translucent window panes...

Though even that won' t be supported in all versions, and you also need to hve a 64 bit processor for that (I think).

Really? That sucks even more, heh. nVidia and ATi drivers already have translucency features for XP on most cards (which doesn' t require 64-bit either). It' s cool, but hardly worth getting a new OS for..

I don' t think you need a 64 bit cpu, I think they said something like you need a 64 mb video card.

the directx updates are highly overrated
if you are directx 9 compitable, you can emulate directx10 perfectly

Well the thing is, DX10 is as much about hardware as its about software. The whole reason they are moving towards DX10 is to build support for Unified Shaders. The same technology in the 360 gpu (hence the reason the 360 has support for part of DX10 and not the ps3) is a great boost to video card efficiency and unpresedented flexibility. Unified shaders combine vertex and pixel pipelines so regardless of the ratio of vertex and pixel shading in a game a unified GPU can use 100% of itself to tackle whatever needs to be done instead of having part of you gpu losing cycles while waiting for another part to finish the longer proccess. For example the 7900gtx has 24 dedicated pixel pipes and 8 dedicated vertex pipes, the 360 has 48 vertex+pixel pipes.

Essentially the DX10 games using a DX10 gpu and Windows Vista will see a huge benefit over what we have now. CPU' s are moving towards multi core while GPU' s are moving towards Unified shaders. If you already have windows xp don' t bother getting windows vista unless you' re ready to upgrade your gpu to a unified architecture such as Ati' s upcoming R600. I would bet my left testicle that Ati will release the R600 series within one month of Windows Vista.

of course they don' t need a 64bit cu, it has nothing to do with how panel will show, this things are related in graphics, microsoft didn' t even recommend a 64bit cpu for windows vista, as what locopuyo said, you need a minimum 64mb , with a recommended 128mb GC...

all i want from vista is a better stabilityn more friendly with games, reduced time of instaling and loadings, more protections against viruses and spywares , an easy way to recover from a virus, instead of showing the Blue screen of death and give us some bullshit, please explain what is exactly the problem or at least where did it came from, why the hell my computer would crash, as i know there might be many factors, but either show the file that is responsible for that or the piece of hardware that did the shit and if possible pretty please with sugar on top say why !!!!

I am SO glad I added the " I think" part in my previous post . Apparently you don' t need a 64 bit processor for the Aero feature (that would have been weird, yes).

Here are the requirments for the Aero which defines what Microsoft call " Vista Premium Ready PC" and any computer that meets/exceeds theese requirments are able to use Aero (the new visual style).

* a 1Ghz 32-bit (x86) or 64bit (x64) processor
* 1 gigabyte of system memory
* a DirectX 9 compatible graphics processor, with a WDDM driver, and a minimum of 64mb of VRAM
* 40GB hard drive with 15gb free space
* DVD-ROM Drive
* audio output and Internet access

Edit:

And another thing...

Microsoft is looking at speeding up the Vista boot time to around 2 to 3 seconds

... I hope is true.

Ahh... MS speeding up booting? How? :)

See, with Windows 2000 and XP, they added a " fastboot" switch - it' s transparent to the user but if you know your way around the OS you can control wether it' s off or on. Anyway, all it does is give the user control before it' s done fully loading. It still takes as long to fully load as NT4 did, but NT4 did not allow the user control until it was fully loaded (ok, that switch was available in NT4 too, but you had to enable it yourself by editing the boot file - 2000 and XP simply have it on by default). So is Vista pulling such a trick or is it something else entirely?

See, with Windows 2000 and XP, they added a " fastboot" switch - it' s transparent to the user but if you know your way around the OS you can control wether it' s off or on. Anyway, all it does is give the user control before it' s done fully loading. It still takes as long to fully load as NT4 did, but NT4 did not allow the user control until it was fully loaded (ok, that switch was available in NT4 too, but you had to enable it yourself by editing the boot file - 2000 and XP simply have it on by default). So is Vista pulling such a trick or is it something else entirely?

My friend I' ll be honest with you. I haven' t got a clue!

I' m also curious as if the 2-3sec boot will have an effect, I study the certifications you seem to have silver, look forward to study up on vista...

My pc meets requirements, but M$ are notorius for giving low requirements, ones where it would install but running would be complete crap... I remember reading that vista required about a 1.5gb page file while running a game and was stated that looking at around 2gb minimum or something... Can' t quite remember.
Well lets see how it turns out...

I think it' s hard to accept that MS has such a stranglehold on the OS market for games. Mac and Linux just aren' t as good for games. I' d love to have a choice in the matter. If I didn' t want my PC for games, I' d probably go with Ubuntu Linux (which is free!) or OSX on a Mac (which is great for photo/movie editing etc)..

...well considering the impact that 360 & it' s successor are likely to have on PC gaming, there' s less and less reason to expect M$' s OS stranglehold to continue in the near future...

hahaaaaa, lol...I liked that.

So for the average Joe like you and me, what does new things does Vista bring?

My computer takes about 3mins to boot up, it gets stuck on a black screen just before i log in, Its annoying but hopefully vista wont have this problem.

....But 40GB? where is all that going?

....But 40GB? where is all that going?

I' m not sure, but I' ve heard that OS' s tend to want some free space on the harddrives, to leave some elbow room to work with. That' s how someone I know tried to explain it to stupid me.

...well considering the impact that 360 & it' s successor are likely to have on PC gaming, there' s less and less reason to expect M$' s OS stranglehold to continue in the near future...

I think PC offers something different for games to 360. MS seem to be pretty determined to keep a lock on the gaming market with Vista, from what Peter Moore has said in past and the whole ' Games for Windows' logo etc. Apparently Apple want to start marketing their machines towards gaming, but they don' t think Mac users want games.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2006/tc20060531_384873.htm

Well it' s not really up to us. The cost of a Mac game is always more, and the choice of game limited. And the fact that until now, you' ve only had the choice of proprietary Apple hardware and software, has really limited what you can do with it. The reason they do it this way is so they have control over what users can do, and therefore things just work as they should, slick, clean and stable.

Whereas MS have always chosen to take the other route with Windows, which is to be open and allow anything to work with it, having to keep drivers running for any device or software a user may care to run. But this often ends up with conflicting commands, and you end up with more crashes and ' blue screens of death' (s)!

But now Apple' re starting to change. They' re already working with Intel to make their CPUs from now on, so maybe they' ll even leave room to stick in an ATi or nVidia graphics card? If somehow Mac machines are allowed to work with current PC games, without sacrificing the stability and user-orientedness of how Apple usually do things, only then will gamers start to take Mac' s seriously.

I found this artice quite interesting: http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2006/05/31/when_titans_collide/1.aspx

(Sry for the long post, heh. )

the cost of a Mac game is always more

....Mac' s have dropped largely in price these days, and don' t cost as much as you would think.. ..of course they remain more expensive than PC' s...

...but you get what you pay for...

Apparently Apple want to start marketing their machines towards gaming, but they don' t think Mac users want games.

...yeah that makes sense... ...the Mac user demographic tends to be the total inverse of the PC user.... ...the last thing a music/film/art creative wants to do is spend days on end writing code and fixing run time errors etc.... ...same applies to gaming ....we just wanna get in there and have fun from the off... ...which is why consoles rock (in the non-geek world ofc)....

so maybe they' ll even leave room to stick in an ATi or nVidia graphics card?

.....?....

...???.....

...both ATi and nvida have been the default in graphic cards in all Macs for YEARS!!... ...dunno what you' re on about dude.. ...my 2Ghz dual processor G5 has a ATI Radeon 9650 with 256mb ram...

...anyway people get what suits them best... ...for me it' s about reliability, style, power, user friendliness and the creative industries.....

...and consoles of course...

...both ATi and nvida have been the default in graphic cards in all Macs for YEARS!!...

Oh really? Ok my bad then. Did they adopt PCI-express or do you have to still get AGP?

There was one thing I read recently, I dunno whether this guy was a Mac designer or just a high profile Mac user. But he was going on about how games have to mature a bit before they' re seen as worthy of being Mac oriented.

He reckoned people like Mac because they' re quite focused on the adult market, and games are too childish as a medium at the moment. His view was that Mac' ll be properly into games when the industry grows up a little.

He had some good points, but ultimately came across sounding like a grumpy old man, heh..

EDIT: He was just a columnist for Mac Observer who previously worked at Apple, but here' s the article.

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/hiddendimensions/2006/20060605.shtml

Oh and here' s another, about Boot Camp - new software that' ll allow you to run XP on an Intel based Mac: http://www.cnet.com.au/games/0,39029232,40061763,00.htm

..that idea is just plain dumb...

...does that columnist even know what a game is?....


...btw i reckon Power-macs will be the first home computers to feature blu-ray .....

edit:

Oh and here' s another, about Boot Camp - new software that' ll allow you to run XP on an Intel based Mac:

...uhhh!!![:' (]

....utterly abhorrent!!![:' (][:' (][:' (][:' (]...

...does that columnist even know what a game is?....

Heh, probably not! Fact is, I' d like to get a Mac to use as a games machine, but it just doesn' t have the customisation or support for games you get on a Windows based PC.

It' ll probably come, only thing is, this' ll add yet another platform to split the market up (especially if they start making exclusive games for Mac!).

an interesting discussion - but this bit made me gag...

There was one thing I read recently, I dunno whether this guy was a Mac designer or just a high profile Mac user. But he was going on about how games have to mature a bit before they' re seen as worthy of being Mac oriented.

Thats the worst bit of Kutaragi inspired rubbish I' ve ever heard! He should be a politician the spin he is putting on - maybe we shuold get him to re-launch the Saturn in Europe!

So this means that Marathon on the Mac was more matured than Halo? (Ok I know the dev got bought by MS - but they were showing their goods on the Mac at the time, and people were horrified when they left the Mac scene.)

The end of it all is that (generally now) is that most designers I know in the publishing world, (future publishing motoring titles mainly) Tend to prefer PC' s for their own personal use even though they have to use Macs at work and Mac users prior to the Ipod generation were a group that didnt want to be mainstream - no mainstream = no mass development!

Oh I don' t know, actually I take it all back - the Mac has every right to fight for it' s share of the titles, just don' t play dirty mac fans like that writer bloke you quote!

Perhaps the best place to start would be admitting their mistakes and make a renewed effort rather than putting spin on their failed past?

...just ignore that buffoon' s column dude....

....he' s a representative of Apple' s wilderness years and is pretty irrelevant in today' s post imac/ipod generation....

...fact of the matter is, that Apple HAVE been trying to push the mac as a place for gaming more, although they could still be trying harder....

...actually, i always thought that it was because of apple computers using linux that developers were slow to make games for it, but won' t the PS3 use Linux too?...

...so there' s really NO excuse now for Apple' s current underperformance... ....it' s pretty ironic too, when you consider how powerful macs are... ..they' re built to excel in power hungry, professional creative fields such as HD Video, 3D Modelling & Animation, and professional music studios, to name a few...

The end of it all is that (generally now) is that most designers I know in the publishing world, (future publishing motoring titles mainly) Tend to prefer PC' s for their own personal use even though they have to use Macs at work

...i find that hard to believe.... ..the professional creative market is Apple' s rock....

...are you sure your friends aren' t just a bunch of cheap-@$$ microsoft-office sheeple?...