Will Vista Run Your Games?

mikemuch writes "With Vista reaching the more stable beta 2 designation, Jason Cross at ExtremeTech decided to run a slew of popular PC games -- Oblivion, F.E.A.R, GTA, Civ IV, WoW, and more -- on the OS to see what will and won't run, and how well. His findings are encouraging, but unsurprisingly the OS is not quite ready for prime time. Some work is needed on the part of driver writers, Microsoft, and game developers to get the gaming experience ready for launch day. The biggest problem he found was StarForce copy protection and a performance drop-off in many of the games when using anti-aliasing. From the article: 'With Microsoft proclaiming a "PC gaming renaissance" around the launch of Vista, they need to really deliver a fantastic experience, and it's not quite there yet.'"

Comments

OS X?

[Anonymous Coward]

It wont even run your games? They really ARE copying OS X.

Re:OS X?

[Midnight Thunder]

It wont even run your games? They really ARE copying OS X.

What do you expect. They have a perfectly fine gaming machine that they want to sell you, that just needs a TV ;)

Am I the only one. . .

[LunchTableGoat]

Am I the only one that read the headline as "Will Vista Ruin Your Games?"

Capt. Obvious

[Agent00Wang]

"and it's not quite there yet"

Hence why it's coming out next year, not now.

Why is this even a question?

[entmike]

Of course Vista will run a majority of its back catalogue. If they want to make money, of course it will support the major titles. I'm sure as always there will be kinks to work out, but are we really going to have a discussion about how it potentially won't? Microsoft's track record has gotten better for its backwards compatibility over the years, at least in my book.

Re:Why is this even a question?

[PFI_Optix]

100% backward compatibility is a stupid expectation. Considering the technical hurdles to get DOS- and Win9x-native software to run on what is essentially a rework of Win2K, I think they did a great job of providing compatibility that didn't have to be there.

Apple and Linux aren't any better about running 6- to 10-year-old software. OSX just refuses to run quite a few old programs, and Linux just drives you insane trying to sort out dependencies and versions and all the rest of that fun stuff.

When it's done right, Linux is probably the most backwards-compatible...but XP's compatibility is somewhere in the middle, and much easier than Linux...when it works.

Not exactly a StarForce problem

[IamTheRealMike]

Nearly every copy protection system uses kernel drivers, and if Vista isn't happy about loading older drivers I'd expect variant of these problems to affect many games and some apps too (Picasa and iTunes both use kernel level code for some features).

Blaming this on StarForce specifically hardly seems fair unless there's a specific reason Microsoft are blocking it from loading ....

I'm not sure that's the question

[Dark Paladin]

The question isn't "Can it run my games", but "Is there a value to installing Vista that will make my games run better"?

The only reason why I have a WIndows box is for the games (and if they ever get the virtualization stuff fast enough in OS X, then that goes too). It runs XP, and seems to work OK (except that Oblivion keeps shutting down. Shrug.)

With Vista, the two extra goodies are:

ESRB rating lockdown - as a Dad of three, that's all right. Personally, I find it easier not to buy my children games I don't feel they should be playing, or let them play it - but OK, it's a nice feature.

DirectX 10, which evidently will *only* be Vista (though I've yet to see a technological reason why it can't go into XP other than "We need a reason for you to upgrade to Vista).

DirectX 10 won't really be interesting to me until I upgrade the video card, and in a year with the Wii, and maybe a reduced-price PS3 purchase next year, I don't see myself upgrading to Vista then for DX10 until at least 2008 - which would be in time for the first service pack to come out to fix the things they missed in Vista.

So, for these two things, I'm not ready to shell out the $130 or whatever it will cost - but I guess it's good to know that the games that run under the gaming OS I use now will continue to run.

Re:I'm not sure that's the question

[mrchaotica]

...but I guess it's good to know that the games that run under the gaming OS I use now will continue to run.

That in itself is another excellent reason not to upgrade to Vista, because with its infestation of DRM and Treacherous Computing that won't be guaranteed in the future.

I doubt it.

[grub]

Will Vista Run Your Games?

No... because I'll never install it!

Re:I'm glad they confirmed this myth...

[jeriqo]

It's Vista vs XP not AA vs not AA

DirectX10 and the XP support cycle

[phorm]

Given the current trend towards various countries/continents/etc pushing for MS to modify their OS for unbundling purposes, etc... what would be the scenario around the "forced upgrade" for use of DirectX 10?

XP is still within the support cycle for MS. DirectX 10 could be seen as an upgrade or update for Windows OS's. Therefore, should MS not be supporting DX10 on XP?

I'd imagine that when Vista comes out, if things start requiring DX10 we may see a certain amount of political pressure against our favorite monopolist to backport proper support.

my question

[Blob Pet]

How long will it be before the games I buy require Vista? Seeing that I only boot into XP when I want to play certain games, I have absolutely no desire to install Vista.

Re:I'm glad they confirmed this myth...

[Ender Ryan]

Wow. Just wow. Holy fucking wow.

Way to get moderated up for being a complete dipshit.

Re:Vista is backward compatible...?

[__aaclcg7560]

Oh, I don't know... Is $600+ for a video game console or $60 per game is stupid?

Microsoft will be pressuring developers to create Vista-only games to force gamers and consumers to upgrade to Vista. This happened during the transition from Windows 98 to Windows XP.

DX10 question

[DarthChris]

MS officially announced (some time ago) that there would be a SP3 for XP, and that it would contain some of Vista's new API's etc. My wonder is that maybe they will stick DX10 in that, given sufficient community pressure?