Microsoft has published a set of guidelines on which decisions to make now, so that your computer will be ready to run Windows Vista. They claim that any mid-range AMD or Intel processor will do, and even low-end ones will pack enough power to run Vista. 512 MBRAM is advised, but for more advanced users, 1GB is recommended. As for graphics card: “If you are building or buying PC today, you probably want to avoid the low end of the current GPU range and make sure you get a GPU that supports DirectX 9 and has at least 64 MB of graphics memory.” My take: I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on, runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM (DirectX 8 compatible card, so not a DX9 card). Just so you know.
I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on, runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM (DirectX 8 compatible card, so not a DX9 card). Just so you know.
I highly doubt it. Vista is a giant killer of your hardware. Buy a new Dell, and it might run.
You say I’m lying? I am willing to make a video for you, but first, answer my question. Are you saying I’m lying in front of 120000 readers?
Whoa, Thom…. nothing personal. But we’re all used to the bloatware. You’re still on a beta. MS has alot of time to do what it does best.
Agreed. I’m with halfmanhalfamazing on this one. Grab a cup of coffee and settle down.
Additionally, you shouldn’t need those hardware requirements just to run a stupid OS.
Edited 2005-12-28 13:30
However, there are enough people here who would vote me and esp. Eugenia down just because we are who we are
Dont worry, if people mod you down, it will be because of your defensive attitude you always have or your arrogance.
Not for who you are.
Go back and read some of your old posts and think about it.
My Take: Arrogance is a sign of weakness. identify and conquer the weakness and you will have conquered your anger and arrogance.
🙂
No. Arrogance is inherent in being Dutch. Comes with the nationality.
Hmmm..
Seems someone has a little stick up their @** today 🙂
I guess when you write something that will be read by 120000 readers, you shouldn’t take things so personal.
bleh.
“You say I’m lying? I am willing to make a video for you, but first, answer my question. Are you saying I’m lying in front of 120000 readers?”
Dude, that was just plain unprofessional. In front of 120,000 readers, I might add. I mean, essentially, you’ve just posted a benchmark without explaining your methodology. No wonder people started questioning your results. And stop being so defensive, for crying out loud. Contrary to what you might think, throwing a hissy fit won’t improve your credibility. Explaining your methodology, on the other hand, might.
Yes, but where did I say this was a scientifically performed ‘benchmark’? All I said was: on MY machine, with the FOLLOWING specs, it works FINE. I never said it was a well-performed benchmark, or that my findings confirms whatever MS says.
And yes, I DO get irritated when people say that I am lying, just to cope with their own cognitive dissonance.
It seems that OS News Staff are also irritated when they are moderated down, so you just disable this feature for yourself.
Do you believe that you hold the truth ?
Mr. Holwerda I remember apologizing.
“Yes, but where did I say this was a scientifically performed ‘benchmark’? All I said was: on MY machine, with the FOLLOWING specs, it works FINE. I never said it was a well-performed benchmark, or that my findings confirms whatever MS says.”
Hoo boy, judging from your reaction it was almost like your entire life, happiness, well-being, and reputation depended on the veracity of your statement. It was like… like an article of faith your entire world-view is based on had been challenged by some penguinista infidel. Okay, I kid, I kid.
Anyways, I see what you’re saying. I’m just surprised you’ve chosen to react so strongly.
“And yes, I DO get irritated when people say that I am lying, just to cope with their own cognitive dissonance.”
Thom, voicing skepticism about a very vague, borderline subjective statement does not constitute calling you a liar. Like you said yourself, this was not meant to be a comprehensive benchmark. What’s the big deal, man?
‘You say I’m lying? I am willing to make a video for you, but first, answer my question. Are you saying I’m lying in front of 120000 readers?*
yes
That must be the dumbest comment I ever read. He is stating a fact not an opinion. Since it would be trivial for many people to corroborate or falsify this, not sure what you doubt. Or is it just that you have your reality distortion field up?
A benchmark based on an unknown methodology is not a fact. However, since you believe it to be a fact, then perhaps you can answer the following for me: How exactly did he configure the OS? and What workloads were used?
I’m waiting with bated breath.
A benchmark based on an unknown methodology is not a fact. However, since you believe it to be a fact, then perhaps you can answer the following for me: How exactly did he configure the OS? and What workloads were used?
I’m waiting with bated breath.
As I already said– it is NOT a benchmark. Nowhere did I claim it to be. All I said was, as a general observation, Vista runs fine on my specs. There is no methodology behind it other than installing Vista, turning on Aero Glass, NOT do any service tweaking or similar actions, and USE it.
It is a FACT that on MY machine, with the specs I listed, Vista runs fine. Period. Me thinks you are just not used to someone openly saying something good about MS/Windows.
“Me thinks you are just not used to someone openly saying something good about MS/Windows.”
When you assume, Thom, you’re making an ass out of u and me, so, please, for your integrity’s sake, don’t do that in future when addressing me, mmm-kay? Remember: 120,000 people are watching.
MS Windows, especially in its XP incarnation, is a fine piece of software that makes it possible to be productive without having to be an OS guru. I see proof of that everywhere I go — work, school, home.
Now, stuff that in your pipe and smoke it.
Edited 2005-12-28 15:37
Whoa, whoa, you don’t make an ass of u and me when you assume. I assumed once, and I’m still a full human being! Claiming this as fact is a complete fabrication!!
Thom said he ran some software on his computer and it didn’t seem slow. You’re claiming that him saying this in a forum constitutes a benchmark. I want what you’re smoking!
I rather like this thread! Yeah, it’s a peaceless flamefest, but it’s based on such small amounts of spilt milk that it’s worth the read!
no, actually im happy that youre saying good things about ms windows.
it gives the site a different spin.
I couldn’t agree more. It make a change from the ritual Windows bashing that usually goes on every time there’s a Windows post.
I’m very disappointed to see Thom throwing his toys out of the pram like this, though. I’d have expected better behaviour from someone who the managing editor of a website with 120,000 “eyes”…
It’s a pity we can’t change the scores of the editorial staff. It kinda says to me that they’ve always got something valuable to say. Perhaps we can take a vote on whether the editorial staff should be scored like the rest of us. Anyone else think it’s unfair?
I’m very disappointed to see Thom throwing his toys out of the pram like this, though.
So, I should accept being called a liar? Would you accept it if you were called a liar?
It’s a pity we can’t change the scores of the editorial staff. It kinda says to me that they’ve always got something valuable to say. Perhaps we can take a vote on whether the editorial staff should be scored like the rest of us. Anyone else think it’s unfair?
It ain’t gonna happen, for reasons we stated numerous times before. I also have already stated before that I’d personally would like to have voting enabled on the team’s comments too. However, there are enough people here who would vote me and esp. Eugenia down just because we are who we are. THAT is why we do not, and never will, allow voting on team’s accounts.
Don’t blame US for that, blame the trolls.
So, I should accept being called a liar? Would you accept it if you were called a liar?
Thom, he never explicitly called you a liar. He just said “I highly doubt it”. In my experience it’s a figure of speach and doesn’t infer that the other person is a liar. You could argue that it’s all down to semantics, but it’s not going to bring any clarity, so why bother! You really do need to work on a thicker skin…!
As for the scoring issue, perhaps the solution is to allow us to score you (even if it’s negative) but always show editorial team postings regardless of their score. If you’re going to take an active part in a discussion then you should have to play by the same rules as the rest of us. At least this way your posts will always be shown, it’s just that we’ll always see the low score…
Thom, I never called you a liar. Im just saying that I dont think you provided suffice evidence to prove that it runs well. I mean, standalone without any additional apps, yes I agree. but once you start to attempt to get any real work done, its gonna crap out on you.
seriously. calm down. you’re not a liar.
“I highly doubt it.” != “Thom, I never called you a liar. Im just saying that I dont think you provided suffice evidence to prove that it runs well. I mean, standalone without any additional apps, yes I agree. but once you start to attempt to get any real work done, its gonna crap out on you.”
That is kind of my point. You “highly doubted” my words, and to me, that means you have a hard time believing my statement. And yes, thast can piss me off, because it would mean I am lying. Which I’m not.
The offer for the video still stands. Just let me know. I’ll run some serious apps too, if you want.
Hi Thom,
I would very appreciate if You could make some Vista-Videos. It’s not that I doubt in Your words, I’m absolutely sure that Your observation is 100% correct and Your description is also absolutely clear to me. It’s just that I have no possibility to look by myself what does the Vista, aero and so on looks like (and I’m doubt that I’m the only one). Please? 🙂
P.S. And please, don’t react to the trolls of Knight Rider (or something like that) & Co. Halte Dich aus dem Sch#*ß raus. 😉
I would very appreciate if You could make some Vista-Videos.
I’ll see what I can do. Don’t expect any high-res supervideos, my digital camera is 5MP and only records at 320×240. Maybe someone can recommend me an easy-to-use screen recording app for Windows? I know SnapZx Pro2 for OSX, but I’ve never needed such a thing for Windows.
Halte Dich aus dem Sch#*ß raus. 😉
Dass ist klar. Aber es ist nicht immer einfach mir raus zu halten
.
I can just see this video now. Sitting there watching the video and a little message keeps scrolling across the bottom of the screen saying “I am not a liar”!!!!
This story isnt even about windows vista…its just a test to see if Thom is a liar or not.
Oh well…at least a got a good laugh out of reading his rediculous replies.
Maybe someone can recommend me an easy-to-use screen recording app for Windows?
You can try the screen capture codec with Windows Media Encoder.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/defau…
Thom, yes I would like a video.
AIM me so you can send it to me: dylanrogers0
I ran beta 1 on my machine (1.8Ghz, 1gb mem, Radeon 9800 pro), which I bought almost 2 years ago for just under $1k (my 2 monitors excluded from that price). I was able to run with Glass and it ran at acceptable speeds. The only thing I noticed were (and I’m sure this has already, and will in the future, improved) some glitches with the video card driver(s). Considering that ATI and nVidia didn’t have much time to put out drivers for the beta, that’s to be expected. By the time Vista is final, the drivers should be drastically improved, and that “slowness” some people experience will start to fade away.
It’s amazing how many people mistake slowness of GUI because of bad drivers for slowness of the OS because of bad code.
Hm… Even though many other beta testers can testify to the same thing?
Listen, Microsoft has proven recently that they do not bloat software during development like they used to. Look at some aspects of Windows Server 2003 – much faster than its predecessor, as well as having a smaller installation footprint. I don’t think that Microsoft is even close to making the same development mistakes that “hurt” earlier versions of Windows.
All of you jumping on Thom – shut up. Seriously. His response was actually quite fair, as it seems the above poster did not know what the hell he was talking about. As of right now, Vista is NOT a “giant killer” of your hardware. Sheesh, stop flaming.
seeing as how XP hardly runs on that configuration.
ago were dead on. Consider how OEMs package their machines. You need 1gb *now* because of the OS, antivirus, antispyware. Not to mention wildtangent, AOL, MSM, AIM, and all the other BS that OEMs put on the machines.
————-I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on————-
I’d like to know what things he shut off.(effects are not the only part of the equasion)
Absolutely not. Im just saying that from my recent tests, that’s just what happened. I’m not questioning your integrity, at all, Mr. Holwerda.
My take: use your Windows XP computer for as long as you wish. It is not like your Web banking will stop working when Microsoft releases Vista, or email will stop coming to your mailbox.
When you feel your computer is no longer serves you needs, meaning your friends proudly tell you their boots in under 5 milliseconds and you are jealous- go buy yourself new computer with Vista preinstalled.
Vista is as big killer of your hardware as Windows 95 was to Windows 3.1, or as Linux kernel 2.6 with the latest GUI of your like to hardware happily running Linux kernel 2.2.
It is inevitable. Demanding new modern operating systems run on older hardware is slowing the progress. If these demands were respected, we would have been running OS on original 8086.
I say: screw them! I want x64! I want software that uses new hardware to the max. Do you?
Yes, I want software that uses hardware in that way.
Can I have it for free?
What you are saying is not quite correct. The Linux kernel 2.6 runs faster than kernel 2.2 in almost every plataform (if not in every one). And it is because the mainly objective is not to make a fancy and glimmering OS, but to make it better and faster.
The Vista problem is not that is the natural OS evolution, but is because its aggregate a lot of resources not directly related to OS functionality.
That’s what I wanted to hear!
Linux and the GNU software associated with it runs faster on newer versions and is working to be more optimized for less powerful hardware as the development progresses.
Microsoft, on the other hand cannot do that.
Linux is without a doubt a great server and developer OS. I use it at work and there is nothing better than 4 virtual desktops full of terminals and an Eclipse window for coding. That said, Windows, and especially Vista from what I have seen, is leagues ahead of current distros in terms of usability, available software and look and feel.
“Windows, and especially Vista from what I have seen, is leagues ahead of current distros in terms of usability, available software and look and feel.”
Buy a Mac if you want to see usability and look and feel that is available now and better than Vista will ever be. So what software for Vista have you seen? Do you really think existing software will run? Heh. I’ve got a bridge to sell you. There’s a reason Gartner is telling corporations not to get into Vista for at least two years.
“Buy a Mac if you want to see usability and look and feel that is available now and better than Vista will ever be. So what software for Vista have you seen? Do you really think existing software will run? Heh. I’ve got a bridge to sell you. There’s a reason Gartner is telling corporations not to get into Vista for at least two years.”
You’re kidding, right? You don’t think existing software will run? That counters all known history concerning Microsoft! Microsoft practically built its kingdom on being able to tell people that your previously bought software will still run. They’ve even been known to avoid fixing bugs that old programs rely on.
Look at it this way, were there loads of programs that stopped running with the transistion from 9x to XP? Now contrast that to jumping from OS 9 to OS X. What about our newest Apple transistion from PowerPC to Intel?
The mail reason I won’t run linux and gnome as my desktop is that it is too slow. About everything is slower than windows, especially graphics. It’s unusable on older hardware.
Cut your color depth to 16. Use only bitmapped 1-byte fonts. Turn off the RENDER X extension.
Define older. Worked fine on a 500MHz K6-2. I’ll admit it was a bit slower than XP (on the same machine), but not a whole lot.
Gnome was way slower, it was enlightenment that was bearable.
It does make a difference which distribution you use. Debian distributions are notoriously slow (probably the cost of using an arch that no one has anyway), but something slackware based would likely run significantly faster. I’d been running Ubuntu on the slow box, and yea it was awful.
Arch is running great on this 700 Celeron. Well, as well as anything can run on a 700 Celeron anyway.
“What you are saying is not quite correct. The Linux kernel 2.6 runs faster than kernel 2.2 in almost every plataform (if not in every one). And it is because the mainly objective is not to make a fancy and glimmering OS, but to make it better and faster.
The Vista problem is not that is the natural OS evolution, but is because its aggregate a lot of resources not directly related to OS functionality.”
You are very confused, and you confuse others with your weird logic.
If you want to compare OS kernels, do so, but don’t compare the Linux KERNEL (2.2, 2.6, etc) to an operating environment (Vista). Not saying that the Linux kernel is faster or slower than the Vista one, but at least make accurate comparisons. Geez…
First of all your are messing up because I did not compare the Vista Kernel with Linux. I compared the same kernel (Linux) between its two different versions.
And comparing Operating Environment, I use the same OSX version (10.4) in two complety diferent machines (one is a iMac 450 and another is a PowerBook 1.5) and it runs very well in both.
And if you use the Vista (the pre-release) you could visualize that its bloated compare with others Windows.
I tried to install it in a Celeron 1.7 with 512 of RAM and it was painfully.
Beside of fact that it was a pre-release version, that thing was really very slow…
“Vista is as big killer of your hardware as Windows 95 was to Windows 3.1”
Well, not always true.
You can tune 98 to use slightly more resouces than 95; XP requirements (real, not the “let’s help the PC market so we’ll get our OS preinstalled”-fake specs) are like the requirements 2K; OSX 10.x is getting faster and more responsive at each release; for some tasks newer Linux kernel releases or mainstream o.s. apps are faster and/or more efficient than predecessors.
Ok, if you make a big hop in the OS foundation, like OS Classic to OSX you may expect new OS to be clumsy for the hardware of that days; if you do a mayor UI change like between DOS to Win3.x to 95 or between NT4 to NT5.x you may expect a big impact on requirements.
However OS developement is not only targeted to make people buy new hardware (games are for that
), but also to provide you a more robust and powerful environment; maybe running DOS you would free some megs of RAM but you will not have the windows API or the Linux library to use, you could not efficinetly do muliple tasks with a win 3.11 OS and probably i.e. you would incour in severe limitations in many tasks using a lighter Linux 1.x kernel instead of a new 2.6.x.
“Demanding new modern operating systems run on older hardware is slowing the progress. If these demands were respected, we would have been running OS on original 8086.”
This is not alwais true too.
A good model in developing a platform is to keep it modular and scalable, for plenty reasons from aspect like security to performance to ease of maintenance and development.
A side effect is that if you can chose in a modular way what to run you have also better odds to run with more severe hardware limitations.
On the other side I must admit that software development usually tend to live in the past rather than looking at the future. There are pleny codelines in Cobol, there are plenty software in VB, software written for DOS, software written with single user environment in mind, software written not thinking to parallelization.
But generally it’s not due to the will to kepp things running on obsolete hardware, it’s mainly because writing and mantaining code is quite a long and tiring process and times to give updates and support are usually short, so reuse and rely on good old known paradigms is a good short term solution that eventually become a long term issue.
runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM
And how many applications stressing the new vista GUI layer have you ? a few of course. I could also say that my Tiger run fine on my MacMini until I try to run some iLife applications, the dashboard, photoshop element, Mail and Safari in the background (with 1Gb of RAM, the limit is more in the GPU and graphic memory than with system RAM).
I wait for next release of Office for Vista, Photoshop for Vista, OUtlook for Vista and so on, to know want kind of hardware is required.
Any overloaded system is slow
Today any mainstream system (with GUI) may be easily overloaded with intensive gaming, multimedia encoding, pervasive eyecandy (even KDE), cuncurrent broadband filesharing etc.
What is interesting is to test the system with realistic workload and see how smart it is in:
switching betw treads and apps;
preventing RAM shortage with subsequent harddisk trashing;
organize cache to forecast disk request;
if it have efficient and stable video dirvers;
In other worlds a fast system is a system smart in avoiding computation bottlenecks, that are:
r/w from/to disk, for any kind of user, with a wise RAM and cache management;
cache miss for CPU intensive tasks (the OS cannot do many things here);
cost of thread switches and ability on schedule works, for parallelizable or multiple CPU intensuive tasks;
I just reviewed the requirements of Vista (in its current BETA form) with the machine I currently use, a Gateway 7405 GX laptop with an Athlon64 CPU, 1.25 GB of RAM, 60 GB 7200 RPM disk, ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 video card with 64 MB of memory. From what I see provided that Microsoft doesn’t add any additional bloat Vista should work just fine on my machine, and any hardware built in the last year that uses a decent CPU and graphics card.
The people who are going to experience problems are those who have machines that are several years old. This is nothing new, most new operating system versions leverage newer (not necessarily bleeding edge) hardware. I see this as nothing more than a lot of people crying wolf.
Is this a lot of hardware for an OS, yes it is. But I don’t see a whole lot of people clamoring for the days when “small is beautiful” when most programs were written in assembly language either. Most people will tolerate the bloat just to have the “pretty” graphical interface and the useless features, regarless of how slow their computers become.
I don’t think kernel itself is responsible of those RAM usages.
On my 128mb of ram box running FreeBSD6.0 after viewing few pages of search under ebay with firefox1.0.7 I can tell you that x.org was consuming 62mb of ram and firefox was consuming 105mb of ram.
After closing firefox x.org was consuming about 39mb of ram, obviously that 105mb of ram was available to my system.
So, imho, the problem is not the kernel but those heavy GUIs on top of it.
Sincerely to a low-need-user as me I don’t see why a 128mb of ram is not enough to browse the web !
BTW with freebsd I’m used TWM as window manager…
To a low-need-user as me I don’t see the needs to buy an os requiring those amounts of ram…
What I’d like to know is what I can gain productivity-wise thanks to this Win Vista OS (and the new apps enabled by new technologies in Vista). There is too much hype and speculation in the desktop software industry.
My personal feeling is that the desktop computer basically does no more for me today than it did 7-8 years ago (exept for perhaps the graphics of computer games). E-mailing, web-browsing, word-processing, spreadsheeting, chatting etc is more confusing than ever. The apps are not even more robust; i struggle with crashing software on a daily basis. Usability is not noticeably better. (though hardware integration is better).
Security is not good and extra work is necessary to protect your data. Proprietary software is still rather expensive, especially to customers in developing and former east bloc countries.
So what is actually going to be improved in upcoming software that is more than just superficial energy-wasting bloat?
“My personal feeling is that the desktop computer basically does no more for me today than it did 7-8 years ago (exept for perhaps the graphics of computer games). E-mailing, web-browsing, word-processing, spreadsheeting, chatting etc is more confusing than ever. The apps are not even more robust; i struggle with crashing software on a daily basis. Usability is not noticeably better. (though hardware integration is better).”
If you are talking of desktop computing I must disagree, 7-8 years ago we had:
– win98: extremely prone to crash, unfriendly net configuration, single user oriented, really bad dll and registry management;
– NT4: quite nice professional OS but lacking some desktop oriented features of 9x series, however more expensive than desktop OSes;
– old linux and BDSs: nice professional OSes for servers and workstations, but modern GUIs were not mature, nearly unusable, too heavy and too buggy for machines of thoise days, older GUIs were simply not meant for average desktop user (accustomed to 9x and Mac), plus scarce (desktop) hardware support, too few desktop applications;
– professional grade *x, like Solaris, AIX etc… seriously, wo would spend so much money for desktop computing? Moreover, they were not meant for desktop computing, for what concern hardware support, software selection and GUIs.
– Mac OS Classic: unstable for today’s standards (XP, OSX, Linux and BSD), single user oriented, few support than today to 3d parts hardware and software.
– some niche OSes like late Amiga, BeOS, NeXT and so on, usually plagued by scarce hardware and software support if compared to those days mainstream products like win 9x and MacOS Classic.
Would you really would prefer a pre 2.4 or 2.6 kernel? A non OSX mac? A 9x rather than NT based Windows?
IMHO today we have more robust OSes and many more open source software project nicely usable, I wouldn’t like to go back to 7-8 years ago.
“My personal feeling is that the desktop computer basically does no more for me today than it did 7-8 years ago (exept for perhaps the graphics of computer games). E-mailing, web-browsing, word-processing, spreadsheeting, chatting etc is more confusing than ever. The apps are not even more robust; i struggle with crashing software on a daily basis. Usability is not noticeably better. (though hardware integration is better).”
Moreover, in those years for typical daily desktop use we had, as applications:
– IE4 and early Netscape: they were quite unstable! IE7 shold be a long waited worthy upgrade after that long slumber, Mozilla is in a certain sense the new Netscape and is definitely a fine browser, Opera is my favourite one, Safari is good, even Konqueror is nicer than browsers of 7-8 years ago. Talking about mail managers the situation is almost the same, today we have more choice and better alternatives. Not even talk of html authoring tools…
– quite inefficient media player, i won’t change back my VLC with old mplayer32!
– crappy Office 97 or things like Lotus SmartSuite, I would not change a modern Office or even Open/Star Office to go back to 7-8 years ago office suite;
– unstable CD recording stuff, I won’t go back from free Toast or K3B or CDBurnerXP for a costly product and even if I magically go back in time I would not be soo fool to buy a CD recorder before JustLink or BurnProof technologies are out!
– none (or experimental) p2p and voip software, but now they are quite useful
– early, higly unstable and inefficient and or costly emulators. Now with mature MAME, Qemu and so on emulation of many recent or old platform is no more a mere challange for programmers or something for pro users.
– high speed, free and reliable compression, encryption and checksum tools: would you change from a free high efficient 7-zip to an old propietary compressor? Or to a closed source pre-AES crypto sftware???
Things I save are ACDSee that really seem to become more clumsy at each release and that isn’t matched, IMHO, from XP or KDE image presentation features, so I would like to keep an older version of it rather than a newer one or a newer alternative; mopreover I would save old graphic oftware like PSP o CorelDraw since i doesn’t like Gimp and i feel PaintShop is too professional for me that usally do simple photoediting or graphic for web (or apps), however I think a pro graph would disagree with me and prefer a more modern alternative to those old programs.
Well, we all thought the requirments were absurd in th early days. But then Vista got delayed, and delayed again, and again… In tha time Vista’s requirment did not go up (in fact they probably went down as they simplified/removed a lot of stuff), but hardware performance went up.
By late 2006 when Vista comes out, the requirments will be acceptable, imho.
On a P4 2.8ghz w/512MB of RAM (soon 1GB), what kind of video card would you realistically need to drive Vista on a 24″ widescreen LCD, assuming you don’t play games? Right now, I’ve got a GeForce4 MX 420 I’m looking to upgrade. I’m wondering if a 256MB Radeon x300 or x700 would be enough card?
Well, those do sound good, but I would check newegg. I got a brand new x850 from PowerColor for only $120. Great deal.
Well, those do sound good, but I would check newegg. I got a brand new x850 from PowerColor for only $120. Great deal.
Well, I got a $100 Circuit City gift card I need to use, so at least the first $100 there is free
That being said, do you have a link to the one you got for $120? I need AGP.
Edited 2005-12-28 15:54
My computer won’t let me login, but the best CC deal is here: http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/ATI-Radeon-X700-Pro-Video-Card-100-4…
Good luck!
I’m amazed over the fact that some people seem to think it’s their god-given right to run Vista without any trouble – just because they happen to own a computer.
If you have a dated box, run an operating system that’s suitable for it. Heck, stick with XP and keep it secure. It’s not like the machine won’t be able to do what it has been doing up until now just because Vista is released.
I’d truly hate Microsoft if they didn’t let the Windows GUI (a.k.a Win95-with-a-theme) evolve – just to keep people with old hardware happy.
I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on, runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM (DirectX 8 compatible card, so not a DX9 card). Just so you know.
I’m sure it does run fine, but did you install and run any applications, use it as a desktop and try and run any games? If not, then all you’ve got is a standard Windows install that does nothing, but runs fine.
I thought people would have realised by now that once you start actually running applications on Windows (i.e. actually using it) the requirements go up exponentially.
Edited 2005-12-28 15:15
Can people stop modding down perfectly good comments without giving actual replies?
I can confirm that the Windows Vista December CTP, with all the effects turned on, runs more than fine on my aging AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 512MB SD-RAM, Ati Radeon 9000 128MB DDR-RAM (DirectX 8 compatible card, so not a DX9 card). Just so you know.
I’m sure it does run fine, but did you install and run any applications, use it as a desktop and try and run any games? If not, then all you’ve got is a standard Windows install that does nothing, but runs fine.
I thought people would have realised by now that once you start actually running applications on Windows (i.e. actually using it) the requirements go up exponentially.
Edited 2005-12-28 21:44
After all, OS X runs fine on my 5 year old PowerBook. I think the concerns about Vista hardware requirements are way overblown. If anything, today’s computers are overkill for doing the stuff most people do, so I guess it’s natural for MS to utilize that unused power in eye candy.
Two things drive hardware upgrading: Computers crapping out, and games.
Having said that, I have no intention of getting Vista while World Of Warcraft keeps running fine on XP or 2000.
Now that’s a game that *does not* run fine on my 5 year old Powerbook.
If you buy your hardware now and expect it to be good when you install Vista, that’s not really clever. Just look at what happened to graphics cards in the past few years. Buy a mid- to high end card now and you can be sure that it won’t be in the middle of the field of what’s going to be available at the end of 2006. Sure: It might still be usable with Vista, but if you don’t exactly _need_ the highest end graphics card now, I’d choose wisely and keep any thoughts about Vista *OUT* of the plan.
I run Build 5270 on MS Virtual Server 2005 R2. This means:
Guest (virtual) Hardware:
P4 2.8GHz (capped at 25% of host machine capacity)
512MB RAM
S3 Trio32/64 with 4MB RAM < !!!
IDE
Host (real) Hardware:
P4 2.8GhZ
2GB RAM
Intel 82865G Video Controller with 96MB RAM
IDE (Ultra ATA)
Obviously, I cannot run Aero glass. I set my visual settings to ‘best performance’ and 32bit (which I do for every virtualized OS I run) and run the new standard Vista desktop shell, not Classic, at 1024×768. Works fine and dandy. And again, this is non-optimzed code at this point, as it’s not RTM, so it should be even snappier at release as all OS betas are.
Edited 2005-12-28 15:54
OK, but games even now requirer 2Gb to run smooth(Battlefield2 is one) so this means even more ram is need for when games come out by end of 2006.
Why on earth does Vista need higher requirements, especially since the GUI is done on the GPU!. If you using ram of the GPU for the GUI what is using up your your main memory?, since Vista runs best with 1Gb. Another thing is that Microsoft are known to bloat the code to make people upgrade, can anyone confirm this?
That’s a clean lie. All of my gamer friends running things like Battlefield 2 would likely disagree with you and say that the mark to hit is half that.
Ok so, 1Gb for the OS. Now what if I want to fire up Battlefield 2? Does that mean I need 3Gb of ram?. 1 for the os and 2 for the game.
I mean the OS developers can’t be intentionally bloating code right? I’d like to hope they think about that sort of thing when coding Vista.
> “Ok so, 1Gb for the OS. Now what if I want to fire up Battlefield 2? Does that mean I need 3Gb of ram?. 1 for the os and 2 for the game.”
Who wrote 1Gb for the OS?
AFAIK Vista’s minimum memory requirement is 128/256MB.
512 is recommended for average users (gaming, viewing media, etc) and 1024MB for advanced users (audio/videoediting, dtp, 3D, CAD, etc…).
Yes a video is all good but it don’t show just how responsive it is. Like people are saying, run antivirus and all your other apps as normal for months then post usage. A clean install always “runs more than fine” in Windows.
Yes a video is all good but it don’t show just how responsive it is. Like people are saying, run antivirus and all your other apps as normal for months then post usage. A clean install always “runs more than fine” in Windows.
Are you even remotely familiar with benchmarking? Benchmarking is always done in the most ideal circumstances– which is a clean install. Whether it be Linux, OSX or Windows, a good benchmark eliminates as many variables as possible. Which means, you don’t install AV, anti spyware, etc.– on the other hand, it also means no service tweaks or other optimizations.
The reason for this is simple: what AV do I choose? Which one will impact performace more? What services do I enable/disable? “But AV xyz strains the system less!” “You should disable that service too, this benchmark is now useless!”
That is why you always benchmark under default conditions– namely, factory settings. Which is what my observation is based on.
I’m outta here.
Boy there are alot of retards posting today. For those who don’t know Microsofts bait and swtich here are their guidelines for XP. Anyone care to use XP with those specs? Didn’t think so.
Here’s What You Need to Use Windows XP Home Edition
•
PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended
•
128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)
•
1.5 gigabyte (GB) of available hard disk space.*
Actualy, I have used it on a 300MHz Pentium II with 128MB of RAM. It is fairly snappy if one disables all visual effects (Fisher Price skin, opaque window moving, etc) and doesn’t run any apps except MS Word 97 and IE 6. Not that I’d ever do that, but the person who uses it does do that.
Linux is without a doubt a great server and developer OS. I use it at work and there is nothing better than 4 virtual desktops full of terminals and an Eclipse window for coding.
You don’t need Linux for that. Windows XP does that just fine.
Windows XP doesn’t have virtual desktops. That’s something I miss badly when running Windows. I was hoping Vista would add them but it seems not. And yes, I’ve tried all those utilities that fake virtual desktops on Windows. None of them work like the real thing.
Download the XP PowerToys for free from Microsoft. It does Virtual Desktops.
No offense, but this link is quite old, and I have used it in my comments on this very site before.
Regardless, it’s nice to see the whole “256mb video card required” thing debunked, among other things.
When someone says they doubt something it simply means that not enough evidence was presented for them to be convinced … to be called a liar would imply statements where falsified.
But on the real though … lets just see a video made by you Thom using that same setup you mentioned (verified in the video) running a collection of programs that Dylan would consider to be a decent work load …
If you’re running an ATI 9000 which isn’t DX9 capable, you will not run the Aero theme properly. The high end eye candies would be disabled and the GUI would run “more than fine”.
If you’re running an ATI 9000 which isn’t DX9 capable, you will not run the Aero theme properly. The high end eye candies would be disabled and the GUI would run “more than fine”.
UseMachineCheck = 0
Add that in the registry at a certain point (just Google) and everything will work on ‘unsupported’ (non DX9) cards.
That’s half-true. Glass won’t fully work, but it will have transparency. What it won’t have is the “frost” effect that is produced using pixel shaders.
What it won’t have is the “frost” effect that is produced using pixel shaders.
Yup, that is true. Should’ve mentioned it.
Well then address the questions what people ask, anyone can say “it runs more than fine”
You really should have known that people would ask these questions or they doubt you, post a good uptime or provide more than just words. My questions remain unanswered.
Damn I accidentally made the comment above hidden– the one I replied to. I’ll try to get it fixed– I hope Adam’s around…! My apologies. Here is the content of the post in the meantime:
—
However, there are enough people here who would vote me and esp. Eugenia down just because we are who we are
Dont worry, if people mod you down, it will be because of your defensive attitude you always have or your arrogance.
Not for who you are.
Go back and read some of your old posts and think about it.
My Take: Arrogance is a sign of weakness. identify and conquer the weakness and you will have conquered your anger and arrogance.
🙂
—
By lazywally comment_id: 79170
Vista’s gonna be doo doo, pretty much just like all the other versions of Winblows.
The current x64 processors from Intel and AMD will be excellent processors for Windows Vista.
So, I guess one of those low price AMD’s Sempron64 will run Vista nicely.
Now that the hardware spec guidelines from Microsoft themselves are out, I wonder how the anti-MS spinsters will twist this around. 🙂
We already saw the first example — the response to Thom’s post. I, for one, believe Thom, because I’ve been reading up and watching a lot of material about Vista development, and if anything, it should be *snappier* on the same mid-range hardware that many people run XP on now. Of course, I can see some of you pro-Linux FUDsters already screaming “BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT!”. Think about this: If Apple can do it with less resources and less people, why can’t Microsoft? The answer is that they can, and they are.
For a next-generation OS with highly-advanced visual effects, these specs are actually very reasonable. No, you can’t run it on your PII-266/128 MB RAM running Linux in the closet, but that’s not the damned target platform, so quit complaining. By the time Vista is released, 1 GB of RAM will be quite standard, and a good thing at that — more RAM is always good. I would say that 512 MB seems to be what most computers are selling with nowadays, so again, those requirements are met.
And how many of you are NOT running with at least 512 MB of RAM? Come on guys. Since any processor from 2002 and up will run Vista nicely, and the RAM is accounted for, the only possible upgrade some of us will have to do if they want to run Vista with all of its fancy effects will be a video card — and you can pick up a Radeon 9250 with 128 MB of RAM for something like $60 CAD now. Waaah, big deal. People have spent more “upgrading” their video cards just so that they could get X running on Linux.
All in all, I think Microsoft is doing a great job with Vista, and those of us who are not pro-Linux FUDsters will probably agree. They deserve some compliments for it.
Windows and OS X are both raising the bar considerably for the next releases. The fight between desktop OSes is getting much more fierce.
Think about this: If Apple can do it with less resources and less people, why can’t Microsoft? The answer is that they can, and they are.
OSX 10.0 was so slow that it could only get faster. Your statement is not exactly true. There is an article on IBM’s page which discusses why OS run slower (i.e. require more resources to run faster) than the old OS’s. Great read. OS X is still slow (from an end user perspective) – GUI etc.
For a next-generation OS with highly-advanced visual effects, these specs are actually very reasonable. No, you can’t run it on your PII-266/128 MB RAM running Linux in the closet, but that’s not the damned target platform, so quit complaining. By the time Vista is released, 1 GB of RAM will be quite standard, and a good thing at that — more RAM is always good. I would say that 512 MB seems to be what most computers are selling with nowadays, so again, those requirements are met.
The best thing about all this is that everything can be tunrned off. You can still make Vista look like the beloved Windows 2000 GUI and it will, of course, run faster. But still need to bitch about something. Actually, I think Thom posted once about how he managed to run Windows XP on a Pentium 90.
And how many of you are NOT running with at least 512 MB of RAM? Come on guys. Since any processor from 2002 and up will run Vista nicely, and the RAM is accounted for, the only possible upgrade some of us will have to do if they want to run Vista with all of its fancy effects will be a video card — and you can pick up a Radeon 9250 with 128 MB of RAM for something like $60 CAD now. Waaah, big deal. People have spent more “upgrading” their video cards just so that they could get X running on Linux.
I actually don’t know a person who has less than 512 MB RAM. And I also don’t know a person who hasn’t got a DirectX 9 compatible gfx card. FFS Radeon 9500/9700 is DX 9 compatible and it was released in mid 2002.
Windows and OS X are both raising the bar considerably for the next releases. The fight between desktop OSes is getting much more fierce.
I’m actually very interested what Apple plans to do with Leopard. I think the desktop OS race in the next 5 years will be mostly a Windows vs OS X battle.
Windows and OS X are both raising the bar considerably for the next releases. The fight between desktop OSes is getting much more fierce.
Don’t you mean one is actually innovating (Apple), and the other is just plain copying ideas (Microsoft)?
No, I don’t mean that. I may be a happy Mac user, but I’m no Mac zealot fag. Apple innovates to some extent, Microsoft innovates to some extent, IBM innovates, Sun innovates, Linux innovates somewhat … but you know what? They all copy each other a lot more.
Deal with it. It’s how the industry works.
Copying each other isn’t innovation, its what’s slowing things down in terms of bringing in something completely new to the table. This is what everyone is looking for, something new.
And the industry should change with someone leading the way. Simply saying this is how things work and to “deal with it”, isn’t right.
Its like saying, this is how we ass-rape customers for their money with our products, and expecting no one to react. People will start to react by seeking alternative solutions, no matter what they be.
Bringing something new and different is innovation.
What MS is doing so far is showing everyone that their primary competitor for 2006 is Apple. Any real innovation there? Hardly.
Their actions clearly define it, by emulating their looks and droping application support on a competiting product. The feel of Vista’s GUI is reminiscent of OSX, the canned support for IE on Mac, etc.
To “deal with it” and accept “copying ideas” is merely to act like sheep. To do something bold that no one has done is innovation.
To really stand out of the crowd, and bring something new to the user is what excites people about technology. (Not some pointless new widget, but something that has practical use to the average person).
… What has Apple innovated with OS X?
Aero is NOTHING like Aqua. Anyone who says it is even remotely similar needs to be burned at the stake, as you are too STUPID to realize your own zealotry.
Also, Avalon goes MUCH MUCH further than Quartz. It allows developers to do a whole lot more, and much more easily.
If by a “whole lot more” you mean it allows any size for widgets, then yes.
I’ve seen the presentation on this. And yes, there are some very cool things you can do with WPF: Turn a list into a scrolling set of images that look more like a wheel than a list.
These sorts of things are neat, they make great shows. They make our imagination peak! But they’re not all that useful for desktop software. They’ll be great for things like media center software though!
WPF is extremely elegant (at least as it’s presented). And Microsoft should be commended for it. But, as it stands, it’s not that far ahead of Quartz 2d Extreme.
I don’t think Apple will catch up on these things for a long time either. I don’t think they see a good use in fully scalable ui and prefer to use precached sizes.
But Apple isn’t hoping to get their machines into your living room and control your tv (TMK). Microsoft most definitely is, and probably in a big way.
Desktop OS’s are practically a commodity now, but media center system’s aren’t; and even when they are there will be good ways to keep a stranglehold on media to make it keep bringing money long after the software lost its value.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/macosx-10.4.ars/14
Too bad Apple can’t even get Q2DE working.
You know, a favorite high school teacher of mine had a term he used for viewpoints like this: Everybody does this and that to some extent, they’re not all that different, it’s somewhere in the middle (blah blah blah).
He called them wet-noodle views. And he’d then refer to the person saying them as a wet noodle.
Of course, he was joking. But I somehow doubt that people with strongly pro-Apple views are all gay (or cigarettes for that matter).
Calm down; this is how discussion boards work.
Some people don’t agree with your moderate world view. And that’s their perogative. You don’t get to call them fags for disagreeing with you.
Normally I’d just vote you down. But since this thread is pretty much destined for nowhere from the start, I decided to go ahead and be nice.
Nah, I didn’t call him a fag … I just said I wasn’t one of those raging Mac fags that hate everything non-Apple, claim Apple invented everything, and would take a facial from Steve Jobs any day of the week.
Lawl.
cachris@brittney:/home/chris$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : Celeron (Coppermine)
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 697.580
cache size : 128 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat p
se36 mmx fxsr sse
bogomips : 1397.06
chris@brittney:/home/chris$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 180332 167944 12388 0 14808 65344
-/+ buffers/cache: 87792 92540
Swap: 289160 43780 245380
Now, I don’t honestly plan to run vista on this machine (my laptop). And I don’t expect Microsoft to target it as a optimal machine. I do, however, expect it to run modern applications of the sort it’s run in the past for some time to come.
Now, Microsft hasn’t been violating this (not since Office XP), but some people have gotten the idea that since machines are faster they don’t have to use any sense while designing their programs. And they think they can just write things quick and dirty and let the hardware chug through: Some people don’t buy new hardware often.
There is a very large, real, group of people out there who don’t have much of a machine. And they’re not going to upgrade for a while. Now, while most of them won’t upgrade to Vista until they build a new machine; Microsoft would really like to find a way to get them to (that is afterall their best way to make money).
Microsoft doesn’t have to spend 3 years working to appeal to them, but it’d better not fully write them off.
And so, you can turn glass off. I imagine this won’t change until Vista’s successor.
Most people with laptops are largely stuck with the graphics they have. And alot of those people are the types who would pay for an OS upgrade. (the ones with 1 year old high end Dell’s and such)
Well, I’m sorry, but you’re out of luck. The world has left old hardware behind. Fortunately, many old OSes are still supported, and 99% of programs will still run on old OSes like 98/2000.
I’ll try to get the video up tonight CET, folks, but apt-get is giving me headaches while trying to dist-upgrade into Dapper. Bear with me now
.
That Dapper install is on the same box as where Vista is installed, so some patience, please.
In the meantime (as I know some of you just want the video to see Vista), I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t get enough of these videos:
http://channel9.msdn.com/showforum.aspx?forumid=14
Okay folks, here’s the video. There’s also a screenshot, because the specs were difficult to read in that low resolution. The quality is awfull, I’m sorry, it’s all I can do. I .zip’d the .avi movie file, because of bandwith issues. If someone would be so kind as to set up a mirror, then post the links here.
http://www.denux.org/thom/Stuff/vista/
Update: The shot transfer failed– hold on a sec….Done.
Edited 2005-12-28 22:25
I’ve mirrored it here. I’ll pull this in 2 days (to avoid google traffic):
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~chris129/mir/
Thanks for keeping the smoothing down on the screenshot. That’s the first vista screenshot that didn’t give me this reaction:
What the hell are they doing? Why does it look so awful? Oh, it’s a low quality jpeg.
Screenshots belong in lossless formats though
.
If you have an extra video card lying around I’d be interested in seeing how it runs with, say, a 9600Pro. I’m just curious about how the DX9 effects will run on a low end setup.
I’m not too surprised at the RAM and CPU requirements. They seem pretty reasonable, about what I would recommend for a linux desktop.
Thanks a lot Thom!
Vista in action… Well, the UI looks good for me (it’s not visually overbloated and is very fast) and I think hardware support don’t gonna be a big problem too. So if Microsoft can _really_ avoid security issues with Vista – back to the roots! It sounds like “Goodbye Mandriva, helo again Windows!” for me. 🙂
Thanks again for the video!
Dude, buy a tripod ;-). In all seriousness, looks good…though IE7’s performance is a bit odd.
I’ll be installing it later on tonight myself, looks very promising. IIS7 is also included in this CTP from what I’ve read, which is what I’m really interested in moreso than eye candy.
Thom,
I’m curious. Since you’ve used Vista, I’ll ask you. Has Microsoft made any additions as far as adjustment of the window manager? Can you move the buttons? Are there more than 3? Is there horizontal and vertical only maximizations? Anything along these lines, or is this pretty much status quo Windows UI?
This video is a mess. Completely unusable and sucks ass beyond recognition. Just awful, totally awful. Just look at it, it’s unusable. And it’s slow.
Oh, God, this video is so slow. Awful.
btw, thanks for the video.
thats some pretty hard core stuff.. web browsing… u really pushed it over the limit… lol
try opening 10 different apps like i do on OS X and then well see what happens..
oh and btw, this is the first clip ive seen of Vista. they sure did a good job in copying OS X.. well done microsoft once again
Especially on lesser video cards because… Little hint: They let you turn all that GOOFY CRAP OFF… Say what you want about Microsoft, but at least they have the common sense to let people who don’t want to have to relearn how to use their computer just because some graphic arts dimwit (Hey, at least I didn’t use the expletive I REALLY wanted to use here) decided to chew up your CPU, Memory and Video card for no REAL change in functionality or productivity. It’s called “Windows Classic” – EMBRACE IT.
A lesson OS X could learn with all it’s half-assed difficult to read transparent menus, textured EVERYTHING (pin stripes give me a headache) and cpu/memory consuming shadows.
You’ve made it utterly clear that you don’t understand the purpose of what Microsoft is doing here:
1.) They’re freeing your CPU and main memory from wasting space on graphical layouts.
The system Microsoft has designed renders the graphical interface with the GPU, in graphics RAM. In the current setup, it is rendered with the CPU in main RAM, then copied over to a buffer on your graphics card for final display.
They’re actually freeing up your CPU and memory here.
Once again: Your CPU and memory will be better able to focus on useful tasks.
The GPU will be taxed to do these jobs. Since it’s highly capable at it, and has a lot of extra time; they add on tasks.
2.) Not all eye candy is just candy. Things like expose are a great example of where a complex graphics system can increase usability.
3.) You’re right, translucent menus suck and are quite silly. I also get a headache from OS X’s scheme. Especially the old pin-stripe one. The current scheme isn’t too bad, but it’s a lil bit too bright for my eyes. I also get headaches from too many wallpaper changes, so maybe I’m just prone to them?
Oh I understand what they are doing, they are making more crap that has to be loaded from disk (the REAL bottleneck inside a modern computer) and shoved back to disk when you change applications. If a 386/40 running Win 3.1 can do a GUI with little or no noticeable CPU load, there is NO reason it should even be a concern on a P4 at ANY clock speed other than goofy eye-candy that doesn’t make the computer any more useful.
It’ll be so much fun as game load times are doubled by the need to get all the OS crap out of video memory (if they even ALLOW you to)… and what type of performance hit are we going to be seeing in programs like Maya or 3d Max, which already are sluggish in either DX or OpenGL modes. (Which I still don’t get – if a game can render HUNDREDS of these items in realtime, why does 3DSMAX struggle on simple rotations on just one item?)
Which is why all that graphical nonsense is the first thing I’ll be turning off on Vista boxes… Just like I turn off LUNA on XP and wish I could deskin OS X (and no, loading a plain skin OVER quartz is NOT the answer I’m looking for… I’d go back to OS9 if Opera was available and it supported my wireless card.)
WTF are you all complaining about? You will be able to turn off the effects and use the “Windows Classic” theme(IMO the best one to date, but in competition with Luna and the awful brown, green and black Vista Theme that’s not saying much). The requirements seem pretty decent to me. If your box can run XP okay it will probably run Vista also. 512 mb RAM has been the standard for quite som time(Windows XP pretty much requires 512 mb, at least in my experience).
CPU-power usually isn’t that important in desktop apps.
A X300/6200 can be had really cheap, and if you’re on AGP, just get a 9200 or something, they’re also real cheap. Hell, even Intel’s 945 works according to MS!
40$(or whatever a cheap VGA-card costs in the US) is not a high price to pay to be able to use a spanking new OS with all eye-candy effects turned on. To get a nice experience out of OSX most people seem to want at least 32 mb VRAM.
I personally use Linux(altough I’m almost shamful to say so after the behaviour of some Linux-supporters in the comments to this article) but to me Vistas technical qualities seem top-notch(after all, MS has some great software engineers on their payroll). The thing I do not like is the Visual presentation, and the general direction of DRM and Trusted Computing that is being pushed with Vista.
People should be discussing those issues instead of this nonsense
“That said, Windows, and especially Vista from what I have seen, is leagues ahead of current distros in terms of usability, available software and look and feel.”
Err, no.
No to all three.
Usability and look and feel for current Linux distros are all but identical to current Windows – but Linux is far more customisable.
As for available software – I can name a place where one can download 17,000+ packages for Debian Linux systems (yes, that was not a typo – over 17 THOUSAND packages available for Linux). All free (as in freedom), and all no cost as well. Guaranteed not to contain spyware. All available from one easy-to-use interface and dead easy to install.
Can you name such a resource of available applications for Windows?
YOU ARE DAMN RGHT, GUY
Yes. IT’s called the internet. There is much much more than 17,000 applications for Windows out there. Even free.
Whether or not it’s easier to install apps on linux or not is a whole nother argument.
But you can’t seriously think there is more software available for linux than Windows.
Vista will speed up considerably once it’s out of beta and the final release doesn’t have all the debugging code turned on.
Nice work Thom, Vista seems to work good on that hardware. Try to cover you back better more next time.
I wonder how many folks on here are planning on rushing out for Vista the moment it arrives? Myself, I am going to wait at least six months by which time Vista’s hardware needs will have been poked and tested every which way. There are bound to be a few surprises on release, some pleasant and some not so nice.
With Vista I can now say Hasta la Vista baby to Windows XP
“With Vista I can now say Hasta la Vista baby to Windows XP”
NOT exactly like that !!!
You can say that with the last Linux distros and GUIS you can say “Hasta la Vista” baby to Windows XP and to Vista!
Mr. Holwerda is approaching the problem from a theoretical perspective. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I doubt I’ll be running Vista for Vista alone.
Also, Windows has always had a bloat factor, as installations manage to magically get fatter with time and Windows slows down as it is used more. I think this is b/c of the relationship between installers the registry, and various hidden locations of temp files.
If Vista doesn’t take care of this dirty user state policy, even a top end machine will come to a crawl with time.
. . . in the way that he did. His description of his experience was quoted and then immediatetly followed by, “I highly doubt it.”
That’s calling someone a liar, whether or not it’s explicitly stated. His integrity was questioned, quite definitively, quite openly. Being told to “settle down” afterward is B.S., as is Mr. Rogers’ claim that he apologized. Do a search – you won’t find it. All that’s there is some pseudo-backpedalling. And silence after the video was posted.
Glad to see Thom didn’t back down.
Nice video, too, by the way!
i said thanks for the video, you eyeless &@!k
Are you saying im lying in front of 120,000 readers?
Sorry, just “cross-innovating” with words…sounds familiar with MS doesnt it?
I can find neither an apology nor a “thanks for the video” from you.
1GB of ram for more advanced users?
Advanced users being people who dont want their computer to freeze and stutter or dont like to listen to their hard disk sounding like an eectric cheese grater as their page file thrashes itself to death.
Advanced users who run a lot of programs at once, like myself.
Photoshop CS2, multiple instances of vs2005, irc, opera, foobar (music), torrent client, Office, etcetc
It’s mostly apps like photoshop and visual studio who use TONS of memory when you really get down and dirty with them. They can run with 512mb just fine, but 1gb gives it that extra boost.
Also, it’s mostly Gamers they’re talking about. Modern games actually need that much memory to run more smoothly, and not just because of bad coding.
If you don’t use your computer for heavy gaming or for production work (developer, designer), then 1gb is more than you need.
Once Vista gets released we will know exactly on which hardware it will run as intended, so get back to work!
You say I’m lying? I am willing to make a video for you, but first,
answer my question. Are you saying I’m lying in front of 120000
readers?
>
>
Damn right. People like you have openly *LIED* in magazines like the Ziff-Davis rags in order to con people into buying the latest Microsoft garbage in the past and will do so in the future.
Don’t act so shocked that people have caught onto what you are doing.
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