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Vista Casts A Pall On PC Gaming?
simoniker writes "In an opinion piece, casual game publisher WildTangent's CEO Alex St. John (himself a Microsoft veteran and one of the DirectX creators) has sharply criticized some of Windows Vista's features as they related to video game creation, noting: 'We have found many of the security changes planned for Vista alarming and likely to present sweeping challenges for PC gaming, especially for online distributed games. The central change that impacts all downloadable applications in Vista is the introduction of Limited User Accounts. LUA's can already be found in Windows XP, but nobody uses them because of the onerous restrictions they place on usability. In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable.'" Meanwhile, the word has also come down that games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.
Gaming and computing are two different animals. This is even more true for mult-user computing, a la Unix, OS X, XP, and now Vista. And, some of today's security problems in Microsoft's security model are directly related to and introduced by gaming requirements early on (circa 1992, 1993).
Gaming demands high-end, near-to-the-hardware, unencumbered access. Multi-user computing demands flexibility, equitable distribution of resources, and if properly done, capability of extremely high and granular security.
This puts the two activities at odds in deciding how to implement a "computer" -- probably one of the main reasons hardcore gaming usually is the domain of dedicated consoles and hardware.
In NT's early days (which eventually became Windows 2000 and Windows XP) Microsoft caved to requests for compromised access to "rings" of kernel security to give better (and acceptable) performance for game developers -- most notably there were some passthroughs for video hardware access. I don't know if there were other compromises but I suspect there were. These compromises contributed to security problems (but were not the cause of all of Microsoft's security headaches).
From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista... it should be very hard for limited users to do much more that use the machine. Unfortunately, gaming typically requires access to the machine that, under the covers, is much more than typical and casual access to the innards. This is probably why Microsoft has gotten into the game console market... they finally have hardware/software dedicated to and around gaming.
It's probably a tough pill to swallow for gamers and developers used to being able to pull it off in XP (and previous generation Windows), but it's probably a better security world on whole for general computing and Vista users.
I'm sure that will make both of those Zune owners very happy.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
> In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable. ..and disablable (which happens to be one of my favourite words).
He's just upset that his company's spyware and crap won't be able to be installed on people's computers without them knowing it anymore? Damn, this might just be an MS Vista advertisement in disguise.
...reasons for people running unsecure windows.
If WV makes it hard for the gaming industry then I'm all for Vista... and I usually are a MS-hater... If he got a problem he should move to Linux or xBSD, then he could distribute his fucking games as Live-CD's.
Seriously, I've owned at least one primary home machine that ran MS-DOS or Windows since the first version, and have a WinXP laptop at home, but I've just plain given up on Vista. I'm going to migrate to the Wii and maybe buy a Mac OS/X laptop if I can't get a decent Linux laptop.
My current plan is to buy a WinXP laptop right when they release Vista and the prices drop. Then I'm not going to upgrade - ever.
Been a long time coming, but I've pretty much had it, and with MySQL and Open Office, don't feel the need to fork over even more money to MSFT. Especially when I can get a laptop for $500 by not doing so.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The only thing LUA is going to change on Vista is the user will have to type in a password for the equivalent of a sudo apt-get. Not a big deal.
only one everything
I'm sure that will make both of those Zune owners very happy.
...
Hope they haven't decided to jump after seeing the iPhone launch videos
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I think this guy is full of shit. When I go on the internet, if i know i'm going to download something, I'll be fine pressing "yes" as i'll soon be selecting where it goes so i'm ready for a prompt. If something is going to download without me saying it can, then it can very well get the hell out of my computer. The security dialogs in Vista dont require you to put in a username and password every time you try to acess a flash game on the web, and this article clearly is full of it. Wild Tangent games often appear on my computer when i did not ask for them, and i really hope that the vista security will help me keep their crap off my computer in the future.
Interesting that you have to increase the security level to try a game. I would imagine it would be better to firewall the game and ask if you want to allow specific actions... This game wants access to the internet... This game wants to read your outlook contact list...
It's perhaps ironic that I run my own online game publishing company now and have become a dependent customer of the platform and technologies I once worked to create. Some of you might call it "justice" -- if it is, I wish it for my successors working on Vista.
Yep, he helped Microsoft shove Directx down all our throats now hes complaining, and surprised, they're trying to shove something else down our throats.
The two big problems with LUAs have been that there was no way to perform super-user actions without logging out and logging back in, even if you the person have greater privileges than the account you have logged in with. I do believe Vista has fixed this. The other problem is that lazy application developers chronically write software that assumes unnecessary super-user privileges. Now Microsoft has (finally) chosen to curtail their reckless practices, and they would rather complain than get with the program.
"It's probably a tough pill to swallow for gamers and developers used to being able to pull it off in XP (and previous generation Windows), but it's probably a better security world on whole for general computing and Vista users."
So does that mean that PC gaming is dead on Vista?
If game developers stick to OpenGL or DirectX 9 or 10 then thats all they need. Infact game developers should be DROOOLING over the tools available for them under vista.
Direct hardware access is so passe, now its about API's and how fast they can be accelerated between CPU/GPU and Physics accelerations.
Writing games on DOS/4GW and Win32s is a thing of the past. If you want to see a game, check out the DirectX 10 enabled games and then tell me vista isn't a gamers os.
blah
As a die-hard gamer, I am ready to buy games on Linux and OSX, and NOT upgrade to Vista.
Of course, I believe Vista is supposed to offer features to help prevent piracy, which makes it more attractive to game companies. Regardless, there is nothing it offers than I can't find on my OSX system, and I'm happy to use Linux as well.
Initially I thought this was just a rant, since the implications of limited user accounts have far greater benefits than limitations and users are going to have to enter an admin password to install nearly any software, so I don't see why games should be an exception.
That said, he makes a good point about the Game Explorer widget. Disclaimer: I have not, and probably will not for some time if at all, installed Vista on any of my computers yet. According to this article, though, it would seem that Microsoft is actually blocking games from running via any other means than the Game Explorer. This somewhat reminds me of Apple with iTunes in that using something else to sync an iPod takes more effort than most people would want to put forth. It would also seem to mean that installers will have to create special cases for Vista, which seems pointless to me. Admittedly, Microsoft could argue that limiting execution rights to the Game Explorer interface was necessary to enforce parental controls, but there are many other, less intrusive ways they could have gone about this (off the top of my head: deny execution rights to normal users, detect an attempted execution, if equal to or under parental ratings, run under a special Gaming account automagically, otherwise, ask for an escalation).
The obvious point is that Microsoft would seem to have a conflict of interest here; making PC gaming attractive may draw attention away from the X-box 360, something Microsoft would want to avoid at all costs. Are they making it difficult to run games in order to make the 360 seem much simpler by comparison? Maybe. I suppose I'd have to have both Vista and a 360 to find out, which I don't plan on having together for some time if at all.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I personally believe that most people underestimate the impact of "PC Gamers" on the OS marketplace and I think that any move by Microsoft that makes it difficult to "Game" on their computer will open up the marketplace for other OS's. Right now the companies that write Games for the PC, target MicroSoft OS because of their dominance in the marketplace. If they are "forced" to choose another OS to write games for, then that OS will become instantly more popular. I do play computer games and don't care for the "console" anywhere near as much. If the majority of PC games were avaliable on a Linux platform, I would instantly switch my Home PC to that Platform. If Wine continues to get better and I find that I can play most/all of my games on Linux, I will at least set up a dual boot on my home system.
We can all be 100% sure which OS "Arnold" is going to stick with.
I may be wrong, but doesn't Wild Tangent have a rep for being pseudo spyware? It certainly gets fladded on my system constantly. I know it comes bundled with AIM and some other applications, so I don't really consider it nefarious, but I still don't think highly of it.
It doesn't sound surprising to me that a company that sets of security flags as is, would be concerned about new security features. I'd be more interested in what the developers at ID, SOE, or EA have to say about how the features will affect the ability of them to develop games, in particular online offerings.
Gaming and computing are two different animals. ... Gaming demands high-end, near-to-the-hardware, unencumbered access. ... From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista.
A reasonable OS makes resources available, without compromising security. You don't have to be able to overwrite system files to gain access to video card functions. There's also no reason to restrict other programs, such as email or browsers when your OS has been designed to perform for customers rather than confuse competitors. The conundrum has been addressed and solved by X, which has had network transparency without significant security risks for decades.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
First, disclosure: I work on Vista at Microsoft.
The "problems" Alex St. John identifies are essentially that his business model doesn't work so great when people have to click a couple extra buttons and type a password, and that he would really prefer it if children could install his products without parental involvement.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
The real problem here is that the world is changing and WildTangent has to change with it. Yes, that's difficult. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it will cost money they didn't need to spend when they were targeting XP. And yes, they may actually need to give serious consideration to getting ESRB ratings. But these are the natural and normal cost of doing business in the modern world; if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.
The whole article is just a bunch of FUD. Alex is basically claiming that Microsoft is trying to kill his business, because he doesn't know how to do business the way he needs to do it on Vista. He's afraid that consumers won't click two more buttons and enter a password to play his game. He's afraid that parents won't let their children play his games. But the answer to this problem isn't to reduce security, it's to make a better and more compelling game! Weren't you already trying to do that ANYWAY?
Don't get me wrong, I think there are still problems - the ESRB needs to better address the needs of casual game developers who produce fifty $10 games and generate about $200K in annual revenue. The current system is too heavily geared toward console and PC developers who have multi-million dollar budgets. But blaming Microsoft for everything is just a tired old excuse that invariably comes trotting out when someone is too damn lazy to read the direction of the wind and rig his sails accordingly.
Microsoft cheerleader, blue flag waving, you got a problem with that?
Hmph. As long as there's money to be made, games will be made for Vista. I see the limited user account issue as a coding issue more than anything else. Code will have to be written so that the game runs under LUA or ... else. Personally, I find it annoying that a game would need to run under an Administrator account in the first place, especially if it's a kids game (had this happen once).
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
For example the Xbox 360 has unified architecture graphics processing that is just coming into the market through the gefoce 8800's which cost MORE than an entire 360.
The 360 has 3 cores, 48 unified pipelines, 512 megs of GDDR3 memory and an insane bus speed between them. Hardly "mid range" by any PC standards considering PC's are still fighting to catch up.
The problem with consoles most of the time isn't console power but demand to get games out the door before having a finished product. On pc's they just patch patch patch and eventually get it right - consoles are heading that way now though.
Yet another reason to avoid Microsoft's culture of arrogance. "The customer is always right", remember?
most indie devs I know about consider $200k to be very high end. I know I'm not making that. If a game won't be usable on vista without a costly ESRB rating, then my company is dead in the water and so are most of the small indie developers.
I'm all for supporting higher security, I don't see why any games need administrator rights on a machine (my last 2 certainly run fine without them), but anything that might require all games to have ESRB ratings is just plain stupid. Kiss goodbye to freeware games for starters.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Games, by and large, work just fine in Vista. In general I've had better luck with games than with engineering applications in terms of running with Vista. Games may think they need admin, but they usually don't. You don't need admin to access any of DirectX or OpenGL and that's what games do for the most part.
He's just pissed because WildTanget is, essentially, spyware. They sell crappy games through their poor interface and it is going to become harder for them, with IE7 more than with Vista. Normal games like the kind you buy in the store should work just fine for the most part, and devs shouldn't see many things they'll have to change.
Put it this way: If Epic Megagames, iD Software, Electronic Arts and so on start saying Vista is going to screw over PC gaming then be worried (or happy depending on your viewpoint). If it's just WildTangent whining, then ignore it.
Absolutely nothing in this paragraph addresses what the OP was talking about. Are you just jumbling together words to do a weird "plug" for X? Or is this a veiled "M$ sux" essay? I don't have anything against X, but anyone with an IQ higher than 70 knows it's not the hottest gaming platform in existence.
Care to try again?
Ok, is this guy stupid or is the quote wrong?
Your game, no matter how much I like it, does not need nor deserve unlimited access to my computer. If you think it does, I will take my business elsewhere because you have no idea about coding, obviously.
See, the only stuff that your game should ever need to touch is its own damn data. So as long as whatever restricted account I run your game and/or auto-updater as as write permissions to those files, it should work, right? Even in windos it should be possible to install the game in such a way that this works.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Ever work tech support?
So, a spyware publisher responsible for the crippled state of all new HP machines cries out loud that Vista will be too secure for their crapware to install? Cry me a river, ****heads. On the other hand, I don't think Vista will run games too well and that gamers should stick with XP for now since Vista's likely to break almost all existing games, especially id's OpenGL classics.
It will be a cold day in hell when Windows isn't the best operating system for gaming. It's the only thing that keeps the ignorant masses from switching to Linux, after all. :)
I can play games on Linux with Cedega perfectly well. Right now I am playing WoW with no issues.
;)
So, if it works on Linux under a limited user account... why isn't it possible on Windows? Perhaps they need to start up some kind of emulation project... they would call it Beer since Cider and Wine are taken
Beep beep.
For that matter Windows doesn't know if something is a game or not unless it's in MS's list. Vista just can find out what a game's ESRB rating is and tell people, and parents can restrict kids accounts to only games of certain ratings.
Really people, spend some time learning about Vista if you are worried about it, or if you want to effectively criticize it. It amazes me the misinformation floating around about it. It's not helpful if you are trying to talk people out of it either. If you say that Vista is evil and will do all this to screw you over and they find out you aren't right, well they aren't very likely to listen to you even if some of what you say is true.
Vista does not stop games from running, it does not stop non trusted software from running, it does not mandate DRM or any of that shit. It will run whatever the user wants just like always. It just has more control options. If the administrator (parent) wants to restrict an account to certain ESRB ratings, they can. If a company wants to DRM up media using a more secure path, they can. However none of this is mandatory. On your PC, feel free to play any game with out a rating, feel free to use DRM free MP3s, feel free to run "evil" utilities like Nmap. There isn't an evil Vista gremlin waiting to fuck you over and lock up your data.
Back in the day, when Microsoft wasn't sure what DirectX should be doing let alone how to do it, there was a lot of grief generated each major revision. The nightmares of having a project core change from the DirectX 2 to DirectX 3 was brutual mostly due to the disperate OS support. A similar transition happened from DX5 to DX6 but from there on out it got much smoother with easier to predict changes as well as the backwards compatibility got better. Sometimes we'd wonder what exactly was the difference between various version beyond "no longer supported on Windows XX"...
DirectX 10 however seems to go back an make the old mistakes made those early days where it was supported on one version but not the other, or support was improper due to hardware/driver issues. I can't blame many who do not look fondly at on those days where the QA cycle was spent trying to figure out why one platform has a different set of problems than the other. DirectX 10 seems to be the most radical change to DX in awhile so prepare for a little rocking. In fact I won't be surprised if your game makes specific calls for the DX8 interface it may simply not work right.
There are multiple customers at play here. Yes, Wild Tangent (and other developers) are in a sense a customer, since they develop on Windows/Vista/etc. However, don't forget that your end-user consumer is also a customer, and the extra security on Vista is targeted towards them.
I work with a lot of customers who NEED the extra security, because frankly, they don't really know how to properly secure their computer. They're the ones who install every toolbar/screensaver/gadget because it's cool, yet don't understand why their computer is so slow, and why all these windows keep popping up. On one hand, it's tempting to fault them, because they're making bad decisions. On the other hand, the OS can do a better job of hand-holding these consumers and making the right choices for them. (Does Grandma really need to learn how to secure her computer? She just wants to use the Internet to play Hearts and send e-mail to her grandkids)
Unfortunately, catering to one customer base (the enormously large novice user-base), tends to piss off a few others, most notably power users (who already know how to secure our systems, and don't need to be prompted every single time), and developers. Some of these developers, are the evil spyware/adware-writing kind, which are customers that we don't really want in the first place. Other developers do have legitimate needs, but will now need to do some extra work to get their applications to work on Vista in the first place.
I'm fine with that. At MS, our own developers have to conform to the extra security requirements in Vista. Yes, it means more work, but I see that as a good thing. Our hope is that FEWER of our end-user customers will come in with support problems, which are ultimately tied to not our code, but spyware on their machine.
Remember the days when it was dead-easy to get anyone to install an ActiveX control? That was the worst. Similar complaints were lodged against MS when WinXP SP2 came out, since in small ways, it limited how easy it was to install controls.
-- jchenx
WildTangent isn't really the hallmark of serious pc games. They sell minigames on software that comes pre-installed on new PCs. I uninstalled all of their drivers as soon as I got my new laptop, as they were unwanted gunk in the gears (and at first they looked like spyware).
What sounds like the real problem is that Microsoft has a crappy framework that you can try to squeeze games into, or you can put your game links somewhere else and have people not find them. I suspect WildTangent has a lot of content that relies on being easy to try out, because the user won't seek it out specifically.
I would guess that pc games will continue to succeed in spite of, rather than because of, "help" from Microsoft.
If M$ there to come with %100 free to use update system then we may be able have more games that don't need admin.
"In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable."
Wrong. Many sites already have instructions for turning off User Access Controls and giving you the ability to do anything you want. Vista sucks big time, but not because of Limuted Use Accounts.
OK I've clearly not been keeping up-to-date here after playing with the Vista release candidates, but does LUA really prevent you from even running an executable file you downloaded without an admin username and password? Surely LUA is there to stop the executable from doing "bad things" rather than the user from running it, like in pretty much every other multiuser OS.
If I download a game as an executable file, sure I expect to get a warning maybe. Then I expect the exe to run but with reduced privileges so it cannot harm the rest of the system. It should get access to my home directory, read-only access to other non-critical OS files such as libs, and be protected from making unauthorised Internet connections. Obviously a malicious exe may be able to gain elevated privileges by exploiting security flaws, but these holes should be patched regularly by the vendor to prevent other people from using the same exploits. Right?
If LUA requires me to enter an admin pass for every exe I download then that really *is* bad. However, I would expect it to be well designed enough not to. Any system that demands that of a user will ultimately result in the user keeping the admin pass on a sticky note on their screen and just giving every exe they run the keys to their entire system.
Someone educate me here.
> Meanwhile, the word has also come down that
> games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.
Just in time for nobody to give a crap.
we will just not buy anything that even slightly interferes with gaming. Shove your 'copy' protection and 'intellectual property' up your arses.
Read radical news here
This is why you shouldn't make assumptions and then start talking about a product based off of them. Vista does not require you to use the games explorer. I've installed World of Warcraft, it installs normal, is in the start menu and on the desktop normally, etc.
The games explorer is a new feature to help people out and yes, parents can use it for parental control. Vista does NOT mandate your use of it.
Let's face it, Vista was not built for games. Games need horsepower, they need every single CPU cycle they can get, every single beat of the clock.
So a "perfect" system would allow you to tune its performance according to your needs. It would allow you to turn on and off security features, features that ensure absolute stability and other tweaks, depending on which task is at hand. If you run a server, you will want stability and security, but you don't need special graphics abilities. If you run games, you usually don't care too much about stability, if you can gain a few more frames per second by turning it off.
For that, though, I guess you'd have to be able to customize your kernel.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The Clueless pens, "Yep, he helped Microsoft shove Directx down all our throats now hes complaining, and surprised, they're trying to shove something else down our throats."
Remember Windows before DirectX? DirectX saved PC Gaming - It was hardly shoved down our throats.
Before that getting a game to run was almost as much work as writing one...
As both a gamer and an IT guy, I'm inclined to say "Cry me a fucking river." User accounts without admin privileges have been a basic requirement for security for decades, and if the same extremely basic functionality that makes it harder for spambots to DoS my mail server also makes it harder for people to play World of Warcraft, I guess that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. ...Oh, except that World of Warcraft is probably a bad example, given that the game already runs natively on OSX.
Don't build games for Vista.
That ought to just about put an end to it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sorry, but who cares what a guy from Wildtangent says. Why would anyone want that crap on their PC anyhow?
His complaints have little merit and cry of someone who doesn't want to get with the program and be more security-minded. Nevermind the fact that companies like his are what help spread malware, spyware and "attached" installations via games for kids.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost
The big reasons behind them is part to not allow malware piggyback on legit software and part to inform a user that machine local (and not just user local) changes to the system is about to be made, for example by copying something out of your user folder. Try copying things inside your home directory and you'll see you won't be bothered, same if a software is writing its settings to your user folder. A problem I see today is that far too few Windows applications and games are user-aware.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The security dialogs in Vista dont require you to put in a username and password every time you try to acess a flash game on the web, and this article clearly is full of it.
.exe file to setup.exe and run it...)
I've worked on migrating some projects to be Vista compatible and it has some strange "features". With regard to what you said: Flash games aren't installed. That alone is a world of difference in Vista's rules. Attempting installation of an app pops up the privilege elevation dialog (try renaming some random
There are various other cases where Vista brings up this dialog. I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a heuristic but that's a pretty close assessment.
Furthermore, Vista considers whether or not an executable is digitally signed. If it isn't, you get the "WARNING THIS MAY DO BAD THINGS... do you still wish to elevate?" dialog, whereas a signed exe generates a friendlier message.
So once again, the small dev shop gets screwed because digital signatures cost money. WildTangent can handle the cost but they repackage 300 some games so they have to resign them and retest them. Not terrible but not exactly a smooth migration either.
I can see why they'd be upset though, if Microsoft is allowing/causing Vista to give MS games special treatment.
> In an opinion piece, casual game publisher WildTangent's CEO Alex St. John (himself a Microsoft veteran and one of the DirectX creators)
Karma is a bitch.
The game explorer is intended to provide ESRB rating support, along with presenting additional metadata in a clean and visible way... Part of this metadata would be things like system requirements. All these things are non-standard for a typical folder so MS made a special "center" for it instead. I don't really see a problem with this, and would rather not have this 3rd party developer change its behavior, like he complains he can't. That would be altering standard OS behavior, and as bad as those antivirus companies wishing to change the Vista Security Center. Just develop your app, use their provided API and get along with it. I sure don't want an ad-laden new and "improved" security center with a load of cruft to promote their products in, because I'm sure that's what they want.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Of course the performance allowed by vanilla X is so godawful, that to get any decent performance at all requires "extensions" to X that basically ignore X architecture and are essentially hacks to provide high performance that wasn't even considered in the decade X was invented.
Next, you will tell me that M$ did it better? Give me a break. I watch movies in X and I've played games in X, it works just fine. Think about it - if X can render high definition movies, like this one, it should also be able to render a game that looks just as good as a movie. I've watched that movie on a 233 MHz PII. It blew up to 1024x768 fullscreen without a problem, just like Intel swore MMC would back in 1998.
The real but surmountable problem is that none of the major hardware makers but Intel are co-operating with free software developers. It's amazing how the X framework is able to absorb those "hacks" when accelerated graphics drivers are available, free or non free. That's why Linux system requirements are usually much lower than M$. When those accelerated drivers are not there, some games can crawl.
Let's say you just hate X because your crazy. That's OK, because you don't really need X for gaming. libSVGA does nicely. PS2 and PS3 also show what can be done when you are not encumbered by M$ legacy crap.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
His comment about downloadable online games is BS. I currently use steam ,and the EA downloader. Both work fine under vista. In fact, I didnt need to reinstall steam. I can run it off the program files folder of my WinXP install. If downloadable games made for XP work under Vista without needing any modification, not even needing admin permission, then I really don't see how this might be a problem
- Mummy, better security makes it an infentisimal amount more challenging to hawk our products!
- Woah no! We don't like this game explorer concept!
- Waaaah, parental controls prevent kids who shouldn't be playing our games anyway from playing them!
- Boo hoo, trying to run a game from outside the game explorer results in strange behaviour (this is the only legitimate complaint)
It just sounds like a list of whiney bitching... because it is.I mean seriously, Microsoft have gone out of their way to improve gaming on Vista and all these guys can do is complain that kids are properly protected and that LUA makes pushing their product harder? I'm sorry, but I'll take an extra security dialog to get a demo if it results in fewer of the general internet-unsavvy users infecting themselves, and Microsoft are NOT your marketing company; it's not their concern that your strategy can't cope with a minor change.
Jesus christ.
What about all the work that's gone into DX10? All the consultations with game studios and hardware developers? The tightening of the requirements for cards to be certified as DX10 capable which is designed to make your jobs easier?
Quit the ungrateful highschool bitching and respond to change.
It's something that tends to happen in the real world, and it's for the better.
if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.
You seem to define "the rest of the planet" to mean "Microsoft". The rest of the planet would be better served with a variety of operating systems, suited to different markets and purposes, making any single threat less damaging to the majority of users and to the infrastructure these users rely on for daily computing.
Microsoft has packed its OS so full of "features" that there's no way that anyone on Earth could possibly secure every one of them against every angle of attack. I upgraded to XP very late and grudgingly. I can tell you that there is virtually no chance I will ever upgrade to Vista, and every time I see an announcement, discussion, or article about new "features" in the OS, that "virtually" gets a tiny bit closer to "certainly".
Why did I buy XP at all? Because I'm a gamer. I enjoy gaming with friends, alone, with pick-up-groups, and with family. For a time, XP offered the largest variety of options. Vista seems to be focused so tightly on the lowest common denominator that options are narrowing fast.
I already know what my next computing setup will be. A Mandriva One box and a Nintendo Wii.
-c.
Casey
More scratches on the cave wall, thanks be to anonymity.
Only a moron isn't using a limited account to surf the net.
I set up Limited users for all my machines. This is standard security practice.
It is a very good thing that Vista forces this on the average user.
I for one welcomed your DirectX overloards.
Let me take a wild guess, you've never had to write code targeting multiple architectures? As if having to include code paths for different versions of DirectX (and subsets hereof) wasn't hard enough, try to imagine the number of paths you'd need without DirectX providing the layer between you and whatever hardware your code runs on right now.
No, no one pushed DirectX down any throat. DirectX brought the long needed standardization allowing the PC to become a viable gaming platform.
Hang on?!
... ADMINISTRATION .. not normal running of applications and games, once your product is installed, it's got NO REASON to leach for admin rights.
Having worked in a secure environment since NT4 and having to comprimise security for applications which thing that c:\program files\... should be a read/write directory... let me get this straight...
Games creators are complaining that they need to write responsible applications which obay basic security methodology?? SHOCK HORROR!!! THE INDUSTRY IS GOING TO FALL APART!!!
Sorry, the only sympathy you're going to get here is "About F*CKING TIME!!!"
The administrator account is for
I might take these claims seriously if they were coming from someone other than WildTangent. They may not technically be classified as malware, but they're right on the edge. My opinion is that they're just complaining because people won't be able to unintentionally install their garbage anymore. Until they find a workaround anyway.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Why exactly do you need administrative rights to the machine to run a game? The only impact this has on game writers is that it forces them to stop requiring ridiculous privileges to the system.
Of This Uber-cool game called Half-Life 2: Episode 1? You know, I think "stunning" will have a whole new meaning for you after playing it (well, if you have a 1600 x 1200 display), and the hardware for it.
The way I figure it:
Option 1
Buy a $350 - $500 gaming console, then a $1,500 monitor, to play games that I _dont_ like (How can you play BzFlag, Half-Life*, Counter-Strike, and Counter-Strike:Source, Flight Simulator 200*, and Combat Flight Simulator on a console?)
-or- Option 2
Spend about $2,500 for a high-end Core2 Duo machine, with latest-gen nVidia Graphics, which can take care of my gaming needs, and serve as a work-station?
For me, the choice is obvious, but hey, to each his own.
"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price.
Yes, this is grossly over-simplified, but I'm too lazy to register let alone go into details.
Once upon a time there were two machines with different purposes. One was called a computer and was used for computing (read: WORK), the other was an arcade machine (read: RECREATION). Each had their own specific set of tasks and neither had to worry about the problems associated with the other. Game machines didn't need to interact with networks or databases or printers, computers didn't need to supply direct hardware access to a select subset of programs. Two machines, two purposes, each optimized for what they did.
Then along comes our friend the PC. Someone decides they want to do !work on their machine that is made to do work. The PC game is born. As the hardware for PCs got better and better the games made to run on them wanted direct hardware access just as they'd had on arcade/console machnes. Recreation starts dictating some of the structure of the work machine. PC's are no longer specialized for computing. Security nightmares ensue.
Welcome back to today, the work machine is becoming slightly more of a work machine and less of a recreation machine again. Who starts whining? The game people of course.
Now MS doesn't have a very good setup since they're trying to make Windows boxen dual-purpose machines. On the other hand neither do Linux and OS X. If gamers want better hardware for dedicated game machines then they should pressure the companies that make consoles and they displays they hook them up to better. Don't turn work machines into the equivalent of a toaster-iron. It might sound like a good idea, but it just doesn't work.
Disclaimer: I'm a gamer.
Since a few of the games you mentioned shipped under DirectX 5.0, you really have zero credibility.
Thanks for playing!
But it's a flawed strategy for several reasons. One is not many people will use Vista at first. Second, there are hardly any games out there that support Shader 3.0 (9.0c). Most support only Shader 2.0 (9.0). Third, every release of DirectX he reorganizes the API in stupid ways that require line by line editing of your code (for example, he encodes the version number in every object name!!!)
I'm tired of rewriting code for every new DirectX release, so will jump ship to OpenGL. We don't have to rewrite the code when new features come out, and we don't have to tell our customers they *have* to switch to Vista. Dumb decision Bill.
On Windows XP, I never required admin. access to run a game until Battlefield 1942. All the games before then that I ran, including other FPS games, required user accounts only.
"Limited" accounts are NORMAL accounts.
Administrators/root-users need extra-ordinary access.
Userland software - including games - should work without requiring that extra access.
I have a number of games that require admin logins. WTF? Seriously, it's sloppy programming to require administrative rights to play Half-Life 2
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
That's classic twitter, insulting people who hold a different opinion than him. ... Why must I "hate" something if I don't "love" it and viceversa?
I don't know why people like you dedazo are so full of hate. Given your tenacity, I assume you are some kind of astroturfer. It's hard for me to believe that people would spend years of their life harassing people on Slashdot unless they were paid to do it. I just don't see the entertainment value and think most people who act that way get bored of it when they grow up and have better things to do.
When others use terms like "godawful" and "don't get me started" to describe something, I assume they don't like that something. When I mentioned that the security of X was greater than that of Windoze, I got a response bashing X with terms like that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Actually, pretty much all apps require admin privilege to install. Doesn't matter if it's a game or a spreadsheet or what- if it's executable content, you should get a prompt for privilege if you try to install it. (note that this is not the case for active browser content- flash games, for example, don't need any privilege).
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
I was going to mod this discussion, but some of the comments here have just made me so fucking angry that I'm waiving my privileges for this one.
You fucking morons that are faulting Microsoft for this: How do you justify the bullshit that you're spouting? For almost ten years now, it's been, "Windows sucks because there's no security by default.", and, "Never hook an unpatched Windows box to the internet, because it's asking for trouble.". Lack of security was one of the main reasons given to switch to Linux (which, by the way, has required a user or root password to accomplish certain things for quite awhile, unlike Vista, which has just implemented it.) So, in actuality, you're just whining for the sake of whining. Microsoft, to you, can never do anything right, even when they do something right. I use Kubuntu and FreeBSD. I have exactly one 20g Windows partition on one computer, solely for the occasional college work that cannot be done in Linux without jumping through hoops with Wine or DosBox; so I have no disclaimer to give. It's simply common sense that the increased focus on security in Vista, while long overdue, is a Good Thing (TM). Those that want to bitch about having to enter a fucking password to install or run some things have no leg to stand on. Pure trolling, is what it is.
There. I feel better now.
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
Directx may have been out when some of these games were made, but all were originally released DOS only as far as I remember, with the exception of GTA wich had DOS and Windows versions on the same CD. Some were later released with Windows versions. All except GTA were released prior to Directx 5(GTA was released the same year as Directx 5, I couldnt find a date)
e r
d eo_game)
Directx 1 September 30, 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directx
Directx 5 July 16, 1997
DOOM 2 1994 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_2
TIE Fighter 1994 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_TIE_Fight
MechWarrior 2 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechwarrior_2
Duke Nukem 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_3D
Tombraider 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider
Grand Theft Auto 1997 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_(vi
Where can I get an application for that?
I don't know about HL2 specifically, but a sort-of good reason for requiring Admin access is to prevent cheating in multiplayer games - the anti-cheat program needs maximum priveleges to scan RAM for known cheats, ensure the game EXE is running unmodified, etc.
Scares me that a developer is this stupid...
#1. All MS has done is move the Vista security up to what every other major OS does. Does this developer NOT realize that a game on OSX or Linux would require the same 'privledges' if written as the developer suggests?
#2. If the person is pushing this argument based on 'demos' or download games, then they can code the freaking game with security in mind, so that it installs in the 'USER' area of the OS, and it WOULD NOT NEED to elevate privledges. This is pretty easy to do, as anyone that develops simples applications and demos for Windows with security in mind, or OSX or *nix with security in mind.
#3. This is one of the stupidest arguments I have seen in a long time. So what does the author of the article suggest? Have MS make Vista less secure so he doesn't have to learn about security and how to write an appliation that doesn't need administrative level access to run?
Maybe we should all go together and get this idiot a book on NT security so he can code his 'demos/games' so they don't install into an administrator area of the OS and then any Limited User Account can easily install or use them.
My mouth literally dropped open when I read this article, all the while I was thinking, nah, this has to be a gag, he can't really be this stupid about writing an application with NT security in mind.
No wonder MS left XP security open for program compatibility if this is the type of idiots that are STILL programming applications after Windows has moved over to NT for over 5 years now. Oh my gawd the horror, he might have to learn security APIs or learn what areas of the OS are off limits to idiot programmers...
Geesh....
On Mac OS X and Linux, it doesn't take an administrator's password to install software for personal use. On Mac OS X you can drag and drop wherever you want it; on Linux you can build it yourself or convince your package manager to install it into ~ instead of /usr.
If you want the software to be available to more than one user, *then* you need an administrator's password.
Is there a reason this doesn't work on Windows Vista?
If you read the article (I read a couple pages worth anyway) the main complaint is that users who download games to Vista
will have to supply an admin password for the game to install (Oh no, that's Terrible!).
The alternative is what you have now, where pretty much any software can install whenever it wants including trojans, viruses etc,
and you have a severly infected windows PC population as a direct result.
How many kids have infected the family PC by connecting up to the smiley face downloads? No kidding(!) you want to forbid your kids from installing whatever they bump into on the net. Next this guy will be complaining that parents don't leave their credit cards out where the kids can find them to support his gaming download business!
Now the MS gang finally get the "install as root, run as user" security model from the Unix world.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Try system76.com. I got a "Pangolin" laptop there about six months ago that I've been very happy with. It's well-built, runs cool and quiet, and comes with Ubuntu installed (which they support). The "Serval" series laptop (IIRC) has an nVidia card.
The staff is very personable and non-Dell-ish. Our lab bought some desktops from them, and when they had a problem with a supplier that delayed the shipment, they sent our hardware next-day for free and upgraded the monitors.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I wish I had mod points to mod you up.
The Golden Age of PC gaming began with the popularity of DOS/4GW protected mode and ended with the popularity of Windows 2000/XP, which were not DOSSHELL hacks.
Games with different versions for DOS and Windows (3.1/95/98), which were mostly released between 1994 and 1999, invariably ran better in DOS. Remember the original Grand Theft Auto, with 3D acceleration? That was a nice piece of work.
I may make you feel, but I can't make you think.
I can read my email with my PC
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I would have to agree... I think that games are the current lock in for home PCs. My wife doesn't game. She runs Linux. My 2 year old is happy with Disney's flash games Nick's flash games, and Gcompris. He runs Linux. Every day, I get a little closer to ditching my Windows for my primary machine, and none of my secondary machines run Windows. MS bought up a bunch of the best PC game makers, and has neglected PC gaming since the release of the XBox. If they don't start targeting PC gaming again, they will be in serious trouble. Office may lock in the corporate desktop, but most people running Office at home are doing it because they pirated it.
If game developers actually believe Vista LUA poses a problem for them in any way, then they're a bunch of lazy bums. I play games just fine from my limited user account in XP, but I often have to go through a few hoops related to the firewall and giving myself write-access to the game directories. If the game developers either developed their games correctly or at least made less brain-damaged installers, this wouldn't have to be a problem.
Those videos practically made me nerdgasim all over my keyboard. They should put "NSFW" on some of them. So sexy ...
Wild Tangent is made up of the biggest bunch of crooks in the spyware industry. I'm not thrilled about Vista coming, in fact I loathe every new Microsoft product as it tends to make life more difficult and awkward. Having said that, I think it would be wonderful if Spyware companies like Wild Tangent were put out of business for good. They provide NOTHING to people and they take away A LOT. They degrade your computer performance, invade your privacy, their software is shit and disrespectful the the rest of the system's resources, eventually they make your system deteriorate and crash all the time, and they are difficult to remove. But that's not what you're told when you install it. I've never installed any of their stuff, but my family members have and I always have to fix it when it breaks everything. As I say, I'm anything but a Microsoft fan, but I consider Wild Tangent an enemy to users everywhere for misleading them (which, by the way, is the only way companies like Wild Tangent survive). The person who posted this should have found a more reputable source to provide criticism. I consider this post a POSITIVE feature of Vista. There is plenty of stand up criticism out there for Vista. I'm of the opinion that Vista will suck almost as bad as previous Windows versions. Each version sucks and each version sucks in some ways more and in some ways less than the last one. Microsoft has moved laterally in their improvement since 1995. Why would that change? I don't play games so I could care less about them working in Vista, but let me just say this... Microsoft needs to address their reputation for being a real computer system and not a toy. Games don't help in defeating that stigma. This is why they have a gaming console now. PC games are never going to go away, but they will likely lose popularity because console games "just work". You don't have to worry about hardware or deal with jumpy response, console games eliminate that. For me... I use Linux only and I don't play games. None of this directly affects me :-D But seriously, we need to engage in research supported criticism, not in CEO rant.
Fresh horses and more whiskey for my men.
At least for the next few years, until Microsoft gets somebody like Steve Jobs steering the ship. I mean, Vista is implementing extra security, patching stuff making it so heavy while Linux and Mac developers are just redefining the matter, rewriting it, throwing away what doesn't work.
The comment about the Zune: By next years' summer (I think that is summer 2008), Apple's new WideScreen iPod, the iPhone is planned to have about 0,5% of market share. It just feels like Microsoft is just lagging behind.
And I'm not trying to feed the troll here, I actually feel kinda bad for Microsoft (Windows) and they'll either go the Novell Netware way (completely forgotten, integrated into Linux) or the SCO way (totally bare and without funding).
Of course Microsoft has a lot of money, but as Google showed us, it's not all money that counts anymore. If people don't want your product because it's sucks, it's not going to help throwing another $1B at marketing it, I think it's time for them to see what they've got, re-assess it and throw everything out that isn't working and restart (kinda like Apple did with Mac OS 9 -> OS X and PPC -> Intel
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Alex St. John writes a monthly article in CPU magazine. In fact, this is why i no longer buy CPU Magazine.
... he complains that software makers don't make proper uninstallers, that leave crap all over your machine ... but if you try to uninstall WildTangent products, Alex leaves crap on your machine including files detected by spyware programs!
Every single article consists of him reminiscing of how great Microsoft was when he started working for them, and how HE created everything good that ever came out of Microsoft, and how when he left Microsoft, they became the evil we all fear today.
Half the time he complains about the insecurity of Windows and how it was designed for the pre-internet world, the rest of the time he complains about how the methods used to make Windows more secure and safe for the net are making it harder for him to make money.
I recall one particular piece of crap he wrote that declared that he is responsible for and deserves all credit for the XBox because the X is derived from DirectX which he would like us to think he personally invented apparently without anyone else's help in anyway.
Today's complaint from Alex stems soley on the fact that his company WildTangent will (hopefully) suffer under Windows Vista because it will require users to be more secure, making it harder for Alex's spyware to install automatically on the computers of the ignorant masses he preyed upon previously.
My complaints against this bastard go on and on
Alex is the biggest wanna-be mouthpiece in silicon valley. If he could hide the jealousy he has for Bill Gates, maybe he'd actually get something useful done!
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable.
I say BS. Just disable the UAC and vista acts just like XP in every aspect.
So just don't use Vista. Nobody says we have to. Don't buy it. If new machines come bundled with it, don't buy them. There is no better way to effect change or make a point to a corporation than the market message.
Limited user accounts are very usable!!
I force myself to use them and my wife who uses the same machine
A few ACL changes make the games perfectly usuable install all games in c:\games and have that directory full control to all users
This means the total impact of a foolish action by a user can wipe out their account and all the games on the system. Much better than an admin account being compromised (ok ignoring priviledge ecalation attacks)
I recently had to remove a trojan from my wifes account - a fairly trival procedure given how limited her access to the system as a whole was. Reading up on the particular trojan I found that had it been able to get admin access it would have been much harder to remove.
Ok I'll concded on XP home without ACL controls its bloody hard to accomplish this. But if you have XP pro you really have no excuse.
(and to explain no I'm not a windows fan - I loathe the system especially as I frequently have to admin them in my work. I much prefer linux and am quite familiar with winex which I have work with extensively and created start up scripts for several games that would not work trvially out of the box. however I also know just how much of a pain it is to do this so stick to dual booting. not liking the OS is no excuse not to secure it properly)
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
absolutely positively the point, windows already IS at the point where users click OK -> NEXT -> NEXT -> I AGREE -> NEXT -> OK without reading any of the text presented to them.
Why? because we/they are all so damned used to not being able to get anything whatsoever done without reassuring windows that that's what we really want to do, right down to having to confirm every tiny little operation with "Are you sure you wanted to press that button? Pressing OK will do what the button you pressed says it will do, because you didnt already know that and MS thinks you are dumb" even power users who've been using windows for decades and really actually do know exactly what they are doing are so used to just hitting "Y" or Enter immediatley after initialising a task so that the forthcoming unavoidable dialog just flashes up for an instant.
Adding Yet More Dialogs, Prompts and Cautions will not solve the inherent security problem of any system: the user. because they will just get used to slapping in their admin password, post-itted to the screen, whenever asked without consideration as to WHY they are being asked for it because it's so damned frequent.
If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
The problem is that content delivery systems like steam and games like have life 2 require administrative rights to the computer to preform security checks and decryption of content. Personally I dont think any developer should have that kind of unrestricted access to a machine where they are trying to maintain some kind of copy protection on the end-users system. hopefully stuff like root kits and copy protection schemes like starforce will be a thing of the past for the most part.
We could have all kinds of discussions about whether you can "securely" run a game under a limited account. I know I do on my Linux, but I also know it's talking pretty much directly to an nVidia driver, which comes in the form of a kernel module. I think it could be done securely, I realize it's kind of half-assed now, but that's not actually what TFA is talking about.
TFA is really just bitching about a guy whose business involves free demos, and it's no longer easy to download and run untrusted binaries. So he's bitching that people can't just fire up IE, click on an EXE off his website, and be in the game in a matter of seconds.
So he needs to learn some basic, basic principles of package management. Even if it ends up just being a wrapper around IE or Firefox, like Steam, at least that way the security prompt will only appear once, because there will only be the same risk once -- because if he does it right, he'll be actually verifying some sort of signature. In fact, he doesn't even have to do this himself; he can license it from Steam.
And yes, it will cost him money, but damnit, if he'd designed a secure system in the first place, Vista wouldn't be biting him in the ass now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
My apologies to be slightly off topic. But I foresee many end users entering their Administrator passwords in just about any legitimate looking dialog box that would appear on their screens that ask for it. How hard would it be for spyware or a popup to request an administrator password every now and then? Once the user gets used to entering his/her password on a regular basis it could become easy for the ill intentioned to steal it by simply asking for it. I can imagine that many people use the same passwords for many things, such as online bank accounts and VPN access. I wonder if it really is possible to effectively save people from themselves?
Microsoft has nothing to gain from PC gaming.
They have lots to gain from the death of PC gaming.
Why support it?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Online games + account theft + identity theft = Run windows in LUA mode.
If they sandbox a specific area for installing games then it wouldnt matter if users run in LUA mode. I dont understand why windows HAS to be such an everything / nothing security setup and can only hope it isnt so in vista.
From TFA: "In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable." As part of my MSDN Sub. I run Vista now on my main pc...the pc I develop on, and nightly, the same PC I play WoW, EQ2, or Vanguard on. All without issue, all under my standard account with M$oft's 'sandbox' disabled.....what a non-starter.
WildTangent? Who're they again?
Oh, yeah. They're the ones pushing some of the crapware I had to peel out of my new Dell.
How is inconveniencing someone with a business model like theirs a *bad* thing again? This guy just doesn't get it.
Absolutely true, and a perfectly valid point
***Lack of security was one of the main reasons given to switch to Linux (which, by the way, has required a user or root password to accomplish certain things for quite awhile, unlike Vista, which has just implemented it.)***
But, the point of the article is that the WAY that Microsoft has implemented security purportedly has a bunch of problems. At least in the eye's of the author who actually knows something about the subject.
There's security and there is security. For example, you could secure your business by issuing an ID card to every employee and having someone check the card before they can enter the building. That works (sort of) and doesn't do a lot of damage. Or you could hire two guys with AK-47s to work over every car that enters the parking lot with someone in it not known to the guards. No doubt about that being effective. But some people might consider it to be excessive.
I don't really much care as I have no intention of using Vista ... not ever. But it does seem to me that this article and other's I've read indicate Vista's security is going to take some major tweaking to make it usable by normal mortals. Why is asserting that unreasonable?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Let's seeeeeeee...
Let's go back in time to 1996, shall we? I was playing games happily on my Pentium 166. On Linux. Many games at that time used this thing called "SVGALIB". (For Windows-heads, here's a short explanation of that thing: "Unfettered access to SVGA registers and video RAM."). A bit later, this "hardware accelerated 3D" thing came. I needed to install this "Glide" thing if I wanted to play this completely elite "GLQuake" thing, which was just about the one and only state-of-the-art commercial game worth playing at the time. Both SVGALIB and Glide had this annoying restriction which is extremely relevant to this above comment: Basically, the binary needed to be made setuid root. (For Windows-heads, here's a short explanation of that thing: "Despite the user's priviledge levels, the binary runs at the superuser priviledges.") Security holes. Effed-up situations garbled the screen and at worst required reboot. You know the drill.
Now fast forward to 2007. X11 is has long since become the game graphics platform of choice. The majority of games use SDL, which is almost crashproof and I can't remember any crash in recent years that would have needed a reboot (at worst an X restart). The big point is, I get 3D acceleration and high game performance without need to mess with superuser accounts at all. The game binaries run as ordinary users. Yes, even the SDL version of glquake.
In my opinion, if Microsoft now mandates that games must run as limited user, that's mighty nice and swell. That's how it bloody well should be. Welcome to 2000s, Microsoft, hope you enjoy it as we have long enjoyed it in Linux-land. Welcome to the age of sanity.
In this day and age, it should not be necessary to wear an admin hat unless you're actually doing admin stuff. Imposing coding standards that make the games work like they should have worked anyway is just marvellous.
You don't need an HDTV for your 360. Just use your existing computer monitor. You accuse the GP of comparing apples and oranges but you proceed to do the same thing. They are different plain and simple (although the lines are being blurred with the media capabilities of the 360/PS3 and the threat of "trusted computing" in the PC's future) and any cost comparisons leave out a lot of intangible variables that go into deciding which route to take. If I was neutral on the kb/mouse issue and I enjoyed all genres I think the 360 is a no brainer for the simple fact that it just works. For a large majority of the population that fact that "it just works" is enough to sway them.
Likewise, how can you play a four-player pick-up-and-go party game similar to Bomberman or Smash Bros. on a home theater PC?
Chat in online games, not game control. You could plug in a USB mouse and a USB keyboard, but the first-person shooters wouldn't read movement and aiming commands from them.
What do you think the Linux kit for the PS2 was for?A token effort that was discontinued quickly. Specifically, it was not updated for the slimline redesign.
"Dumbing down" the whole system to help grandma deal with security issues while alienating the power users can't be the correct approach. It should be optional to get rid of all these restrictions and confirmation boxes and any other annoyances that turn simple tasks into an obstacle course. - Preferably as a choice when installing the OS.
What makes it so hard to develop operating systems tailored to the needs of the users? Why not create a version, let's call it the "Home" edition that ensures security by enforcing the use of admin passwords, cascading confirmation boxes, ESRB ratings for games, and running all sorts of "security tools" in the background. This version would be used by most of the "home" users who just want a system that works and not rtfm all the time.
Obviously developers, geeks, enthusiasts - let's call them "professional" users get pissed off by this sort of intrusive hand-holding, so why not create a... - oh let's say "Professional" edition of the same OS that by default gives the users freedom about what they want to run and install, lets them decide how to deal with security issues and that only bugs them if really necessary?
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Windows Vista's warnings "protect" people from installing unknown software even user-locally, on grounds that malware that runs user-locally can still, say, join a spam botnet.
You mean Windows XB? Could "Games for Windows" be a ruse to lock up Windows the way consoles have been locked up since the NES?
How about a heuristic involving values passed to the init functions of DirectSound, Direct3D, DirectInput, etc.? How about use of the SDL or Allegro libraries?
If the administrator (parent) wants to restrict an account to certain ESRB ratings, they can.But can the administrator (parent) add other rating systems such as TIGRS self-certification?
But why only ESRB and not other rating systems?
There are actually multiple versions of Vista, including a Home version and an Ultimate version. That said, I don't know what security settings that start/default out with. You also have to consider that system builders (Dell, HP, etc.) usually pre-install all the software for users, and the safe bet is to use conservative security settings. (I wonder how many support calls Dell gets from frustrated users who think the computer sucks, but it's because they've riddled it with spyware)
-- jchenx
That's a nice chunk of change you have there. I hope you bought early though. Their stock price has done incredibly well the past few years.
-- jchenx
"LUA's can already be found in Windows XP, but nobody uses them because of the onerous restrictions they place on usability. In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable"
That's completely untrue. Vista's UAC/LUA feature can be completely disabled with just one click in a control panel applet. But I think most games, if not all, can run (or should be able to) without admin privileges.