Do You Plan On Buying/Having Vista At Launch?

[SugarCoat]

Kinda curious how many members Microsoft has "woo'd" over with its promises of great new things to come in the world of PC gaming.

If you have other reasons to get it thats fine too, but i think for most it will be the improvements to gaming.

Personally i'm on board for a purchase shortly after launch. And before anyone asks, no, i dont care about my data. I'll be keeping everything critical very safe.

 

[N00b]

I've already installed Vista Ultimate on my new Acer Travelmate 8215 thanks to my MSDN subscription. So far it's a mixed blessing. UI is nice, it's better organized than XP. System feels a bit more responsive overall. Memory management seems to be better, which can be seen when running two VMWares concurrently. UAC is getting increasingly annoying. Installation of programs like Visual Studio and Sql Server is a bit inconvenient. ATI drivers are not quite ready for primetime. Sometimes the screen is turned of at the login screen and the drivers need to recover. Sometimes UI is reseting randomly (screen goes black and only mouse pointer visible). This can happen up to 2 times per second for several minutes. Don't know if this is really a driver or Vista issue, but it happened first with the new Cats. Sometimes the system will not go into sleep mode or wake up from sleep mode. It ain't easy beeing an early adopter.

 

[Graham]

I've had about 5 different betas installed since early in the year.
Looking to format my laptop soon. However I honestly can't be bothered right now

Vista does have a lot of benefits, but most probably won't be obvious until either you have become used to the new way of working, or programs come out the use it's features. It's going to be hard getting out of the 'desktop file system' mentality (By that I mean just saving everything to the desktop, then copying to the 'stuff' directory then 'more stuff' and 'other stuff' and 'stuff backup' later... )

I wants me a DX10 tablet capable laptop with a hybrid hard drive. Yeah.

I'll get my copies via work btw.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

No. Too expensive, I expect too many bugs will be waiting to be ironed out, too many drivers/applications not ready, unclear DRM status, etc. I need new hardware anyway because supposedly Nvidia won't be making Vista SMBus drivers for my ageing Nforce 2 motherboard.

With most of the really interesting stuff cut from Vista, there's nothing really compelling with the possible exception of DX10, and only when there is some must-have title that needs it. I just have no need to rush into it, and will most likely wait at least until the first service pack hoovers up the major problems and the hardware manufacturers have got their drivers sorted.

 

[Angelcurio]

No. I have been caught twice in OS transitions and its really painfull. Coincidentially, i bought a pc mere months after the release of windows ME, then got one after the release of XP and God, i wont ever go through all that pain again. Drivers not working, os full of bugs, technical support being horrendus. No thanks. XP is more than enough for the time being.

 

[Rodéric]

Considering the purchase of R600 + Core 2 Duo next year, will likely buy Vista x64 OEM with it...

 

[Skrying]

Yes, but only because I will be getting a free copy on my laptop. It will not touch my critical stuff on my main rig till I've had experience with it on the laptop.

 

[Moloch]

Already have it, it's nice but not ready to use as a primary OS because of drivers.
Since the audio stack is completely different my audigy 4 is basically useless (current drivers= no eax).
I'm a bit baffled by the decision to not support any hardware audio excelleration
I'll be "happy" with it game wise when it's running atleast as fast as XP and of course theres some proper drivers by creative for it.. i.e EAX support
One thing that's cool about vista though is the room correction deal if you have a MIC, i'm pretty interestedfin that.

 

[demonic]

No, I will only upgrade when XP really starts to show signs of aging. Which probably wont be for awhile now. Or that I am forced to upgrade.

I dont play many games nowadays. XP is fine with my current laptop which I use all the time now. I'll only get it, if I ever went back to gaming and bought new hardware which got the best out of Vista.

 

[willardjuice]

Well since I am going to get it free off of the laptop my father just purchased for himself, I guess so.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

I've pre-ordered it 3 times.

 

[thehulk]

short answer, NO.

 

[Gnerma]

Yes I'll have Vista & Office 2007 running not long after release. Only because I'll be getting them both for free thanks to the powertogether promotion. I suspect I'll be running XP alongside Vista for as long as a year for games that don't work too well on the new OS and to get around other problems I might find. I might not even be using Vista as my primary for some time.

I haven't decided whether to start off with 32-bit or take the (no doubt) cold plunge into the 64-bit version. MS is cool with you switching back and forth at will right? I haven't gotten a clear answer on that yet. The biggest potential problems for me are audio drivers and of course application compatibility.

 

[SugarCoat]

yes you can switch at will, but dont be surprised if you cant simply upgrade a version. I'd be kind of surprised if they let you go from 32->64 without a fresh install, but both versions should be supplied on the same disc. 64-bit promises some added security features as well.

As far as drivers go if its a recent motherboard or a creative card then you're safe. There should be zero problems running applications unless its a 16-bit program which i personally havent encountered any in a longggg time . 32-bit programs, such as something like Photoshop or CAD, install and run without problems. The only problem i've ever had as far as 64-bit OS compatability was with a game, Silent Hunter 3, for some reason Starforce did not want to work at all before it loaded the game thus keeping me out until i circumvented it.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

The only problem i've ever had as far as 64-bit OS compatability was with a game, Silent Hunter 3, for some reason Starforce did not want to work at all before it loaded the game thus keeping me out until i circumvented it.

Starforce runs via a low level system driver, and for quite a while, there was no 64 bit version, only a 32 bit version (and thus incompatible with Vista 64). I'm pretty sure they've updated Starforce now for 64 bit compatibility, but that may not help you with older games.

Starforce is the spawn of satan, and seems to be going out of fashion with the publishers, so it may be less of an issue on newer titles.

 

[Gnerma]

yes you can switch at will, but dont be surprised if you cant simply upgrade a version. I'd be kind of surprised if they let you go from 32->64 without a fresh install, but both versions should be supplied on the same disc. 64-bit promises some added security features as well.

As far as drivers go if its a recent motherboard or a creative card then you're safe. There should be zero problems running applications unless its a 16-bit program which i personally havent encountered any in a longggg time . 32-bit programs, such as something like Photoshop or CAD, install and run without problems. The only problem i've ever had as far as 64-bit OS compatability was with a game, Silent Hunter 3, for some reason Starforce did not want to work at all before it loaded the game thus keeping me out until i circumvented it.

Only sheep, snarfs and pendlebugs ever even consider doing a OS upgrade anyhow *insulted* Certainly no Beyond3D users that I'd even consider respecting.

Anyway, I do have a creative card and the Vista drivers are only half functional at this point. To me, that is a potential problem. Other problems I anticipate include apps that casually use unsigned software drivers like temperature monitors. I've used several versions of Vista before including 64 although never seriously.

 

[Frank]

Read this:

http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html

 

[SugarCoat]

Starforce runs via a low level system driver, and for quite a while, there was no 64 bit version, only a 32 bit version (and thus incompatible with Vista 64). I'm pretty sure they've updated Starforce now for 64 bit compatibility, but that may not help you with older games.

Starforce is the spawn of satan, and seems to be going out of fashion with the publishers, so it may be less of an issue on newer titles.

Did you see the list of features on the X3 re-release?

DVD format
No Starforce copy protection
The Bala Gi EXPANSION - a campaign to unlock a unique new spacecraft and get hold of the biggest construction set in the X universe so far: The headquarters station
The exclusive (and unique) M6 class battleship once owned by the Pontifex Maximus Paranidia himself - this ship is lean and mean and can host two M5 ships
Bala Gi Research Inc. have developed a new M3+ class of ships - during the game you can distribute the blueprints for this new masterpiece in ship construction to the various shipyards
Exotic space ships
Revised battle tactics
Exciting missions for all difficulty levels
The award winning X3 engine has been further enhanced creating an absolutely stunning universe.

I chuckled. Its a selling point! I'd say starforce is dead.

Anyway, I do have a creative card and the Vista drivers are only half functional at this point. To me, that is a potential problem. Other problems I anticipate include apps that casually use unsigned software drivers like temperature monitors. I've used several versions of Vista before including 64 although never seriously.

Creative is very good about drivers, i'd expect fully functional ones to be out within a month or two of the launch if not before for every vista version, right now i think they're using a hack version thats basically a XP x64 driver rigged to work on vista which is why its terrible. Better than nothing. As far as temperature monitor programs, they run through the motherboard sensors and shouldnt need to install drivers that the OS is going to complain about, i've personally had no problem using something like speedfan on winxp 64 and wouldnt expect Vista to have any problems either..

 

[Gnerma]

Well any direct hardware access requires drivers and that requires signing on Vista 64 unlike on XP64

 

[Frank]

If you read the link I posted, you might think by yourself: "Ok, fine, but that is the only way it can be done. And we do get a much improved Windows to play with!"

And you would be wrong on many counts.

For starters, it would be much better and cost effective if they had simply rewritten it from scratch. That's how it is with software. Get rid of all the stupid dependencies, and chop it up into functional units, instead of political ones. Because the latter won't work.

And second, try to create something that fits the job description. The difference between NT 3 and everything that came afer it is simplest worded as: add more non-essential utilities and looks, to kill the competition. 90% of Vista has a much better OpenSource implementation.

I could go on.