Windows Vista worth it? - Page 4

Feorthas · 07/02/07, 2:52 PM

Originally Posted by Maestroquark

What are you talking about? XP's System Restore is amazing! It did a great job of restoring the Sasser worm to every computer that we forgot to disable it on at school when Sasser broke out.

Real fun cleaning a computer out 3 times until it was drilled into all the other student worker's heads that System Restore must be deactivated.

That sounds painful

.

RE - Shiny GUI:

Having a new GUI makes things look nice, yes, but I dont think that Aero & Skinner accomplish the same thing; skinner makes my UI cleaner by blocking out areas for me to work with AND makes my menus cleaner by making them a nice uniform texture gradient. Aero is just shininess with no added usability (at least from my PoV).

Andersen · 07/02/07, 3:10 PM

Originally Posted by Maestroquark

What are you talking about? XP's System Restore is amazing! It did a great job of restoring the Sasser worm to every computer that we forgot to disable it on at school when Sasser broke out.

Real fun cleaning a computer out 3 times until it was drilled into all the other student worker's heads that System Restore must be deactivated.

Well, this can still be a problem if you choose to use system restore to a state that contained a virus, it just restores the system state blindly and will restore the virus along with it. We had some cool features that would've helped alot with some of these problems, but they all got cut

. Things like showing you system health metrics along with each restore point, or even letting the user demonstrate an app or scenario they were recently having problems with and system restore could determine at what point the functionality of that app had changed and recommend a restore point that would fix it.

Gasmaskguy · 07/04/07, 2:35 PM

I recently upgraded to Windows Vista as did a mate of mine, I installed Windows Vista 64 bit Ultimate edition he installed Windows Vista 32 bit Home edition (Even though he was running a 64 bit card)

Although I have a couple of cool visual features he lucked out on, It turns out that performance on his version far exceeds my own. Although I believe this to be more due to the 64 bit installation than the version.

My recommendation is to make the switch to the 32 bit edition if you do, It also takes a while to get used to working it and one of the first actions i would recommend you take is to disable UAC (User Access Control) it is something that freezes all programs when you are installing a new program and to be honest a royal pain in the ass. However it is a good security tool if you are a cautious person/

dr_AllCOM3 · 07/04/07, 3:59 PM

I've installed Vista Ultimate x64 besides my XP. WoW runs ok on both, no difference.

Kink · 07/05/07, 10:47 AM

Currently there are many many bugs (albeit mostly on older hardware with poor drivers), it is far more CPU intensive and has some very bizzare behaviour when it comes to user rights and privileges (all disguised as safety features). Vista also has a fair number of issues seeing XP networks (although I believe there is a windows patch to alleviate this now). Either way, unless you are buying a PC new I really do not think it is worth the cost to upgrade a current system that may have issues.

Working for a major company that makes software for Windows Server, NT, XP and now Vista, I can safely say that Vista causes some very bizzare issues =). As I said, just give it a few more months, let them iron out the bugs and compatibility issues and then invest. Until then stay clear. Or if you buy a new machine ensure its innards are all vista compatible and you should be fine.

You can immitate a lot of Vista's new safety by simply having an admin and non-admin user on your PC, and use the admin for installations etc, and the non-admin for your every day PC use. Still amazes me how many people browse the net, play games etc as an admin user!

Lakario · 07/06/07, 10:02 PM

If I could bring anything to the table here it is that Windows Basic is not really worth it. If you are going to make the leap, consider a more complete version of Vista. The versions and prices are tiered for a reason.

dr_AllCOM3 · 07/09/07, 10:01 AM

Next week SP1-Beta. Maybe it helps with some of the mayor problems.

koutetsu · 07/13/07, 2:07 PM

Vista is painful, especially for gaming. It's really buggy and goes out of its way to annoy you in many ways. (I have to explicitly tell my system to load my network driver each time because the 64-bit version requires drivers to be signed. There's really no way to turn it off. It's retarded.)

Then there's the matter of Windows Activation. Literally every time you make a hardware change, you have three days to call a center in India. The whole process seems designed to take advantage of people who don't know better, and strong-arm them into buying a second copy. Eventually you can talk the tech into letting you activate over the phone (your key will never, ever work for Internet activation again). At this point, you and he exchange 48-digit (!) keys and you go on your way. It's absolutely obnoxious, and I really doubt it's stopping pirates anyway. It just inconveniences the rest of us, and it's a huge slap in the face to those of us who feel we should own the things we pay for.

As others have mentioned, Microsoft bent over backwards to appease Hollywood, which means that most existing displays will not play HD content for purely artificial reasons. (The display is capable of it, but Vista won't output HD video to a device that isn't HDCP-protected.) They put a huge burden on video card manufacturers by requiring them to integrate all kinds of super-paranoid security and encryption mechanisms (which, again, were probably broken within a week). The costs of developing on-chip encryption and things like that obviously get passed on to us eventually. There's also a large amount of processing overhead involved in how Vista constantly checks for breaches, and it can't be disabled. All this over movies. Seriously.

They also completely removed support for Direct3D hardware audio. That means any games you have with 3D sound support (including WoW) won't sound right. Creative has an OpenAL wrapper that works, but only on newer Creative sound cards.

And what do you get for all these trade-offs (and a couple hundred dollars)? A prettier desktop, translucent windows, a fully 3D UI (another purely cosmetic change). And loads of bugs. (SP1, due out at the end of the year, has what amounts to a full rewrite of the kernel. Which I'm sure will be really stable when it ships. And says a lot about their feelings on the current one. :p)

Vista sucks. Stay the hell away.

Xejin · 07/13/07, 2:47 PM

Originally Posted by koutetsu

Vista is painful, especially for gaming. It's really buggy and goes out of its way to annoy you in many ways. (I have to explicitly tell my system to load my network driver each time because the 64-bit version requires drivers to be signed. There's really no way to turn it off. It's retarded.)

Then there's the matter of Windows Activation. Literally every time you make a hardware change, you have three days to call a center in India. The whole process seems designed to take advantage of people who don't know better, and strong-arm them into buying a second copy. Eventually you can talk the tech into letting you activate over the phone (your key will never, ever work for Internet activation again). At this point, you and he exchange 48-digit (!) keys and you go on your way. It's absolutely obnoxious, and I really doubt it's stopping pirates anyway. It just inconveniences the rest of us, and it's a huge slap in the face to those of us who feel we should own the things we pay for.

As others have mentioned, Microsoft bent over backwards to appease Hollywood, which means that most existing displays will not play HD content for purely artificial reasons. (The display is capable of it, but Vista won't output HD video to a device that isn't HDCP-protected.) They put a huge burden on video card manufacturers by requiring them to integrate all kinds of super-paranoid security and encryption mechanisms (which, again, were probably broken within a week). The costs of developing on-chip encryption and things like that obviously get passed on to us eventually. There's also a large amount of processing overhead involved in how Vista constantly checks for breaches, and it can't be disabled. All this over movies. Seriously.

They also completely removed support for Direct3D hardware audio. That means any games you have with 3D sound support (including WoW) won't sound right. Creative has an OpenAL wrapper that works, but only on newer Creative sound cards.

And what do you get for all these trade-offs (and a couple hundred dollars)? A prettier desktop, translucent windows, a fully 3D UI (another purely cosmetic change). And loads of bugs. (SP1, due out at the end of the year, has what amounts to a full rewrite of the kernel. Which I'm sure will be really stable when it ships. And says a lot about their feelings on the current one. :p)

Vista sucks. Stay the hell away.

In my experience:

Drivers should be signed, but you can 'Ignore' on install - not recommended.

I've added a hard drive, changed video cards, and added 2GB of RAM. No problems.

The HD issue is true, but you can still rip HD content and remove the protection. Then you can watch them in all their glory. Just avoid Blu-ray discs until BD+ is cracked. Also, you have the same problem on XP and HD players - so this is not limited to Vista.

Vista has a lot of UI upgrades, though nothing dramatic. I turned Areo off because I personally don't like it. The new file pathing is nice. The fact that user data is kept in user accounts is great. Also, having the video driver not inside the kernel makes the systems a whole lot more stable.

With that said: Vista isn't perfect. In many ways XP is still better, but thinking out over the long haul Vista is better and will be a better purchase now - that is, if you have to purchase XP or Vista. Mainly because in 2-3 years you won't find XP drivers and a lot of software will depend on you having Vista. I remember all the FUD that happened when XP came out, but look at XP now and how the same people who based it 5 years ago are protecting it now.

Zygar · 07/13/07, 11:14 PM

Originally Posted by Xejin

In my experience:
Drivers should be signed, but you can 'Ignore' on install - not recommended.

The 64 bit version won't install them unless they are signed, unless you disable driver signing verification on boot, but that other guy's post was full of a whole bunch of misinformation anyway.

In my opinion, you should not upgrade to Vista unless you're getting a new PC. There's no reason to upgrade like there was when XP came out. It doesn't add a great deal unless you have a DirectX 10 graphics card, in which case the DX10 support will come in handy.

People seem to forget how rocky XP was when it first came out. It had many of the same issues that Vista does, and after two service packs, it's solid. Vista will mature too, just give it time.

As a matter of note: While there's no reason to upgrade to Vista on your current machine, if you're getting a new computer, I strongly advise you just bite the bullet and get Vista. For every person who has severe issues, there are 10 more that don't, and run Vista just fine on new hardware. If you're buying a computer for the purpose of gaming, and putting any DirectX10 compatible in it, then you sure as hell should be getting Vista for the sake of future compatibility with DX10 games.

XP began to shine a few months after its first service pack was released. Here's to hoping Vista is much the same way, because if you look past the poor driver support, the bugs and the performance issues, there's a damn fine operating system in there, just waiting to be fully utilized.

Summary? Don't get Vista just for the sake of getting Vista, but if you get a new computer, grab a copy of Home Premium or Ultimate. It can only get better, just look at XP now and compare it to when it came out.

Imbar · 07/14/07, 1:32 AM

Originally Posted by Eej

The windows are semi-transparent so that's why I upgraded.

Haha, sole reason behind my upgrade as well.
I had initial issues with the graphics quality of WoW, but */palmface* a driver update fixed that.

Opioid · 07/14/07, 7:40 PM

Originally Posted by koutetsu

Vista is painful, especially for gaming. It's really buggy and goes out of its way to annoy you in many ways. (I have to explicitly tell my system to load my network driver each time because the 64-bit version requires drivers to be signed. There's really no way to turn it off. It's retarded.)

Better driver security and not letting shady third parties write substandard drivers is retarded. Whatever you say.

Then there's the matter of Windows Activation. Literally every time you make a hardware change, you have three days to call a center in India. The whole process seems designed to take advantage of people who don't know better, and strong-arm them into buying a second copy. Eventually you can talk the tech into letting you activate over the phone (your key will never, ever work for Internet activation again). At this point, you and he exchange 48-digit (!) keys and you go on your way. It's absolutely obnoxious, and I really doubt it's stopping pirates anyway. It just inconveniences the rest of us, and it's a huge slap in the face to those of us who feel we should own the things we pay for.

Bullshit. Its only for a significant change like a motherboard; i.e. what most people would consider a new computer. I have added RAM, switched hard drives from an old Raptor to a new Seagate, and swapped a Radeon 9800 for an X1950. None of those required any sort of reactivation whatsoever.

As others have mentioned, Microsoft bent over backwards to appease Hollywood, which means that most existing displays will not play HD content for purely artificial reasons. (The display is capable of it, but Vista won't output HD video to a device that isn't HDCP-protected.) They put a huge burden on video card manufacturers by requiring them to integrate all kinds of super-paranoid security and encryption mechanisms (which, again, were probably broken within a week). The costs of developing on-chip encryption and things like that obviously get passed on to us eventually. There's also a large amount of processing overhead involved in how Vista constantly checks for breaches, and it can't be disabled. All this over movies. Seriously.

XP requires the same sort of jumping through hoops to prove you should be watching your HD movies. It sucks, but I imagine watching HD content affects about 0.001% of people using Vista at this point so to pretend like its any kind of major hurdle to adoption is silly.

They also completely removed support for Direct3D hardware audio. That means any games you have with 3D sound support (including WoW) won't sound right. Creative has an OpenAL wrapper that works, but only on newer Creative sound cards.

They removed a hardware abstraction layer that was A) an impediment to proper function and correct methods in DirectX10 and B) exploited by Creative Labs for their own benefits (leading to a host of end user nightmares) for years. If you had tried running a Soundblaster Live on a VIA chipset motherboard you would very quickly realize that this was the right move to make and if anything Microsoft moved too slowly in fixing it.

And what do you get for all these trade-offs (and a couple hundred dollars)? A prettier desktop, translucent windows, a fully 3D UI (another purely cosmetic change). And loads of bugs. (SP1, due out at the end of the year, has what amounts to a full rewrite of the kernel. Which I'm sure will be really stable when it ships. And says a lot about their feelings on the current one. :p)

And DirectX10 support, newer .NET framework, completely reworked OpenGL interpretation, less interruption from file system indexing (with a better search function,) and a sanely built network interface system that makes people never want to go back to XP?

I guess in a backwards world where moving towards better drivers and removing kludgey HALs is somehow a bad thing your complaints are valid.

Vista sucks. Stay the hell away.

Vista sucks the most, except for every other version of Windows that has been made.

Zanthor · 07/14/07, 7:43 PM

For what it's worth, Windows XP gets significantly better framerates on my system now that i've upgraded the CPU...

Hardware:
Athlon X2 6000+
2GB DDR2
nVidia 7900gt

Vista: 15-20fps @ bank in shat
XP: 45-55fps @ bank in shat

I'm stunned. Overall I would put money on driver maturity being the issue. If you google "7900 vista" you will find thousands of posts about people bitching about the drivers for vista... a friend has a similar system that absolutely owns in vista...

Zygar · 07/14/07, 8:06 PM

Originally Posted by Opioid

***EXPLANATIONS ABOUT VISTA***

This, too. A lot of the big improvements with Vista are under the hood, where the end user may not notice them now, but when developers start taking advantage of them, we should start seeing major improvements over XP.

Nirija · 07/15/07, 6:19 AM

Okay, I now did the step to go onto Vista and I don't have the problems most ppl seem to have. Having a completely new system which is completely compatible with Vista helps ofc:

Core2Duo 4300
2 GB Ram
8800 GTX
Abit IB9

I have 80-120 FPS in Shattrath, no problems. Overall I don't have problems - only Enemy Territory Quake Wars Beta doesn'T keep the options how I want them, seems to be a write permission problem, dunno yet.

Aphyrax · 07/15/07, 4:28 PM

Originally Posted by koutetsu

SP1, due out at the end of the year, has what amounts to a full rewrite of the kernel.

I would really, really, really like to see you back up that statement. A full rewrite of the kernel for a service pack? Riiight. More facts less FUD please.

Opioid · 07/15/07, 5:47 PM

Originally Posted by Aphyrax

I would really, really, really like to see you back up that statement. A full rewrite of the kernel for a service pack? Riiight. More facts less FUD please.

I agree with this sentiment. A full new release of the OS doesn't even mean its a full rewrite of the kernel. Its always been the Windows NT line building on itself and switching around what does or does not work at that point. Nothing short of sunspots erasing all Windows NT source code in the world (prompting a complete startover) would lead to a full kernel rewrite.

Hongten · 07/16/07, 3:57 AM

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Window...ernational.exe
beta drivers for Vista.
*fixed low fps in World of Warcraft

(still i dont experience any problems whith new hardware intel Dual Core CPU)

Chuck · 07/16/07, 8:08 AM

32 bit .. any 64 bit stuff?

here we go: Windows Vista 64-bit

oooooh:

World of Warcraft – there is a 60% drop in performance when
running the game in windowed mode with SLI or multi‐GPU mode
enabled. [289427]
This is due to a limitation of the Windows Vista operating system and affects all
multi‐GPU systems. NVIDIA is investigating a workaround for this performance
problem.

THAT explains everything

embrauer · 07/16/07, 4:48 PM

Originally Posted by Hongten

http://us.download.nvidia.com/Window...ernational.exe
beta drivers for Vista.
*fixed low fps in World of Warcraft

(still i dont experience any problems whith new hardware intel Dual Core CPU)

Well, these half-work for me. Antecdotal evidence follows:

158.24
In Aldor Innkeeper's room: ~37FPS
Overlooking Shattrath from Aldor Rise: ~9FPS

162.22
In Aldor Innkeeper's room: ~75FPS (vsync cap)
Overlooking Shattrath from Aldor Rise: ~10FPS

Windows XP (from what I can remember)
In Aldor Innkeeper's room: ~60FPS (vsync cap)
Overlooking Shattrath from Aldor Rise: ~30FPS

Geforce 7900GTO (essentially a GTX)
Core2Duo 2.49ghz
2gb RAM

So they're an improvement indoors, and likely in most instances - I run 4xFSAA and 16xAF, and I refuse to play at lower settings, so it's a bit of a pain in Shattrath, and probably annoys me more than it should. Here's hoping subsequent revisions help with this issue.

edit: Should mention I run windowed because I have two monitors.

Chuck · 07/16/07, 7:34 PM

I tried in fullscreen mode again and my FPS were significally higher tho I'm really not wanting to have WoW running in full screen due to 2nd monitor

Celandro · 07/17/07, 9:04 PM

Originally Posted by Feorthas

If you're running an AMD CPU, you need to get the dual core fix--probably a CPU driver update (yes, CPU drivers exist)--from AMD.

I have them, i have the newest drivers for my mobo, cpu, video card, sound and network cards.

My mobo is a piece of crap though so I wouldnt be surprised if that was the problem.

There was a thread on the wow forums that gave the instructions, unfortunately I don't know where it is.

Disabling a cpu core CAN significantly increase your performance in WoW. I'd be interested to know wether the people complaining above about vista performance get better performance by disabling 1 core.

PS. thanks to whoever gave me negative reputation on the mistaken assumption that I don't know anything about how to update drivers or my pc.