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

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...

[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.