bit version of an OS doubles your RAM requirements compared to the 32bit version?

Since when?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

I never trashed the 360, I figure it's just a much more highly controlled version of a PC. Developing GAMES for it might be a pain in the tail but developing basic applications might be quite easy - and all the basic applications could be mere ports from normal x860-based MS applications. Hence MS is catering heavily with Vista to the hardware producers of the world while *extremely rude expletives deleted* them by simply changing the market and attempting to make them niche and therefore obsolete. Remember, they want domination of the living room - and they can get it by expanding what can be done in the living room. Hence if you can do word processing, financial management, e-mail, web browsing, and music playing with your TV, you don't NEED a computer, you just by a 360, and eventually all the upsells that can imply.

Now, as to the hardware advancement. Anyone without complete market dominance can't really depend on being the default install for every computer shipped. They have to compete. Unfortunately, competition has been removed to such an extent for M$ that regardless of how onerous they make the burden upon manufacturers of desktops, they will be the default install on 90% of all shipped computers for the next 2 years minimum. Anyone entering the OS market would work very hard to get others to re-install on top of their old install, by adding functionality. Vista? Functionality? Yeah, they say virus and privacy protection will be less effort intensive, but it's mildly unlikely this will ever be true in my book.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[jackbird]

Plus crippled openGL. Those who use windows based DCC applications like 3D animation software are pretty nervous.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[jawtheshark]

Exactly what I thought. This guy deserves at least +1 Insighful. Anybody who knows about technology knows that such things are not bound (except for the maximum amount addressable, but 4Gigs on 32-bit desktop systems aren't the common even today)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[madprof]

This is an inaccurate post in certain ways I am afraid.
You cannot meaningfully talk about a "median" hardware platform over a 6-10 year time scale. That's at least 2 upgrade cycles in duration.
When I ran XP the first time I checked to see how much RAM it was using and it was over 64MB without anything else loaded up.
That's wasn't criminal on its release date and it doesn't tally with (assuming the hyperbole of reports is accurate) Vista requiring high-end hardware on release.

I am also baffled as to how Vista's alleged requirement for powerful hardware is at all 'foresight'. Of course it'll run better on faster hardware, everything does.

Here's a prediction - Vista will not require the massive resources people are fearing to run that well. At least you'll be able to buy a reasonably-priced PC that can cope fine.
Anything else would be commercially inept.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[toddestan]

Let's see a link to a $600 SFF PC that far outclasses the mac mini.

We all know that the Mac Mini is pretty much the most powerful computer you can buy in a package that small, so you Mac zealots can put that tired old line to rest.

However, for some people, size really doesn't matter that much. It's pretty much a fact that you can buy a heck of a lot more computer for the money if you don't mind it being the size of a breadbox rather than the size of a standard CD drive. And then there are some people who actually do like things like extra drive bays and PCI slots.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[geekoid]

why would we buy an OS when we have to turn off the only things in it that's an improvement?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Bastian]

And then there are some people who actually do like things like extra drive bays and PCI slots.

Of course, the number of those people who are also interested in getting a very cheap computer is so small as to be insignificant when pulled from Apple's already tiny market share.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Fungus King]

Who's going to turn off the eye candy though? Experience tells me that without hardware acceleration and all the fancy graphics options off Windows XP and 2003 have terrible looking fonts (as an example) and even scrolling in explorer feels _really_ sluggish. Not to mention the fact that ability to play games, etc is gone.

If Vista is to pass more of the work to the GPU then surely it'll be worse, logically? I've seen people say that Windows Vista is both far slower than XP, others have said faster - I'd like to know who are the ones with the beastly graphics cards, really.

I'll agree with you on the DRM though, it's one of the many reasons I'll stick with Ubuntu on my main machine - I've survived perfectly fine for the last 6 months doing all my work on it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[zbuffered]

la la la la la

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

oooh teh nanosaur is teh funz0rz

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Rakshasa Taisab]

It does when Microsoft implements the 64bit OS.

64bit _code_ is usually 15% larger than 32bit, and I'd expect the larger address pointers to require comparable increase in the amount of memory for data structures.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[killkillkill]

by the time vista ships, 600 bucks will buy you a lot more power than you "need" to run vista.

With as many delays as I expect, $600 might get you a nice petaflop system

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[smiffy1976]

Win XP with 32MB does not 'chug along', unless you mean the HDD. 64MB is OK, anything less is painful...

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[dreamchaser]

He didn't say anything about it being a SFF PC. He just said (correctly) that a $600 PC can outperform a Mac Mini.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[sqrt(2)]

XP Pro - Bittorent - 0$
MS Office 2003 - Bittorent - 0$
Every game you can think of - Bittorent - 0$

Total - 0$

Oh, and there are open source alternatives to most of the programs you mentioned, and some of them function better than their Apple equivalent.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

Xbox 360 for what most people currently use a home PC for, Vista for everything else.

If you ever stepped away from the PC and geek news sources, you'd quickly discovers that sales of the original Xbox are a fraction of PS2's sales, and that sales of the Xbox 360 will likely be even lower thanks to everybody waiting for PS3's release a few months later and people assuming that Killzone 2 is in-game footage.

It really boggles the mind sometimes. I frequent all sorts of geek news sites and gaming sites. Why is Slashdot so obsessed with the Xbox platform? I mean, ok, it's made by Microsoft, and therefore it's an automatic topic of discussion because computer geeks care a great deal more about Microsoft than Sony or Nintendo. But, let's be honest here, Microsoft's console had negligible impact on the gaming market, much less the computer geekary audience as a whole. Why do the Slashdot horde continually bring up this second tier gaming platform as if the Xbox is synonymous with console gaming? It ain't, PS2 is. And a year from now, PS3 will be.

Hopefully I won't be modded down too bad for this, but just in case, let me end on this: I do not own either a PS2 or an Xbox.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[KarmaMB84]

Memory addresses, but 2x the RAM is or should be (it's MS) way off...

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[blackicye]

I recently installed Win XP on a customer's old PC.

HP Pavillion P3-600, with 64MB PC100 SDRAM, 20GB HDD.

Describing its performance as "Chugging along" is far too generous.

Honestly I don't think anything less than a 1Ghz processor and 256MB of RAM will run XP at a speed approaching "chugging along."

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[malfunct]

What you will find is that over the next year there will be a number of sub $100 mainstream graphics solutions that will nicely run vista. In fact you will also see a number of integrated graphics solutions that will also nicely run vista.

That said, from everything I've heard vista will run on much less hardware but won't have the eye candy activated.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[blackicye]

Lets see a mac mini outclass a $600 X86 PC of any form factor.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[blackicye]

Why in the world would you want to disable hardware acceleration?

XP runs noticeably faster with the "fancy graphics" options disabled. I don't see the point to animated sliding windows, shadows under menus, fade effects.

It shouldn't slow down explorer at all, and should in fact speed it up.

All you need to do if you're an LCD user to improve your fonts is to turn Cleartype on, unless you have a low quality LCD in which case you can't really do anything short of replacing it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Doctor_Jest]

So basically "without all the eye candy" means "XP". :)

It's a joke.... laugh. :-)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[gutnor]

Meaning next year,

we will find 600$ pc with 2 Gb RAM, a 256+ Video Card, XX Ghz CPU, ...

All that to make Vista run at the same speed than XP today.

I can't wait!

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[DrCode]

I was just PC-shopping, and saw quite a few $600 PC's. While most under-$1000 PC's use on-board Intel graphics, there's a big 'gotcha' in the $600 range: No AGP or PCI-Express slot!

A lot of people buying in this range could get a nasty surprise if they find they have a need for a better graphics-controller.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Laurance]

With this kind of hardware needed to run Vista, I do not think that the Macintosh will seem as expensive when you need a 700 dollar PC just to run the latest OS and Office 12.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[clifforch]

Except for the fact that Vista won't be a pure 64 bit OS, not unless MS want to restrict it to AMD64 and EMT64 systems anyway.

Otherwise all the ordinary joes out there with a decent (sysreq above 1GHz + 512MB + ~64 MB Dx8 Compatible graphics card.) might aswell stop worrying about it and just stick with w2k/xp

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know that the Mac Mini is pretty much the most powerful computer you can buy in a package that small, so you Mac zealots can put that tired old line to rest.

What about laptops?

Laptops include a screen, keyboard, and battery so I'd say they're more compact than a mac mini.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Gilgaron]

XP tailors how much RAM it will use depending on how much you have. Having used XP with 256 MB through 1 GB of RAM, it usually stays at about a third of your available RAM.

I agree that Vista will almost certainly run on lower specs than people fear, but since the only reason most will upgrade is eye candy, they may have to splurge if they want it all turned on.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Gilgaron]

I think it depends on age bracket. Most of my compatriots in their lower twenties play XBox console games. Later twenties seem to prefer PS2.

Nintendo was the top dog not long ago, and then megacorp Sony took the reigns. I wouldn't overestimate market stability.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Guy.Gregory]

640k should be enough for anybody.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[KillShill]

that's true but you know what "designed for windows vista" logos are for.

all manufacturers are gearing up to produce "vista hardware". even intel's exxxxtreme, which almost shames s3 virge, are being upgraded to full dx9.

yeah, current pcs in the 600 dollar range are lacking in the gfx dept but the other parts are more than enough. plus most computers around now have at least an agp slot which could be fitted with a low end (todays high end) 256M ati/nvidia card.

this is the least expensive windows upgrade in history, relatively speaking in terms of hardware. it's the single most expensive windows "upgrade" in history due to the RIAA/MPAA brand OS being written by MS. buying a new monitor to view "content", what the hell are they thinking?! and let's not even start with Insidious Computing. that goes much farther than just videos. what's the saying... once they get their foot in the door, it's over. (don't quote me on that). every industry is going to want a piece of their computer, eventually. i said their because they'll mandate that your resources belong to them just by virtue of running a product of theirs on it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[KillShill]

which is a good reason not to buy it.

more over, you'll be helping give DRM and its cohorts an earlier death (hopefully).

maybe if it hurts MS financially... they might become a bit less anti-customer... wishfull thinking but still.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

Your demographics breakdown by age is ridiculous.

As for your second point, the market isn't as unstable as you think. There are very obvious historical reasons for why Sony is now the number one console (across all ages), and that is because the PS1 was the first affordable 3D console with a game library that was significantly different from Nintendo's or Sega's offerings. Microsoft has, and will continue to have, a console whose hardware capabilities are easily comparable to the competition, and whose game library is, by and large, exactly the same... minus the exclusives that Sony has secured.

In other words, Sony is #1 because it was in the right place at the right time. In contrast, Microsoft entered the picture as "yet another console", and that's where it'll remain. It's consoles will never be dominating in the market. If anything is to happen, it'll simply be that the three major players will each come closer to their competition in terms of sales and penetration, which is the opposite of what happened in the mid 90s when everyone but Sony nearly got wiped out (Nintendo barely survived, and Sega perished a few years later).

And sorry for going so far off topic from the original discussion here.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Lumpy]

dude get a clue.

do you realize that the bulk of the pc's out there are P-III 866 or less? there still is a HUGE userbase of windows 98? Most people call their home pc "good enough". you do not need more than Windows 98 or 2000 on a P-III 550 with 256 meg of ram and NO 3d video card to go online, run that stolen copy of office 97 from the office, use tax-cut once a year and read email. those items cover 90% of all computer uses in the typical home.

Dont believe me? go house shopping. 9 out of 10 homes have a really stinking old PC. Hell I still see OKI dot matrix printers at people's houses once in a while, and I'm shopping the $200,000.00 price mark in michigan where that is considered a really nice house. (as opposed to the one room crapshack in da hood you would get in San Fransisco for that price)

People are not buying new pc's. Most will not upgrade until they buy a program they need and it will not run or refuses to install.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

It wouldn't actually double the amount of memory used, but padding for byte alignment can eat up quite a lot. Depends on how your code is structured, a program with lots of small variables would show this effect much more strongly than one that deals with large arrays (or carves off a hunk of memory and manages it manually).

I'm always surprised by the number of coders that will declare variables as short to "save memory". Declaring variables at less than word size is strictly useful for disk/wire compatibility, and then only with the appropriate pack pragmas.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jace of Fuse!]

(Nintendo barely survived, and Sega perished a few years later).

You were doing so well right up till this point.

Nintendo has never been and still is not in any danger of going anywhere. At any given time all of their supported platforms have many spots in the top 10 selling titles on the platform-wide charts. Their largest first party titles sell nearly as many copies as the most of even the best chart-busters on the other platforms.

Nintendo can sell less cubes than Microsoft sells boxes, and Nintendo is still shoving a flaming foot of victory right up Microsoft's ass because their volume of first party sales is so high.

To illustrate the point, take Halo for example. Nearly all XBox owners bought Halo 1 and Halo 2. Very few other titles on the XBox have enjoyed that kind of success. On the Gamecube, the list of chart-busting first party titles that sold to nearly anyone seriously playing their cube isn't limited to Metroid Prime 1 and 2. There's also Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Smash Brothers, Starfox Assault, Mario Party, Double Dash, and so on. Keep in mind these are all Nintendo branded titles.

The situation was very similar on the N64 as well. It's just a basic fact that Nintendo has always relied very heavily on it's first party titles and has profited very handsomely as a result.

Nintendo didn't just barely survive. Nintendo has been doing exceptionally well. The falling value of the Yen the past few years has hurt Nintendo much worse than sales have.

Just because the numbers don't make it out to appear as if Nintendo is doing just fine doesn't mean it isn't the case. Microsoft continues to just piss away sewers full of money on the XBox, and many believe this will continue to be the case with the 360.

In the worst case scenerio that the falling support for the Cube will carry over into the Revolution, that doesn't change the fact that Nintendo still owns the handheld market.

Despite Sony's claims to the contrary, the GBA still dominates, and the DS is fat and happy with stellar sales. (Though I honestly wish I understood how Nintendogs has become so popular....)

There's also one other thing to remember.

Practically every Gamecube player is still waiting for Twilight Princess, delayed though it may be.

If the Xbox is lucky, it MIGHT see one last huge seller before the 360 replaces it. Don't count on it, though.

(BTW - DC, PS2, XBox, GC, GBA, DS, PSP... Yes, I got'em all...)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[HTTP Error 403 403.9]

XP Pro - Bittorent - 0$
MS Office 2003 - Bittorent - 0$
Every game you can think of - Bittorent - 0$

Total - 0$

Hell, why stop there. Get a brick and a pair sneakers and that Overdrive PC sitting in the shop window is yours. Don't forget to steal a Das Keyboard.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Caeda]

"No AGP or PCI-Express slot!" What the hell did you look at, a dell? We sell 3 brands of computers for $600 or less at work. Even the college special at $427 has a label on the box proclaiming one free PCI Express slot for upgrades.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[iphitus]

Turn off the eye candy, and you have the new Windows XP DRM Edition. Not many people have taken notice of HDCP, but I am sure they will when their videos are playing at a lower resolution. Few monitors out there support it, if any.

What I find most intruiging about the high requirements needed, is that they are elminating most of their upgrade base. Few computers out there now, will happily, easily and smoothly run Vista upon it's release. Some will run it, but that's like trying to play Doom 3 on integrated graphics.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[madprof]

Interesting. I only had 128MB when I first got XP and now XP uses 96MB when first started and all applications closed down yet I have 6 times that amount now.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[laffer1]

Yeah and most lamers buy dell, hp/compaq or gateway/emachine. Many of these machines do not have an AGP or PCI express slot. I've actually used this to convert people to macs. Even an ibook has a radeon 9200. I think the new mac minis ship with 9550's...

Intel's graphic chipsets hurt the pc business. I think all computers should be able to play games. Gaming pcs are a ripoff and companies that make games don't go for the lowest (intel) common denominator. Dumb people pay for "pentium" but they get a computer that can't even run WoW without skipping and lack of textures. I know someone in my et clan that can't play because their brand new emachine can't get 15fps in Enemy territory which is a quake 3 engine game!

Remember, Microsoft must throw in tons of eye candy to compete with Apple. Its what Microsoft perceives apple has. Its not the usability of the Mac, just the eye candy. Windows 95 surpassed Mac OS 6/7 in appearance and Microsoft had a huge ride from that for over 5 years.

Do you work for a retailer or just a computer shop? Real computer shops sometimes throw in motherboards that don't suck for expansion. Go into best buy or circuity city and ask them what computers have AGP or PCI Express expansion. Most sales people will look at you and go "huh"? So step 1 is to train lamers to ask and step 2 is to find salespeople with a clue.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

XP is nearly all eye-candy, if you strip that, you get Windows 2000.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Luddite]

XP Pro - Bittorent - 0$
MS Office 2003 - Bittorent - 0$
Every game you can think of - Bittorent - 0$

Total - 0$

I find it amusing that your sig is slamming "steam".

Do you suppose there is a correlation between ripping of every f*cking piece of software you can and software companies creating intrusive systems to prevent piracy?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Ed Bugg]

64bit data is double the size of 32bit data? Just installing a 64bit version of an OS doubles your RAM requirements compared to the 32bit version?

And the last time you wrote a program did you just say int or uint32? I highly doubt that majority of programs specified the size of their memory requirements and just let the normal word size of the platform dictate it for them.

With the majority of the structures using the default word size, going from 4 to 8 bytes is going to increase those memory requirements.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Breakfast Pants]

Anything that uses a lot of pointers to very small chunks of data will have an increase. A 2x increase in memory usage? Maybe if your program is just pointers to pointers to pointers.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[bubkus_jones]

Isn't XP basically Win2k with a bunch of eye candy?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

64 megs for Windows XP? I don't think so. I recently bought a computer with Windows XP. I uninstalled all of the crap programs that came with it, and even before I installed antivirus and anti-ad software, Windows XP was sucking up 160 MB of the 256 MB installed.

Opening up a web browser, an email client and running antivirus software brought the memory requirements up to 240 MB - effectively using almost all available memory.

Don't tell me XP isn't a memory hog. 512 MB is a minimum requirement for this OS which is 3+ years old, to avoid memory mapping to the hard drive. So a new Windows OS to be released 4-5 years later is going to require 2 GB? Thats probably a conservative estimate, not a bloated one.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[cbiltcliffe]

Well...eye candy, and a bunch of phone-home-to-Microsoft shit.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

You're right, of course. However, I was talking about hardware sales more than software. The reason that Nintendo is financially strong is because EVERYONE who buys a Nintendo console is doing so because they want to play Nintendo GAMES. Even non-hardcore, casual gamers who don't subscribe to magazines and don't read internet gaming message boards or websites are buying Nintendo consoles because they want to play Nintendo games, above anything else. Xbox owners don't really care about Microsoft games, and PS2 owners don't really care about Sony games. Exceptions like Halo are not dependant on who made those games, they're just good and popular games. Nintendo's games are the only games that sell BECAUSE they're Nintendo's games.

Having said that, there aren't nearly as many gamers with Nintendo hardware as there are people with Sony hardware, therefore the market of any particular non-handheld Nintendo console is substantially smaller (obviously mostly for third party games), which is the only thing I took into consideration when I made the point about Nintendo suffering.

Going back to my original point, Microsoft's consoles (Xbox and Xbox 360) are in basically the same exact position where Nintendo's consoles are, only WITHOUT any kind of brand loyalty WHATSOEVER. For this reason, anyone who talks about any Microsoft gaming platforms as industry leaders or uses the term "Xbox" as a synonym for "console" is wildly out of touch with reality.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Gilgaron]

I don't trim back the fat too much, so I suppose what I've been seeing may be it managing the RAM usage of the applications along with itself.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Ravatar]

I was able to keep a straight face until he said Das Keyboard. Nice post.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[lidocaineus]

You hear that? That's the sound of humor buzzing around your head, just out of reach.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ThaFooz]

have you seen current 600 dollar pcs?
they far outclass the 600 dollar mac mini and those run tiger.

The current 600 dollar PC's are bottom of the barrel parts in custom motheboards and cases. CPU clock speeds != quality, nor to they guarentee greater overall performance. Besides, I'd take OSX over Windows in a heartbeat. Gaming aside, I can't think of a single thing Windows does better than OSX.

you have it wrong, hardware requirements are not a good reason not to get vista. there are much better reasons not to get it, like the massive DRM and financially supporting ms, which is as good reason as any.

I know how much slashdotters love to rag on MS for not including Monad and WinFS - but the reality is that very few desktop users care (I couldn't care either, I have little need for a poorly implemented bash shell and bloated file system). Vista fixes the two of the most common complaints with XP: the vunerability to spyware (by implementing, to some extent, the 30-year old UNIX concept of least permissions), and the boring and unintuitive GUI (with Aero).

If it makes my counter-strike machine that much more plesant to use, and that much harder for the girlfriend to break, I'll probably pick it up. Of course, I said I'd probably pick up Tiger too - but so far it hasn't proven to be enough of an improvement over Panther to warrant $125. If the linux desktop ever gets there, I'll put it on all of my machines instead of just the server... but that's another story.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[SCVirus]

You've never heard of WinCraft?

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[xgamer04]

Gaming aside, I can't think of a single thing Windows does better than OSX.

I can:

-Hassling you about security settings that should be taken care of by the OS.
-Forcing the download of new anti-piracy measures every few months that are cracked overnight.
-Changing settings whenever it feels like it.
-Forcing power-users to download tons of basic utilities because the supplied ones are crap.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[pwnage]

$200K won't even buy a crapshack.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Solosoft]

I have a 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Plus 91 and I noticed that the fonts look alot nicer if you mess around with The Cleartype Powertoy". It lets you set your cleartype fonts to what your screen needs. Im on a CRT and I noticed that my fonts where considerably easier to read.

Check it out, even if you own a CRT

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's consoles (Xbox and Xbox 360) are in basically the same exact position where Nintendo's consoles are, only WITHOUT any kind of brand loyalty WHATSOEVER.

Oh there are plenty of fanboys out there if you go looking.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Hurricane78]

> Don't forget to steal a Das Keyboard.

Baaad german! It's: "die Tastatur". ;P

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[AvitarX]

Good thing AMD thought of that and kept the old deafault (I really think I read this, but could be wrong).

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jason1729]

*most* PC laptops aren't as powerful as a mac mini. They have crapy low end CPUs that make a 1.42 GHz G4 look blazingly fast.

Also, I have a 12" powerbook which is tiny as laptops go, and if you say laptops are more compact that a mac mini, you haven't seen a mac mini.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[AvitarX]

The photo printing in XP is quite nice.

There were a couple of other little nice touches too, but I forget them. What I really want though is "network Neighborhood" back.

ahh, grouping tasks is nice too, but theres is far inferior to KDE and weeker than BeOS too. Good Wireless browser in SP2. I am sure there are some other non eye-candy improvements too, but I can't think of them when so drunk.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jason1729]

Any form factor?

Okay, you put a $600 X86 PC in a 6.5x6.5x2" box (including optical drive and wifi) and we'll do our speed test.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Jason1729]

I'd say he gotr the humor perfectly. That sig with that post is a great example of irony.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[JollyFinn]

Lets give it some perspective. I was using about 128+256MB of ram with my normal usage patterns on my old computer with debian. My new computer with AMD64 support and 512MB of ram swapped all the time with similar usage patters the OS was fedora in that case. What was wrong that resulted the issue.
First things first, the shared libraries and below the surface grow over time. Another issue is that I have multiple versions of shared libraries on memory all the time. 32bit and 64bit versions. On microsoft world that alone should bring 100's MB for additional memory requirements for speedy usage Then there is increased size of pointers, and increased code on AMD64.
Consider this you are running two sets of shared libraries in memory when running with both 32bit and 64 bit programs at a time which is currently happening with the 64bit desktop OS:ses.
Then its the eye candy thing. The eye candy need more RAM. If microsoft made the 64bit requirements somewhat higher than 32bit requirements the end user can run with more eye candy in 64bit mode, the result is that they associate more eye candy with 64bitness.
Besides the 2GB was RECOMMENDED size for 64bit and 1GB was RECOMMENDED size for 32bit and 512MB as bare minimum. The recommendations are typicly nicely rounded numbers.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[SenorCitizen]

Even an ibook has a radeon 9200. I think the new mac minis ship with 9550's...

They don't, it's the other way around -- Mini has a 9200, iBook a 9550.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Mugros]

> Blizzard could make an operating system that had lower sysreqs and decent graphics capabilities.

You are not talking about Blizzard who made Diablo 2, are you? This 2D game that run awfully slow and choppy on powerful hardware and that was restricted to low resolutions to cover the incapabilities of the programmers.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[myukew]

where were you shopping?! you can build a system for 500$ with a sempron, agp and a better-than-onboard graphics card (including monitor and input devices!). I doubt prebuild boxes are so much weaker than self assembled ones

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[myukew]

PC CHIPS M860 Socket 754 VIA K8T800 ATX AMD Motherboard $44.99
AMD Sempron 64 2500+ Palermo 800MHz FSB Socket 754 Processor Model SDA2500BXBOX $59.00
GIGABYTE GV-N62128DE Geforce 6200 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card $63.00
Rosewill 512MB (2 x 256MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model RW400/512KITSP $43.99
Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive $51.75
JUST PC JPC07P4 Beige Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply $19.99
Rosewill Gray IDE CD Burner Model RR-521S $19.99
3G Technology GM-171B Black 17" 16ms LCD Monitor $239.99
Logitech Cordless Desktop Optical Black RF Wireless Keyboard, + Speakers $24.95

=$567.65

(all prices: newegg.com)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ModMeFlamebait]

And the last time you wrote a program did you just say int or uint32? I highly doubt that majority of programs specified the size of their memory requirements and just let the normal word size of the platform dictate it for them.

With the majority of the structures using the default word size, going from 4 to 8 bytes is going to increase those memory requirements.

sizeof(int) is 32 bits both on ia32 and amd64, using gcc at least.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[jsebrech]

However, for some people, size really doesn't matter that much. It's pretty much a fact that you can buy a heck of a lot more computer for the money if you don't mind it being the size of a breadbox rather than the size of a standard CD drive. And then there are some people who actually do like things like extra drive bays and PCI slots.

The size is indeed not that relevant. It could have been standard form factor and my purchasing decision to get one would not have been affected.

I disagree on the value of extensibility though. Apart from the graphics hardware I can't think of a thing I can't hook up to the firewire or usb slots that I might need at some point.

But, you forgot about the most important differentiator from cheap intel pc's. Noise. Or the lack thereof. Cheap wintel machines are noisy. The mini is quiet. It may not matter to you, but it matters a lot to me (my hearing is undamaged because I never listened to loud music).

I've owned several systems that gave me headaches after sitting behind them too long from the noise. The mini is so quiet I never turn it off, even though it is in my bedroom.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Mac Degger]

How little you seem to know of console history. Nintendo used to be the only game in town, just like Sony was with the PS1 (which took over from Sega...remember them?). Xbox, whilst still just second largest, has surpassed the 'Cube. History shows that the console world IS in constant turmoil, generation after generation.

MS's xbox (sad to say, really, for it's a totally un-inovative console) has sold rather well; beyond expectations, and well enough to make xbox360 a very viable platform. Sales figures of the PS2 vs the xbox show that the xbox is very compettitive in the US (worldwide not so, though, but beware: MS is working on that).

BTW: the first 3d console was the 3DO, followed by the N64. And it isn't for that reason why the PS1 did so well: it's not even the hardware, or even the software library (which was non-existant when it got released, because it was in the position the xbox was in when it got released: there was nothing to be backwards compatible /with/): the PS1 did so well well because of the advertising campaign, which legitimised gaming over a broad section of ages. More people thought that they could get away with having a console, and that they didn't have to 'grow out of it'. That's why the PS1 did so well...it actually expanded the market for consoles.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Gilmoure]

Don't most MS OS sales come from new computer/OEM sales and not people upgrading their systems? The entire readership of Slashdot could boycot Vista and MS's sales numbers would still be outstanding. You know Dell and co. are all drooling about new hardware sales. Finally, MS Bloat has given them a reason for them.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[madprof]

You obviously have some sort of issue because right now it will use 96MB after I have booted up and then closed down all my normal apps.
You uninstalled applications but this doesn't mean there were not others still insatalled and running.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[mvdwege]

I know how much slashdotters love to rag on MS for not including Monad and WinFS - but the reality is that very few desktop users care [...]

People rightly rag on MS for that, because before dropping them MS presented these features as Unique Selling Points for what was then called Longhorn.

Vista fixes the two of the most common complaints with XP: the vunerability to spyware (by implementing, to some extent, the 30-year old UNIX concept of least permissions)

And even that is implemented in such a half-assed fashion that most software, probably including MS' own, will still require full admin privs to run. For one, they are including a database for old applications, granting them full admin privileges silently, if I read the MSDN article correctly. Secondly, the implementation is bass-ackwards: instead of making it easier to run specific applications with elevated privileges from a limited user account, they are implementing a system making it easier to run limited applications under an administrator-level account. In other words, the default assumption is still going to be an elevated-privileges account.

And how strong an incentive to write least-privilege code is this all going to be for third-party developers?

Mart

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ovit]

Their are 1 room crap shacks in SF available for 200,000! Whoa...

        ovit

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Diablo 2 was a mildly lame implementation job, I'll agree with that.

However, it stands out as being so; you've got WoW, the Warcrafts, and Starcraft on the other side and they all are highly impressive from what I gather - I only gather that about WoW and WCIII instead of KNOW because I absolutely refuse to get sucked into another video game, of course.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[RoLi]

Actually XBox sales were only about half of what Microsoft expected. But all of the sudden this dysmal failure has been turned into a big success by the marketing department.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[indifferent children]

Does the 64-bit architecture, or the M$ OS, or the M$ compiler require that all data elements be aligned on 64-bit boundries? If so, then any program that uses small (~32-bit) data elements (variables) will also double it's memory usage.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[RoLi]

MS's xbox (sad to say, really, for it's a totally un-inovative console) has sold rather well; beyond expectations,

Wrong, they sold less than half as many as expected, at least during the first year - after that Microsoft stopped posting sales expectations.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[smiffy1976]

Yeah, what I meant was that 64Mb is pretty much the minimum but I only tried it pre-SP2. I'm not saying I'd want to use that config - 512MB is really what is required for a smooth experience. I built a Celeron 800 with 192MB running XP for my Dad, and it's pretty usable.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Gilmoure]

While visiting my Dad, I wondered why his XP system was running so slow. Turned out he was still running a 533MHz PIII. WTF? A neighbor had convinced him to sell his virus laden 900MHz machine last year and buy a 'new' machine, as it would be easier than cleaning up his machine. Knowing my Dad, he went to Best Buy and was suckered. Ah well, despite my working as a tech professional for the last 15 years, he refuses to ask me for help, much less advice, concerning computers and a/v equipment. Guess some parents never realize you're an adult.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

Nintendo used to be the only game in town

Wrong. Nintendo was splitting the market with Sega.

Xbox, whilst still just second largest, has surpassed the 'Cube. History shows that the console world IS in constant turmoil, generation after generation.

The Xbox has BARELY surpassed the 'Cube, and is STILL nowhere close to where PS2 is (the latest figures I've seen say it's selling HALF as many consoles as Sony). Just what the hell is your point here? As for "history", it shows that the industry is STABILIZING. I don't know how much proof you need of this, but trends that are going into this direction have started a decade ago and are still going strong... as is the case with ANY industry. Don't expect any revolutionary change like another 2D->3D switch anytime soon. That switch was what shook up the industry. Nothing else will for many years.

BTW: the first 3d console was the 3DO, followed by the N64

I said PS1 was the first AFFORDABLE 3D console, one that had a unique, quality-filled game library (if not for this last point, I'd've said the Saturn was the first). The 3DO cost $700 and had shit games. N64 was released AFTER both the Sega Saturn and the PS1. You got your chronology mixed up.

PS1 did so well well because of the advertising campaign, which legitimised gaming over a broad section of ages.

This never happened to THIS DAY. What happened was that the kids who were buying videogames in the 80s grew older and STILL wanted to buy videogames, and Sony wisely advertised to them instead of skipping them over the way Nintendo did. At the same time, new children came of age who weren't old enough to have owned a Genesis and THEY wanted to buy videogames. This is why the market grew. Nothing was "legitimized". The people who played videogames as kids continue to play them, while Congressmen and other activists continue to believe that videogames are made for and enjoyed only by pre-teens.

But, you know, thanks for your insightful analysis. :)

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[ilyaaohell]

You just can't compare. There are less than half a dozen fanboy-inticing Xbox exclusives, like Halo. On Nintendo's consoles, EVERYTHING that Nintendo puts out is automatically embraced by the fanboy community.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[spectral]

That depends on the compiler, the architecture, the pragmas, and the variables around it. doing short,long,short (Assuming 32bit system, short=16, long=32bit) will often lead to 12 bytes of memory. doing short,short,long will fit in 8. Some systems don't give a crap about memory alignment (since there's no significant penalty for unaligned memory access) so they'll also give 8 in the first case.

Furthermore, arrays will ALWAYS be the correct size, memory alignment absolutely cannot happen, that I know of (at least in C languages). So it's not only for disk/wire compatibility.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[sqrt(2)]

Do you suppose there is a correlation between ripping of every f*cking piece of software you can and software companies creating intrusive systems to prevent piracy?

No.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[turpie]

That was the most 'insightful' comment I've read so far, and for some reason its only rated a "2".

It makes a lot more sense when you take into account the doubling up of all the library code.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Mac Degger]

True...but I was talking about industry expectations, not MS' (which due to stockholders expectations, are always overstated).

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[Mac Degger]

"Wrong. Nintendo was splitting the market with Sega."

Not really. Only the MegaDrive/Genesis ever competed with Nintendo. NES owned the market.

"The Xbox has BARELY surpassed the 'Cube,"

worldwide sales:

60 million PS2's (in 2003!...check the last link to see a rise to +_83 m. in 2005)
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zd1up/is _200401/ai_ziff117173

18.7 million Gamecubes
http://gc.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5553

20 million xbox'
http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=14 306&page=1

Check the last link for a decent comprehensive list of salesfigures. But those numbers represent the fact that a n00b sold more than an established player; but what's your point? Stability? Yeah...

"As for "history", it shows that the industry is STABILIZING."

Sure...an entirely new gamesconsole maker entering the industry and selling enough games to be able to create a second generation of it's console. If you mean stable as in 'profitable', you're right, but if you mean 'makeup of the industry', you're wrong. Plus,m the games market is still growing, it's not stable yet (stable means no growth or maybe a steady rate of growth...neither of which has happened).

"You got your chronology mixed up."

True, (by a year, too). But then again "with a game library that was significantly different from Nintendo's or Sega's offerings" (which is the point you made earlier) isn't really correct. One might try to make the point that Sony had more mature games, but that's a rather magnified claim when one looks at the actual games for each system. I might add that (as with ANY console) the ps1 was rather expensive when it was released too (especially in that year of grey imports).

"What happened was that the kids who were buying videogames in the 80s grew older and STILL wanted to buy videogames,"

That's true in a very limited way, which ignoresss the distinction between the geek/hardcore gamer and the 'casual' gamer (the one which has driven the market the past 10 years). What you say is true for just that core market, but it doesn't begin to explain the growth of the games market.
In the days of the NES/SNES/Mastersystem/Genesis, it was the hard-core, the gamers, who kept on playing games as they grew up. Not the masses, which reserved computergames for their youth and got social-pressured out of it as a hobby.
In the UK and europe, it was very definitely Sony's adds which legitimised gaming and changed it from a geeks dirty little secret to something which could be done in high end nightclubs (at the time). There is a large amount of literature on this subject, because it /was/ such an import image change which allowed the market to (for better or worse...in many hard-core gamers minds most definitely worse) grow and expand it's market to the non-geek. This and only this is the reason why the games market is larger than the movie bussiness (or more propperly and less media hyped, only if one compares the US national movie business to the worldwide games business).

Your oh-so-wittilly-snarky comment on the end tells me you really don't get the shift this last point has created for the industry. All I can say is go google (and talk to industry people, read industry commentary...shit, go read financial investment firms' commentary, as this was something HUGELY important for them.).

I enjoy a good discussion, and actually appreciate being correctee on my points (which is a great way to learn more), but don't try and be a condescending asshole about it.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[RoLi]

Wrong, MS' expectations are *understated* because they want to "beat expectations" every time.

XBox tanked big.

And with PS3 coming out *later* than XBox360, XBox360 will only be the "hot new console" for about 6 months - and PS3 will be "hot new" for several years. Together with BluRay, more controllers and support for 2 screens, I guess Microsoft will not post any sales expectations because this time it will be even worse.

Re:Almost admissable proof of monopoly.

[DrCode]

Uh... for the past 15 years, I've always built my own machines, usually for installing Linux, or, way back, OS/2. This time, I wanted a Windows machine for my wife, and I didn't want to have to mess around with Windows installation; ie, I wanted something that just works out-of-the-box. At first, I looked at the HP's because they had all the features I wanted... except for the upgradability. (And you're right about sales people rolling their eyes when you ask about PCI-E)

We ended up with a Gateway, which does have the expansion slot (and a very nice, quiet case, too).

256mb?

[chkMINUS]

Yet another reason to use linux.

Re:256mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if I'm forced to run Vista sometime down the road, I can turn off all the eye candy and then have a hidden linux box running inside the graphics card...

Re:256mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I mean if people are going to use a bloated desktop environment which requires large amounts of resources to be useable, why not go open and opt for Gnome/KDE. All that I'm saying is that for a full featured desktop with the bells and whistles some less experienced end users have come to expect, Linux isn't _that_ much more trimmed than Windows.

Re:256mb?

[thisisauniqueid]

Actually you'll need lots of memory for decent performance in gfx-accelerated Linux desktops soon too, due to the inclusion of a composite manager.

Re:256mb?

[fyoder]

Yet another reason to use linux.

Yet another reason not to upgrade from windows 2000 or XP. I read a post suggesting that the hardware requirements won't be that bad by the time it's released. Hardware requirements certainly won't be an issue by the time people are actually interested in upgrading which could be some ways down the road from the initial release.

I use and love linux, but if it gains market share it will be for reasons other than hardware requirements.

Re:256mb?

[mattyrobinson69]

option "composite" "false"

Re:256mb?

[slycer]

Well.. interestingly, yeah, it is.

One reason why - how is game performance going to be affected by the O/S requiring 256M of the GPU memory? How much does it release when you launch D3? How much *more* vid ram would you have by running linux?

Maybe it's a step for linux to be "the" viable gaming product. If you're seeing a 30fps increase just because you're using a different O/S, I think a lot of gamers will take a second look (of course it's the chicken and egg problem still)

Re:256mb?

[zeekiorage]

Looks like "A Tech Strategist within Microsoft" is talking about recommended dream machine instead of minimum requirements.

There is no way 256MB video RAM is going to be minimum. There are going to be a lot of computers with less than 256MB wanting to upgrade to Vista. Also think about laptops. How many laptops are going to have 256MB video RAM. Apple has 3D accelerated desktop now and they don't seem to need 256MB VRAM. And how many of Dell PCs are going to have "integrated 256MB Intel Extreme graphics".

512MB or even 1GB system RAM is OK again 2GB for the 64bit edition doesn't make sense. The current generation 64bit system perform about the same or just below the 32bit system on the same hardware. 64bit doesn't mean double the RAM requirements of 32bit.

SATA and AGP? Why would the OS require a specific type of hardware interface. There is hardly any noticable difference between SATA1 150 and Ultra ATA 133. Same with PCIe and AGP. The next gen SATA and PCIe devices may change this but frankly I don't see them becoming mainstream by the time Vista ships.

The alpha of Vista runs happily on current generation hardware. At a recent Tech-Ed session we were told that if you have a decent current gen graphics card Vista will actually run faster because the screen rendering has now been moved to the GPU. The entire article look like BS to me.

Re:256mb?

[Khyber]

When Linux become an OS that's simpler to install than Windows, quicker than Windows, has a clean, simple, and responsive GUI, and uses a bare minimum of resources so a person can truly get the power out of their games, THEN I can see Linux as becoming an even more viable gaming solution. Oh, and it's free too! That adds to it.

Oh, I forgot, game companies are already making Linux ports of their games. We just need the easy-to-do OS.

Re:256mb?

[KarmaMB84]

I doubt that it would continue to perform any graphics operations that weren't essential (the vast majority wouldn't be) or hold onto memory that it doesn't need (if it's not doing anything, it needs very little) when you run a 3D app.

Re:256mb?

[hixie]

All apps on Vista are 3D. Even notepad. Vista uses 3D rendering for everything. It even renders Truetype fonts into models to render text.

Re:256mb?

[mikis]

No, Mr Tech Strategist has been misinterpreted, and then misinterpreted again. Please read TFOA (the fine original article):

"The GPU will need a plenty of room to operate in Vista. The more memory you put on a video card the better really. We want the least dumping back to main memory because that's slower than graphics. If you have 128MB that's good, if you have 256MB that's better, but I expect that video card memory will go up a lot when Longhorn is released.

"Thirdly, the graphics card and system bus is essential. PCI x16 is going to be very important. Any of today's 3D GPUs will be fine... we're not waiting for some mystical monster that may or may not come out. But they need to have 128MB of RAM on it. If they've only got 64 don't panic.

"We acknowledge that many corporate notebooks have fairly low-end integrated graphics chips. They're not exactly high performance graphics systems. For those users, we will provide a classic UI that looks like XP, and then we will have Aero that will start to make use of the GPU, and then there's Aero Glass that will demand the higher level.

And about RAM and HDD:

"In a 32 bit environment, half a gig of RAM is heaps. It's going to fly. For 64 bit you're going to want 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM.

"In terms of disks, you're really going to want S-ATA 2hard drives with NCQ capability because it gives the OS the ability to get on with stuff while disk tasks complete. All the tier 1 and tier 2 vendors can provide this capability today.

/* All emphasis mine */

Re:256mb?

[DesScorp]

Yet another reason to use linux.

Not so fast, my friend...you can bet your GNU/Ass that KDE and Gnome will try to ape Vista's looks as fast as they can manage, and then most distros will be as bloated as anything MS makes.

Re:256mb?

[melikamp]

I agree. Yet another reason to run WindowMaker :P

Re:256mb?

[AaronLawrence]

All those things are basically true except for the bloat. The bit that still bothers me is the MAINTENANCE, which is only consistently easy to do if you use packages from the vendor.

Re:256mb?

[deaddrunk]

Only if you use KDE or GNOME and as for copying well, Vista is just MS ripping Apple off again.

Re:256mb?

[tchernobog]

No.

For me and you, probably, the reasons to use GNU/Linux are the same than {ten,five,three,n}-years ago.

For the [wo]man out there that knows just that "they has Internet, which is that blue icon right on the screen", it is Yet Another Reason to continue using XP/win98.

If everybody loved Free OSes we would probably live in a better world. If everybody was able to get along quietly with their neighbour without starting wars every few days, we would live in a better world.

Unfortunately neither will happen, due to the intrinsic nature of humanity, which includes stupidity, stubborness, and the need of a pointy stick.

Re:256mb?

[m50d]

I'm running with composite on an 800mhz duron with 128mb ram, TNT2 and GF2. It's perfectly usable. Composite doesn't slow things down at all unless you're using the transparency anyway.

Re:256mb?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Hell yes. I just switched to WM from KDE and I can't believe how much snappier it is.

Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[i41Overlord]

And then we can say how great Linux is!

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[eklitzke]

Good idea ;)

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[RapmasterT]

I think I've seen that here before.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in. You go first.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Foofoobar]

Hell, we can say that already :)

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Americans need to *WAKE UP* and see how M$ is screwing everybody. Any company that does something as hidious as requiring 256 meg of video memory deserves a place alongside the Third Reich. Death to Bill Gates. I think this will be the final nail is the M$ coffin, and expect everybody will start switching to Linux and OSS over the next few years.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would switch if there was a replacement for Sonar (Cakewalk) on Linux.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[BoldAndBusted]

Cool idea.

psst. hey. microsoft. come. over. here. *BASH*BASH*BASH*. <roaring>LINUX IS THE GREAT, AND YOU ARE THE TRASH!</roaring>

Wow, never done that before. Fun stuff. Thanks. Even took a grammar break. :)

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Metshrine]

Hmmm, seems to me that most GUI shells for linux require the user to have a pretty hefty system to run them as well, so of course, this should be nothing new. Enlightenment, Gnome, and KDE all require a decently fast cpu in order to run SMOOTHLY. But of course, the linux junkies fail to mention this fact, god forbid something be WRONG with a linux geek's beloved OS.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[deafff]

Because, as we all have seen in last couple of days, usa has become a third world country in which noone can really afford $200 videocard.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Metshrine]

Ummm, they require 256MB OF RAM, NOT VIDEO RAM. Please re-read the article and not jump to conclusions

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Taladar]

I really don't think those bashing MS for too much eyecandy at the cost of high system requirements are the ones creating KDE, Gnome, E or the other eye-candy-heavy WMs. You know, there are other WMs that are just as functional that don't need high-end PCs.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Cinder6]

They do? I run KDE 3.3 fine (re: smoothly) on a 500MHz system at my school, and my 1.13GHz P3 notebook runs E17 CVS flawlessly.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Goose In Orbit]

Read it again...

From the summary above:

To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium

From the TechEd article:

He told APC today that Vista would work best on a video card with more than 256MB RAM, 2GB of DDR3 memory

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[fandog]

Yeah for me it's Project5(Cakewalk).

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[despisethesun]

I guess Fluxbox, IceWM, and the rest don't exist, right? If the big DE's run poorly on certain older hardware, I can just switch to something lighter. Can I do that in Windows? Uh, no.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[ac3boy]

Man. That was just bad. Tsk Tsk Tsk.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I do that in Windows? Uh, no.

Uh, yeah.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[m50d]

I guess blackbox for windows, litestep and the rest don't exist then

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[SolusSD]

umm. All of the Linux shells you've mentinoed run great on my friends 466MHz celeron... if that's what you consider fast maybe you need to take a trip down to your local Best Buy, CompUSA, Frys... eh. whatever you have nearby.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[despisethesun]

I wouldn't trust any alternative GUIs on Windows after trying a few, BB4Win included. But hey, if you like playing Russian Roulette with your computer, be my guest.

Re:Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft!

[m50d]

You're already doing that by running windows at all.

Heard this before

[_pi-away]

Every new version of windows has beefed up the requirements, and I've always found them usable with less than they say.

Re:Heard this before

[Jazzer_Techie]

Windows will certainly be usable with less. Most of the GUI "eye-candy" in XP fails to be useful, not to mention less than aesthetically pleasing. The first thing that I do when I reinstall Windows (after patching it all up an installing Firefox) is to set it back to the Windows Classic theme. All of the eye candy inflates the sys reqs. I can't see myself sticking with the new Vista GUI either.

Re:Heard this before

[RapmasterT]

Every new version of windows has beefed up the requirements, and I've always found them usable with less than they say.

I've got a funny feeling that when I run Vista in "classic interface" mode it's going to get by with far, far lower requirements.

Maybe I'm missing something, but who exactly is it that is slobbering over variable transparancy windows, and flipping backside notation stuff?

Re:Heard this before

[ackthpt]

Every new version of windows has beefed up the requirements, and I've always found them usable with less than they say.

I recall the first install of Win 95, the packaging said Minimum 8 MB RAM. Yes, if you don't mind paging on those slow old MFM/RLL 20/30 MB drives over your pokey ISA bus. 12 MB was manageable, with patience. 16 MB was tolerable. 24 MB and up was comfortable. This on a 33 MHz 486.

When I bought my first Pentium with 64 MB and Win 98 it was apparent almost from day 1 that 64 MB was just barely enough to run one application at a time. 2 apps and I was paging and anything over that and it was an exercise in masochism.

My 2.6 MHz Athlon started life with WinXP and 256 MB. Which was fine for the limited things I did, though I noticed (thanks to the task manager) that half of it was tied up before I launched any apps. 1.25 GB has made for a decent system. The first graphics card was a 64 MB generic card which cost a measely $37 and I keep it around for when the big deluxe card decides it's going to have a bad patch.

I think as much as I groan about XP that's where I'll stop with regard to Microsoft. I don't want to overburden my new 64 bit CPU just trying to do the basics.

Re:Heard this before

[ThyPiGuy]

Maybe I'm missing something, but who exactly is it that is slobbering over variable transparancy windows, and flipping backside notation stuff? OSX users?

Re:Heard this before

[cnettel]

In this case, there is even the possibility of turning off Aero and running in a somewhat improved XP. Avalon apps will suffer, but they will still work.

They want the Aero rendering to be considered fast and snappy. And, oh, it will possibly be so, but only on the right hardware. If they put the official requirements too low, it would just be said that the new interface is so full of eyecandy that it can't perform.

What's really interesting here is what they manage to pull of on laptops, together with ATI and Nvidia. Will the power management for graphics chips make sense, even when 3D mode doesn't equal "battery sucking gaming mode"? The (public) slides from Microsoft even from the very first mentioning of Longhorn's 3D UI stressed this aspect. It will be interesting to see the solution. If a Mactel box will provide a sleek UI with a charge keeping the machine powered for twice as long, that'll be a very real selling point.

Re:Heard this before

[welkin]

No, not really. Not me anyway...I have managed to get Panther to run on a '99 iBook with a 300 MHz G3 and a measly 164M RAM, by turning off the window minimization "Genie Effect" candy, by setting the Desktop changing feature to change wallpaper every day, as opposed to every five seconds, etc.

One may ask "why use OS X on a machine that was never meant to run it?" This is Slashdot, right?

Re:Heard this before

[guaigean]

For a rate of their beefing up...

Windows XP: 128MB RAM, 300MHz
Windows 2000: 64MB RAM, 133MHz
Windows 98: 16MB, 66 MHz
Windows 95: 4MB RAM, 386 or higher

I looked for some older requirements, but it's a good start, and shows approximately the equivalent of solid state advances etc. Yes, they beef it up, but fairly on par with new tech.

Re:Heard this before

[afidel]

Yep, my coworker is running the Beta 1 build on a machine with Intel Integrated Graphics 2.0 with 512MB of unified memory, it runs just fine with Aeroglass turned on. Now I wouldn't want to multitask on it like I do with my XP workstation at work, but that's a sub $600 solution today, in a year you should be able to get a machine with double the ram for about the same price.

Re:Heard this before

[aduzik]

Here's another handy tip: if you want to save yourself a few more MB in Windows, completely disable the Themes service. Plus, you can force anyone else who uses that computer to live without eye candy. It pisses off the design students in the lab I run. It makes me smile.

Re:Heard this before

[b100dian]

Looks like 256MB for the next release ..
oh, wait..

Re:Heard this before

[Lonewolf666]

I don't know about XP (not running it), but the requirements for 95, 98 and 2000 were just sufficient to start the OS without a swap orgy.
Run any non-trivial application that was new at the time, and you better have two times the official minimum.

Re:Heard this before

[jawtheshark]

Thank you... Thank you very much. This made my day! My wife is going to be pissed, but it still made my day.

Re:Heard this before

[toddestan]

That's pretty much true for XP too. XP can boot up and run one application okay with 128MB, but any more and it really starts thrashing. Forget about running a virus scanner too.

Re:Heard this before

[zbuffered]

I'm with you--or at least I was. I turned off the XP UI and opted for the "Classic" theme for a couple of years, until I looked at some of the different themes that are out there. My current theme is Blue Mesa, but there are hundreds to choose from.

I certainly can't stand the standard theme, but this one is as compact as the standard Windows 2000 theme, and I like the smaller start button, amongst other things.

Just be sure to turn it off if you're accessing the computer over RDP. Shading takes up a lot more bandwidth.

Re:Heard this before

[Unnngh!]

After installing Beta 1 that was just released, I would have to say that you are right but with some caveats. We tossed it on a 3GHZ processor with 1GB of RAM and some stock mobo vid chip. It ran fine until you tried to drag a window across another, then it pretty much ground to a halt.

So it will run on less, but what company invests in video cards to support their desktop apps? It's typically been viewed as a waste of money unless someone's doing heavy graphics processing. It would really suck to upgrade a corporate environment only to end up with the look-and-feel of windows 95 on a Pentium 90;) It will be interesting to see where their marketing push starts and how the thing will scale for desktop vs. server, etc.

Re:Heard this before

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance, XP runs on 24MB of RAM, default configuration. (Yes, I tried it; no, not well) Any lower than that and it would not load the OS.

Re:Heard this before

[gbjbaanb]

but what company invests in video cards to support their desktop apps?

In my experience, no company actually specs the video card as 'requiring high end video' unless they're doing something that actually requires it, however, for the vast majority of business PCs you simply get a quite reasonable card bundled in there anyway. Consider the price of them nowadays, and you'll get what was considered high-end 2 years ago anyway.

Onboard motherboard chips are a different beast, as they are there to support basic displays only, server style displays where anything beyond a 256 colour display is overkill.

Re:Heard this before

[level_headed_midwest]

Depends on your bandwidth to the computer being RDP'd. All of the animated junk transfers nice and smoothly over a 100 Mbit LAN. But it is stuttery on wireless (I have a 11 Mbit card- d'oh!). If you're talking about using a VPN to get on your company network to then do RDP, by all means set the colors to 8-bit and disable all of the GUI stuff. A 1-3 Mbit connection is not nearly the equal of a wired LAN.

Re:Heard this before

[Anonymous Coward]

My experiences with Windows XP with 256M RAM was that it swapped like crazy when running a single instance of word. An upgrade to 512MB makes the computer feel at least twice as fast,

Re:Heard this before

[rapidweather]

I notice the dial-up requirements for XP are:
14.4 kilobits per second (Kbps) or higher-speed modem.
That's slow, considering the patches and updates that have to be downloaded to keep the XP installation safe on the internet, from Microsoft, and Norton, etc.

Re:Heard this before

[CAIMLAS]

And almost every single time those "beefed up" requirements weren't sufficient to make it run as well as the previous version on significantly (such as 1/2 as "powerful") lesser hardware.

I suspect this is simply a case of misdirection: in other words, these aren't the real system requirements. The actual system requirements will be less than half as much (say, 2GHz, 512Mb RAM, current middle-ground grpahics card), and it will run sufficiently, while the 'recommended' hardware will run it quite well.

They'll also have a bit of a reversal near release time, ala "Oh look, we found how to make it more efficient!" and decrease the requirements.

MS has been burned pretty bad in many people's minds by making the requirements too high, and people then not being able to upgrade. It's in MS's best interests to make as much hardware as possible run the latest version; I have no doubt in their mind that they'll try to do that.

Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Boap]

Looks like it is going to be a booming year for ATI and NVIDIA when Vista is released

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Concerned Onlooker]

Not to mention anyone selling HDCP monitors:

...no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. You may already have heard rumblings about this, but here it is. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Perhaps S3 will have a market afterall?

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[timthorn]

My TFT monitor (Samsung 730MW) supports HDCP. Just a shame my graphics card is a 16MB 2D thingy...

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Locke2005]

Quite the opposite. Looks like ATI and NVIDIA are going to pull a Cisco; stuffing channels to the bursting point with inventory in anticipation of everybody and his dog upgrading their hardware to run Vista, only to have their stock come crashing down as everbody is even slower to adopt Vista then they were to adopt XP. Come on, XP has only recently reached the 50% mark; until last month, there were more people running older versions of Windows than running XP. I say sell short on PC hardware stocks!

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[emidln]

Slightly off topic, but I still don't see how the HDCP present bit can't be faked. Unless the signal is so radically different that it requires a new technology to interpret and display (and then you'd need a new display anyway) then it can be emulated for compatibility.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[digitalsushi]

Nah, it's not. People that are going to shell out the cash for these machines are smart enough to know that the stuff they're stealing online aint gonna play. They wont buy.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Fizzl]

HS: "Extended warranty! How could I lose!?"
Me: "Stock tips on /.! How could I lose!?"

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[utlemming]

Maybe...or it may just turn out that M$ is releasing another ME. I just bought a laptop, and frankly, the idea of having to buy another laptop with specs like that, is not very appealling. M$ hasn't released a new operating system in years, and now they are releasing one that is going to break everyone. 1gig of Ram? SATA2 hard drives? I have to say, I won't be upgrading. I don't see the benefit. All the reasons why I would, including WinFS have been taken out. I more likely to switch to WinXP64 first. But more than that I will probably end up switching to a Linux distro. The idea of forking out that much money just to be able to run an operating system is assinine.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[magarity]

I just bought a laptop,
 
I was thinking of laptop owners when I saw this article. Most laptops are Intel Integrated graphics with shared memory so how are those going to work with these new requirements? Can you even select 256MB as the amount of memory reserved for graphics???

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[ratta]

Actually i hope it will be a booming year for some other 3D outsider (maybe someone that will release specs of their chips). BTW, competition is good.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Tony Hoyle]

It can.. you can already but boxes that strip the HDCP and output standard DVI.

These will be mainstream (but probably illegal by then) by the time vista ships.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[parawing742]

256MB on a graphics card isn't that uncommon anymore. I just upgraded my system and bought a $90 video card (Radeon X600) that is not even mid-range anymore and it came with 256MB of memory.

In fact, you can buy X300s and 6200s in PCI-Express and 256MB for under $60. By the time Vista is released they will be even cheaper.

I think you must all be remembering last year when a 256MB card cost $300.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[quantum bit]

It's a lot more complicated than just a simple bit. HDCP means that the data stream between the video card and the monitor is encrypted.

Your choices are:

• Hack the video card to report that it has enabled HDCP but not actually encrypt the data (don't forget that you must use stock drivers signed by MS!)
• Hack the video drivers, which also means hacking the OS in order to fool the driver signing mechanism, which probably means hacking the media player app too.
• Use a passthrough device which understands HDCP and uses a key ripped from a legit montior to decrypt the stream (probably made somewhere in southeast Asia). Repeat the process once that key gets revoked.
• Break the encryption on the media file itself, decrypt it, and play using another media player
• Use an alternative OS and media format that doesn't have all that bullshit.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[Bent Mind]

For home PCs, yes. I guess this is the market they are after with this OS. For corperate PCs? no. Corperate PCs don't have 3D capabilities. Why would they? 3D capabilities, up to this point, have been for games and engineering applications. So far it's been an unjustifiable expense. My organizion has 10000 P4 computers with integrated video and 4MB of video RAM. They don't have an AGP port. Buy a new OS that requires a new computer? Talk about an unjustifiable expense.

Just had a thought while writting this... If the OS requires 256MB of video RAM, will there be any left for gaming? So much for playing Doom 3 under Vista.

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[HuguesT]

Perfect!

This means non-HDCP monitors will be on sale soon (always look on the bright siiiide of life).

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[emidln]

Wouldn't encrypting the data require (a) a lot more throughput and (b) a lot of unneeded processing to decrypt the data? So now our monitors have to have hardware to do on the fly decryption?

Re:Buy NVIDIA and ATI stock

[quantum bit]

In a word, yes.

Business: Performance & Lifecycles

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be interesting to see the take on from business. Vendor lifecycles not withstanding, moving from the newer hardware boxes with NT4 on or W2K to XP has been largely painless from a performance perspective.

seriously

[LiquidMind]

A: "wow, that's a sweet rig, where'd you get that?"
B: "It came with my purchase of Windows Vista."

It's kinda like those people that drive with huge-ass spoilers on their tiny cars. Did the car come with the spoiler or did the spoiler come with the car?

Re:seriously

[twilight30]

C: 'You're still paying for both, so it doesn't matter what each cost ...'.

It would be one thing if MS figured it would be able to stick to these specs for a while (ie several years). But something tells me they ain't thinking like that ...

Re:seriously

[RevengeOfPoopJuggler]

The car AND the spoiler came as prizes in the box of rice

Re:seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kinda like those people that drive with huge-ass spoilers on their tiny cars. Did the car come with the spoiler or did the spoiler come with the car?

Neither. The spoiler is actually a swingset frame from the city park.

256MB of video memory?

[Paralizer]

Give me a break! It's an operating system, what technicial leaps must it render that requires so much memory? I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card without a problem, yet to render a few windows and a start bar I need twice that?

Eye-candy doesn't result in functionality Microsoft... shift your attention towards usability.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[interiot]

Does anybody have comparisons for OS X machines? They render much of their OS in the GPU, right?

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Dutchmaan]

> ...and if sales started dropping that's exactly where their attention *would* go..

Right now, the bulk of windows purchasers are the same people who don't know any better and are more impressed with flashy graphics for their home PC than features that 99% of them will never use or never realize they are using.

Windows is the OS of the masses, yes it can be a good OS and in some respects it is, however... the bottom line is that Windows is being designed to appeal to people who buy the system based on what they *see*.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Senjutsu]

Does anybody have comparisons for OS X machines? They render much of their OS in the GPU, right?

A lot of the lower end machines still ship with 32 Megs on the card, and run fine (provided you've got a decent amount of system memory). Obviously that's too low for serious gaming, but the OS has no troubles with that amount of memory on the GPU.

Having 256 on the GPU would be on the extreme high-end (only the highest end powermac ships by default with a card that big), not "a happy medium" for OS X.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[ColdGrits]

Well, in comparison, MacOS X 10.4 (which most definitely DOES use the GPU for a lot of the graphics work) required 256MB of system RAM - and a massive 16MB of graphics RAM!

  http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/requirements.h tml

Which does raise the question as to what the hell Microsoft are doing that means they require the same amount of graphics RAM as MacOS X needs for the system!

Re:256MB of video memory?

[IgLou]

Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

If the O/S uses 256 MB of graphic RAM how much of that will get released by the O/S when I want to run a really high resolution game?
HL 2 looked fairly good on 128 MB (what I have now). I wonder if they are purposely bloating the req speculatively or if this is the ideal just to run the O/S. *shudder*

Oh and who wants to bet on the number of companies that will buy these insane-o high powered systems to run Vista because XP won't be supported at that point. JOY!

I'm not even going to get into the rest "Where's my HDCP?"... trust me I won't ask that I'll be saying "Where is my capability to fairly copy works that I own!"

Re:256MB of video memory?

[b100dian]

I can run Doom3 at 1024x768 at pretty high quality with my 128MB card
Windows 95 had the same requirements of Quake 1. Need to generalize this??!

Re:256MB of video memory?

[syousef]

hat technicial leaps must it render that requires so much memory?

As I understand it there will be a number of desktops. A couple of old traditional bitmap ones, and the main one's 3D high resolution vector graphics instead of bitmaps. That's for everything. Even your icons.

I think they're on drugs. I don't want my desktop to run like a goddamn experimental 3D video game. This plus the DRM crap they're shelling out means I'm going to try to stay on XP for as long as I can.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Pius II.]

There's nothing about 16 megs of graphics RAM on the page you're linking to (or anywhere else, for that matter). Tiger runs nicely on late 2001 iBooks, for example (with 8 megs of VRAM).
It just doesn't use the GPU for compositing in that case (but that's not a function of the available RAM, rather than dependant on the availability of some rectangle texture extension on the GPU). Quartz (which would be akin to the new Windows graphics layer) still does all the heavy lifting, and stuff like blitting is still accelerated. The only thing you're missing out on are things like playing videos in transparent windows.
Another interesting fact: even though you can accelerate almost all of Quartz using pixel shaders, that is not currently viable on many Macs, since the lesser GPUs (such as the sucky FX 5200) are slower than computing everything in software. There's impressive charts out there though (200x more stuff drawn per time unit).

Re:256MB of video memory?

[frank_adrian314159]

...the bottom line is that Windows is being designed to appeal to people who buy the system based on what they *see*.

And that's the problem. Only Mac buyers buy systems based on what they "see". Windows users become Windows users because (a) they're cheap and (b) it's what's on the box that's cheap. Once Windows isn't on cheap boxes, they'll start to lose market share because Windows users don't give a rats ass about what they *see*, only about what they're familiar with and what's cheap.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. People like having what they perceive as the biggest and the best. Vista will sell in droves simply because it requires so much to run it. It's so massive and shiny it *must* be good.

Kinda like Doom 3 actually.....

Re:256MB of video memory?

[koniosis]

I don't know how much effect it will have but Microsoft are shouting a lot about high DPI displays with Vista, I have no idea how high they are or what resolution they'd run at, but I can imagine it requiring that much more RAM.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[WinterpegCanuck]

Nah, you are completely wrong. The average consumer is a well informed person that is not easily distracted by oh look a silver bag that makes a cool tinkling sound when it blows in the wind across the road past one of those new z350's with the low profile wheels and big whale fin and a v-tech sticker that makes it go so much faster like that IIS 5.0 that must be so much better than Mowhawk 1.3 and where did that netscape six ever go on to. Um. . . what was I talking about?

Re:256MB of video memory?

[jimmypw]

Can you not see that this is exactly what their doing but in the wrong way.
To make the OS easeier to use for the average end user things need to be S P A C E D out, clear and easy to understand. Even if they dont have a clue what a DHCP server is. Then with this great leap forward in technological mastery they feel the need to compile a MAHOOSIVE amount of images in to those poor little dll files includig but not limited to beta logos, seventeen different versions of an icon that hasnt been used since windows 3.1 (for playgroups).

And what do you get after all this? an unnecesserely big piece of software that the end user still cant use without constant supervision complete with features that just PISS ME OFF!!! YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[ColdGrits]

"There's nothing about 16 megs of graphics RAM on the page you're linking to (or anywhere else, for that matter)."

I offer you "Quartz Extreme functionality is supported by the following video GPUs: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and later, or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required." from http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme /

It seemed only fair to include Q.E. functionality given what we are comparing against.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Calroth]

Which does raise the question as to what the hell Microsoft are doing that means they require the same amount of graphics RAM as MacOS X needs for the system!

To be fair, Microsoft doesn't require a 256MB video card for Windows Vista. The requirement will probably be similar to Mac OS X: a video card that can display the resolution you want, at the colour depth you want. That's it.

The 256MB figure is for the new eye candy, and not just that, it's for the new eye candy to run at full speed and not start chugging or such. Mac OS X will also perform a lot smoother, the better video hardware you throw at it. Is 256MB excessive? Probably. But not a requirement.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[zaphod123]

Wait until you see what clippy looks like at 30 FPS. :)

Re:256MB of video memory?

[failure-man]

Wait until you see what clippy looks like at 30 FPS. :)

As long as I can take a rocket-launcher to him at 30fps it's all good . . . . .

Re:256MB of video memory?

[cnettel]

Doom3 doesn't provide a general purpose windowing system that any old GDI app has to be able to live happily within. Anyway, I would really consider 1024x768 a low-end resolution for Vista. For the "optimum config" stuff, which is really what they describe, I would expect 1280x1024 (maybe dual-mon) or 1600x1200. Remember that one single 1600x1200 frame is 7.680.000 bytes. At the very least, you want to maintain a double-buffering scheme of that. You will just fit 17 single frames that size onto a 128 MB card. Even if you don't go the route of making every window a texture, it doesn't seem that weird to actually have 15 frames worth of data that are used to composite your normal display. Even seemingly small things like fonts can get huge if they are bitmap-cached for many UNICODE code points.

You say you don't need that? Maybe you don't, but it is very easy to list uses for all that graphics memory that makes some sense. The font example is actually quite interesting, just ls/dir a huge directory in your desktop environment of choice with the window active vs. minimized/hidden. Time both operations. Repeat a few times so you are sure that there are no caching artefacts. Well, the text rendering is actually consuming most of the CPU time. By only refreshing n times each second and anyway placing most of that refreshing work on the graphics chip, both could (not will, but could) get equivalent. The ironical thing here is that the most highly programmable chips would actually need less memory, as more things could be represented in a more efficient way than simple bitmap textures.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[i.of.the.storm]

256MB is by no means a minimum, it's just required for the full Aero "Glass" effects, such as window transparency. This article is a lot of FUD, because as demonstrated by some guy who posted above this, those "requirements" are actually the recommended specs for running Aero Glass with full features. Besides, I think you can already get most of that stuff in a PC around $1000 or less.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[dryeo]

Huh? Quake 1 didn't even run under Windows (had to go to DOS mode) and could get by with 8MB (16MB recommended) http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake/quake/index. php?game_section=sysreq
I remember giving it 16MB in a DOS session on OS/2 on an 8 MB 486/100, took forever to load or change levels but the actual game ran perfectly fine (full screen)

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Darth_Burrito]

Eye-candy doesn't result in functionality Microsoft... shift your attention towards usability.

A lot of eye candy is usability oriented. For example, in Mac OS X, when you minimize a window, it kind of smoothly whooshes down to wherever it gets stored. This is eye candy, but at the same time it is a usability improvement because it gives the user a much better ability to track where that minimized window went. Transparent windows are, in theory, another example of eye candy that also functions in terms of usability. Anyways, functionality (features) and usability are usually in direct opposition.

If the hardware is available, why not make use of it? If a windowing system can improve usability by using a decent graphics card, then more power to it. As someone who is only a light/moderate pc gamer, I'm actually a little sick of having to buy a good video card solely for the few games I play. If the OS makes good use of it, at least I'll get a little more mileage out of the thing.

I'm also kind of eager to see mainstream systems requiring good graphics capabilities because it will hopefully raise the standards for graphics in many games. In the past, it's always seemed like certain pc games like football or baseball are all aimed at the capabilities of a 2 year old eMachine with onboard video. Maybe having good graphics capabilities in all pcs will revitalize the pc gaming industry.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Scum]

I've a 2001 500Mhz G3 iBook which has only an 8MB VRAM Rage 128 graphics chip in it. It doesn't support Quartz Extreme. The only things I notice are missing are the animations in Dashboard, the cube rotation in Fast User switching and Exposé can get a bit crunchy scaling it's windows and some of the realtime adjustments in iPhoto aren't available. Otherwise it looks identical onscreen to the 64MB FX5200 equipped iMac I also have.

It probably IS fair to compare Quartz Extreme to Windows Vista requirements so that's 16MB to 256MB. Hmm.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[jsebrech]

My guess is they have done the same thing apple has been doing with quartz 2d extreme (shipping in tiger, but disabled by default), and put the entire graphics subsystem on the graphics hardware. This means that the graphics API's instead of rendering stuff in main memory and then sending it to the graphics card for compositing is rendering it straight in graphics memory, and keeping it there (for caching). Imagine if all the bitmaps, all the buttons, all the fonts, and so on all had to be kept in graphics memory. How much memory do you think you would need? Something on the order of 128 to 256MB?

Incidentally, Apple's Q2D extreme requires 64 MB of graphics ram for minimal operation, and becomes faster as you have more graphics ram.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[Ravatar]

$1000 right now buys you:

Athlon 64 @ 3500 MHZ
Asus A8N-SLI Premium Mobo
1024 MB high-performance memory (or 2GB of cheap memory)
2x80gb Western Digital SATA II drives RAID 0
Nvidia GeForce 6600GT PCI-E
Windows XP x64
Case/PS/etc.

That's already a pretty high end system, and by next year itll cost about 70-80% of what it does now. You could buy a $600 system right now (Dell or w/e if you want), and as long as it has an AGP or PCIx slot you're set for vista.

Re:256MB of video memory?

[cyrax256]

Not to mention that the video memory Windows uses is less video memory for my applications, unless the driver uploads and downloads the memory state, and I think such switching will hurt my performance.

The operative system should not cope all the system resources, but well, there's nothing new happening here. I remember I couldn't run Quake 2 on my Pentium 100 because of the overhead Windows caused...

Re:256MB of video memory?

[JumperCables233]

Windows is the OS of the masses, yes it can be a good OS and in some respects it is, however... the bottom line is that Windows is being designed to appeal to people who buy the system based on what they *see*.

And that's Microsoft's choice. Microsoft has always catered to the masses, and there is definitely room for that. It is pure arrogance to assume that simply because an operating system doesn't do precisely what you want, it is therefore inferior. Microsoft, in my opinion, should be applauded for making computing accessible to the masses. I'm sorry if that trounces a few of the citadels of incomprehensability that self-important computer nerds have built around themselves, but that's called progress. Catering to the masses is not inherently evil. It never has been. Shakespeare played to his crowd. Mark Twain was popular within his own lifetime. Spielburg makes blockbusters. Are they examples of inferiority? Microsoft software isn't perfect, but their place in the history of computing is, without a doubt, essential. Computing wouldn't be where it is without them. P.S. Writing this from Firefox running on a Fedora Core Linux box

Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Joe U]

Of course the requirements are going to be bulky by mid 2005 standards. Vista is due in 2006/7 and will reflect the mid to high end computer design for late 2006.

Also, these seem to be optimal, not minimum requirements, and from the article "minimum system requirements for Windows Vista will not be known until summer 2006 at the earliest." So, I'm going to go out on a limb and speculate that your average system today will work fine with Vista, but you won't have all the bells and whistles.

Finally, the '512 MByte is "heaps" for a 32-bit system. For a 64-bit system, however, "you're going to want 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM."' is off. If you are happy with 512, you'll be happy with 1GB. If you play lots of games, you most likely have 1GB now and you'll be happy with 2gb. And if you play EverQuest 2, you'll be happy with about 20gb, but it will still skip in places and you can't use the ultra-high resolution.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[h4rm0ny]

The article actually says that it's due out next Christmas, though I was also under the impression that it was 2006/7.

Even then, the specifications are obscene. If I can render a GUI with a 800MHz CPU and 128MB RAM total, then how the Hell do they claim a need for 256MB solely for graphics? And a recommended 2GB in general. That's obscene.

Time to play up Linux's potential for running on low-power systems.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

The reason this is bull is that Vista, due out in 2006/2007, will be performing similar operations to 2004/2005 Macs. If you put OS X on a Vista class system in 2006/2007, and compared to Vista, who would win?

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[PCM2]

Of course the requirements are going to be bulky by mid 2005 standards. Vista is due in 2006/7 and will reflect the mid to high end computer design for late 2006.

I bought a modest, brand-name PC system this year for about $1,600 and it meets all the requirements mentioned.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Talrinys]

That's pretty cool, i have to use 40 GB to make that game stop lagging. Seriously though, i don't see this as a very positive thing. Along with games and programs generally we have gone from like 1 GB hard drives to 500 GB hard drives, but we are still using roughly the same programs. I definately will not be upgrading for Vista, i would rather learn Linux and try to stick with it, or go all out Mac, than have to deal with this. It's enough of a pain for each link i click in an email to take 25 seconds to open in Windows with a completely clean system using 300 MB ram constantly. I don't want to have to use 2 GB ram constantly and it still runs even slower.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[kfg]

Vista is due in 2006/7 and will reflect the mid to high end computer design for late 2006.

However, the typical computer is a standard eternity old, and will soon be two standard eternities old, because the typical computer user already has a machine that does what he wants it to do.

This does not speak well for selling quantities of OS upgrades.

KFG

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Joe U]

If you put OS X on a Vista class system in 2006/2007, and compared to Vista, who would win?

I'll say Vista.

1. It will run the software I have today.
2. It will run more software that I may buy tomorrow.
3. It will run 64 bit software if I need it.
4. It's going to run rings around OSX.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[KillShill]

vista would win.

because you can install it on any hardware you choose.

replacing perfectly capable hardware to install another OS just isn't a good idea.

if you have gobs of money, perhaps you'd think about donating some of it to me. then i might consider getting a mac system. right now, i live very comfortably on my fast amd machine.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[jonbryce]

I am posting this on 64 a bit Mandriva system. 1GB is more than I need to do what I'm doing here, and I'm not even touching swap.

top - 22:46:59 up 3:10, 1 user, load average: 0.05, 0.14, 0.11
Tasks: 135 total, 1 running, 134 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 4.3% us, 2.7% sy, 0.0% ni, 93.0% id, 0.0% wa, 0.0% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 1025736k total, 833440k used, 192296k free, 56888k buffers
Swap: 1116476k total, 0k used, 1116476k free, 397032k cached

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Bralkein]

I use Linux with a KDE desktop on my PC for work and I have a partition with Windows on the same PC for playing games on. Whenever I upgrade KDE, it seems that there are performance enhancements involved, and my desktop is snappier with every new version. However, with Windows, when I upgrade it seems that it becomes a bit slower every time. Sure, certain bugs are fixed and certain features are added, but that goes for KDE as much as it does Windows, so why does Windows have to get slower when KDE appears to do the opposite?

Surely the whole point in making the desktop rendered with the power of modern 3D accelerated graphics hardware is to be able to do more visuals with the same computer without experiencing any slowdown. I don't think that new software should scale up its consumption of resources so that it runs at the same sluggish speed on modern systems as it did on the old hardware, because that's stagnation. True improvement would mean that the desktop would take advantage of the graphics capability that already exists on most computers these days and used it to create a really impressive desktop without the need to upgrade.

Now, I don't like Apple too much, but I am willing to respect them for having done this already with OSX. Linux desktop developers seem to be wanting to improve things this way too, and there doesn't seem to be much talk of vastly increased system requirements from that camp. Why does Microsoft need such insanely powerful hardware to accomplish what already seems to be possible with today's hardware? Windows Vista seems to offer transparent window bars, a few other eye-candy things, and a buch of add-ons that will also be available for Windows XP. So what exactly warrants the need for all of this extra computing power just to run it? That's all I want to know, and if anyone can tell me why, then I would be genuinely interested to know, because it must be pretty revolutionary.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Detritus]

Can I install it on my PowerPC G4?

Didn't think so.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[KillerBob]

And if you play EverQuest 2, you'll be happy with about 20gb, but it will still skip in places and you can't use the ultra-high resolution.

Dude... discover Guild Wars. You don't have to pay a monthly tithing to be able to log in, and it was very playable (at 1024x768) on my mom's computer last week (my old computer), which has 512MB of RAM and a 64MB GeForce3 Ti500. You probably don't want to know what resolution I run at home, with 1024MB of RAM and a 256MB Radeon 9600Ultra. :)

Oh, and so it doesn't get modded off topic, that new hardware resolution downmixing thing can bite me. I have a 21" trinitron monitor that does 1920x1440@75Hz, 0.20dp, and it wasn't cheap. No way in hell am I going to buy another monitor and video card just so I can watch a DVD. I'll wait until some geek posts instructions for how to make a dongle that'll trick it into running on my existing hardware, thanks.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[damiam]

I'd put excellent odds on OSX-x86 being able to run Windows apps through some sort of VMWare-ish compatibility layer (possibly VMWare itself). And of course it will support 64bit; it already does.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[KillShill]

virtual pc ring a bell?

through emulation at least.

you cannot emulate the DRM of the x86 mac or the "EULA" of the ppc macs but you can install the basic vista on a ppc machine. the DRM (secure boot) isn't mandatory or you'd have several billion computers that vista couldn't be installed on.

that's what i mean by artificial restrictions. you can buy mac os or windows and install on any chip arch/hardware if the manufacturers don't go out of their way to prevent it. DRM and the like are artificial restrictions. because even when you pay for the software, you are at the mercy of the vendor and don't really own it.

ironic that apple said they won't prevent people from installing windows on osx86 but yet the reverse isn't true. what's apple's excuse?

people who buy region 2-5 dvd discs cannot play them on unapproved hardware (i.e. hw that has the ability to play multi-region). the fact is, the dvd consortium et al have no right whatsoever to tell you what hardware you may use to play it back on. if we had some competent judges and legislators they wouldn't be allowed to artificially restrict discs/software/movies/music to certain hardware in the first place. it places undue harm on the customers for no gain in return.

any hardware that has the capability to play and use the purchase is perfectly ok and legal. but the corollary to that isn't for the manufacturer to build custom chips to circumvent the then right (if we ever see the day when congress and judges do the right thing) for users to choose their hardware.

why the heck not? they paid for it.

artificial restrictions. that's why.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Clod9]

And I bought a modest, off-brand system for $300 a year ago with a fraction of these requirements. I should what, pay $1000+ for upgrades just to run an OPERATING SYSTEM? No thanks. I want my OS to stay out of the way and let my apps use the resources. I can run Maya on this $300 computer, for crying out loud.

I don't care what OS we're talking about, if it takes hundreds of megabytes of disk, RAM, and video memory just to run at all, it's designed badly. And I know how it got there: the vendor gave their developers high-end machines and no resource budget. Software development companies have been doing this for decades. They will never learn until we stop buying the product. Will Vista really offer people a reason to lay out all that money? I can't imagine what they've got that would induce me to quintuple my hardware budget. Eye candy? Give me a break.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Lifewish]

I'd agree with most of that (pretty damn insightful post), but I don't think that running an X86 emulator on PPC that then runs Vista really counts as Vista running on PPC. I do see your point about artificiality of restrictions though.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[trime]

You mean like how Windows 95 runs on a 486?

Current systems may meet the minimum requirements for Vista, sure. But are these minimum requirements for a system to boot without producing an advertisement for graphics card manufacturers, or minimum requirements to do useful work?

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

What does #1, 2, and 3 have anything to do with the topic? I understand that those are pragmatic reasons, right now, not to buy a Mac...

But the issue, the entire premise, of the thread is how resource hungry Vista is, to do UI rendering, search, WinFS, etc.

If everything Vista does is possible now in OS X on a 1.33GHz system with 32mb VRAM and 512mb RAM, what will OS X be capable of in 2006/2007 with a 2GHz system, 2gb RAM, and 256mb VRAM?

Because I don't think it will "Run rings around OS X" if it doesn't run rings around OS X on last year's hardware... but we will see when Vista is released and people start upgrading on last year's hardware.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

Except we're talking about new systems in 2006/2007
We're talking about buying new systems.

Replacing capable hardware to install Vista just isn't a good idea. If you have to upgrade hardware to run Vista, you may as well consider OS X... and I suspect, in 2006/2007, Vista will be left behind in the wake of OS X.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Tim C]

I'd put excellent odds on OSX-x86 being able to run Windows apps through some sort of VMWare-ish compatibility layer (possibly VMWare itself).

You do realise that all VMWare is is a virtual machine, and that it requires a full, licenced copy of the OS you wish to run within it, right?

The only way to use VMWare on Mac OS X on Intel to run Windows apps is to own a copy of Windows.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[KillShill]

my hardware is more than fast enough to run vista but it doesn't offer anything compelling to most clued-in users.

it's virtually 90%+ xp with a few tidbits here and there.

as you can guess, i run in the classic environment.

so in effect, unless they start producing games/apps that ONLY run on vista, there isn't even a chance i'll be upgrading. the only upgrade path for windows users is linux anyway. on the same hardware i mean.

i have always enjoyed being able to pick and choose my hardware, from the mb, cpu and up. i can't do that with apple hardware. it's an all or nothing proposition and then i'd have to put my current computer in the closet for 2 reasons, 1 i don't have the physical space for 2 computers and 2 , both computers running at once would cost me a fortune to run in electricity.

i'd rather run osx and windows on one computer but i want to do it on open hardware. and seeing it's not in their business model to open up the system, as users keep reminding me, my only upgrade path is linux.

it isn't easy or economical for people to switch, even for the right reasons.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[level_headed_midwest]

If your Windows box "idles" with only 300MB of RAM used, that's pretty good. When I boot up Windows, it's more like 425 or more and all I have is Zone Alarm, Norton AV, and Spybot as startup-loaded services. I even killed of msmsgs.exe for cryin' out loud! I ended up having to upgrade my 512 MB to 1 GB just to make the system somewhat usable for running more than one program at once. But when I start up KDE 3.4.2 on SuSE 9.3 on the exact same machine, it uses about 125 MB RAM at idle. It only ever swaps when I suspend to disk and it reads stored data from the swap after I resume. Otherwise, I'll have to do something like run a 20-million-data-point analysis into R to get Linux to eat up anything near that gig of RAM. I don't know if it is because Linux/KDE is *that* much lighter than XP (I don't really think so) or that Windows just eats a TON of RAM for various and sundry.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Joe U]

If everything Vista does is possible now in OS X on a 1.33GHz system with 32mb VRAM and 512mb RAM

Well, first, everything Vista does is not possible in OSX, so your argument is not valid.

Also,

Vista is not feature complete, so we can't compare feature sets.

Vista is still a debug build, so you can't compare resource usage.

OSX is not Windows 6.0

It's like the old saying, you can't compare Apples and Oranges.

In this case, the apples are, well, Apple Mac OSX systems and the oranges are real computers and not a cutesy toy from Apple.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

all I have is Zone Alarm, Norton AV, and Spybot as startup-loaded services

There are your 3 problem apps. My box used to idle at under 128MB, but I've been kinda greedy with the tray apps lately, so it's near 300.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Talrinys]

Yes that is a very good point and i do believe this is one of the problems.

Because of the increasing amount of virus and spyware apps on the net we have to use more and more advanced scanning programs to detect and remove them. This is not necessarily microsofts fault, but it is a general problem.

I think my system has went up about 250 MB used constantly since getting WinXP for the first time.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, mostly.

So what's all the fuss about, anyway? The "whizbang" features of Vista are going to automagically scale with your hardware's capabilities.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

[blockquote]...i'd rather run osx and windows on one computer but i want to do it on open hardware. and seeing it's not in their business model to open up the system, as users keep reminding me, my only upgrade path is linux.

it isn't easy or economical for people to switch, even for the right reasons. [/blockquote]

Your last statement has little to do with the rest of your post.

Reasons why it is easy and economical for people to switch:

1) Hardware requirements that make Vista really unusable on existing systems. If it is true, then you have to buy a new PC anyway, so if the choice is between a PC powerful enough to run Vista, or a Mac that can also run the copy of Vista you just bought.

2) You have to upgrade because your system just can't run Vista, no contest. Your choice now is to buy a PC that can run Vista, or a Mac that can run both Vista and Mac OS X.

Of course it isn't guaranteed that a Mac will be able to run Vista; and if it can't, then the real issue is whether it will be cheaper to buy a Mac because you need a less powerful Mac to do the same things that Vista does; a dual 3GHz, 2GB, 256MB Vista machine, or a 2.3 GHz, 1GB, 64MB Mac.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

Actually, isn't it, "Everything Vista doesn't do everything it's promised to, and there is a good likelihood that everything it will do, so will OS X"?

Even if Vista isn't feature complete, you can compare what it does right now with what OS X does right now. Right now OS X does all it's graphical goodness with 32mb of vram, 256mb of ram, and 1.25GHz of CPU. Even allowing for some slack, Vista doesn't sound like it's going to be capable of running on a 2GHz system with 512mb of ram and 64mb of vram.

You can believe all you want that Macs and OS X aren't real computers, but there is no fundamental difference except that Apple's systems ship now, work now, and will work even better next year, while Microsoft's systems (as evinced from previous incarnations) barely work.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[Joe U]

Even if Vista isn't feature complete, you can compare what it does right now with what OS X does right now

Well, in that case, OSX is severely lacking in debug code and beta testing reporting tools.

What part of 'not done' is so difficult to get?

Even allowing for some slack, Vista doesn't sound like it's going to be capable of running on a 2GHz system with 512mb of ram and 64mb of vram.

Unless you work for Microsoft's OS development team I'm going to guess you have no clue what the final requirements will be. Also, allowing for some slack, Vista will be capable of running with 32mb of vram, 256mb of ram, and 1.25GHz of CPU.

You can believe all you want that Macs and OS X aren't real computers, but there is no fundamental difference except that Apple's systems ship now, work now, and will work even better next year

The same applies to other toys as well.

Microsoft's systems (as evinced from previous incarnations) barely work.

Just because some people lack the intelligence to operate a real computer doesn't mean it barely works.

Re:Thank you Captain Obvious...

[2nd Post!]

I don't know, for a long time OS X has been pretty much in development. The release model is different than Microsoft's. Apple releases APIs and libraries in one release, and then the next optimizes and refactors it in the next. Microsoft releases APIs and libraries as betas, continues to refactor and optimize, releases another beta, and then a release candidate, and then releases the OS after cutting a few features. It's happened with NT 4.0, Windows 2k, and now Windows Vista.

We all know that Vista will run, but with reduced features, on lower hardware. That has been publicly stated by Microsoft (their different' "experiences") We also know that this very thread is inspired because of comments from a Microsoft rep; Nigel Page. There is a probability that this is all fabrication, in which case these are false stats. On the other hand the reason I'm inclined to believe these statements is prior experience with NT, W2k, and WXP; Usable CPU, RAM, and HD requirements for all three have grown pretty fast, from 32mb RAM to 128mb to 512mb. Of course as the OS does more, it requires more. My Macs can't comfortably run on less than 256mb, and are much happier on 512mb, so they are perfectly on par with XP. If XP needs 512 to be happy now, I would expect Vista to easily need 1gb ram (I've pondered giving my Mac 1.5gb because there will be less swap and higher performance when I've got several applications going).

I don't know why you keep referring to Macs as toys; is it because you're incapable of using them productively? They're quite prevalent in developer circles, in the film industry, and in the graphics industries. Their strengths in these industries is productivity; better workflow, usability, and security. The CPUs may be underpowered, but other than that everything else is functionally the same as on a PC; same busses, devices, ports, interfaces, etc. The difference in the OS is that it doesn't get in the way of people (viruses, worms, security hassles, bad UI, bad design, etc).

Thanks, Bill!

[appleLaserWriter]

If a basic Windows box requires 256 MB of video RAM to run, then Macintosh OS X on x86 will definitely be the less expensive PC.

Re:Thanks, Bill!

[winkydink]

Which explains why the entry-level Mac Mini was recently bumped from 256Mb to 512Mb. Jobs didn't do that out of the goodness of his heart.

Re:Thanks, Bill!

[toddestan]

I would guess that Vista in classic mode will probably run on just about any video card you throw at it.

Re:Thanks, Bill!

[KillShill]

actually it wouldn't.

because apple charges a hefty premium on macs. the chip architecture they run on is irrelevant in terms of cost to the end user.

they are macs and will be charged a mac price.

video ram is exceedingly cheap if it's not bleeding edge fast. check out some radeon/geforce low end cards that have 256megs of ram. and by low end i don't mean shitty, i mean last years mid range models. you can get this years mid range 256m cards for around 150 bucks or so if you want a little more 3d oomph.

and by late 2006/2007 256MBs video ram will be the dirty cheap super low end version of cards.

and on top of that, vista has 3 different modes for eye candy: the top model requires 256ram and a top notch WGF 1/2.0 card, the medium model requires a dx8 level card (most computers already have or will have at least this) and then there's the windows classic which requires just about nothing.

the hardware requirements shouldn't be a bother to anyone. this isn't 1995 where hardware costs an arm and a leg. you can get a 5-600 dollar computer that can rip vista a new one and add a 200 dollar video card and you can get the best model of eye candy if you're so inclined.

but then again, vista doesnt have much to offer beyond optical sweets. it's XP+. stick with w2k or xp, you'll be better off. i plan on never upgrading, not in the least part due to the system-wide DRM and bullshit monitor upgrading to view HD video.

Re:Thanks, Bill!

[SCVirus]

Basic 256 video card is about $100.

Perfect time to bust out that laptop!

[KingEomer]

We should be able to run this on our new 6.8Ghz 2TB HD 1TB RAM laptops!

Re:Perfect time to bust out that laptop!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Informative" heh.

Re:Perfect time to bust out that laptop!

[gwayne]

6.8Ghz 2TB HD 1TB RAM laptops

Those are the minimum specs!

No reason to deviate...

[erroneus]

My company has been on a gradual migration away from Microsoft products. We haven't made any aggressive step as of yet -- our desktops are mostly WinXP. Our servers are Linux and Novell with the occasional utility server running some form of MS Windows or another. We are testing Novell Linux Desktop but we aren't even close to a deployment plan yet.

But the capital expenses associated with this "upgrade" is needless and ridiculous even if we weren't planning to migrate to Linux.

Re:No reason to deviate...

[gbjbaanb]

All companies write off hardware as tax expenses over 3 years (in the UK at least), so technically after 3 years your computers have been paid for by the taxman, and you cna buy new ones.

Just because you think buying a new PC is a cost doesn't make it so to a business.

The higher requirements should mean we get better hardware for cheaper prices anyway - look at how things have been progressing lately. No-one would be able to afford a computer if RAM wasn't so highly commoditised nowadays (I recall paying £100 per 4 MB. Now its almost £50 per Gb) If this ends up with dual-core graphics cards with 2Gb RAM for the same price as I currently pay for my 256Mb card... then its a good thing.

Re:No reason to deviate...

[level_headed_midwest]

That's why most companies still stick with Windows 2000. Office 2000 still opens Word files made with any version of Word so far, ditto for other Office formats. Almost all new programs still run on 2K, and they can still use the computers that they bought in 1999 to run it. I think that MS will have an even tougher time getting businesses to upgrade to Vista than they did getting (some of) them to upgrade to XP.

Re:No reason to deviate...

[Anonymous Coward]

All companies write off hardware as tax expenses over 3 years (in the UK at least), so technically after 3 years your computers have been paid for by the taxman, and you cna buy new ones.

Just because you think buying a new PC is a cost doesn't make it so to a business.

Does it work that way in the UK? Is it really free (or paid by the community, as you seem to imply) to buy new hardware?

I guess "written off" means something else here in Italy.

I can see three things happening

[quickbasicguru]

Three things that I can see happening:
1)GNU/Linux goes mainstream faster
2)Macs go mainstream
3)Both 1+2

Re:I can see three things happening

[Anonymous Coward]

Or

1) No one buys Vista and everything stays the same
2) MS getting pissed and dropping support for all Windows systems, but Vista
3) People gives MS the finger and everything stays the same

Re:I can see three things happening

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I can't count but that sure looks a heck of a lot like 2 things to me.

Re:I can see three things happening

[jonfr]

I also see this coming.

4) Everyone gets happy becose there computers actually works for the first time.

Re:I can see three things happening

[ezthrust]

Maybe I am reading to much into your words, but it seems to me that you imply that GNU/Linux going mainstream is inevitable and MacOS going mainstream is a maybe. Aside from all the usual arguments, MacOS is way closer to Windows than any linux distro in regards to usablity (disclaimer: I have not used Linspire) as well as more "credible" and I would suspect that people would flock to the thing as close to a windows experience as possible. I think a more likely side effect than either of these is MS destroying its own upgrade loop.

Re:I can see three things happening

[DroopyStonx]

You forget that most people that buy MS stuff are consumer sheep that either don't know any better or simply "dont' see what the problem is".

Most businesses that buy MS stuff are also those that have massive budgets that don't mind spending $200 on an OS. It's all numbers to them.

MS will still thrive simply because not many major 3rd party companies have the balls to make linux apps and... well, people are always buying new machines.

Fact is, most people are idiots and too afraid to change. MS is just exploiting that. Properly educate people and MS goes bye bye.

Re:I can see three things happening

[Dan Ost]

4. people stick with their current machine (be it 95, 98, ME, whatever) because it does what they want.

Seriously, if people can't get Vista to run on their $499 Dell, it's not going to sell.

Re:I can see three things happening

[despisethesun]

Two responses here:

1. KDE is closer to Windows in look-and-feel than Mac OS X is (there are some major differences, but at a glance this is mostly true.)
2. As long as Apple insists that you run Mac OS on Apple hardware only, it's never going to take over the market.

Re:I can see three things happening

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot something. It should read:

1.) No one buys Vista and everything stays the same
2). MS getting pissed and dropping support for all Windows systems, but Vista
3). Profit!!!!???!!
4). People gives MS the finger and everything stays the same

MS driving up HW prices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is _this_ why hardware vendors like MS so much? MS continually drives up hardware requirements as time progresses, allowing hardware vendors to pack more into PCs and making people pay more for a PC they wouldn't normally need?

I don't know about you, but I really don't like this system of forced upgrades due to "enhancements." If I buy a computer that is 1000$, I expect it to be good for quite a long time. I think computers are at a point now where they can be treated as appliances, lasting for decades. If people just kept on using windows 2000/xp, a current day $500 PC would be good enough until the hardware dies. The problem is, that hardware just doesn't last that long these days. Ah well, maybe it's not a giant conspiracy, but I can see why Dell and such like their partnership with MS.

Well, maybe there are enough people like me who are fed up with upgrades, and they'll just stay with windows 2000/xp or use linux/*bsd.

Re:MS driving up HW prices?

[bratboy]

actually, i see the reverse - although initially, HW prices might go up through a lack of supply, as vendors ramp up to meet the (corporate) demand for new hardware, economies of scale will kick in and these so-called "beefy" requirements will come down in price. ditto for lower-end stuff. which means that people who DON'T use MS products are going to get a great deal on some pretty high-end stuff. which means that non-MS stuff is going to run dramatically faster, since vista will need it just to run in the first place.

Re:MS driving up HW prices?

[EggyToast]

I agree. Wasn't long ago that every year or so, even without OS updates, I was itching to get some new "thing" for my computer to speed it up a bit. These were home built, and not top of the line, so it wasn't that expensive, but I was convinced that a faster chip, or more ram, or something would make the computer faster. And it did, slightly.

About a year and a half ago, I took the dive and got a dual 1.8 powermac. I bought it shortly after 10.3 came out, and was working on 10.2 at work. A noticeable difference in overall usability, but it wasn't until the upgrade to 10.4 that I noticed what other mac users had been saying for a while -- getting a newer OS on a mac tends to make better.

Of course, it's not drastic or anything, but it is there. The base requirements may be "made within the last 5 years," but that's a really wide range of computers. Why can Apple, a smaller company, write an OS that feels faster, with more features, on the same computer, while Windows requires significantly faster hardware than its predecesor, despite Microsoft's supposedly vast resources?

Re:MS driving up HW prices?

[dedded]

"MS continually drives up hardware requirements as time progresses"

Indeed. But certainly not to spitefully inflict hardship on customers. Arguably, an ideal world for MS would be one in which people spent none of their PC dollars on hardware, and all of them on MS software. And in fact, the business world is much like that--large customers usually buy licenses which are periodically renewed. But consumers need a reason to go buy new software, and MS's office suite has reached a point of maturity from where it's hard to increase the value, and thus the desirability, of the next version.

MS likely believes that the path to new consumer value is via multimedia. The better the GPU hardware, the greater the potential for MS to sell multimedia applications or services. So they create an OS requirement for top-of-the-line graphics hardware. PC makers comply, for they will not sell many machines if Windows isn't properly supported. And then MS can sell multimedia to properly equipped consumers. It's a theory anyway. (And of course they don't like being behind Apple in the eye candy dept.)

But let us concoct an even wilder theory. MS has called for a 100-dollar PC. Of course, they want the 100-dollar PC to go "down-market" in "some of these contries" where they see piracy. However, nobody _wants_ a down-market anything: if the price difference between a 100-dollar PC and a 250-dollar PC is due to the price difference between Windows and Windows--Starter Edition, the citizens of poor countries will continue to purchase black-market copies of Windows. But if the price difference is also due to hardware that cannot be cheaply obtained, and the cheap hardware does not support the flagship version of Windows, then the poor will have to be content with the "down-market" Windows product, which will be sold affordably.

/Dan

Re:MS driving up HW prices?

[rugger]

In that case,

The "down-market" Windows product will be pirated just like the full versions were.

Third party replacement

[Threni]

Wouldn't be too hard to write code to redirect all the 3d vector nonsense back into standard GDI calls.

Re:Third party replacement

[eobanb]

Wouldn't be too hard to write code to redirect all the 3d vector nonsense back into standard GDI calls.

Hey, great, let me know when you're done.

Re:Third party replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it'll be called a slider or checkbox in your control panel graphics settings.

Re:Third party replacement

[Aadain2001]

Except that they are removing the GDI functionality. All GDI calls will just act as special wrapers back to the vector display calls. MS is not making this OS to be a simple upgrade from XP. They started from scratch and they are compartmentalizing or outright removing a lot of legacy stuff (which is good, it leads to better design overall). The GDI is one such module that has been removed.

Re:Third party replacement

[doctormetal]

Except that they are removing the GDI functionality. All GDI calls will just act as special wrapers back to the vector display calls. MS is not making this OS to be a simple upgrade from XP.

where did you get this 'info'? Sounds totally bogus.

They started from scratch and they are compartmentalizing or outright removing a lot of legacy stuff (which is good, it leads to better design overall). The GDI is one such module that has been removed.

hmm, lets see:

• Windows '95 was written from scratch
  
• Windows NT4 was written from scratch
  
• Windows XP was written from scratch
  

Those were not written from scratch, neither is vista. It is based on windows XP.

Re:Third party replacement

[cnettel]

Nah, plain GDI is rendered in a bitmap that's then made a texture. It's been made clear that there will be a "classic", very XP-like, mode. One reason is performance, another that some corporate environments really don't want to do anything that will confuse their users. A third reason will be that some machines will have trashy hardware where the drivers never even would load Aero, no matter what performance you would accept.

Re:Third party replacement

[Aadain2001]

Check out the latest issue of MaximumPC. They had a very quick overview of Vista in it, and one of the issues it covered was the Vector graphics and the end of the GDI. It's on page 28, under the section on "Longhorn Display Driver Model" and is a very interesting read.

Windows 95(mostly) and NT were written from scratch. To a point so was 2000 (based off of NT). But XP was not written from scratch, it was an upgrade from 2000. Vista is not based on XP, it was a total rewrite. Why else would it be taking over 4 years of development work? If it was just a new UI and a few changes under the hood, it should have been out years ago. The only reason it could be taking so long is either a) they are idiots and can't program or b) they did a drastic rewrite of the whole OS from ground up.

Re:Third party replacement

[Aadain2001]

It's pretty much just conjecture until Vista goes gold, but from what I have read in MaximumPC on their Vista coverage, the GDI is indead being removed. If a legacy app calls the GDI, it will pass through a special wrapper that will behave like GDI in some respects, but it will ultimatly call the new 3D vector graphics calls. Yes, there would be a slight performance hit, but not much of one.

Re:Third party replacement

[Virak]

The only reason it could be taking so long is either a) they are idiots and can't program or b) they did a drastic rewrite of the whole OS from ground up.

It could easily be both. >.>

Re:Third party replacement

[banuk]

a little from column a a little from column b

with apologizies to Matt Groening

Re:Third party replacement

[Fussen]

Vector GUI is the only thing that really excites me about Vista. Taking that power of the GPU and having it control all the visuals just like a video game (Blizzard comment in mind "Zug Zug" :D ).

Just thinking that when I resize my desktop resolution, the chrome and interfaces can stay relatively proportionate to the real estate while adding increased resolution is hot stuff. Animating vectors will be supa sweet. And I'm thinking way beyond whatever OSX has. I checked out those icons.. they're just bitmaps ... I thought they were sweet little vectors but alas I was dissapointed.

See.. I'm already starting to save up for a screen thats the size of the astrometrics lab on Voyager with the curvature and everything. I know it will be possible and yes, OH YES it will be mine.

Re:Third party replacement

[Overly Critical Guy]

I can tell you exactly why it took them so long. For one, it is not a complete rewrite. They were basing their work off of Windows XP SP2. They were adding so many new technologies that the system was straining, so last year they actually started over from the Windows Server 2003 codebase, and backported their new tech in a more modular fashion. The second major reason it's taken so long is that the Longhorn project is over-managed.

Even more proof it's not a complete rewrite is the fact most of Vista's new technologies are going to be made available for XP as well, as free downloads.

I think Vista will be somewhat of a flop, as most people have begun to treat computers as appliances that last a long time. 1Ghz/512MB of RAM is a perfect computer for someone browsing the web, sending email, and taking pictures. They don't need more than that. The plateau has been hit. It will be hard to justify a mega-machine just to display windows on the screen.

Re:Third party replacement

[ShieldW0lf]

The only reason it could be taking so long is either a) they are idiots and can't program or b) they did a drastic rewrite of the whole OS from ground up.

c) They had all sorts of ideas on things they wanted to add to the existing code base, but most of them didn't work and had to be pulled back out. They don't really have anything that would justify a release aside from DRM, but they need something new so they're pushing it out the door anyways.

Can I have c for $1000.00 Alex?

Re:Third party replacement

[vcv]

That's not completely true. The Vista code is based off of Windows Server 2003 SP1. A lot of the new features and components are indeed written from scratch, and a lot of changes to make the OS more modularized, but they didn't rewrite from scratch. There will still be much legacy support.

Re:Third party replacement

[Threni]

> I think Vista will be somewhat of a flop, as most people have begun to treat
> computers as appliances that last a long time

It's businesses which provide Microsoft (and hardware manufacturers) with most of their sales and profit, and they don't really keep stuff for too long.

Re:Third party replacement

[Overly Critical Guy]

Uh, yes they do. Many businesses still run Windows 98 and 2000. OS/2 mainframes are common.

Re:Third party replacement

[slashdot-me]

The only reason it could be taking so long is either a) they are idiots and can't program or b) they did a drastic rewrite of the whole OS from ground up.

Or both! In fact, it's causal: A->B.

Create your own demand

[JustASlashDotGuy]

$10 says there's a headline next week that M$ just purchased a video card manufacturer that just happens to produce cards with large amount of memory at a low low price!


I'm still waiting for MS to produce spyware that only their SW is able to kill for some "mysterious" reason, heh.

Re:Create your own demand

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for MS to produce spyware that only their SW is able to kill for some "mysterious" reason, heh.

They already do, it's called Windows.

640 GB should be enough for anyone...

[ackthpt]

hardware vendors smile towards the shocking new recommended hardware needed for the next generation Windows operating system."

Tradition. Oh, and remember what ever the minimum Microsoft says, double it.

"Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships."

I wonder what this will do to gaming. Seems like an improvement on the surface. But this will probably drive up the base system prices initially. Yes, memory is cheap, but video cards with that much aren't.

I sure hope one feature of Vista is the ability to leave out all kinds of useless crap you'll never need, but it doesn't sound like it's trending that way.

"Why are all the lights around town dimming? Is Enron back in business?"
"No, people are upgrading their PC's to minimum to do absolutely nothing but boot up."

Re:640 GB should be enough for anyone...

[Foofoobar]

LOL. Mod Up.

Re:640 GB should be enough for anyone...

[b100dian]

I wonder what this will do to gaming..
256 MB Video ram for the game..
256 MB Video ram for the MessageBox that says 'Cannot initialize DirectX'
4 GB of ram so you can see the messagebox the same day you ran the game.. priceless!

My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[HulkProtector1]

But it runs KDE quite happily

Re:My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[Angstroem]

You must have some strange definition of "quite happily"... Since running SuSE9.3 with the (back then) latest KDE, my laptop became dog slow cause its 256MB are always almost filled. Switching off the most unnecessary services (both, KDE and system services) didn't help much, though, but things at least got gradually better.

As a sidenote, SuSE9.3 war the last SuSE for me, although I was using it since old SuSE4.x days. For my own part, I welcome my new Debian overlords.

Re:My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[rcbarnes]

KDE was a little heavy for my 1/4GB laptop (not to mention that until the new plastik, I wanted to gouge my eyes out whenever I opened a Qt app)... I find that OpenBox3 will run inside ~5meg + X overhead. I usually have about half my RAM available when I have a shitload of xterms, audio player, firefox, Gaim, thunderbird, xchat, kile, and a handful of other apps open.

Re:My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[mattyrobinson69]

kde 3.4.1 on debian etch, reading slashdot on opera and on irc (irssi) in konsole, running kmail, kopete, korganiser and kalarm.

top - 23:47:46 up 1:27, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
Tasks: 81 total, 1 running, 80 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 3.3% us, 0.0% sy, 0.0% ni, 96.3% id, 0.0% wa, 0.3% hi, 0.0% si
Mem: 1035496k total, 354416k used, 681080k free, 44876k buffers
Swap: 4731100k total, 0k used, 4731100k free, 193644k cached

Re:My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[m50d]

KDE was a little heavy for my 1/4GB laptop

It's usable in 64mb, and smooth as anything if you turn the eye candy off. 256mb and it runs perfectly with as much eyecandy as you want.

(not to mention that until the new plastik, I wanted to gouge my eyes out whenever I opened a Qt app)

So pick keramik in the friendly wizard that comes up when you first start it.

And Scoble denies:

[Anonymous Coward]

The Scobleizer already denied it, claiming that first-hand knowledge and exprerience show Nigel is wrong about Vista

Ho-hum

[Brunellus]

We're covering this as if most users were going to upgrade from XP to Vista, and will be thus compelled to shell out big bucks for new graphics cards, ram, disks, etc for their current computers just to run the new OS.

This is, of course, not the case. Most users who cannot upgrade will march blithely on with the OS they already have. I'm writing from work, where we're still using Windows 2000. The computer next to me is an ancient Pentium 133--and it runs Win95.

Home users will encounter Vista when they decide to buy a brand new computer, and from that perspective, they'll have gotten a shiny new OS with their shiny new hardware. Nobody will see the cost of the OS and the cost of the hardware to run it as separate things.

Re:Ho-hum

[Valiss]

Quite honestly, I am still slowly upgrading my hardware ever since I put XP on my comp over a year ago, and it still isn't running a smooth as XP should. And I built this rig not more than two years ago!

I have no desire to get Vista. Why would I? What will it have that XP can not do already for me? Espcially if I'm gonna have to build a new comp altogether. No, I just can't justify that kinda money cause it's new.

Re:Ho-hum

[jawtheshark]

I said the same about Windows NT4, and I said the same about Windows 2000. I would never migrate beyond them. I did. With NT4 it was the lack of USB support. With W2k it was the support that is going to end soon and I have to admit that in a family environment "fast user switching" really is useful. So now I'm upgrading my machines from W2K to WinXP. I don't like it either, but I don't feel as if I have a choice. If the next Rockstar game isn't going to run on W2K, I have a big problem. That big problem is called "my brother" and he's much stronger than me. :-/ (Okay, he wouldn't hit me but he's going to bitch and moan until I give in)

Re:Ho-hum

[Eric604]

That's fine until you need feature X of Vista, then you also have to upgrade the hardware because with Vista comes the unwanted features Y and Z which require 32x more RAM etc.

Re:Ho-hum

[AeroIllini]

Home users will encounter Vista when they decide to buy a brand new computer, and from that perspective, they'll have gotten a shiny new OS with their shiny new hardware.

So how does Dell continue to sell $400 computers with a crazy HDCP monitor, 2GB of RAM, a 256MB accelerated video card, and a brand-spanking-new install of Vista, and still stay in business?

My guess is that for the foreseeable future, Dell will continue to put Windows XP on those lower-end models, which a significant percentage of the non-commercial population buy (I'm sure when corporate entities upgrade, it's not the $400 model. But they have no reason to upgrade for many more years). Microsoft will not get nearly the market penetration they are looking for, and they will be forced to either lower the hardware requirements with some clever re-coding, or else just release a crippled, useless, and cheaper version of Vista (called, perhaps, Vista Home?) which will only frustrate and infuriate users with its lack of built-in functionality. I'm betting on Vista Home.

Your move, Tux.

Re:Ho-hum

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft must consider the fact that the american public may already have on computer per household. There is only so much more room for new computers to those who want just surf and read email.

The power users may also feel the same way....

Re:Ho-hum

[Tim Browse]

There should be a "-1, Used the word 'rig' to describe a computer" mod.

What? No Nanotubes?

[yourfnmom]

Crap. I was hoping that I'd be forced to upgrade my system to one of those cool new machines built entirely with Carbon Nanotubes. I hear their just around the corner, sorta like Vista.

Released Next Christmas......Right

[mgpeter]

I am betting on it being released when the DOJ restrictions are lifted - November 2007

MS will never play fair, why should they start now (even though they are required to by law).

huh?

[Ravenrage]

wtf "As for system RAM, Page reportedly said, 512 MByte is "heaps" for a 32-bit system. For a 64-bit system, however, "you're going to want 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM." The transcript states that Page explained 64-bit users will need to double their memory because units of memory are naturally double the size. what the hell?

Re:huh?

[thoromyr]

Because a 32-bit processor word is 32 bits and a 64-bit processor word is... 64-bits. So if the application uses an int it will take twice the memory as previously.

In truth it is somewhat more complicated than that, but that is roughly what is going on. The jump from 16-bit to 32-bit was significantly good because of the available numeric ranges. But, for many things, 32 bits is plenty. It is less clear what (generic) benefit will result from 64-bit computing. Although -- if it takes 1GB to run your application now with a comfortable OS base of a quarter that with increased memory requirements the 32-bit version will likely quickly hit the limits of what can be addressed in 32 bits.

thoromyr

Re:huh?

[LWATCDR]

Yep double the size is an over kill but 64bit programs will eat a lot more ram than the same program written for 32bit? Why?
Every pointer now takes twice the space.

That is one of the nice things about the PPC and Sparc. If you do not need 64bit pointer you can just compile for 32bit. You can run 32 bit code on a 64 64bit AMD/Intel CPU but you get a big performance boost if you recompile to 64 bit since you have a more registers available in 64bit mode.

Re:huh?

[pdbogen]

He's probably thinking of word size which, if I'm not mistaken, is, in fact, doubled with 64-bit versus 32-bit. I don't see how this equates to 2GB of DDR3, though...

Re:huh?

[KillShill]

it's called "competent journalism".

Re:huh?

[cnettel]

Well, there is a grain of truth in this. "Units of memory" could be a non-geek obfuscation of "pointers". And noone should say that 64 bit pointers everywhere is a free thing, that it doesn't increase memory requirements or performance (mainly due to caches filling faster and increased bandwidth requirements).

In addition, I would imagine that the total mapped area of virtual memory will increase a fair bit by the thunking and duplication of code for 32-bit and 64-bit. Any libraries that are loaded into the process adress space will need to be mapped in both versions, and that will naturally increase the amount of unique code pages mapped.

Re:huh?

[Floody]

Every pointer now takes twice the space.

So what? Well, ok, sure there's some additional overhead incurred by doubling the native register/int size, but still. are you saying that the majority of memory consumed by an os and applications is pointers? It's not, it's buffers. Lots of 'em. Heaps of 'em (pun intended). And they aren't allocated based on register size. Of course, looks like Vista in "candy ass mode" is gonna be doing some texture buffering too but that's going to slurp up ram no matter what arch.

That is one of the nice things about the PPC and Sparc. If you do not need 64bit pointer you can just compile for 32bit. You can run 32 bit code on a 64 64bit AMD/Intel CPU but you get a big performance boost if you recompile to 64 bit since you have a more registers available in 64bit mode.

Yeah, that's a nice feature. Too bad you get whacked out with sigbus if you don't align on a 64-bit boundary (sparc64 anyway, not sure about ppc).

Re:huh?

[b100dian]

Right.
Pointers will double their size. Ints will not (at least not for MSVC, where you have LONGLONG).
Now, the reason we use pointers is that we do not have memory to pass that info "by value".Therefore the pointers are a shorthand. Therefore are shorter. Much much more shorter - compare 100 pointers against a texture!

Then again.. the texture will be the same on 64 bit machines.

WHat the hell are they talking about?!??

Re:huh?

[Jeremi]

The transcript states that Page explained 64-bit users will need to double their memory because units of memory are naturally double the size. what the hell?

It's a new coding rule for Windows Vista: all variables must be pointers.

Re:huh?

[Dan Ost]

Actually, an int will still be 32 bits, but the processor will be able to process two integers at the same time (32 + 32 = 64...). Calculations involving long longs will be much faster (previously they were calculated by splitting the number, performing seperate calculations, and then merging the results), and some pointers will be larger (but not all, probably the minority).

So moving to 64 bits won't double your memory requirements at all.

Re:huh?

[dedded]

"I don't see how this equates to 2GB of DDR3, though."

Nor do I. Going from 512M to 2G is 4x, so it's more than what's required for a doubling of pointer size. Does the page size increase in a 64-bit system?

/Dan

Re:huh?

[LWATCDR]

Notice I said that twice is over kill but it is every branch and address. It does increase memory size.

Hahaha!

[Dhaos]

What's the deal here? Are they -trying- to shoot themselves in the foot?

Businesses already have almost -no- incentive to switch to Vista. Now, instead of just buying expensive licences, they have to upgrade the graphics cards on their vanilla work PCs??

Has someone at MS gone patently nuts?

Yes, I know you will say "Microsoft will pull support for XP, and thus force everyone to upgrade." Maybe. But I think there will be backlash here.

And if you think that Vista is going to be exclusively for consumers, please tell me how Dell will provide $400 dollar machines with such beefy video cards!! It defies logic!

This is madness! Madness I say!

Re:Hahaha!

[amliebsch]

MS has repeatedly explained that if you don't have a dedicated video card, it will simply fall back into a software rendering mode with less bling, similar to what is used in XP.

Re:Hahaha!

[interiot]

I don't know, business machines have been coming with sound cards for a long time. These days they're coming with CD writers, DVD drives, etc etc. I'm sure they'll come with optical audio outputs in a few years, for all those 5.1 sound systems people have in their cubes.

And if you think that Vista is going to be exclusively for consumers, please tell me how Dell will provide $400 dollar machines with such beefy video cards!! It defies logic!

Volume, baby, volume.

Re:Hahaha!

[chris_eineke]

please tell me how Dell will provide $400 dollar machines with such beefy video cards!!

Put in 512 megs of ram and share half of it with a standard Intel GPU. Problem solved(*).

(*) And new problems introduced.

Re:Hahaha!

[Androclese]

They expect that the public at-large are sheep and will buy whatever is put in front of them.

Dell and Gateway will package a computer "designed to run Vista" and people will simply pay for it.

Re:Hahaha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you are new to the world of Windows. Here is a simple roadmap to get businesses to upgrade to Vista:

1. Stop selling XP.
2. Release Office Vista.
3. Bundle both with every new PC.

Businesses buy new PCs all the time. They have to. Their next PC purchase will be a bit more expensive than the last, but it also has a cool new OS and Office Suite.

It won't take long before everyone else in the office wants one. And it won't take much longer than that to start experiencing compatability problems. Under some circumstances, older PCs don't see newer PCs on the network... Older PCs can't read Office documents created on the newer PCs... Older PCs can't run the new .Net app that the newer PCs are running... The copy machine acts really wierd when a new PC prints to it right after an old PC does...

6-12 months after the first Vista PC shows up in a business, the IT staff will start planning a corporate-wide upgrade. This will promise to solve the intra-office jealousies and the intra-office incompatabilities. The best of the older PCs will be saved as spares for the one or two departments that are running some legacy vertical apps that won't work on Vista.

Re:Hahaha!

[mythosaz]

The AC gets *most* of the issue.

Most large companies are on 3-year PC refresh cycles already anyway. 3 years is a reasonable time to depreciate them off their books, and it's exactly how long Dell's extended warranty lasts on them.

When you want "a new PC" for an employee at any sufficiently large company, you place a request for the standard model. That standard model is "whatever Dell is selling this month, bundled with a license for whatever OS Microsoft is selling this year."

In our case, it just moved from the GX280 to the GX620. Next year, it'll be a machine that runs Vista just fine, and it'll cost almost exactly the same as the 280's from last quarter and the 620's from this quater. ...and they all pretty much cost the same as the GX1's that we bought to upgrade people to back at Y2K.

Re:Hahaha!

[Overly Critical Guy]

And given that Vista's new APIs will be free downloads made available for XP, it makes you wonder, what's the point of Vista then?

Re:Hahaha!

[DroopyStonx]

Well, we all know Dell pieces together the shittest of shit hardware, so they'll be doing the same with their graphics cards.

In the end, it's just more control over us. Damn the man... ...er wait, am I joking? Damn. I don't know anymore...

To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor. Why? Because these formats use HDCP to encrypt a video signal as it travels along a digital connection to an output device, to prevent people copying it.

It seems that the "boo-hoo pity me" issue the entertainment industry is crying over piracy is being exploited by MS and the like to FORCE widespread DRM in a similar fasion that our country uses and exploits "terrorism" to get away with things that they normally wouldn't be able to do.

Do graphics cards aid in transferring encrypted high quality digital images?

Re:Hahaha!

[mollymoo]

Businesses already have almost -no- incentive to switch to Vista. Now, instead of just buying expensive licences, they have to upgrade the graphics cards on their vanilla work PCs??

Slide 1:
* PHBs decide what kit gets bought.
* PHBs perfer PowerPoint to human interaction.
* PowerPoint Vista Doubleplus++(tm) will have a huge selection of ugly, distracting and GPU-intensive transition effects.

Re:Hahaha!

[dedded]

"Businesses already have almost -no- incentive to switch"

True.

"Now, instead of just buying expensive licences, they have to upgrade the graphics cards on their vanilla work PCs??"

But license fees are not the only issue. Businesses don't want to switch from W2K (or won't want to switch from XP) because those systems are known to work with all their apps and software systems. In many cases, switching the operating system will entail a fair bit of expense and a great deal of risk. Unless there is enticing value on the the other side, why switch?

If there is a desire to switch, the cost of the required graphics card (likely in new PCs) will not influence the decision.

/Dan

Re:Hahaha!

[i.of.the.storm]

Correction: Even Intel's GMA900 integrated graphics are able to run Vista.

Token mac comment

[Matey-O]

So how is it my poor little iBook can do HW accelerated OS stuff with 32mb?

Re:Token mac comment

[Compaq_Hater]

thats just it,Mac OS X and Linux already have the Eye candy and at 1/3 the spec to do it.

CH

Why?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides looking pretty, what is driving these hardware requirements? I will inevitably disable all the eye-candy I can when required to use Vista, so what else in the OS is so important that would make it require 256MB of GPU RAM and 2GB of system RAM?

Just another good reason...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Just another good reason to not even consider upgrading at all.

What will it take to get me to Vista?

The Killer App that I need to run, and can't be run on anything else.

And what is that Killer App?

Haven't got a clue. Can't even imagine what more I'll want to do on a computer that I can't already do now.

Good luck, Microsoft.

Re:Just another good reason...

[Cid Highwind]

The Killer App that I need to run, and can't be run on anything else. And what is that Killer App?

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray video playback. Both will require the DRM infrastructure in Vista. Oh, and you'll need a monitor that does HDCP encryption (none presently on the market do) as well as a new computer with a beefy video card. Enjoy!

Re:Just another good reason...

[Red Flayer]

"Haven't got a clue. Can't even imagine what more I'll want to do on a computer that I can't already do now. "

640K ought to be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates, 1981

Just for some perspective.

Now I'll get off your lawn.

Re:Just another good reason...

[Nom du Keyboard]

The Killer App that I need to run, and can't be run on anything else. And what is that Killer App?

HD-DVD and Blu-Ray video playback. Both will require the DRM infrastructure in Vista. Oh, and you'll need a monitor that does HDCP encryption (none presently on the market do) as well as a new computer with a beefy video card. Enjoy!

You know, that's just not enough of a killer app for me. High Def on my computer screen isn't that exciting. Current DVD is good enough. In fact, it's better than most of the movies on it.

Next idea?

Re:Just another good reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't even imagine what more I'll want to do on a computer that I can't already do now. Ummm... maybe get laid?

Re:Just another good reason...

[rvw14]

To bad he didn't really say this.

Re:Just another good reason...

[Aggressiva]

Bill Gates never said that, google the web for 640 and urban myths.

Re:Just another good reason...

[the arbiter]

Like that high-definition CD format that came out a few years ago. The one that nobody upgraded to.
I think Microsoft will have to come up with something a lot better than that.

Of course, they'll still have the corporate upgrade trough to feed from, but that won't last forever either. Sysadmins like myself are getting tired of the constant security hassles, and I get a fair amount of input into what my company buys. Not all sysadmins do, but with enough pissed off admins and uneccesarily inflated IT budgets, the tide will eventually turn.

Re:Just another good reason...

[ArcticCelt]

"640K ought to be enough for anybody. -- Bill Gates, 1981

Just for some perspective."

For some more perspective ;)

Did Gates Really Say 640K is Enough For Anyone?
Urban Legends Archive

But vectors are supposed to save memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... something's here wrong, the whole point of Vector graphics is to save memory, like how flash animations are much more small than GIF animations. Vector graphics is a more of a CPU hog then a memory hog... then again, it's MS, go figure...

Re:But vectors are supposed to save memory

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the whole point of vector graphics is scalability, not memory size: a vector graphic looks as good at 1600x1200 as it does at 1280x1024; a 1280x1024 bitmap looks like crap at 1600x1200. The idea here is to make something that will look good with the next generation of displays.

Gigantic Leap

[Spy Handler]

Windows XP Professional: 128 megabytes of RAM or higher recommended

Windows Vista: 2 Gigabytes of RAM recommended

WTF??

Re:Gigantic Leap

[myowntrueself]

"Windows Vista: 2 Gigabytes of RAM recommended"

And thats just for the OS; before you run any applications.

Once you have a full set of 'system tray' applications, you'll need a 64bit architecture just to be able to meet the memory requirements.

Re:Gigantic Leap

[Wesley Felter]

OTOH, 2GB of RAM in 2006 will probably cost the same as 128MB did in 2000, and you'll get more eye candy for your money.

Re:Gigantic Leap

[at_slashdot]

Actually running XP with anything less than 256MB is a pain. So... should we explect that we need 4GB to run Vista well?

Re:Gigantic Leap

[numbware]

It's weird that you say that, since I used nLite to strip out the 64mb memory requirment in the install so that I can install it on my 233mhz, 32mb ram laptop. Plus, I have it on my 200mhz, 192mb ram desktop, my 500mhz, 256mb ram desktop, and my 2.7ghz, 768mb ram desktop. They all run just as smooth, no problem. Even with eye candy on.

These hardware requirements are just to push manufacturers to their limit by making higher performance parts. Thus, parts that will most likely run Vista (and definatly XP) at a minimum smooth speed will be cheaper. This is all a good thing.

Re:Gigantic Leap

[jo42]

When Longhorn (will always be "cowpies" to me) first saw the light, I wrote that it would probably require a 4GHz CPU with 4GB of RAM to run. I was modded down to a "Troll". Too bad I was closer to the truth than what the narrow minded moderator thought at the time...

vectorized icons need 256MB?

[mistermark]

Hmmmz, my SGI Indy didn't need 256MB of videomemory to have vectorized icons... somehow I get the feeling Vista isn't the most efficiently programmed software/OS we've seen... ;-)

(and the Indy *did* ship with a journaling filesystem... XFS...)

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[ackthpt]

Hmmmz, my SGI Indy didn't need 256MB of videomemory to have vectorized icons... somehow I get the feeling Vista isn't the most efficiently programmed software/OS we've seen... ;-) (and the Indy *did* ship with a journaling filesystem... XFS...)

Makes you wonder what they're compiling this thing with and what's going into it. Probably doing it in VB.Net and running it onto of the framework.

"i say! that looks as bloated as a government budget!"

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an interesting idea... load winxp on the video card and use vista to run the computer...

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Philip K Dickhead]

It's all serialized in XML markups, and being parsed on the fly.

Your GUI now ships out anywhere you like, via HTTPS! Of courese, you are hosed once you fire up a GDI app.

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Of course, you will have to use Internet Explorer, as there will be checks to disable Firefox, Opera, and the like...

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Philip K Dickhead]

Oh... No browsers allowed! This is an "XMLized" RPC service.

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Did it double buffer its windows?

Re:vectorized icons need 256MB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, I got a few questions. Where is all the encryption crap going to take place? Will it be the CPU or GPU? Will it be using ram of the video card or system ram? Could this be the reason for such hefty requirements?

Ooops!

[winkydink]

I missed that all-important adjective "video". Never mind.

Re:Ooops!

[jonfromspace]

There needs to be a "+1 - Apology Accepted" mod.

Ya, so?

[T-Ranger]

I could argue that 256mb cards will be a dime a dozen in 15 months, but all I have to say is:

256mb of vram should be enough for anyone.

Talk to me in 10 years and tell me then if you think that thats stupid.

Re:Ya, so?

[EggyToast]

While I agree that as time marches on, what we find outrageous today will be mundane tomorrow, there does start to be a point of diminishing returns regarding a great deal of computer hardware.

I've been stuck at 1.8ghz for 3 years now. I got a 1.8 AMD 3 years ago for a computer I put together. Twas pretty fancy at the time. Then I upgraded to a 1.8ghz Barton core AMD. No increase in clock speed, but an increase in L2 cache and the chip ran cooler (and the fans quieter).

1.5 years ago I bought a dual 1.8ghz Powermac. 1 year ago I bought a 1.8ghz AMD 64 laptop.

There are a lot of chips out there that are quite a bit faster than 1.8ghz. Yet I've felt little purpose moving to them. My computers do a LOT of things, very quickly, and while I've increased their RAM, storage space, and peripherals... they still chug along happily at 1.8ghz.

Sure, I'd be able to render video a little faster on my Powermac if I upgraded, but is a 20% increase worth $3000? Not to me. Similarly, there was a time when running a basic word processing application and surfing the web at the same time would be straining on a computer. The computers of today do that kind of stuff easily, yet there are plenty of people who still just use word processing software and surf the web.

My parents are on an old 800mhz machine. All I do is format it every once in a while to get rid of all of their spyware and viruses (which hasn't been so bad lately, after making them use Firefox and having a free anti-virus installed that didn't chew up resources). I keep trying to talk them into getting a Mac of some sort, because I think they would use the computer for more than just surfing the web... But they decline politely each time, saying that what they have surfs the web just fine. They even went from cable back to dial up.

So no, my parents are not representative of "everyone." But there are a great deal of people who use a computer to just do a few things. As technology marches on and requirements skyrocket for some things... they stay the same for many others. Linux has had a great deal of graphical advancements over just the past few years, yet you can still do a great many things on the system with a truly ancient machine. Enough for what most people use their computers for.

Just because gamers get new video cards every year doesn't mean the majority of people are just fine viewing 2d graphics for their work.

Re:Ya, so?

[T-Ranger]

For some people, what they have is good enough ... they dont need to upgrade. Yes. So? If what they have is good enough, they why would they upgrade to a new OS? Why does the hardware requirements for something that is more then they need relevent to anything?

Re:Ya, so?

[Overly Critical Guy]

You're ignoring the plateau. People do specific things on a computer--check email, take pictures, surf the web, play music. At some point, you don't need more than a certain level of hardware to do what most people do on computers. The sweet spot is 1Ghz with 256MB of RAM, perhaps 512.

What does a secretary or a business owner need vectorized graphics for?

Re:Ya, so?

[EggyToast]

Because like a lot of software, a new OS can fix bugs, offer improved features, and more. Of course, you could come back and say that people who want those features are obviously not happy with what they currently have, and will upgrade.

I suppose that my point, which I did not do a great job of illustrating in my previous post, is that anyone using a piece of software, or, heck, using any product, if you've got customers using your product, you have a potential future sale. People regularly update free software even at the minor releases. It's easy to do cos it's free. When money's involved, getting those stalwart "I'm happy with what I have" individuals to upgrade is the challenge. You can ignore them, only catering to new customers, or you can appease them in some way, or offer some enticing incentive. Lots of software companies do this by saying "you bought the previous version, upgrade to the new version for %50 of the price," or similar deals. They encourage people who otherwise don't care to buy the upgrade, by trying to make the feature set compelling and the price manageable for those with an already working copy.

Forcing all of those individuals to buy entirely new hardware AND offering no discounts or incentives for upgrades other than "it's got some new features" just doesn't jive with those people who don't really care. You slough off the criticisms of Vista stating that it's no big deal, but those people who just use a computer to get some work done, well, they're also the ones who are responsible for Window's monopoly.

Personally, despite all the talk about "Window's Monopoly," I'd be more interested in seeing the breakdown of current computers running all the various Windows operating systems. It'd be interesting to see if the monopoly is based on XP now or Windows 98 or similar. Why? Because XP still ran on most of the computers that run the older operating systems. Sure 98 runs on a pentium 100, but the 233's and 333's came out in, what, 97? And XP runs on those. Those are all computers that *could* run XP, but choose not to. If the only computers that can run Vista are those sold in the last 6 months, well, that puts a slight damper on the future of the operating system.

Re:Ya, so?

[Calroth]

256mb of vram should be enough for anyone.

Talk to me in 10 years and tell me then if you think that thats stupid.

Back in the day, we thought that a 4MB card was OK, an 8MB card was more than sufficient and a 16MB card enough for all but the most massive monitors. Why? Because we used video cards as a framebuffer, and any excess memory was just a waste.

Then game developers started targeting the video card, and started putting texture maps on the video card. Whoa! Suddenly the baseline video card for games blew out... 128MB minimum today, will be a lot more in the future.

My point? That it took a completely new application of the video card to massively inflate what people should expect of it. And that what Microsoft is doing with Windows Vista could be the start of another completely new application that could again spur the development of huge new video cards.

(But then, we have new PCI Express cards with HyperMemory and TurboCache which use main system memory, since they have enough bandwidth to do so. So talk to me in 10 years and I could be saying that a 4MB card is OK, an 8MB card is more than sufficient and a 16MB card enough for all but the most massive monitors...)

Re:Ya, so?

[T-Ranger]

Going from a framebuffer to a graphic processor was a significant leap. It added new capabilities. Having an OS GUI take advantages of that 3d processor isn't quite the same thing. Its finding a new genre of software for the same hardware - hell, even the same software (assuming that its done in d3d).

And in the early PCI/AGP days, AGP had enough memory bandwidth to use system RAM, too. Perhaps technically true (I dont care),. but just marketing BS and irrelevent for all but the lowest end hardware.

The solution!

[Bahumat]

Quick, someone code an ASCII mod for it!

Re:The solution!

[b100dian]

Yeah, wrap libaa or libcaca into a Display Device Driver and switch to 132x80 Text Mode!!

Back in my day...

[HulkProtector1]

We only had 2 kb/s of RAM, we took a BUS to school uphill both ways, and the word VISTA was only used in the pipply-headed geek crowd... oh wait

Re:Back in my day...

[Nom du Keyboard]

We only had 2 kb/s of RAM,

Don't you mean 2KB of core?

Vista is insanely slow

[Anonymous Coward]

So far the beta versions of Vista are painfully slow. I doubt that anyone in his right mind will waste his money on Vista with its insane hardware requirements when he can have a blazing fast Linux machine.

whatever.

[idiotism]

wonderful, another reason not to upgrade (as if i was going to). all windows vista is, is a black version of windows xp, with better search options. i can do the visual changes with something like aston or stylexp. the only thing i use my xp machine for right now is video games. all my music and movies are kept on my mac file server, so i can do advanced searches (if i cared to) with spotlight. but OMG, i forgot there are new icons for the folders and the explorer is different looking. just what i need to do, waste $200 buying a prettier version of xp pro. i hope vista is the downfall to MS.

A few things

[decipher_saint]

I am no Microsoft lover but I have to speak out here. Nigel Page originally said it would "work best" under that rather steep hardware configuration, any OS "should" work best under that configuration.

As of the beta 1, the unoptimized version works kick ass on an 1800XP, 512MB DDR & Radeon 9700. Unless you want to use crap like "Aero Glass" you won't need a high end vid card. Personally speaking, I'm still worried about the DRM monitor requirements and I am also a bit uninterested since so many features (i.e. anything I really cared about as a windork) were dropped from the upcoming release.

There couldn't be a larger piece of disinformation circulating the net right now.

experience*

[Anonymous Coward]

experience*

My computer only has 256 RM :( ...

[Anonymous Coward]

But it runs Windows XP quit Happily

RAM Price

[vivek7006]

I remember the days when my PC used to run win98 with 32MB RAM and later I had shelled out around 100 bucks to upgrade it to 32+64=96MB. WinXP's minimum memory requirement was 128MB and recommendation was 256MB. At that time it felt outrageous.

The article claims that because Vista will require 1-2GB of RAM, it will drive the memory prices up. I don't think that was the case in the past and as far as I remember memory prices came down steadily after windows-XP was released. I doubt that WindowsVista will cause inflation in the RAM price

Re:RAM Price

[Anonymous Coward]

oh boo hoo, $100 for 64mb ram

i paid $135 for 4mb for my 486

and im sure ill get replies making fun of me saying "oh yeah, i paid $3K for 1mb in 1970.. well good for you, lets make fun of the poster together!""

Windows 2000 forever!

[Animats]

About half of corporate America is still running Windows 2000. And, after Vista comes out, probably half of corporate America will still be running Windows 2000, less further migration to Linux.

There just isn't enough new in Longhorn/Vista to justify the buy. Where's the return on investment here? Why buy a new computer for everybody in your call center? Hello?

There's nothing wrong with rendering the entire user interface in the GPU. Softimage was doing that under NT 4 in 1997, using OpenGL. It was clunky back then, but it's worked fine for years. Multiple windows tend to run slowly in OpenGL on Windows, but that's because of a common bug that allows only one window to update per refresh. Buffer swapping needs to be better worked out for the multiple window case. But all of this requires relatively minor improvements.

Re:Windows 2000 forever!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the rub... Microsoft and others have already pressured Congress to pass stiff and enforceable copyright law protecting Microsoft's right to refuse to sell any more licenses to run WIN2000.

Businesses which have chosen to use proprietary software business solutions are likely to find themselves in the business S&P 500 race hobbled like a indy 500 racecar driver whose engine has to be rebuilt at the pit stop, while more agile businesses concentrate on their business function and simply replicate their existing computational infrastructure as needed.

Each business executive uses his executive foresight to evaluate how important it is to have things like his accounts receivable databases and customer files readable in five years or so, along with all the other costs of running a business, such as salaries, bonuses, and retirement plans.

Companies choosing proprietary ephemeral file protocols protected by copyright law are apt to find themselves heavily burdened by overhead maintenance expenses.

Each business must look for themselves, consider their cash flows, and use their executive foresight to lead their company as they see fit.

Re:Windows 2000 forever!

[Synli]

> There just isn't enough new in Longhorn/Vista to justify the buy. Where's the return on investment here?

Two words: Better kernel.

Better kernel = less bugs, greater performance, and above all, stability. Hopefully security too (yes, managed code is better than the Win32 API in Win2k).

You Are All Forgetting

[Anonymous Coward]

You are all forgetting that Vista will allow you to turn off the new vector graphics rendering crap-- just as you can turn off the horrible stock Windows XP theme in favor of the classic Windows 2000 theme. Besides, I'm sure a UI that wants 512MB of VRAM will be a usability nightmare.

Thanks from me too, Bill... Linus

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for doing everything you can to promote the use of Linux. Your cheque is in the mail.

HDCP the new enemy

[RentonSentinel]

If they think they can strong arm me into purchasing some DRM monitor they are absolutely off their rocker.

Now slashdotters, it is our mission to raise the awareness on these HDCP monitors. They are the new Palladium, the new NGSCB, the new (circuit city) divx.

I am feeling the red mist of rage!

Macintosh will be the viable "store bought" rig to recommend friends and relatives purchase. And for use, we will need to get Linux working with HD-DVD and Blu-ray in short order!

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[ahowl]

I was waiting for someone to mention this...so we're going to pay to have some computer monitor what videos we're watching and make sure we're allowed to watch them?

Should've called it Windows Orwell..

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[anubi]

DRM in the monitor, eh?

Does it use a CRT?

Nice, clean ANALOG RGB signals MUST be presented to the CRT cathodes before the tube can present an image.

And there are beautiful horizontal and vertical sync signals available at the deflection yoke.

Isn't this like selling some business a ten-foot thick steel door to protect the front of his business, while ignoring the cardboard wall next to it?

It makes a helluva lot of money for the steel door vendor, but does the businessman no good at all, matter of fact, its just a hinderance for his paying customers, no hinderance at all for the thief, who simply cuts through the cardboard wall.

This is the kind of "protection" one sells to the corporate tie-guy, not what you sell to people knowledgeable in the field.

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[Wesley Felter]

If they think they can strong arm me into purchasing some DRM monitor they are absolutely off their rocker.

I have a simple solution to this: watching movies on a TV, not a computer. (I feel sorry for people living in dorms, though.)

Macintosh will be the viable "store bought" rig to recommend friends and relatives purchase.

Do you think Apple can just make the AACS license requirements go away? Dream on.

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[iso]

Your TV will have HDCP too, so how is that a solution?

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[Wesley Felter]

It doesn't require me to buy a new computer monitor, buy a new OS, buy a new graphics card, and give up various freedoms on my computer.

Re:HDCP the new enemy

[rugger]

I don't really care anymore, this whole HDTV, Bluray, HD-DVD thing is about 90% hot air. Plenty of specifications, plenty of hype, yet few actual products and even fewer reasons to change.

I do like my digital HDTV computer tuner, but that is simply because converting a TV signal from analog to digital on analog tuner cards looked awful. Thats about as far into HDTV I will probably ever go, and I don't know anyone who is actually prepared to go as far as I have.

For 99% of people, blu-ray and HD-DVD may as well not exist. DVD is as good as they need, they will be happy using DVD till time ends. Facing this sort of apathetic customer response, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD seem intent on making it as hard as possible to use. They both may as well close their efforts down and start again, as there is no way in hell that either will be more popular as a video storage media as even betamax was.

Artificially Growing Demand

[Anonymous Coward]

The scenario is less like a monopoly and more like a desperate ploy to grow demand for hardware manufacturers. The current situation is that Windows XP provides all the functionality that most people need. Further, a 128-megabyte Pentium-III-powered box running at 500 megahertz is all the horsepower that most people need.

When the quality and quantity of supply stabilizes to exactly meet demand, something "terrible" happens. Manufacturers can compete on only 1 "feature": price. The price plummets, and the profit per machine is about $10.00.

Along comes Microsoft with a special deal (for the manufacturers): We will artificially build demand for more and newer hardware into the next operating system, and you manufacturers increase the kickback, per system, to $150 for the coffers of Microsoft.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[CDMA_Demo]

The current situation is that Windows XP provides all the functionality that most people need. Further, a 128-megabyte Pentium-III-powered box running at 500 megahertz is all the horsepower that most people need.

Bill Gates is notorious for saying that "640K ought to be enough for anybody." and "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

No wonder you decided to stay anonymous!!!

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[ZakuSage]

The thing is: he's right. In current computing outside of gaming, most people don't really need (or in most cases want to spend more) more then a P3 with 128MB of RAM. Hell, it's what I run, and unless I'm trying to run 2 Java apps at once, I never really find myself wanting to upgrade.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[blackicye]

Why splurge on a P3 with 128MB RAM when you can get by with a P100 and 32MB RAM.

Run Win95 or even better Linux. How many years longer do you think your P3 will be sufficient?
5 years? 10 years?

If so, a $600 investment in a new PC, aside from running your current applications two to twenty times faster than your current PC, will last you for the next 15 - 20 years.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[Txiasaeia]

Bill Gates never said that.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[ZakuSage]

I don't game on my PC. I don't run scientific applications that reqiure high processing power, and it's a rare thing for me to compile things since I use Debian and apt-get. Can you honestly tell me that you think in the next... hell I'll go out on a limb here and say 5 years that I will need a new PC to word process, browse the internet, use IM, or listen to music? That's just it; anyone who wants to do these things doesn't really need a powerhouse of a machine.

I'm not saying I won't get a new PC in the next 5 years, or even upgrade it, but for my (and the common average joe's) purposes, there isn't a good enough reason to shell out cash I could be spending on some books or PS2 games.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[1u3hr]

Bill Gates is notorious for saying that "640K ought to be enough for anybody." and "No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer."

Gates never said that. If you can provide a primary source, (not a list of unsourced "quotations") I'd be obliged, and amazed, to see it. See Wikiquote, update it when you find your source.

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[Anonymous Coward]

Try checking google...

clicky

Re:Artificially Growing Demand

[blackicye]

In my honest opinion.

Spending $600 every 5 or more years on a new PC is an easily justifiable expenditure. You could load you word processor, web browser, IM program and music player faster.

I guess theres no reason to upgrade if you hardly use the PC at all, but at the cost of $120 per year, why not? In my experience, when you have a newer, faster PC you'll find more things to do with it. Productive or otherwise.

A Fist Full of Errors!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships.

Hurl chunks is more like it when I see the bill.

However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.

You've got to be kidding with this statement. Does this person even understand the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit processors? I don't think so.

NCQ allows for out of order completions - that is, if Vista needs tasks 1,2,3,4 and 5 done, it can do them in the order 2,5,3,4,1

Excuse me, but Vista isn't the one doing the reordering of hard drive accesses. NCQ is done in the controller and drive itself.

NCQ is supported on SATA2 drives

And selected SATA-1 drives.

AGP is 'not optimal' for Vista. Because of the fact that graphics cards may have to utilise main system memory for some rendering tasks, a fast, bi-direction bus is needed - that's PCI express.

Will there be an AGP system left that can meet the rest of the Vista requirements? And I thought AGP had an option to use system memory in the specification as well.

no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista.

What if they release Vista, and nobody bought? If the consumers finally said We've had enough of this sh|t?

This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies.

Oh yes it is Microsoft's fault. Without Microsoft enabling this the whole concept would be DOA. And Trusted Computing isn't even mentioned.

Tell me again, please. What is the compelling reason to upgrade to Vista?

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be kidding with this statement. Does this person even understand the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit processors? I don't think so.

So what does happen to memory consumption when the size of the base datatypes doubles?

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Nom du Keyboard]

So what does happen to memory consumption when the size of the base datatypes doubles?

A 32-bit integer takes up the same amount of memory in a 64-bit system as in a 32-bit system. Just because your processor width has doubled does not mean you've automatically upsized all your variables. ASCII characters do not suddenly require 16-bits each, nor has Unicode ballooned to 32-bits/character. In short, the data in the database continues to occupy the same amount of bits as before -- not double.

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Wesley Felter]

What if they release Vista, and nobody bought?

As if people have a choice. If you go to a computer store in 2007, every computer will have Vista preinstalled. (Except the Macs.)

What is the compelling reason to upgrade to Vista?

It doesn't matter, since most Windows sales come from new machines.

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[Anonymous Coward]

The native integer type will become 64-bit in width, not 32-bit like before.

A "long" in C is now 64-bit in width on a LP64 64-bit machine. Previously it was usually 32-bit.

A pointer is now 64-bit in width, whereas before it was only 32-bit in width.

So some common data types do double in size.

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[tepples]

What if they release Vista, and nobody bought?

Once Microsoft stops selling Windows XP licenses to OEMs at affordable prices, how will your "nobody bought" scenario play out if people continue to buy PCs?

Re:A Fist Full of Errors!

[aaronl]

The whole point of AGP is to provide an "Accelerated Graphics Port". It *is* a high speed interface between system memory and the card. The whole reason that graphics cards keep putting more local memory on them is because system RAM is so much slower than the local RAM.

Look at the hardware available two years ago. 64MB/128MB video cards, 512MB RAM, ~2GHz CPUs, 100GB+ drives. What do many people have now? 128MB video cards, 512MB-768MB RAM, 2-3GHz CPUs, 100GB+ drives. If we keep that rate of increase, in another two years people will still have under those recommended system requirements for Vista.

I know that I'm not going to replace my displays until they die. I bought the best color clarity CRT on the market in 2000, and I bought one of the best LCDs out there when I wanted to go dual-head. Among all the people I know, there are only two times they purchased new displays: the old one broke, or they wanted to switch from a CRT to a LCD. MS and their little DRM BS can suck it. Even if I did make the mistake of downgrading to Vista, it wouldn't be until things like HDCP were torn apart, and workarounds cropped up. I'm not about to start using something until it's working right, and HDCP restricted content is certainly something that doesn't work right.

Very few people are going to actually buy Vista on purpose. They'll get it on new PCs, and they'll pirate it.

Efficiency?

[Spy der Mann]

You know, I thought newer versions of Operating Systems would be "faster" than the previous because they took more years to develop and optimize...

so then why the all-increasing specs? Is this all just bells and whistles that we could as well do without (98lite, anyone?) I mean, I could understand "1024x768 memory card required", but vector graphics? Gimme a break.

Definitely I think Microsoft has lost ground. Haven't they got anything DECENT to offer?

Are they crazy?

[Enrique1218]

For the love, a 256 MB video card? 1GB of RAM, SATA, PCI Express. Not even Apple would pull that stunt. They have been doing accelerated desktop graphics for years and their recommended requirements top out at about 64 MB. Moreover, most of the computers sold today don't have video cards with their own dedicated memory. They have Intel chipsets which use shared memory. What would they be thinking? I don't believe this not even of Microsoft.

But users want HDCP

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out this quote in the original article at www.apcstart.com: "The hardware vendors all know about it but aren't yet making monitors with it built in, so now it's up to you [the users] to say, "where's my HDCP?""

Somewhat offtopic, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was on linux.com today, and noticed an advertisement for windows server system. The link (from linux.com):
http://www.microsoft.com/canada/getthefacts/defaul t.mspx

Please, everybody go out and get the unadultered truth today. Abandon this "*nix" thing and buy microsoft today. I urge you to quit the foolishness of free software as quickly as possible. Let's be rid of source-code sharing forever.

Thank you.

THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got in and only half heard the conversation. Are we angry about something?

Gasp!

[markass530]

I am actually looking forward to this. I Enjoy having a fast computer, and a decent video card even though I rarely play computer games on it. When I Do like to fire it up and play a little GTA or Madden though, I want the quality to reflect the time, effort and money I put into my computer. So I have a Nvidia 6600 gpu, and it fits the bill perfectly. Why not use it's power to render the GUI as well? As long as all this is optional (which it will be, because of laptops) I'm looking forward to it.

Re:Gasp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, who let Bill post on /.?????

Re:Gasp!

[dedded]

"As long as all this is optional (which it will be, because of laptops)"

It may be optional, but not because of (new) laptops. Laptops will mostly be UMA with the frame buffer in main memory (which should easily slide into that 2GB :-). Of course, the GPU will require a high-bandwidth path to memory.

/Dan

Why?

[ackthpt]

Hey, let's all take turns bashing Microsoft! - And then we can say how great Linux is!

Why? The TCO of having a piece of hardware that can support Vista should go way up, adding in the extra memory and electrical power necessary to just sit there and spin the fans.

Seems like it's what Linux enthusiasts have been wanting Microsoft to do for years, hang themselves on their own rope.

And it's not true..

[scsirob]

I'm typing this from my Vista beta install on a 3-year old Dell Dimension 4400, P4 1.7GHz, 512MB RAM and a Matrox P750 VGA card. Hardly a high-end PC these days. Even this first beta, it's been running well so far, does a lot better on suspend/resume than XP did for me and doesn't seem sluggish. Sure you'll be able to get more bells and whistles up and running on faster hardware, but I have no complaints this far..

Before you flame me for being a MS zealot, the Vista machine is next to my Slackware 10.1 box and my really old Pentium 166 that is installing SCO OpenServer 5.0.2 as I type this. Computers are fun, regardless of the OS they run..

Re:And it's not true..

[COMON$]

Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. Maybe that is because you are running the old version before the revamp.

Re:And it's not true..

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Interesting. So are the hardware requirements are exagerrated in TFA, or are you missing noticable functionality?

And I would never flame you for running slackware, but you're running an SCO product and therefore deserve flaming.

SCO sucks and you also might in some obscure and completely unrelated way.

Consider yourself flamed.

Re:And it's not true..

[scsirob]

No, I'm running the latest available to beta testers (which I've been since 1994 or so), build 5112, downloaded strait from Redmond.

Vista will make better use of the GPU if that GPU supports the functions requested by Vista. If you use an older card like my Matrox it uses the same old technology as XP. In fact I'm running with the Matrox XP drivers, as Vista doesn't recognise the card by itself. Dual screen DVI setup with two Neovo X17 TFT's running at 1280x1024 each. Works like a charm..

Re:And it's not true..

[scsirob]

Ouch ;-) Flame hurt, just a bit... Still need to, I have some tools that I need to port to Unixware.

The company SCO sucks, but the product was not bad at the time. OpenServer 5.0.2 is from 1996, it was miles ahead of then-Linux 1.2.13 or so. Which I also ran from the old Yggdrasil compilations ;-)

Re:And it's not true..

[pete6677]

When the first production version of Vista comes out, I'll be very surprised if I can get much use out of my system with less than a gig of RAM. In other words, I need to run a development IDE, web browser, Word, and music player without the thing grinding to a halt when I open an email.

Re:And it's not true..

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Erm. Flame rescinded. Running 9 year old software for the fun of it qualifies you for an 'executive' nerd card that precludes all those incredibly nasty flames.

I still want to know whether you're missing functionality while running Vista on the mildly outdated hardware, btw.

Re:And it's not true..

[binarybum]

I don't see why Vista coming out would ruin your system like that.

  oh, wait,... are you actually going to install it?!

Re:And it's not true..

[Tony Hoyle]

Beta's aren't much of a benchmark to the final system.

The Beta 1 of NT4 for example was little more than an update to give NT 3.5 the 'new' explorer shell... nothing had really been implemented under the hood (it still required a SCSI CDROM to install as I recall.. those were the days...)

I expect most of the new vista system isn't shipped yet, so saying it runs like XP isn't saying a lot - it probably *is* 99% XP.

Re:And it's not true..

[Scooby Snacks]

Yes, it's "not bad" if "must relink the kernel and reboot for an IP address change" is "not bad". :-)

Re:And it's not true..

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow I got into the livecd linux distros when one of my 80 GB HDDs when bad with everything from Slackware to Debian, Windows 98, DOS, Arachne, Mandrake, Graycat Linux on it. Yes, computers are fun, regardless of the OS you run on it. Getting them to run, and setting everything up is where its at nowadays. I'm playing with Firefox 1.5 beta 1 right now on my remaster (see the screenshots, and yes they are out of date.), and seeing how that goes. The ~/firefox and ~/.mozilla directories that are created I save on a hard drive partition for next time, since I have not yet put them in the remaster's master copy, for use in the next build. (Just testing today, this is a beta of Firefox). I use a dual Pentium Pro 200 box for all this, and have about 200 GB of storage space for remastering, etc. I also do testing on a P4, 1GB. Kanotix linux is another fun favorite, a knoppix remaster also. I run it with saved config and persistent home directory, so some of the applications I have in my remaster can be saved and run on Kanotix, namely my Station Selector for XMMS (There is a screenshot for that). All I have to do when booting Kanotix is home=scan myconfig=scan toram, and I am up and running. Desktop Icon in KDE for the Station Selector, custom wallpaper, etc.
The big powerful machines that Vista requires will be fun for us livecd linux folks, hope so, anyway.
Looking forward to it.

Re:And it's not true..

[Infernal Device]

I won't damn you for running Windows. You are to be commended for running Slackware.

But curse you for running SCO products.

Re:And it's not true..

[PhraudulentOne]

...that is installing SCO OpenServer 5.0.2 as I type this

And you are worried about being flamed for running MS software?

Re:And it's not true..

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of Vistas features will be in Beta 2. Currently your are running Beta 1. Needless to say, you still have more time before you can make an accurate assement.

Sorry, just the way it is.

Re:And it's not true..

[idlake]

Before you flame me for being a MS zealot, the Vista machine is next to my Slackware 10.1 box and my really old Pentium 166 that is installing SCO OpenServer 5.0.2

Obviously, you are an MS zealot.

Re:And it's not true..

[laptop006]

Given that I've just installed NT 3.51 on VMware using an IDE cdrom (as seen by the VM) that doesn't seem right.

Re:And it's not true..

[Mac Degger]

If that's all you need to run, why upgrade at all? WinXp is (the first) stable MS OS and it does everything you want. Why spend the money on new software/hardware at all?

I can only think of two reasons why I would 'upgrade' to the next windows; a 3d/cad program comes out with a killer feature (unlikely, although 3dsmax does have these incremental updates which makes it's tools easier to use) or games will only run on the new version (which is likely to happen; strangely enough, games devs have no reason to require anything else than winxp [as I said, it's finally a stable MS OS] and it will only cost them money to get a neat little SVG installer going and to rewrite for a new OS...yet I'll bet that all tyhe publishers will require their devellopers to migrate, creating instant demand for a revamped, not-needed 'new' MS OS).

Re:And it's not true..

[COMON$]

good deal, and you dont see much of a performance decrease over XP when you load graphic intensive programs?

Microsoft Engineering: A surveillance transcript

[ettlz]

"Er, Boss, we're not entirely sure this new icon-rendering algorithm's gonna work. Think we should go back and re-code it. In fact, we'll need a re-design..."

"No can do, Bob, Steve says release in 2007. We'll have to rely on faster graphics hardware to sort it out for us."

"Um... how's that gonna help?"

"Duh! You run the routine twenty times. It's gotta get it right after that many goes."

Hugs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hugs

Wow, what a concept

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista's new graphics requirments published here

most PCs will have GPUs

[RedLaggedTeut]

most PCs will have GPUs, simply because most office and private PCs use them - and they don't need to choose the costly top versions. The only redoubt against GPUs are CAD machines and production machines(where you won't need the display much)

I'm not an expert on this, but thats how I see it.

Everyone relax....,

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize this is slashdot but we all need to take a deep breath and relax, all he is talking about is an OPTIMAL setup for Vista. Sit and think for awhile; if you were to ask a hardware guy today what the optimal setup is for XP I imagine he would reply with something like 1-2 gigs of ram, a dual-core cpu, 128-256 meg video card and a SATA hard drive. XP will certainly take advantage of a system with these specs and for optimal performance it's the way to go, but it is by no means required!!! Imagine if 5 years ago when MS was launching XP they had put these specs out as optimal....people would have roasted them, it wasnt even feasible then. But the fact is it runs just dandy on a much slower system than that.

I believe that that is the case here with Vista, it has been developed to take full advantage of new technologies and emerging hardware trends to offer the best possible performance to those that have them, yes. And if you want the best, optimal performance then that it is what you want. But it is by no means a requirement to run Vista!! If you listen to what MS has been saying Vista should run fine on a P3 with 256-512 megs of ram, and in fact we have seen the latest beta does in fact run just fine on a system with those specs. I realize people here love to yell about MS but I dont think they're doing anything wrong here.

What about OS 10.4?

[Hamster Lover]

Agreed.

My Mac Mini running OS 10.4.2 has 32 MB of video RAM, 512 MB of system RAM and runs fairly smoothly with more eye candy then Windows XP, and by the looks of things maybe Vista.

Why the hell will you need 256 MB of video RAM?

Re:What about OS 10.4?

[Anonymous Coward]

My Mac Mini running OS 10.4.2 has 32 MB of video RAM, 512 MB of system RAM and runs fairly smoothly with more eye candy then Windows XP, and by the looks of things maybe Vista.

Yes. That's because Tiger has more eye candy than Windows XP. But considerably less than Vista - going purely on technological grounds, that is (let's leave aside the question of how ugly MS's interfaces are for now).

Why the hell will you need 256 MB of video RAM?

Because Vista does a hell of a lot more than Tiger, that's why. About all Tiger does in the graphics card is composition: the windows are rendered the oldfashioned 2D way, then passed to the graphics card which draws them on the screen, taking advantage of its hardware to power the transparency and distortion that OS X uses so effectively.

Vista? Vista renders everything with the 3D card, instead of merely using it for the final step; and Vista performs much more complicated processing on its visuals (e.g. using actual translucency that distorts things behind it like glass, unlike OS X, which uses the same trivial transparency effects that 2D graphics engines have been using since about 1992).

Seriously, it's like the difference between Quake 3 and Doom 3. They simply aren't in the same league.

Note that I'm not disparaging Tiger here. Tiger is beautiful, and it's beautiful on today's hardware. The point is that Vista is still more than a year away, so how it would perform on today's hardware is irrelevant, just as the fact that Doom 3 looks pretty crap on a Quake 3-era PC is irrelevant.

By the time Vista comes out, Apple's next OS will either be here or overdue. And you can bet your life that Apple's next OS will not run smoothly on your Mac Mini with its maximum eye-candy settings turned on.

Sweeeeeet!

[overshoot]

Dang, this is going to be GREAT!

$EMPLOYER has been reluctant to buy hardware half this potent for engineering workstations. Now we can get the good stuff as the $COMPANY_STANDARD_BOX and load it with Linux to get some real work done.

Re:Sweeeeeet!

[b100dian]

You mean get some real work rail-gunned..

Your new computer

[jfengel]

The "killer app" is your new computer. Around 2007 or so when you decide that you're tired of your current box (too many virus attacks, no new games, bits starting to fail, whatever) you'll call up for a new one and it'll come with Vista. XP won't be an option.

Most home users never upgrade their OS; they get a new OS when they get a new computer. Some office environments will upgrade the OS to keep all of the computers in synch, but I suspect far more copies of Windows come with new computers than are sold individually. Especially since the price is so much lower that way.

But if the requirements now make a Mac cheaper, how many people will buy that instead?

And as you say, your current box is pretty damn good. I suspect you'll hold on to it for quite some time unless you find that killer app. But even without it, eventually that computer is going to get replaced. And if you stick with MS, that'll be Vista.

Its amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

how fast people forget that Vista will have a tiered graphics system. What they are talking about in the article is the top tier of graphics.

For those confused on the release date

[Physician]

Windows Vista is actually due in December of 2006. The article says next Christmas. Last I checked, the next Christmas we will celebrate is in 2005. (Yes I understand the semantics of "next" and "this" - can be confusing to non english speakers and english speakers alike)

Another take

[jothaxe]

Personally I am looking foward to Vista, and I see the hardware requirements as a positive thing. You can whine about MS all you want and complain about the hardware requirements, but why? As a developer of software I love the idea that the typical user's computer has steadily growing power. It opens the door to new and innovative applications and interfaces. Seriously, if Vista makes 3d graphics cards required and 3d API calls easily available to the developer, can you imagine the possibilities for the improvements in typical GUIs? I think that the software GUI will only truly take another step forward when it has the firm support of the GPU behind it. You can argue with me if you like, but I see no way around this.

Re:Another take

[frank_adrian314159]

Seriously,... can you imagine the possibilities for the improvements in typical GUIs?

No. Why don't you enlighten us with what amazing GUI benefits we'll get and why they're so exciting.

Most of us are fine with the WIMPy interfaces and crappy graphics we have today. What incredible leaps do you foresee? I see nothing coming but a bunch of distracting and less than useless eye candy.

Re:Another take

[jothaxe]

You are welcome to be content with the way things are now. 640k RAM ought to be enough for anybody, right? I wont give you the details of what is to come because I havent seen the future. However, I have watched new pushes in hardware usher in new advances in software for at least the last decade, and I suspect this to continue. I would like to hear an argument from anybody as to why innovation cannot or should not come from this one. I find it to be a knee-jerk reaction to assume otherwise solely because MS is the impetus.

Re:Another take

[frank_adrian314159]

I would like to hear an argument from anybody as to why innovation cannot or should not come from this one.

Because visual detail and speed is not the blocking factor in innovative GUI design these days. If they were, someone would have come up with proofs of concept that use better graphics already. All the upcoming Vista hardware does is to draw what's already doable faster. And, again, if that were useful, someone would have a prototype ready to go. Remember that WIMP was there 3-5 years before it was actually commercialized. Same with the internet, microprocessors, and video tape. You have some odd idea that technical revolutions just "pop up". They don't. There are years of groundwork laid before most innovations are brought to the public. So, excuse me for being skeptical - I just don't see anything on the horizon that's blocked by this particular factor.

System Requirements

[Microsoft Minion]

That's fine if you want to run Linux.

However all of my workstations have had 'at least' 2GB of ram in them for the last couple of years. Yes I do a lot of gaming, ripping, burning, editing, downloading, etc...

I Just turn off my paging file and let'her rip.

As far as the video card I purchased several 256MB cards, as soon as they were available.

Needless too say, my machines are very fast. I very rarely have any issues, unless I am installing lots of beta software.

I am probably not the average user, but I am extremely pleased with my computing experience.
So when Windows Vita comes out I'm sure I will not need any upgrades, but I will upgrade anyway.
I just can't help myself.

Buy the best your money can buy; don't overclock; stick with the standards (i.e. Microsoft, Intel, Symantec, etc...), and you will have a helluva system.

P.S. Linux rocks as well, with the above hardware.

Re:System Requirements

[milesbparty]

Buy the best your money can buy; don't overclock; stick with the standards (i.e. Microsoft, Intel, Symantec, etc...), and you will have a helluva system.

You're being sarcastic here, right?

Not much

[ozamosi]

Actually, even though vista seems to require a horrific amount of hardware, it seems better than projected. Compared to that, Vista has lost a lot of weight. Of course, there are no features left, but hey!

Here is what my link says:
"a dual-core CPU running at 4 to 6GHz; a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM; up to a terabyte of storage; a 1 Gbit, built-in, Ethernet-wired port and an 802.11g wireless link; and a graphics processor that runs three times faster than those on the market today."
It seems that the 2 gig RAM is no longer a minimum, and the CPU requirements has hopefully improved...

SATA NCQ does *NOT* give SCSI performance

[tlambert]

SATA NCQ does *NOT* give SCSI performance.

This is not to say it's not a hell of a lot more useful than not being able to do disconnected writes at all, but pre-insertion of write barriers instead of post insertion via scheduling is really a poor-man's version of I/O concurrency.

Unless you go out of your way to do a FUA (Force Unit Access), on SATA, there is no guarantee that write data has been committed to stable storage, rather than just cache.

In SCSI tagged command queueing, you can be guaranteed that the write has been committed to stable storage before the write is acknowledges as completed (yes, it's optional to turn this off in mode page 2, but only idiots do it).

The upshot of this is that the OS must issue FUA on writes and stall the pipeline for other writes that don't require a commitment to stable storage (e.g. FUA for metadata and journalling, no-FUA for other data).

This is (effectively) the difference between DOW (Delayed Ordered Writes) and SU (Soft Updates), which is what makes SU so much more effective than DOW.

Further, it means that the OS can't use the acknowledgement to schedule future operations on the disk, without knowing ahead of time the FUA is necessary for a given write.

The issue here is that if I'm, for example, updating the contents in a single directory entry block on disk in two different processes, instead of deciding to delay the second update until I know the first one has completed (via the acknowledgement), I must issue the first one as an FUA command, and then the second one as an FUA command, which adds latency to my pipeline.

"Mr. SATA, I've worked with Mr. SCSI, and you're no Mr. SCSI".

-- Terry

Re:SATA NCQ does *NOT* give SCSI performance

[evilviper]

This is not to say it's not a hell of a lot more useful than not being able to do disconnected writes at all,

What the hell is that, a quadruple negative?

No trusted Video Sources on Corporate Laptops

[Anonymous Coward]

"We acknowledge that many corporate notebooks have fairly low-end integrated graphics chips. "

This statement right here is the whole problem with the trusted video playback model. It basically says that you can not play back hi-def content on a laptop.

Also Microsoft is doing this to their Corporate users. If anyone has the ability to talk to Microsoft about corportate laptop use ask them why they are not supporting hi-definition output of DVD on Windows Vista on Laptops.

The best way to do this is to present the data just like the article does and then draw the conculsion. If Hi-Def requires a secure connection and low end graphics cards do not support this secure connection why did you write the drivers in such a way as to not display the content that is on the DVD. They are basically admitting they are doing this as a trust thing, not a 'becuase your hardware can't support it' thing.

Remeber this is what Microsoft is doing to other corporations.

Hubris of a Rogue Trader

[wynand1004]

Do Microsoft's actions remind anybody of Ewan McGregor's character in Rogue Trader?

The movie, based on a true story, is about a currency trader who begins to feel as though the market responds to him, and as a result loses everything and winds up in jail.

What is Microsoft Thinking? Considering the number of people who buy low-end boxes (not the Slashdot crowd, I'm sure ;) ), are these minimum requirements not insane?

I've always felt that most Microsoft operating systems were released about 3 years ahead of reasonably-priced hardware that could run the system comfortably. In this case I may have to revise that estimate upward by a year or two.

On the plus side, we should probably be grateful to Microsoft for this blunder as it opens a huge gap for [insert favorite Linux distro] to fill.

Re:Hubris of a Rogue Trader

[caluml]

I believe that the role McGregor is playing is based on the life of Nick Leeson/a.

Actually, this will probably be good for Microsoft

[Zedrick]

I once had a colleague who was training to get an MCSE. Out of curiosity I took a look at the introduction course, at the very begining they were bragging about how Windows NT consisted of 50 gazillion-something lines of code.

Now, most Slashdotters would read that and say:
"bloated software."

The average non-techie computer user will think:
"wow!"

When seeing these silly requirements for Vista (oh, what a stupid stupid stupid name!), most Slashdotters are thinking:
"Incompetent idiots."

The average non-techie computer user will think:
"wow!"

Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[Logic Bomb]

Mac OS X 10.4 is capable of rendering the entire interface using the GPU (they call it Quartz Extreme). The system delivers some incredibly cool visual effects (see Core Image), and it does it on systems with as little as 64 MB of VRAM on the graphics card. So what the hell is Vista going to do where 256 will be optimal?

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[plasmacutter]

It will be doing the decryption/encryption of HDCP for hollywood. didn't you hear? =)

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[smallduck]

Quartz Extreme doesn't totally shift rendering to the video card, only compositing.

The 3d scene that is an OS X desktop today is comprised of a relatively small number of surfaces, i think like one or two for each window, maybe each doc icon, each menu that pops up, and so forth. The contents of each of those are for the most part still drawn with the CPU into a backing store by the drawing subsystem Quartz 2D (or Quickdraw if your app is rockin' old school).

In old OS X, the "Quartz Compositor" (don't confuse with "Quartz Composer" a new app in 10.4) ran in a CPU process, compositng the backing stores to the screen with transparency effects, transformations, drop shadows, etc. Quartz Extreme is the change that shifts this compositing program onto the GPU instead. Now, for example, transprency and transformations effects that could not be done for OpenGL windows or video (which bypass the backing store system, and so the old compositor), now all works great and with no CPU hit.

Developed for OS X 10.4 is something called "Quartz 2D Extreme" (don't confuse with plain "Quartz Extreme") which pushes more of the rendering work onto the GPU (and probably moving all of the backing stores into VRAM), which probably makes it more equivalent to Longhorn new model. I believe even in 10.4.2, it still cannot by switched on (i wonder why, hmm, perhaps it needs more VRAM than available on today's machines?).

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[macshome]

I believe even in 10.4.2, it still cannot by switched on

Sure it can, just take a look here.

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[S3D]

For now in any OS every window just drawn into render buffer. It has no separate memory area. I suspect that in Vista every window will be treated like a 3d objects with texture in the videomemory (that will allow rotate it, distort, make transperent etc. more easyly), that is each windows in fact drawn into separte area in the videomemory. If you have a lot of windows on the screen you would need a huge amount of videomemory.

Re:Why so much VRAM for GPU-driven display?

[loyukfai]

You know it don't you - It's made by Microsoft.

and they wonder why businesses still use Win 2000

[jbplou]

Seriously I know of many companies still using Windows 2000 because many of there workstations won't run XP that well. Companies aren't going to buy 10,000 new highend work stations just to use a 3d graphic desktop. I expect that I won't work at a company using VISTA until atleast 2012 with these specs.

but ram is so cheap!

[Piranhaa]

But RAM is now so cheap, it's hardly an issue.
 
Yea, it's cheap in small quantities. (512mb samsung DDR2 for around $60CDN), and you multiply that by 4 (for the 2gb requirement... and DDR3 is going to be even more) THEN you start getting into major percentages for ram to system cost... Pretty stupid saying I must admit

Consumer Beware...

[quadra23]

The original source was the original source was APCStart as noted in the article. From the article:

"Amusingly, Page admits that there are no monitors out there that will do HDCP, and that this is a problem. Frankly, it's the consumer's problem, however, according to him. "It's up to you [the users] to say, 'Where's my HDCP?'"

I'm more inclined to say to Hollywood 'Hey, STFU' to be honest.

One of the major problems is that Hollywood knows that Microsoft dominates the operating system sphere, and so it can arm-wrestle MS into working with it. If there was more competition, Hollywood would have to be a little more cautious about what it tries to get away with."

No Page, it's up to me, as a consumer, to say if I want that to be a requirement and not simply something optional, not the all-knowing all-seeing industry. This is a classic example of industry telling the consumer to play by their rules with a requirement of using their technology for their benefit...not for the consumer. This also shows the industry's arrogance in tabbing on needless requirements for their personal gain. Not all consumers can afford buying a brand new monitor just to see HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content on their PC because the software maker says so. I have a hard time seeing how this requirement only hurts pirates. For example, WPA in Windows XP affects pirate and consumer alike.

This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies. Yay.

Finally something we can't blame MS for :( ... Come to think of it, this kinda reminds of the NGSCB (aka 'Palladium') attempt...oh wait it wasn't cancelled completely?! NGSCB Update Someone smell a conspiracy?!

Re:Consumer Beware...

[yeremein]

I really can't see people rushing to buy an HDCP monitor just so they can watch hi-def content on their computer.

What Hollywood has really accomplished is twofold:

1. Eliminate the market for legitimate high-def content on the PC.
2. Encourage piracy of high-def content on the PC.
3. ???
4. Profit?

Who's going to upgrade?

[Jeff Hornby]

But what idiot is going to upgrade their hardware for Windows Vista?

I haven't upgraded since Windows XP. And before that it was all the way back to Windows 2000. And before that ....

uh oh. I gues it's time to upgrade.

Themes Service

[hackwrench]

Don't forget to turn off the Themes service as well.

And opportunity to slip in that DRM chip

[nurb432]

This is a good way to get those wonderful 'trusted' computers into peoples homes in a stealthy manner.

They will only know that in a couple of years they cant run new stuff on the shelves, so they have to get a whole new computer..

What a scam.

OEM Windows

[CaptainPinko]

Hoe much do you want to bet that Microsfot realizes that most people only pay for Windows when they buy it with their computer thus they will aim to require a new computer for each next majour release?

Re:OEM Windows

[Fat Cow]

Your reasoning is backwards - their strategy would have to be to do something to require you to buy a new computer thus suckering you into buying a new copy of windows.

Re:OEM Windows

[CaptainPinko]

Well what they do is that your old computer can't run the newest shiniest version of Windows. You installed it off the lasted crack and itwas pretty but so damn slloooww, so you decide to upgrade... for most people that means buying a whole new computer and thus OEM Windows.

Considering that the shiny new version of Office 5000 or hwatever app supports only the newest Windows and the latest game was written for DirectX++; Joe User upgrades. Maybe not immediately, but soon enough.

Fsck Hollywood

[Detritus]

Fsck Hollywood, if they think that I am going to replace perfectly good displays, which weren't cheap, with HDCP-capable displays, just so that I can cater to their paranoia about piracy. These same asshats expect home theatre owners, who've spent thousands of dollars on high-definition video hardware, to dump their current hardware because it doesn't support HDCP.

HD-DVD and BluRay can join DAT, SACD, and DVD-Audio as formats that were killed by greed.

Re:Fsck Hollywood

[AeroIllini]

HD-DVD and BluRay can join DAT, SACD, and DVD-Audio as formats that were killed by greed.

Don't forget about DIVX. Not Circuit City's finest hour.

256MB of VRAM might not be unreasonable

[adrenalinerush]

"Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors.

You know, it's almost like I've seen this somewhere else.

Not that I'm raising a fuss about a great leap forward in technology being copied. More power to MS if they're able to get it to work. It's just funny that Apple is shipping Tiger with this tech now (mostly working - see the Ars article for more details), while Vista will have it in a year.

Now, from what I've read, it seems that the requirements for Quartz 2D Extreme on a Mac include a fast GPU with 128MB of VRAM. It's entirely possible that those are the minimum specs, and 256MB would be preferred, making that part of the MS system requirements seem not quite so crazy.

Re:256MB of VRAM might not be unreasonable

[otomo_1001]

Quartz 2D Extreme requires at least 32Mb of video ram.

And if you call a GeForce FX 5200 fast then my powerbook is awesome.

Secret Desires of Slashdotters

[Sponge Bath]

I hear a lot of shocked complaining about the requirements, but I suspect many here would secretly delight at something nifty and new that really stressed a chunky new machine. So much so you may even rationalize how great some feature is.

Like playing the latest FP shooter that looks astounding only on a $500 video card.
"Oh, yeah. You can't do that unless you have a studly rig like mine." (smirk)

Plus, I bet the utility of virtualization with VMWare or the likes makes multi GB RAM machines common in the near future anyways. That way all the Vista users can enjoy a penguin in the box surrounded by fluffy eye candy. :-)

Not if the CTO went to Woodstock...

[glassgnost]

Businesses already have almost -no- incentive to switch to Vista.

I predict: Office 2007 with MutantMorphing RainbowGel Clippy (tm).

MPAA and HDCP issue

[Anonymous Coward]

forget the reqs.... they will be well over this by the time Vista is released... What I think is laughable stupid is the entire HDCP thing.

Current issue: Hollywood is complaining about slumping sales and not making much money. Some of the reasons for this is because people are finding movies to be too expensive, and its easier to get pirated editions, and this HDCP is there solution?

Stop and think about this Hollywood! You are currently have excellent quality DVDs, and what are they doing? They are going to lower the quality of movies on computers unless you go buy a new monitor! Please Hollywood, explain to me how this is going to encourge people to stop downloading illegal movies.

Re:MPAA and HDCP issue

[sagenumen]

From what I understand about HDCP, it isn't designed to prevent copying, only to protect the data from copying while in transmission. What's going to stop someone from cracking the disc's encryption and copying it to a new, non-encrypted disc? ...just like was done with DVD.

I really don't see what this required HDCP is going to accomplish besides pissing a bunch of people off.

All this up from Beta 1?

[AArmadillo]

I've been running Vista Beta 1 on an Athlon64 3000+, with 512MB ram and 128MB video memory. I haven't experienced any problems so far. Are the requirements from beta 1 to the release version really going to go up that much? That seems rediculous...

the more starsystems will slip....

[NoneExpected]

The more you tighten you grip the more starsystems...errr users will slip through you fingers.

Or sometime like that.

Quite frankly we are doing quite nicely with Win98 and Office98, I know MS calls us dinosaurs, and quite frankly I find it offensive.

Talk about unholy alliances! Why don't we just not show up to this party.

Uh what?

[TommyBear]

Why do people keep talking about Vista requiring a minimum of 512MB of RAM and a video card with 256MB of video memeory? I've seen beta 1 running on a laptop with an intel video card (16MB) and 256MB of main ram! While it didn't run optimally, it did run okay.

This is like the craziest urban myth ever! Perpetuated by geeks the world over. Geeez! Unless of course Beta 2 is a major departure from Beta 1. Get your hands on Beta 1, if you care, and have a look everyone.

Re:Uh what?

[smash]

From TFA:

"A Tech Strategist within Microsoft, Nigel Page has gone on record

Not just perpetrated by geeks.

Thats a microsoft rep...

smash.

Perhaps I'm missing something

[complexmath]

2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB.
Does this make sense to anyone? It sounds like he thinks the memory footprint of all applications will double just because the address size has. Or perhaps this is just what they're going to tell users when the next version of MS Word occupies 200 megs of RAM.

Re:Perhaps I'm missing something

[crimson30]

Does this make sense to anyone?

Goodbye.

Me am unhappy to answer your question. Sixty-fore is double thirty-too. Need double amount of memory. Simple!

Hello.

Re:Perhaps I'm missing something

[nagora]

the memory footprint of all applications will double just because the address size has.

The address size isn't the issue, it's the data size. If all your ints are now 64bits by default, then naturally they'll take up twice the amount of RAM.

TWW

Re:Perhaps I'm missing something

[complexmath]

The address size isn't the issue, it's the data size. If all your ints are now 64bits by default, then naturally they'll take up twice the amount of RAM.
None of the data sizes are changing in 64 bit mode. int and long will continue to be 32 bits. This is probably because some applications (including those from Microsoft) expect these data types to be 32 bits long.

Re:Perhaps I'm missing something

[nagora]

None of the data sizes are changing in 64 bit mode. int and long will continue to be 32 bits.

If even the kernel isn't going to use 64bit data it's not much of a 64bit OS, is it?!

TWW

Games at Work!

[lexbaby]

Just think! Every computer around the world (home, work, laptops, and "Mactells" might as well ship with the same hardware specs) will be a sweet game machine. Think of the kind of LAN traffic corporations will see now.

At least it won't be surfing the web that will kill productivity.

GPU acceleration is chrome

[lullabud]

The point is that 3d acceleration is not a prerequisite for a good desktop environment. Sure, it can make the epxerience better in several ways, but you shouldn't *need* the 3d hardware. The GUI chrome should scale down on weak systems. OS X does this and I expect that Vista will do it too, though I'm sure some would speculate otherwise. Still, the fact that I can boot the current version of Knoppix from an optical drive on a 1ghz Thinkpad with only 128mb of system memory says that Linux does beat Microsoft and Apple in certain aspects of modern desktop computing.

Already done!

[fbonnet]

It's called Direct3D software renderer

Re:Already done!

[Threni]

Wouldn't that be even slower?

Re:Already done!

[fbonnet]

Wouldn't that be even slower? Well... It was supposed to be sarcastic. Guess it won't be moderated funny this time.

Re:and they wonder why businesses still use Win 20

[Antiocheian]

Well, instead of VISTA silliness, I would be very happy with a WIN2K version with Cleartype and network bridges...

Great! More speedy h/w on the market for Linux!

[PPH]

Every time the next incarnation of Windows appears, I get lots of practically new, very fast hardware at the local used PC store.

I have a question...

[Brantano]

I've been using windows since windows 98 and the constant BSOD's that came along with it. From windows 2000 i whent to XP and all in all there really hasnt seemed to be that much functionality or speed that came along with the new releases. My question is, if your releasing something new and you want to make it look pretty then obviously your going to need a higher spec system, but this seems alittle rediculous. Shouldnt they be releasing operating systems that require less processing and video power? Why make an OS that takes up all your processing power and video power and leave nothing left for the programs that run on it (XP's processes is rediculous). Why arnt they trying to make it so the OS is faster and has better CPU, GPU, and RAM conservation? It seems all there working on now is 'what looks good' instead of 'how can we make it faster'.

Re:sigbus on alignment errors

[Pius II.]

There's a very nice article on data alignment on PPC here.

Back in about 1999, when windows 2000 was in beta

[merreborn]

I was working in a shop full of pentium 1 class machines -- mostly 200 mhz with 64 meg of ram. Someone brought in a copy of the Windows 2000 beta.

We noticed it ran like shit on our 200 mhz, 64 meg system. We called up microsoft, and they told us 2000 would require at least 128 meg of ram. "128 meg of RAM just for an OS? That's rediculous!", we cried.

Now, here, in 2005, I wouldn't dream of using a PC with less than 512 meg of ram (although I'm stuck with a pathetic 256 here at work!), not only because my OS uses 128 meg, but firefox routinely uses several hundred meg itself! And let's not even get started on games...

Yes, these specs look rediculous now, but by 2010, they'll be baseline.

The Vista Cruiser...

[kaoshin]

I performed a test installation of the Vista Beta 1 (build 5112) on a Dell C640 Latitude laptop, which is equipped with a modest Mobility Radeon 7500C and 16MB graphics memory, and 256MB system RAM. I didn't do benchmark tests, but I can say that although the installation took almost FOREVER (seriously, I drove home, went to lunch, came back and it was still nowhere near complete) and the installation media was HUGE, the resulting ghost image itself was only 1.1GB compared to a base XP ghost image of half that size which I don't think was too terrible in the disk space department. The OS itself ran only a little slower than XP SP2 does under those hardware limitations. There were noticeable lags, but it functioned as well as I would expect anything Microsoft related to function on limited specs. I personally think the new interfaces are cute, but doesn't hold a candle to aqua or enlightenment, etc. I work for a corporation with a little under 30,000 users and the word from the boss is that we are not going to go to a Windows Vista image (which means, unless they get screwed into having to).

Better graphics card than needed in games?

[Cinder6]

So, let me get this straight...an operating system, required to run any computer, and traditionally supposed to run on a wide range of computers, will require a better graphics card than is needed for Half-Life 2? Pass...

Correction - 32 meg of RAM

[Anonymous Coward]

The latest iBook has a Radeon 9550 with only 32 meg of RAM. However, it can use all of the Core Image functionality.

I agree with you...it's a shocking comparison. OSX ran on ibooks which had ATI Radeon cards with 16 meg of memory, if I recall correctly. OSX looks far better than any Longhorn/Vista screenshot I have seen. What the hell are Microsoft doing that requires 16x the video memory and looks worse?

Airtight seal

[tepples]

Nice, clean ANALOG RGB signals MUST be presented to the CRT cathodes before the tube can present an image. And there are beautiful horizontal and vertical sync signals available at the deflection yoke.

And if you break the airtight seal, the monitor won't do an HDCP handshake anymore.

Re:Airtight seal

[Anonymous Coward]

wouldn't be impossible to make a box that would do it and give you a better output cable format, however, thanks to DMCA, it would be illegal to posess such a thing.

Re:Airtight seal

[rugger]

Have you ever seen an airtight CRT, or even an airtight LCD ..... I thought not.

The real reason...

[angelasmark]

I'm convinced I know the real reason MS needs you to have spiffy video card. We've all pissed clippy off by making fun of him... Now we're gonna log into windows and BAM! 3D clippy. And if he finds open office icons on your desktop hes gonna kick them around like soccer balls so Joe6Pack can't use it... thats my conspiracy theory of the day....

Re:The real reason...

[sockonafish]

Clippy's old news, man. The real reason for the insane requirements is that Vista requires you to be able to do real time rendering of photorealistic fur on the search dog.

Here's one: $650 with mouse and keyboard...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see a link to a $600 SFF PC that far outclasses the mac mini.

The Shuttle XPC K 6200h is $650 with mouse and keyboard. It far outclasses the Mac mini because it has a modern CPU/bus, a desktop 7200RPM hard drive, and a PCI slot.

Of course, the GP did not mention anything about small form factors. He clearly was referring to the amount of computing power you can get for $600. Nice straw man, Jason1729.

Re:Here's one: $650 with mouse and keyboard...

[Anonymous Coward]

It far outclasses the Mac mini because it has a modern CPU/bus, a desktop 7200RPM hard drive, and a PCI slot.

It also is 6.5x larger and 3.9x heavier than the mini.

Re:Here's one: $650 with mouse and keyboard...

[Jason1729]

Nice try, but a Celeron does not out perform a G4 at comparable clock speed. The XPC K is so big and heavy compared to a mini, why even bother with SFF if you're going to get that?

Cool!

[HermanAB]

Run of the mil low end Windoze machines will continue to make fantastic high performance Linux machines...

Sadly no...

[SuperKendall]

In order to keep the cost of the whole unit down after paying for the costly 1TB of RAM and nitogen cooled processor, they were forced to put in an older Intel integrated video solution with 8MB of VRAM. Oh well!

What is so demanding about vector rendering?

[Lonewolf666]

Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally
3D games do essentially the same, and they usually produce quite good results with much lesser hardware. And they still tend to have better FPS than you would need for a GUI.

So what makes Vista so hardware-hungry??

Free Computers!!

[kingbill]

I haven't paid for a computer in years. Since I run Linux, I usually can just pick up whatever friends or family are throwing away due to its being too old and slow. Vista looks like a windfall for me.

Here is how requirements worl/

[TwoTailedFox]

Minumum Requirements: Needed to get the thing installed.

Recommended Requirements: Needed to get the thing working.

You forgot the most likley one

[geekoid]

4) The sale of systems without an OS goes through the roof.

that could apply to number 1. I bought a PC with linux. It came with very simple and well written direction on how to install window2000 or XP.
And yes, I intaleed window2000 on it. The one from my old computer.

Mac guys, this is your cue!

[Mr. Cancelled]

To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships.

Alright, cue the fanboys with their "Mac's already can do this!" presentation...

Oh! And tell them to be quick about it! The Amiga guys are on after them with their "We were there 1st" remix!

Re:Mac guys, this is your cue!

[Hitchcock_Blonde]

Yep. Macs can do this already at a much lower memory requirement.

Re:Mac guys, this is your cue!

[GaryPatterson]

As a Mac user... ... but seriously - I don't think GPU screen rendering is a bad thing. Microsoft are going in the right direction by offloading that sort of donkey work.

But why such a powerful GPU? If Apple can achieve the same thing using a minimum of 32MB (like my little iBook), why can't Microsoft?

What's the compelling reason for such a hefty GPU requirement? Do you have to launch Doom III to 'delete' files? This is serious GPU power here, and if it's just rendering windows it seems to be poorly optimised.

Maybe it's a beta thing, and by the time it ships you can get by with lower GPU requirements.

Shared Memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I've scrolled through the comments and haven't seen this:

Is nobody considering shared memory when they say this will drive up prices? As in the "TurboCache" or "HyperMemory" or whatever ATI and nVidia are calling it today. These are cards that have about 16MB of actual video RAM, and the rest of the video memory just sits in main system RAM. It's a way to get mediocre performance out of extremely cheap parts, and this is what I imagine they'll use in really cheap PCs. (heck, they use them already, most onboard video cards work like this, and laptop cards have worked like this for ages)

This is why Vista is 100% useless.

[DroopyStonx]

Flat out, an OS does NOT need to be this suped up in order to operate. It's not like the OSes get any better. So great, we have an explorer shell that basically requires people to go out and buy new $1500 machines.

You'd expect applications themselves to use more memory as technology gets cheaper - but an OS using that much memory is uncalled for and flat out ridiculous.

Hell, there's no reason for XP to not run on a P2 300 w/ less than 64 MB RAM.

It's just an operating system... nothing more.

Can someone please explain why a "new and improved" (ooh file searching is better, big whoop) explorer shell demands so much?

Do less - with more

[plusser]

I have just upgraded from a 4 year old 1GHz Athlon to a 1.5GHz Intel Centrino laptop. Yes it's not particularly powerful, but I get a good battery life and it exactly does the job I expect of it, even with Windows XP Home installed on it. It even looks pretty neat, no big beige boxes for me. This is the type of laptop I hope Apple will launch next year when they go Intel. Let's face, a huge number of PCs are only used for Internet access and Word Processing. Microsoft need to understand that they should concentrate and making PCs easier to use, and not overloading them the a load of features that actually prevent me from working efficiently; Something Apple already do. Having recently had first hand experience of the how installing Office 2003 (which I can't stand) on a corporate network can completely screw up everything, there is one thing I can be sure, if I want fancy 3D graphics, I'll only want it for playing games, and that means games console and not Windows PC. Looks like Vista will be a waste of money to me, not only will the computers be ever so more expensive, but they will require a lot more power to run (I bet the green lobby will not be happy with Microsoft either). And I haven't even started on the subject of DRM; Why should I spend a whole lot of money on a complete new system, only to restricted in what I can or cannot watch or listen. Why should I do less with more?

MS driving DOWN HW prices?

[ImaLamer]

Wouldn't they be dropping the prices?

They've already created an artificial demand, that will boost the supply before Vista goes on sale. By the time Vista ships, the market will equalized.

Imagine the first few pieces of bulked up hardware are going to be sold to those who are building "dream" machines to install Vista on when it ships. Some people will be buying the new hardware to just try it out, have the newest or best, whatever. By the time Windows ships the market won't be as new and there won't be a sticker shock anymore.

Well, maybe there are enough people like me who are fed up with upgrades, and they'll just stay with windows 2000/xp or use linux/*bsd.

Think about all of those people who don't even know what "upgrade" means. They aren't going to cash in their old computer right away.

Chill out anyways. Isn't this a good thing for all of us? Vista will push out hardware that rocks today's hardware. Then we all profit! Like when Quake was released and we started seeing desktop video cards designed to render 3D scenes. Now we've all got one inside out PC.

The reason for the steep requirements

[Overly Critical Guy]

I hope people realize part of the reason for the steep requirements is to please OEMs who want to sell new computers. Microsoft knows most of their Windows upgrades are through new computers sales, so that's how they'll try to get people to use Vista, and vendors are happy because their sales have been lagging as people have realized 1Ghz with 256MB of RAM really is all they need just to do their online banking, send some email, and take pictures of the family.

This is an obvious attempt to initiate hardware sales to please manufacturers and make them money.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Tony Hoyle]

Requires PCI-X and a new monitor? Just a money grab in that case.

An average monitor will last for years - most of the ones I have are over 5 years old... I'm damned if I'm going to throw them all away and buy new ones just to run a new OS (I may need to for software testing, but will probably wait until someone does DRM emulation for VMWare instead).

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Danga]

This is an obvious attempt to initiate hardware sales to please manufacturers and make them money.

Yeah, I am sure they would engineer their whole operating system to force people to upgrade their computer instead of possibly being able to sell copies to more people. Also, if people are happy with their current hardware and the applications they are running why would they purchase a new computer? If all they need the computer for is to go online and edit pictures how will they be forced to upgrade when they already have everything they need right now? I highly doubt support/patches for Windows XP will stop next year, and that is the only way people would be forced to upgrade thus "initiating" hardware sales. Next time get some hard facts before making baseless claims.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Overly Critical Guy]

Yeah, I am sure they would engineer their whole operating system to force people to upgrade their computer instead of possibly being able to sell copies to more people.

Windows sales are made up almost entirely of new computer preinstallations. Microsoft itself has confirmed this.

Also, if people are happy with their current hardware and the applications they are running why would they purchase a new computer? If all they need the computer for is to go online and edit pictures how will they be forced to upgrade when they already have everything they need right now?

You're arguing my point for me. People already have what they need, yet Vista requires incredibly steep requirements just to display some windows on the screen.

Next time get some hard facts before making baseless claims.

I don't expect Microsoft fanbois to do anything but defend Microsoft business practices to the bitter end.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Danga]

Windows sales are made up almost entirely of new computer preinstallations. Microsoft itself has confirmed this.

Well no kidding that is true since it is the most popular, widespread OS. They would still make the same amount of money selling Windows XP, since that is the OS installed on most new computer systems.

You're arguing my point for me. People already have what they need, yet Vista requires incredibly steep requirements just to display some windows on the screen.

So how is pushing the limits a bad thing? I don't see people making a big deal when a new video game comes out that has high system requirements. They are trying something new and maybe it will suck, but maybe it won't. From other posts from people who have tried out the beta it does not sound like if you don't have a top of the line computer Vista is unresponsive or unusable.

I don't expect Microsoft fanbois to do anything but defend Microsoft business practices to the bitter end.

I am far from a Microsoft fanboy. I actually would not be running Windows XP Pro except when I was going to college I got it for free since I was majoring in CS. However, I don't see a problem with pushing the limits when releasing a new product. Of course when Vista is brand new the requirements may seem somewhat high but in a year or two it will be no big deal. If you were in charge of releasing a new product that had a lifespan of more than 2-3 years would you want to include and try some new techniques? I know thats what I like to do when I am developing software. So, I still do not believe that Vista was engineered to have high requirements to boost sales through more hardware sales. Believe that if you will, but you are wrong.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Overly Critical Guy]

Well no kidding that is true since it is the most popular, widespread OS. They would still make the same amount of money selling Windows XP, since that is the OS installed on most new computer systems.

You're completely missing the point. People don't go out and buy Windows upgrades. They get new versions of Windows when they buy new computers, but today's hardware is good enough for them, so they're less likely to buy new computers.

Windows isn't "popular," though it is widespread.

So how is pushing the limits a bad thing?

Bloating your product to push hardware sales is a bad thing.

I don't see people making a big deal when a new video game comes out that has high system requirements.

You don't? People bitch every single time. That's why consoles are the popular gaming platform now.

They are trying something new and maybe it will suck, but maybe it won't. From other posts from people who have tried out the beta it does not sound like if you don't have a top of the line computer Vista is unresponsive or unusable.

That's because the betas don't have the final Aero Glass vectorized interface. With that disabled, the system goes back to a more XP-like interface, which makes one wonder what the point of getting Vista is.

However, I don't see a problem with pushing the limits when releasing a new product.

Because they're "pushing the limits" completely pointlessly, to make money with their OEM contractors. They're trying to coax people into the upgrade cycle when they don't need it.

So, I still do not believe that Vista was engineered to have high requirements to boost sales through more hardware sales. Believe that if you will, but you are wrong.

No, I am absolutely correct about this, and you have no counterpoints to offer. You don't need 3Ghz and 512MB of RAM to display a drop-shadowed, hardware-accelerated window on the screen. Give me a break.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Danga]

You're completely missing the point. People don't go out and buy Windows upgrades. They get new versions of Windows when they buy new computers, but today's hardware is good enough for them, so they're less likely to buy new computers.

No, YOU are missing the point. I never said people go out and buy Windows upgrades. I know most people "upgrade" their version of Windows when they buy new computers since the OS that comes with it is usually newer than what they currently have. What I am saying is it does not matter what version of Windows comes with the new computers since Microsoft still makes money on each purchase of the new computer. You are saying they made the hardware requirements higher to boost their revenue and then you go and say but today's hardware is good enough for them, so they're less likely to buy new computers.. So what I am saying is if they are less likely to buy new computers anyway what difference does it make if Vista requires beefier hardware? If ALL they do is surf the web and send e-mails what difference does it make if Vista needs a supercomputer to run on since people won't upgrade if they don't have a reason to? You said it yourself most people don't need to upgrade and won't, so why will they magically change their mind if Vista comes installed on new computers instead of Windows XP?

People will upgrade if there is software that only works on Vista or they want to use features on Vista and their current hardware can not run it. They are not being coaxed into upgrading in any way.

That's because the betas don't have the final Aero Glass vectorized interface. With that disabled, the system goes back to a more XP-like interface, which makes one wonder what the point of getting Vista is.
Ok, this is true, but like you said it can be disabled and it is not the ONLY new feature. Maybe some people will want to use it, is it wrong to include it as an option? From what I have heard from beta testers Vista also has better error handling/recovery. Other features I find interesting are:
* Full support for the NX feature of processors.
* Built-in DVD recording capabilities, including Mt. Rainier support.
* A file-based disk imaging technology called XImage, that will install Vista in about 15 minutes rather than the 40 minutes taken by the current file-by-file copying method.
* Native Raw image support.
* Native, embedded RSS support, with developer API.
* File encryption support superior to that available in Windows XP, which will make it easier and more automatic to prevent unauthorized viewing of files on stolen laptops or hard drives.
* File virtualization, a feature that automatically creates private copies of files that an application can use when it does not have permission to access the original files. This facilitates stronger file security and helps applications not written with security in mind to run under stronger restrictions.
* Transactional File Transfers, prevents a half updated set of files from being created during updates for example, which can cause stability problems.
* SafeDocs Restore Service, a Windows Backup tool allowing automatic backup of files, recovery of specific files and folders, recovery of specific file types, or recovery all files.
* Support of UNIX-style symbolic links.

The new networking stack and shell features are also interesting, and I am sure there are new features that will be desirable that I have not heard of yet. Aero is only one new feature, not the ONLY new feature as you make it sound like. If you don't want to use Aero fully featured you can scale it down to work on your hardware or disable it completely (which I would probably do).

So, please explain how Windows Vista was engineered to boost hardware sales when Microsoft will make money on hardware sales that include some version of Windows anyway. What version is included is not a factor, they make money whether it is Windows XP or if it were Windows Vista. The hardware requirements are irrelavent since most people don't even know the difference between what operating system is on the new computer they buy, they upgrade when their current hardware does not run software they wish to use or new hardware is not compatible with what they have.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Overly Critical Guy]

Okay, Windows fanboi, I'll bite.

* Full support for the NX feature of processors.

Ooh, I can't wait! :P

* Built-in DVD recording capabilities, including Mt. Rainier support.

Welcome to OS X.

* A file-based disk imaging technology called XImage, that will install Vista in about 15 minutes rather than the 40 minutes taken by the current file-by-file copying method.

Translation: "It copies the files directly now instead of extracting them." Does it matter how long it will take to install? Are you installing Windows on a regular basis?

* Native Raw image support.

LOL. Welcome to OS X.

* Native, embedded RSS support, with developer API.

Gee whiz. That's worth a whole operating system upgrade.

* File encryption support superior to that available in Windows XP, which will make it easier and more automatic to prevent unauthorized viewing of files on stolen laptops or hard drives.

Most of this stuff is already available from third-parties for XP.

* File virtualization, a feature that automatically creates private copies of files that an application can use when it does not have permission to access the original files. This facilitates stronger file security and helps applications not written with security in mind to run under stronger restrictions.

Hooray, so it lets you access files you're not supposed to be able to access. Gotta love that Microsoft security.

* Transactional File Transfers, prevents a half updated set of files from being created during updates for example, which can cause stability problems.

Wow, filesystem journaling!

* SafeDocs Restore Service, a Windows Backup tool allowing automatic backup of files, recovery of specific files and folders, recovery of specific file types, or recovery all files.

Wow, a backup app! Nobody's ever seen those before!

* Support of UNIX-style symbolic links.

LOL.

So, please explain how Windows Vista was engineered to boost hardware sales when Microsoft will make money on hardware sales that include some version of Windows anyway. What version is included is not a factor, they make money whether it is Windows XP or if it were Windows Vista.

Okay, since you're thick as a brick, read your own paragraph because you answer it yourself. You outright state that Microsoft makes money from hardware sales. Bing! Guess what, kiddie, Windows XP sales have dried up, and people are sticking with the computers they have now. So Microsoft is trying to create as much flash and bang in Vista as possible and telling them they need to buy a new computer to have it.

I'll list it for you:

1.) Microsoft makes money from hardware sales.
2.) Windows XP sales have dried up.
3.) Current hardware sales are drying up.
4.) Microsoft creates new version of Windows and tells people they need to buy new hardware for it.
5.) Microsoft magically makes money from hardware sales again for Vista. Funny how that works.

Do you get it now? Does it compute?

Not that it will matter. Vista will flop. All it has is Aero. All the features you listed were minor auxiliary features that didn't require a whole new OS update. With Microsoft announcing SEVEN freaking versions of Vista, expect rampant customer confusion. And much gloating from Mac users when they point out OS X already has all the "new" features Vista is supposed to get.

Have fun waiting another year and a half.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Danga]

Ok retard you still haven't answered how people will magically decide to purchase new hardware when what they currently have works fine. You listed:

4.) Microsoft creates new version of Windows and tells people they need to buy new hardware for it.
5.) Microsoft magically makes money from hardware sales again for Vista. Funny how that works.

but fail to explain WHY people will listen to step 4. The only reason people will upgrade their whole computer is if what they have is not powerful enough to run the features they want to use with Vista/Vista only software or they purchase some hardware that is not compatible with their current hardware. If they are happy with what they have since they only surf the web/check email THEY WILL NOT PURCHASE A NEW COMPUTER.

The new computer purchase will occur no matter what if the hardware they currently have is not sufficient for what they want to do, so like I mentioned before it does not matter what version of Windows is included with the new computer since Microsoft makes money whether is is Windows XP or Windows Vista. Let me make my main point clear again since you are obviously slow Microsoft makes money whether is is Windows XP or Windows Vista that comes with a new computer and most people will be upgrading for reasons other than to only meet the hardware requirements to be able to run Vista.

People are NOT going to upgrade their whole computer just to be able to meet the requirements for Windows Vista. They WILL upgrade if there is Vista only software or hardware they want to use and they can do neither without a whole hardware upgrade. You are saying that people will see the system requirements and based only on that will buy a new computer. Why would they upgrade if they don't want to use any new features Vista has and have no other reasons to upgrade their current hardware? YOU ARE WRONG.

As far as me being a Microsoft "fanboi" I am not in the least. I will most likely not even upgrade to Vista since I am happy with my copy of XP Pro I got for free legally. I got it for free and it allows me to play games such as WoW easily so I am happy with it. I do agree that releasing 7 versions is insane, people are confused by 3 versions of Windows XP. Now will I use Vista? Yes, I am a software developer and will have to do testing on it. Having to worry about testing on 7 versions is very scary. I am NOT happy with Microsoft over that decision and unless I see something spectacular I am not going to purchase copies for my home computers. I am so far from being a fan of Microsoft it's not even funny so it is quite humorous you think I am one.

Ok, I have said enough. Now go back to your Mac that ships with a one-button mouse (since you too dumb to have more than one button, you would forget which button to press when) and try to remember that correlation does not imply causation.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Overly Critical Guy]

Ok retard you still haven't answered how people will magically decide to purchase new hardware when what they currently have works fine

OMFG. What has been my point? Here, I'll list them for you:

1.) Microsoft Vista will flop.
2.) It will flop because Microsoft's plan to drive hardware sales will backfire.

Let me make my main point clear again since you are obviously slow Microsoft makes money whether is is Windows XP or Windows Vista that comes with a new computer and most people will be upgrading for reasons other than to only meet the hardware requirements to be able to run Vista.

And, once again, I'll list it to make it clear for you:

1.) WINDOWS XP SALES AND HARDWARE SALES ARE DRYING UP.
2.) Therefore, Microsoft needs to sell more of Windows.
3.) Since most people only get new versions of Windows when they buy a new PC, Microsoft is trying to drive hardware sales.

Get it? I'll spell it out again. Windows business is down 10% year-on-year according to Microsoft, and people get new versions of Windows primarily through new PC sales, according to Microsoft. To make money, they need to drive hardware sales again and ship Vista on them.

People are NOT going to upgrade their whole computer just to be able to meet the requirements for Windows Vista.

That's why Vista will flop. Are you understanding yet?

Here, I'll spell it out again:

1.) People get Windows primarily through PC sales.
2.) Windows XP and current PC sales have dried up.
3.) Knowing nobody will rush out and buy Vista, Microsoft attempts to drive hardware sales.
4.) Vista flops because of it.

Is it sinking in yet? Has it passed your cranial walls and made residence in those dullard brain cells of yours?

Ok, I have said enough. Now go back to your Mac that ships with a one-button mouse (since you too dumb to have more than one button, you would forget which button to press when) and try to remember that correlation does not imply causation.

Having no other counterargument, you make a lame Mac insult, ignoring that MacOS has supported multiple mice buttons since the 90s, that the Apple store sells one-button mice, and most importantly, that the four-button Mighty Mouse SHIPS WITH MACS. Idiot.

Having a one-button mouse isn't a sign of dumbness, it's a sign of a superior user interface. Windows requires ten clicks to do things that only require one in OS X. Functionality is hidden away in various right-click menus. But hey, have fun waiting another year and a half to get OS X Tiger's features today. LOL.

Re:The reason for the steep requirements

[Danga]

Your arguement about them raising the requirements to boost hardware sales is all speculation. Yes, I know if hardware sales go up they make more money because of Windows shipping with most of the systems but it would be stupid to base your development of an OS on something such as that. That was only recommendations anyway, all windows recommendations have been way high in my experience. Will Windows Vista fail? Maybe, I honestly don't know, if enough "Vista Only" versions of games or important business software is released than it should do alright. There just is no Microsoft conspiracy to make more sales by making Vista's requirements sky high, it's a retarded, baseless accusation.

Having no other counterargument, you make a lame Mac insult, ignoring that MacOS has supported multiple mice buttons since the 90s, that the Apple store sells one-button mice, and most importantly, that the four-button Mighty Mouse SHIPS WITH MACS.

I actually made a very valid Mac insult. Why did it take until fucking 2005 for them to finally ship new systems standard with a mouse that had more than one button? And WHY are they still selling systems with that crippling one button mouse? I went to the Apple website to check and it still comes with some systems. Almost every game in existance for the last 5 years makes use of multi-button mice, and I think that would be a big reason right there to stop the one button madness. I was not ignoring that MacOS has supported multi button mice for a while, I was only referring to them still SHIPPING systems with a one button mouse. That is fucking retarded.

Having a one-button mouse isn't a sign of dumbness, it's a sign of a superior user interface.

Also bullshit. Ok, maybe you don't like the right click menus in Windows, but I would take that over your "one" click in MacOS anyday. That is because yeah, maybe it is only one click of the mouse but you have to press four buttons on the keyboard in a specific order and hold those down then click. That is what I remember from using Macs, I do not remember one thing being made easier through the UI that negated the validity of having more than one mouse button.

As far as waiting a year and a half for OS X Tiger's features I don't care because I probably don't need them. I use my Windows computer at my home to play games and surf the web and do more important stuff on my linux boxen. At work I use a mixture of Windows and Linux so I have everything I need already there too. I am just happy I can easily hand build my own computers or upgrade other computers I have (I'm talking mobo and processors) instead of having to buy everything through one company and also pay out the ass for it. Sure, Apple's prices have come down in the last few years but they still have too much control and are too expensive for my tastes.

vectors

[Anonymous Coward]

Frustration and outrage over the system requirements aside, it is an incredibly good thing that the rendering system is moving from bitmap to vector. That is where we should be going, that is where we should have been years ago. It is dispicable that setting the DPI of your Windows system to its true value makes half the system text illegible and ugly. It is pathetic that KDE can handle truly high-resolution displays completely and more cleanly than an OS that costs $200+. And it is asinine that in 2005, I cannot smoothly scale my entire display based on how far my nose is from my screen.

(Had I my way, no web page would ever, ever be allowed to use "pixels" for anything. Period. No exceptions.)

Not quite.

[Some Random Username]

The native integer type will stay 32 bit. AMD64 is an LP64 architecture, so longs and pointers will be 64 bits, ints stay 32 bit. And longs getting bigger really doesn't matter, people using longs for anything besides pointer math are being dumb anyways, and should fix their code. Having 64 bit longs just allows people who need 64 bit integers to have them without resorting to the slow "long long".

So really, its just pointers doubling in size that should effect your memory usage. This will not do anything remotely close to doubling the memory usage of an OS. We've had 64 bit architectures and OSs for years, you can look at them to see what kind of memory requirement increase to expect.

Re:Not quite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wonderin. What is the change of spec for i386 Linux and AMD64 Linux? Bugger all change, IIRC.

That means, either

1) Linux is already efecively 64 bit (so its resource usage is 1/2 what it seems wrt Windows32Bit)
2) Resource requirements don't double.

OK, how is that "off topic"?

[PCM2]

It's the truth. If you buy a PC today it will in all likelihood run Vista just fine.

Whatever, Getting Tired of the Latest and Greatest

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read stuff like this I just ask myself
what the point is. I'm sure there's someone who
can provide it. I am writing this on a Win98
platform and I'm quite happy with it's
appearance. Do we really need to suck every cycle
and bit of ram to support the GUI? At somepoint
the graphics are good enough and all this
translucancy, feature x, feature whocares, gets
to be more of pain than its worth. Something
similar can be said for the current state of
gameing. I was more than happy with the state of
gameing graphics 4 or 5 years ago. Since then we
have seen improvements but at the expense of
other areas in the game which have not received
the attention they should have because game
producers were mostly fixated with the game's
graphics. They could have left the graphics alone
(from a oh, how-pretty aspect) and concentrated
on making the game a better playing game: better
AI, controller response, physics environment,
etc.; Well just my rant for the day. Bye!

Five miles to the gallon

[FishandChips]

Relentlessly increasing energy prices, anyone? You can install this huge, monolithic, oh so nineties power trip of a product, multiply that by 5,000 or 10,000 corporate desktops, then hock yourself up the wazoo to your electricity company. Heck, even Intel seems to have gotten the message now - do more, for less. Small, light, nimble and frugal with the juice is the future, for all of us. This ain't it. I guess MS will just have to stick to frightening us with patents, court cases and drm madness.

Insightful?

[p3d0]

Every pointer in every data structure now requires twice as much memory. I can't say for all programs, but in the Java world (where I work), about half of memory typically contains pointers. Therefore you expect to see a 50% increase in memory consumption.

CPU stacks now have 8-byte entries, so they are pretty much always twice as big.

AMD64 code is quite a bit bigger than IA32 code. Most estimates say 15%.

None of these double your memory requirements, but it's probably easier for them to prereq 2GB of ram than 1.4GB.

Re:Insightful?

[Tim C]

but in the Java world (where I work), about half of memory typically contains pointers

Ok, I know you put "typically" in there, but it really depends on what you're doing. If you have multi-megabyte data structures (eg in a large cache to reduce db traffic) then I'd be very surprised if you had that many pointers relative to actual data. Of course, it depends on the structure of your data structures...

it's probably easier for them to prereq 2GB of ram than 1.4GB.

Possibly, but it's also easier and more purchaser-friendly to say 1.5GB rather than 2GB.

Bottom line though is that I simply don't believe the requirements. XP32 runs fine in 128MB of RAM. Sure, you wouldn't want to run Doom 3 on that, but the OS is fine. I refuse to believe that Vista64 is going to require 16x the RAM. If nothing else, the PC market simply isn't ready for home machines that are that close to maxing out their RAM.

(Typical "32bit motherboards" support up to around 3-4GB of RAM; I don't know about ones for 64bit CPUs, but at this end of the market I can't see it being much higher)

Re:Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

Java world (where I work), about half of memory typically contains pointers. Therefore you expect to see a 50% increase in memory consumption.

Holy smoking ram chips - Java programs use up so much at the moment that I doubt there's enough silicon in the world to produce them once Java goes 64 bit!!!

Re:Insightful?

[cheekyboy]

1/2 the mem is pointers?

pointers to what, more pointers

and if every thread/process/function is in 64bit, then your code is utter crap, since the >4gig requirement is very rare.

LAzy lame coders? perhaps

wtf you need >4gig ram per process for?

Re:Insightful?

[ichigo 2.0]

Um, yikes? WTH makes a program with HALF of the memory used in pointers? I mean, seriously, you don't need to have a separate pointer for every byte allocated. No offense BTW. :P

Re:Insightful?

[AaronLawrence]

about half of memory typically contains pointers

No, it doesn't. That's silly. Even in the most extreme case 90% of memory contains DATA.

The only way that half of memory would be pointers is if your entire computer's memory had a tree or list of integers, and what use is that? All real applications, even computational ones, contain lots of data: strings, images, documents.

The two biggest users of memory on most computers would be cache (whether the file system, or database pages, or web pages), and images (icons, web browser pictures, game textures).

Re:Insightful?

[LarsWestergren]

Java programs use up so much at the moment that I doubt there's enough silicon in the world to produce them once Java goes 64 bit!!!

It is not the programs themselves as he JVM that takes up memory, and Sun has merged code from Apple that allows a single JVM to run all your Java programs. I'm guessing that will not stop the usual trolling though.

As for the other part of your statement, there already exists plenty of 64 bit JVMs, and as usual, my programs work fine without me having to change a single line of code:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/install-solaris-64. html
http://e-docs.bea.com/wljrockit/docs142/certif.htm l

There are more 64 bit JVMs available from IBM and others, for Windows, Linux, Unix...

Re:Insightful?

[Bloke down the pub]

"Of course, it depends on the structure of your data structures..."

Are you sure? I thought it depended on the structure of the structure of your data structures.

Re:Insightful?

[mallardtheduck]

You do realise 64-bit proccessing is not just for addressing more memory?
The x86_64 architecture gives you twice the amount of CPU registers, each of which is twice the width.
Therefore 4x as much data can be held in the CPU at any one time and 2x as much can be proccessed per cycle. If you are dealing with large data structures (strings, long ints, high-precision floats - data structures commonly used in games and multimedia), you can greatly increase the speed of your code by having it 64-bit.

Re:Insightful?

[Kent Recal]

Data struckture: fracture due to being struck by data.

Re:Insightful?

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have never looked at the assembly code being generated out of your BASIC code.

Re:Insightful?

[p3d0]

Don't believe me. Do your own measurements. Crack open some Java code and count the fields.

I'm talking about the SPECjvm98 benchmark, which I instrumented and measured myself, as well as word-of-mouth about other Java code.

The only way that half of memory would be pointers is if your entire computer's memory had a tree or list of integers, and what use is that?

What are you talking about? What about a bunch of objects with 4 pointers and 4 ints? In fact, lots of classes have no actual fields at all; just a pointer to the class, and a pointer to the outer object.

Re:Insightful?

[p3d0]

If you have multi-megabyte data structures (eg in a large cache to reduce db traffic) then I'd be very surprised if you had that many pointers relative to actual data.

Join the club. Based on the responses I've received, it seems everyone's surprised. All I can say is, go do the measurements yourself.

Anyway, I think your statement says a lot. It's as though you don't think pointers are "actual data". That might explain your surprise: you think half of the data in a Java heap is wasted.

Why does this not surprise me?

[tuxtastic]

It's this complete disregard for common sense that drove me to the *nix world years ago. I'm not sure what's more sad... that microsoft is so pompous that they feel people MUST upgrade their perfectly good hardware to run their incredibly bloated, bug-ridden, joke of an OS, or that 90% of the "typical"(=lemming) users will blindly follow suit. On a side note... Props to ESR for telling microsoft where to stick their job offer.

Ironic.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I first heard about Vista's accelerated graphics, I thought it would actually speed things up. "Good," I thought, "maybe now it'll actually use video memory instead of caching my desktop to freaking virtual memory." (This is with XP and 128 MB of RAM, btw.) As it turns out, Microsoft somehow screwed things up so badly that everything is ten times SLOWER. Perfect.

In other news, I installed Mac OS 10.3 on my mom's second-generation iMac (running MacOS 9), and it actually made things run FASTER. Interesting contrast, eh?

What I want to know is, will vanilla PCs really come with that much VRAM by the time Vista comes out? Because I'd think for most business purposes (word processing, database access, internet, email, etc), a fancy video card would be unnecessary. Even more so for laptops.

What will really force people to upgrade....

[rubberbando]

What will really force people to upgrade is productivity software (like Office/Adobe/etc). It has already happened to me several times. I want to upgrade to the latest version of some spiffy software (like Poser 6 for example) which says my hardware config is more than enough to run it, but it requires Windows XP. :-/

Microsoft controls some of the biggest (most used) productivity software out there (Office) and they will use it to force people to upgrade the OS as well. They have been doing it since Windows 95 and will continue to do it. That is their business model.

1. Change file formats with Office upgrade

2. Force people to upgrade Office for compatibility with other people who have upgraded

3. Force people to upgrade Windows to run upgraded Office.

What can possibly be so compelling...

[sootman]

... about a windowing system that you need 256MB+ to experience it? My prediction: absofuckinglutely nothing. OS X does some nifty stuff with Quartz Extreme (16MB and the right chipset required) but you know what? I could happily live without every bit of it.* And knowing Microsoft like I do, I would bet my next check that they aren't going to do anything interesting, even with 16x more VRAM. Whatever they do, I'll bet the first thing I do when I boot up a new system is the same thing I've done since Win98--turn all the crap off.

Then again, maybe MS has some inside info on 300dpi flat panels--it's not much of stretch to say they'll be commonplace when Vista ships. :-)

* To be honest, I'd be happier without it all--that is, without the effects that require QE in the first place.

integrated memory leak?

[E8086]

Is all the high end hardware suposed to be compensating for something? The more good hardware you have the more time you have before you get the blus screen or have to reboot? It's very possible that by the time Vista is eventually released 2GB ram will cost as much as 512 does now and a 512vid card will be down to that of a 128 or 64. I've had XP running decently on a 400 with 256. I can understand games eventually needing a 512 vid card, but an OS? That's crazy, I think MS is trying to make it's new sound better than it will be, like XP, not much better than win2000, but it was just a quick fix for ME.

This is kind of good

[Crook C-Digital-Art]

MS will force a hardware revolution - everyone will have to make bigger and faster hardware just to run Vista. And think about buying a new box and putting XP on it instead. 2GB ram minimum, GPU with 1Gb ram etc etc. It'd fly!

Nothing new

[jav1231]

Frankly, Windows has always required more to be more. If you ran the minimum requirements, you got mimimal performance. Maybe this will put more people off to buying into their lock-in scheme.

Resources

[Eric604]

I thought the primary purpose of an OS is to manage resources, not to eat it.

Game requirements.

[miffo.swe]

They could have just used Carmack and gotten a faster slicker 3D enabled interface with a tenth of the requirements. I cant really fathom what they have done internally in Windows to make it that slow.

If Linux continues to get smaller and faster it will have a big advantage compared to Vista on the home computer desktop. I think this is a big chance for linux to gain some traction on the desktop of many users albeit not all or most of them. Make linux a bit easier for the newb and it should fly like an eagle.

The hardest parts now is to install the various codecs and media players needed to watch movies. Everything else is pretty easy nowadays since most device drivers Just Works.

WHOLEY FUKING JESUS!

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to be kidding me (I know you're not, this is just the standard denial stage).

I've already moved to Linux for all my networking needs. My DRM needs have already been met. Judging from this article, I have absolutely no use for Longhorn/Vista.

If I need to play new games, I'd consider a Revolution or a Playstation 3 before "upgrading" my computer for this latest MSFT release. Jesus Christ, Longhorn is utterly worthless on every account I've seen.

New Flash!

[bloggins02]

This just in... ... modern software needs modern hardware to run!

Film at 11...

Re:Hello

[ahaning]

Right after I'm done pouring Hot Grits down my pants.

Thanks for the memories and the chuckle!

Big Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all big bullshit, ofcourse its gonna run on lower, much lower, even with aero, microsoft knows if it has too high of specs, nobody will buy/use it, and they loose business, and if theres anything Microsoft Corp knows, it is good business.

I call bullshit.

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is BULLSHIT! Take a look at the requirements for the previous versions of Windows. At the time XP came out the minimum requirements as far as CPU were only 1/3 as fast as the top processors of the time, or less. There is NO WAY that Microsoft will release Vista next year with requirements that outpace the top machines on the market today. They want as many people to buy or upgrade as possible, they're not going to make it so that only 5% of the computer users can buy their new OS. Would that make any sense? According to the original article Vista would "work best" on those system specs. The article posted on Slashdot is totally misleading. This is a hardware wish list for optimal performance, not a list of requirements. For example according to the original article the graphics cards running Vista "need to have 128MB of RAM on it. If they've only got 64 don't panic" which gets turned into "GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium". The Bit-tech article was pulled entirely out of someone's ass.

./ AWARDS!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry im posting this anonymously, but im drunk.
Consider this an official nomination for /. awards flame category. You deserve to win!

Complain complain

[Anonymous Coward]

Complain all you want, but this OS makes perfect sense for MS. The one thing hardware vendors have been missing from MS is a valid reason to sell top end equipment to end users who wouldn't normally buy it with WinXP.

Believe me, there is serious money-making strategy here. Dell, HP, Lenovo, NVidia/ATI - they all want Vista now. It's simply good for business.

So stop blaming only Microsoft. Blame the hardware industry for wanting to justifiably sell you every transistor they can pump out.

How about no floppy requirement?

[Doppler00]

Do we have to install RAID drivers from a floppy disk in Windows Vista, or have they finally fixed that? I'm curious how an installation of Windows Vista goes on a bare bones system.

Re:Remember...

[level_headed_midwest]

Divx (the DVD player + service) died. Nobody wanted a pay-per-view DVD system. I think few will buy HDCP monitors and many will crap about the low-res junk. Studios and MSFT will backtrack. I bet on it.

KDE And Gnome Were Catching Up

[John Hasler]

...Can't let that happen. Microsoft must retain the title of bloat king.

Propping

[catwh0re]

Mac OS X 10.2 did this as "Quartz Extreme", the requirements of which do not include massive ram endowed video cards, and last time I checked the Mac operating system is no less graphically complicated than Windows Vista.

As a refresher "NVIDIA GeForce2 MX and later, or any AGP-based ATI RADEON GPU. A minimum of 16MB VRAM is required", is the Quartz Extreme requirements.

We Told You So

[Master of Transhuman]

You want to stay with Microsoft?

You pay the hardware cost.

I can't wait until the corporations see that every secretary in the office has to have 2GB of RAM - or they have to support 2000 and XP themselves after "end of life" - which will be about five minutes after Vista ships, since Gates may be an asshole, but he's not stupid.

I can't wait to see the minimum disk space, too. Forget about putting Vista on a Bart's PE flash drive...even if you have a 4GB one.

This is great news

[Anonymous Coward]

Coperations are evil, they are forcing us to upgrade and stuff. Good I say, good for the pc-games industry as this will elimate the need to pander to people who don't want to upgrade thier pcs. This in turn will increase the overall graphical quality of pc games and reduce the cost of making games as multiple code paths will be eliminated. "But its not right" you whine. In that case I guess that Microsoft shouldn't put out the 360 and Sony should just cancel the PS3, after all its making people buy new whardware to play the latest and greatest games, and you just said thats bad. Point is coperations want to make profits, not happy people, sorry if you don't like the truth but their it is.

bashing Microsoft! (its fun)

[mikek3332002]

You can do that in windows if you download third party shells like xorblite (blackbox clone). This article is kinda deja vu

Halo.

[SanityInAnarchy]

What more needs to be said?

Oh yeah, Halo has a PC port. So let us say instead:

Halo 2.

Re:Halo.

[adpowers]

Halo is very overrated (yes, I have played it). I don't follow the console market closely, but I don't think Halo 2 would be enough to let Microsoft capture the console market.

Re:Halo.

[SirPavlova]

Think about that statement - if it's overrated, it's liked by more people than it should be, & to a greater degree than it should be. So just because it's not good enough to take the console market, doesn't mean it won't.

That said, I agree on both points.

Quake 3.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Back when Quake 3 was still being seriously used as a benchmark, there was marked improvement by running it in Wine on Linux over running it on Windows 2000. And the native Linux binary was even better.

Yet, there still aren't hoards of gamers flocking to Linux, and the Doom 3 Linux port runs slower than the Windows version.

I think, as others have said, Linux has other things going for it. For one thing, I'm working on a Linux GameDVD, which, while not entirely legal, will allow me to distribute a copy to everyone at a LAN party -- they boot it, it configures itself for the network, and gives you a menu of games that are fun at LAN parties and work on Linux. Starcraft, the original Counter-Strike, plus all the Quake, Doom, and Tribes games (except Doom 3, unless I end up with a LOT of free space).

When you think about it, this simplifies the LAN party thing a lot. Last time, it took us over two hours to get four computers playing Starcraft, because of odd firewalls, anti-virus settings, and buggy, old Windows installations. This time, I expect it to take less than five minutes, no matter how many computers we've got.

WinVista forum

[DarkAngel81]

yup defintely takes alot of memory to run, even for a Beta1. Take alook here at this forum where some ppl been detailing their experiences with WinVista. http://www.winvistasecrets.com/ Any other forums to share? ...this one is the most active i've found so far....

yeah...

[idlake]

To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more.

But semi-transparent accelerated windows are sooooo cool, and if they can't figure out how to do them any other way, that's just what you have to live with.

Re:Back in about 1999, when windows 2000 was in be

[brettper]

That's rediculous!
So is that like ridiculous, again?

Where is the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA:
"Display: Prepare to feel the red mist of rage - no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. You may already have heard rumblings about this, but here it is. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor. Why? Because these formats use HDCP to encrypt a video signal as it travels along a digital connection to an output device, to prevent people copying it. If you have just standard DVI or even an analogue output, you're going to see HD scaled down to a far-less-than-HD resolution for viewing - which sucks. This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies. Yay.

Thoughts

Amusingly, Page admits that there are no monitors out there that will do HDCP, and that this is a problem. Frankly, it's the consumer's problem, however, according to him. "It's up to you [the users] to say, 'Where's my HDCP?'

MS doesn't have to build it into windows and whos doing some of the licensing for all these formats? give you hint, its MS. They stand to make a butt load of cash from their licensing of their technology to prevent copying.

Let loose the asshats!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've not even bothered to read any posts, but, given the current state of Slashdot, I am comfortable summarizing the responses nonetheless.

1. OMFG! Linux is, like, so much better than this!
2. Micro$oft is the suX0r!
3. This is proof of how a convicted monopolist can, after having bribed the Federal government via illicit campaign donations, leverage the power of their illegally earned money to further their greedy and selfish ends to the detriment of the citizenry.
4. I'm gonna hafta buy new hardware to run it after I download it?!? OMFGWTFBBQ! Micro$oft suX0rs!
GOTO 1.

(Yeah, yeah, Stupid, I KNOW it's not syntactically correct in any programming language you know. You get the point, STFU, and do us ALL a favor? Have yourself neutered before you can reproduce? KKTHX! LOLOL!!1!1)

Really?

[cgenman]

if you turn off the eye-candy , it'll run as well as xp does today.

Vista is going to a completely different rendering paradigm. This is not just like the easily reversed eye-candy switch from 2000 to XP, they're actually changing how the OS thinks about graphics, in much the same way that Apple transitioned from the older bitmapped model of OS9 to the object oriented Quartz for OSX. Microsoft could include the older rendering engine from XP to allay this problem, but my guess is they just won't support that backwards compatibility.

When I install XP onto older computers, I can be pretty confident that going back to 2000 levels of performance is easy. I'm not so convinced that such a transition with Vista will be easy or even possible.

Re:Actually, this will probably be good for Micros

[megrims]

Much of your point is lost by your not remembering the number...

I would

[Fatalis]

But I need Photoshop.

Really - video card?

[SuperKendall]

So how does that ATI 9100 IGP card in the shuttle stack up to the ATI Radeon 9200 in the Mac mini?

Not to mention that while both come with 512MB of memory, that Shuttle is going to be forking over some of that RAM for the video card.

Aren't these supposed to be media PCs after all? I mean, what good is it when the system you list costs $50 more than a similar mini, has lower graphics performance, and doesn't even come with Bluetooth OR WiFi built in for synching with other devices and connecting to your other computers?

Forget form factor, from just the angle of tech specs I'd take the MINI any day regardless of the size of either system.

How does key revocation work with HDCP?

[SuperKendall]

it seems like in order to revoke keys, that would have to come down as an OS update. Also it seems to me keys would be very unlikley to be revoked as that would also be disabling someones monitor somewhere.

Hopefully the people buidling the HDCP bypass boxes are smart enough to get keys from some huge maker like Sony that would not stand for revocation of any product line.

Re:How does key revocation work with HDCP?

[quantum bit]

it seems like in order to revoke keys, that would have to come down as an OS update. Also it seems to me keys would be very unlikley to be revoked as that would also be disabling someones monitor somewhere.

I'm not sure how it works with Windows Media files, but on HD-DVD (and presumably Blu-Ray), each disc has a key revocation list that can update the player.

But yeah, it should be interesting to see if they have the balls to revoke a key used by mainstream TVs. They can blame it on the "evil pirates" all they want, but it will still piss people off. They probably couldn't get away with it without offering a free upgrade or repair to change the keys on all affected models. As usual, it's the hardware manufacturers (many of whom opposed HDCP) that suffer, not the content producers who are pushing for this.

Hopefully the people buidling the HDCP bypass boxes are smart enough to get keys from some huge maker like Sony that would not stand for revocation of any product line.

My personal favorite idea is to rip keys from many different manufactuers and have the bypass box cycle through them all to find a working key. That way if they want to revoke them they'd have to break a LOT of legitimate devices.

No, they want the users to want

[SuperKendall]

There is a fair difference between users really wanting something, and companies wanting users to want something.

What users want is to watch a movie. What they don't want is to buy new stuff if they don't have to. If they have a big TV/monitor that looks perfectly good, they are going to be steamed when they are told that 40" plasma TV simply will not work with that shiny new HD player even though it looks just fine.

Heck, I'll bet I could retire just by hanging around the outside of Best Buy in the months after the release of Blu-Ray players and selling HDCP-DVI converters to people heading into the store with opened players and angry looks. It would be really appealing too if I didn't think I'd get a few hundred in the pokey if I got caught. They aren't very lienient to media thiefs nowadays. Then again, perhaps that would be a great trial case to bring down the DMCA.

Right there with you

[SuperKendall]

I agree the whole situation is utterly ridiculous. What are they really stopping with this whole chain? Was piracy from capturing the VGA signal really so terrible before?

For those still not sure what this would mean, imagine this - when you play a video there is the potential for that video square to be un-capturable. You can't screen scrape it. You can't take a snapshot of it. You can only see it with your eyes, and of course whatever other recording devices you point at the screen.

That is because the computer will be feeding encrypted data to your video card, then over to the monitor which will decrypt it. At no point would a screen-scraper be able to "see" it. All so you can watch a slightly higher resolution video. Madness!

I do wonder if there will be exploits that somehow capture video within the video card before it is encrypted. But I think it's encrypted before it hits that even, done by the driver.

Whee

[rk87]

Well, with those numbers I might as well get a 6.80Ghz 1TB RAM 2TB HDD Laptop....

wank

[smash]

To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more

Funny how MacOS X has managed just fine on a 32meg card for the past couple of years... even Tiger.

Microsoft is trying to tell us that rendering a Windows desktop requires more 3d memory capacity than the PS2 uses for something like Gran Turismo 4? That their own X box has 1/4 the capacity needed to render a Windows desktop?

Pfft..

smash.

Meanwhile

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OSX runs great on my PowerPC 1.4 GHz, 1G RAM and a puny Radeon 9200 (mac mini). And it already uses GPU for desktop and many other nifty things as in Vista.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

[drwhitt]

According to Robert Scoble on The Scobleizer:

...Nigel (the guy they .quoted) is wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Apparently, Mr. Scoble interviewed live, breathing members of various Windows Vista development teams who refute these "facts."

We'll see...

Laptops

[eneville]

But, most laptops have terrible graphics ability, this will mean incredibly poor performance on the laptop to do even the most meanial of tasks.

Bring back the command line, I mean monad.

if this was linux MS would be blasting it. payback

[Anonymous Coward]

just think if linux or fbsd had some requierments like this, MS would be trying to blast it out of the water hardcore... Well time to do it to windows, be great to get more people to use linux because of this, and they dont need to buy a whole new computer like they will with vista, so time to flip it on the MS losers.

Unlike Windows 95, and Windows XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot readers: the alternate universe posted a message about Vista's under spec's hardware requirements. Unlike Windows 95, and ME's (and even XP Home)'s stated minimum requirements - it sounds as if there's going to be an effort that the operating system runs - but leaves enough ram for your actual applications. Additionally - if .NET is going to become the platform for application developers then they are going to need the RAM and CPU to fix perf. I think it would be rediculous to state the Vista will run on the same entry level hardware as Windows XP. It's been 5/6 years. Just think of all those old boxes that you can install Linux on. Sheesh

windows Vista will be 10 times faster

[xutopia]

because they fixed that stupid bug where deleting a single link takes more time than deleting 12 megs of files in a folder.

DDR3 will be commonplace.

[PhYrE2k2]

Nigel mentions DDR3 - which is a little odd, since the roadmap for DDR3, on Intel gear at least, doesn't really kick in until 2007.

My 2010 when Vista is released, DDR3 I'm sure will be commonplace :) ... if not outdated already.

-M

Vista is Crap, Total Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

We installed the Vista beta on a pretty beefy "business" computer system at work (we work on client OS maintenance and development), and it ran like utter garbage. On top of that, the changes to the OS are insignificant...prettier, scalable icons, "helpful" menus located everywhere you don't need them (ala KDE) to make the most confusing experience you could ever hope for, and a new, slick black UI.

That's what you get. Sure, there are other things like insta-search (ala Spotlight), but tell me why the hell we would want this running on our business systems? Or even on your home system -- can you imagine game performance when your OS is eating up your GPU? My friends, Microsoft made a COLOSSAL blunder with this operating system...the time of desktop Linux is here. Normal people are not going to want to buy a $800 system (and that's being somewhat conservative) just to run an OS when they can purchase a $299 system that can run Linux in its full glory.

Now, if in the next year Cedega or whoever else can get Linux more interoperable with Windows games, you will see the obliteration of Microsoft's monopoly.

we need a "just say no to vista" campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm serious about this.

with a website explaining vista's DRM stuff.

explaining how its ungodly system requirements are totally insane.

and we need a good web graphic button that is eye pleasing and catching. nothing overly zealous like the windows logo with a circle and bar (that's a good way to preach to only the converted).

Re:Back in about 1999, when windows 2000 was in be

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Ha!
Spelling error!1!

Bark worse than bite

[PingPongBoy]

No worries. By the time most people get around to Vista the base requirements will be affordable, if Moore's law has any sustainability.