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Gamers React to Vista Launch
As cranky as IT folks are about having to roll out new Vista installs, support them, update them, etc, gamers are matching them in irritation. Ars Technica recommends you dual-boot XP and Vista if you want to keep gaming on your PC. Voodoo Extreme explores Vista's crappy audio setup, while Computer and VideoGames reports that some small developers think Vista will ruin PC gaming (a comment we've heard before). C&VG does have a slightly more hopeful article up too, talking about the future of Vista gaming and what the new OS could mean for games ... once all the kinks are worked out.
/me yawns wide enough to drive a truck through.
/me goes back to sleep.
What's that? Vista? Oh well, SWG and WoW still run on Linux.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
And my reaction is that Vista is going to have to offer a whole lot more than DirectX10 to get me to switch. There's far far too many items on the minus side, and only one on the plus (for my purposes, at any rate). At this point, I've decided that unless the landscape has drastically changed by the time games start requiring DX10, I'll just be living without those games.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
It breaks WildTangent stuff? Cool. There's a good reason to upgrade to Vista now.
There might be some other positive aspects. For one, I noticed last night a demo wouldn't install on my PC running Vista x64, because it's crappy copy-protection (and what morons put copy protection in a freakin demo?) couldn't install it's drivers because they were unsigned. Maybe at the least, if we're going to have to live with obnoxious copy protection in games, the developers of the crap will have to be a little more responsible and careful before just crudding up someone's PC.
Assuming you have the HD space, why would you install a new OS that you have never tested before, and not keep your old, working one? Especially with all the rumours revolving around Vista, its just common sense.
But then why make DX10 Vista only?
If they didn't limit some of the new functionality to Vista, why would users move off of 2000/XP? Limiting the release of particular features can be a way to force users of your older products to your newer products.
Jim
As in the spyware company WildTangent that gets packaged with a number of apps including AIM? Wish a CREDIBLE developer would have said that, and not them, being from the bottom of the barrel.
...in one single post. my head is spinning.
First, I find it extremely disturbing that Taligent wants to automatically install their stuff without consent from users.
Second, Making DirectAudio flow through CPU is not such a bad move. Hardware based audio made a lot of sense in the old days when the genereal processors had low performance compared to dedicated audio processors. Modern processors are more than capable for providing great audio at a tiny fraction of available CPU cycles. Games now advertise hardware audio for marketting reasons. Nothing stops you from generating EAX type effects using current APIs available in the system.
Moreover Creative has been bypassing the OS audio layers completely using OpenAL for quite sometime and they have been actively prompting it.
Once Creative creates the proper drivers for Vista people will get back their EAX support.
I seem to remember a similar thing being said about the latest version of Windows around about 1995.
It's not going to happen. Windows and the gaming industry rely on each other far too heavily for either to allow this to happen. Much of what continues to prop up Windows's dominance of the home market is the one home computing activity for which Windows is still undeniably the better choice - gaming. Meanwhile, I seriously doubt that the gaming industry wants to return to the days of market segmentation when they couldn't write games for only one platform while maintaining access to 95% of the market.
Aside from Zelda? Quite frankly, the sword fighting in Zelda rocks.
Again, though, my point is that we who game are no longer forced to upgrade Windows to WinVista just to play games. Most games are now available on one of: Mac, Linux, BSD, Wii, 360, and PS3. The days when we were forced to keep up with Windows upgrades is over. Especially when, as is true with WinVista, we literally have no choice but to shell out $2000 or more for a new PC or laptop just to play. Instead, we can easily do just as well with one of the other choices - and we probably have one or two of them.
I've got a Wii (runs my old GC games), a Mac Mini (with a nice giant monitor from Sony), and some older xBox and PS2 consoles, so I've just decided to heck with Windows Vista. If I end up needing to buy an xBox360 or PS3 to play them, it will be later when the consoles are cheaper and I have to buy a new HDTV for $300 or less anyway in 2009. Even if I hold out until 2008, the price for an HDTV should be below $500 and a PS3 is likely to have a street value of under $400 (selling in Japan today for that). So why bother tossing my perfectly good WinXP machine?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No need to spend 2 grand. A decent gaming PC costs $600-1000. Not top-of-the-line, but CERTAINLY good enough to play WoW, CS:Source, etc with a decent resolution, and decent settings.
Core 2 Duo 6300 - $180
Mobo - $130
2GB RAM - $160
7600GT - $120
320GB HD - $90
DVD burner - $30
Case - $40
PSU - $40
$790 for the parts listed above, if you buy from Newegg. And you could DEFINITELY cut back in some areas, like getting 1GB of RAM, or getting a different video card, like a 7600GS.
Here's the other factor: if you're going to spend money for a gaming platform, why buy a one-trick pony? Yes, the Wii, Xbox360, etc all have web browsers and such, but a computer (whether it's running Windows, Linux, Mac OS, whatever) is so much more versatile. I can build a gaming machine today for $800, and 2-3 years from now I can buy a new gaming machine, and use the current one as a server.
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