Topic: Windows Vista's OEM hardware requirements

[Nemesis]

Link to full article

Come 2007 when you pick the Windows Vista box off shelves, the printed requirements on that box will be simple: 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, and a DirectX 9.0-Capable graphics card. Users who want the "premium experience" (read: Aero interface) will need 1GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and plenty of RAM for that DirectX 9.0-Capable graphics card. Those requirements will likely never change, at least not for the first release of Vista.

Effective now:

    * HD Audio support that passes a "high-fidelity audio experience" test (exception: Business class systems have until June 1, 2007).
    * Support for Direct3d 9 and DXGI feature sets (Direct3d 10 mandated by June 1, 2008).
    * At least one digital output (e.g., DVI-D) for all add-in video adapters (not integrated video: that doesn't change until June 1, 2008).
    * 100Mb Ethernet and/or and WiFi (802.11g must be supported; 802.11a can be supported only in addition to 802.11g).
    * USB 2.0 ports throughout
    * System resumes from ACPI S3 state ("suspend-to-ram") in <2 seconds (does not include user mode initialization, i.e., total "wake" time will be longer than 2 seconds)

[SkyFlyer]

Thats not too bad.

Anyone who uses an 800mhz computer probably will be using programs that run under XP or 98 anyway.

[Overmind]

There will probably be a win2k/2k3-like version too .

[Centurus]

I installed Vista beta yesterday, and so far, it seems pretty good.  Everytime I install something, the built in security in the OS alerts me, and lets me know what's going on, and asks for my approval.  It can get annoying, but it's kinda sweet.  Only drawback so far it seems is that my DSL software is incompatible with Vista, but that's not a problem really.  I just set up a connection for my ISP manually, and well, here I am.  Still tinkering around with things, and I'm gonna try and see how OP, SFC3, and BC work in a Vista environment. 

[Commander Maxillius]

At least they're using the time wisely.  Last I knew they were saying you'd need a 2GHz processor, 1GB RAM, and a 256MB video card.

Of course, running Vista with an 800MHz processor will probably be like running XP with a 300MHz processor.  Totally miserable.

[Mr_Tricorder]

I just hope they don't stop supporting XP and force people to upgrade to Vista.  I heard a while ago that DirectX 10 is going to be Vista only, and that has me worried.  I need to do some serious upgrading on my hardware before I want to put Vista on my computer.

[Skawpya]

susspect Xp has a year or two left before they drop upgrade support on it, and another few years later, cease even tech supporting it, while the activation key would likely become a subscription deal, even after tech support is dropped.

[Commander Maxillius]

susspect Xp has a year or two left before they drop upgrade support on it, and another few years later, cease even tech supporting it, while the activation key would likely become a subscription deal, even after tech support is dropped.

More reasons why I switched to Mac.

[Mr_Tricorder]

There are only two reasons why I use Windows:  3ds max and games.
Otherwise I would have completely switched to Linux a while ago and never have looked back.

[Just plain old Punisher]

susspect Xp has a year or two left before they drop upgrade support on it, and another few years later, cease even tech supporting it, while the activation key would likely become a subscription deal, even after tech support is dropped.

More reasons why I switched to Mac.

Bah! Get a job you hippie!

[Lepton]

Those hardware requirements would not allow one the use the Aerio portion of Vista.  The stringent requirements do allow for Aerio, Aerio being all that transparent windows crap that Mac has had for years and is now free in Ubuntu linux 6.0  I don't think there will be alot new here in terms of features in an OS.  Mac and linux have already done most, if not all of what Vista proposes.

[Just plain old Punisher]

And yet, most software and games is written for the Windows OS =P

[Commander Maxillius]

And yet, most software and games is written for the Windows OS =P

not for long.  Someone should buy airtime on national TV and show what Microsoft's EULA REALLY does. 

You'd think Microsoft would offer renter's insurance by now...

[Just plain old Punisher]

And yet, most software and games is written for the Windows OS =P

not for long.  Someone should buy airtime on national TV and show what Microsoft's EULA REALLY does. 

You'd think Microsoft would offer renter's insurance by now...

Not for long?

Have you ever seen the game selection for the MAC?

[Skawpya]

Vista, unlike the Mac, will have a sizeable market share of the home computer OS market in the next few years. A game producing company would consider that fact in what platforms they code for. That same reason is why, when windows 98 still dominated the market, games started to get made for windows me/2000/xp, with the first two quickly declining once xp settled in as the default. Until Virtualisation reaches the point of making OS irrelevant that trend will continue, and even after it reaches that point, it only do so for OS's that sufficiently support virtualisation.

I would hope Linux and Mac do offer sufficient user friendliness and virtualization in time to compete with vista for the home pc os market, but I'm not holding my breath.

[prometheus]

I won't be using it...  I don't suspect my computer will be capable of running it for one thing...  The only reason I haven't went over to 100% linux is that I require a lot of specialist audio software and drivers, and also the EL3D Lunar Module Sim has not been coded for Linux...

[Mr_Tricorder]

There is absolutely no reason why Mac and Linux can't run any game out there.  The game companies simply don't make games for Mac or Linux because there isn't much demand for it.  Mac and Linux are technologically superior to Windows XP (and I'll bet they're better than Vista too) in just about every way.

As soon as I can get 3ds max to work under WINE (or a WINE derivative or something similar), then I'll switch to 100% Linux.  I'll play around with Cedega for games.  Hopefully I'll be able to get my favorite ones to work.

[Nemesis]

The game companies simply don't make games for Mac or Linux because there isn't much demand for it.

Its a chicken and the egg problem which Microsoft also had with Windows.  The buy in price for Windows was quite high originally.  Not only was there the learning curve but you had to buy the Windows environment, the mouse AND the application you wanted to run.

People who don't remember those days won't think the mouse a serious issue.  At the time they were expensive and included an add in card that needed to be installed and not that many people were comfortable about installing cards back then so they often paid to have them installed.

It wasn't until I was able to get Windows, the mouse and Application all on sale at the same time that I made the jump to Windows, the first among my circle of friends, before my employers did.  Back then no one made games for Windows and applications were rare.  Once there was a critical mass of people who had Windows then Microsoft could get computer manufacturers to bundle Windows and mice with the computer solving the egg problem.  The IBM PS/2 port also made the mouse cheaper and easier to add in.

Right now Linux has two bad perceptions that keep games off them.  The belief that gamers don't want Linux games and that Linux users won't buy software.  The fact that Redhat and several other sellers of Linux distributions make a profit should convince companies that people will buy Linux programs but they still don't believe.  No games keeps gamers off Linux.  No gamers and the cheap perception keep gaming companies off Linux. 

The chicken and the egg.   If games are made for Linux gamers will come.  If gamers come to Linux the games will come. 

The problem is how to get the chicken or the egg on Linux?  I can see two ways it could happen.

1/ Corporate take up of Linux followed by people using Linux at home because its what they use at work.

2/ Microsoft driving people to Linux as they have me by their increasingly totalitarian behaviour.

It could easily be a mixture of both.

[Skawpya]

Or, once the Chinese programming companies start making games for themselves, given they are doing a government mandated switch over to Linux, one such starts making sales in Korea and the US, the same way Starcraft took off big in Korea inspite of being a by US for US game.

[Mr_Tricorder]

Here's an idea.  Maybe some company can make a distro specifically designed for gaming, containing several games that are already available for Linux, and sell it for relatively cheap in stores that carry software and computer games.  There are several commercial games that have a Linux version and a plethora of open source games that can be included.  The company that would make the distro would have to cut a deal with the companies for use of commercial games, but hopefully that won't be too difficult.  It could be a live CD distro so you could say that it won't take up any hard drive space and it is guaranteed not to screw up your software, and also include the option to install the distro on your hard drive (many live CD disros have this option now) and the incentive to do so is so you can save your progress on your games.  It would have to be sold in stores and not just on the internet so people can actuall see it and will be more likely to try it out (I don't know about you, but I'm much more likely to buy something that I may not have been specifically looking for in a store than online).  This way  we can introduce a very powerful demographic group in the computer industry (gamers) to Linux and get them comfortable using it while providing them a good deal on games and minimal setup hassle (just pop in the CD and restart the computer and you're ready to go!).