Windows 7

[Grall]

first-person type games play SOOO much better on PCs with a mouse, than on a console with a joypad. There's simply no contest. Stuff like circle-strafing is a pain with dual analogs, especially when you switch from one console game to another and each have their own sensitivity on the sticks. Also, I get confused by all the different button layouts. I guess I'm getting old...

Mouse + keyboard = win for shooting, and this is completely disregarding the ~20x higher rendering power of a modern multi-GPU rig compared to the current gen's consoles...

For 3rd-person perspective games such as any of the Castlevanias, Devil May Cry or anything of that sort, joypad is a must though for me. I can't play those with a PC joystick, and using a keyboard would be extraordinarily clunky even if it was possible at all...

 

[green.pixel]

But why the hell would you play it with PC joystick, just use PC/360 joypad.

 

[Grall]

You can't use 360 wireless pads without buying an adapter (which I can't even find in stores anymore since it likely never sold well anyway), and I'm sure as hell not buying a wired pad for a ton of money just so I can play a game that clearly belongs on consoles on a PC instead...

3rd party PC pads, do those even exist anymore? Pretty much all PC games are optimized to be played with a mouse/keyboard, I can't imagine there's much profit in it.

 

[Kaotik]

You can't use 360 wireless pads without buying an adapter (which I can't even find in stores anymore since it likely never sold well anyway), and I'm sure as hell not buying a wired pad for a ton of money just so I can play a game that clearly belongs on consoles on a PC instead...

3rd party PC pads, do those even exist anymore? Pretty much all PC games are optimized to be played with a mouse/keyboard, I can't imagine there's much profit in it.

there's few, at least Logitech makes 'em I think? They're designed officially for PS3 or XB360, though, but work for PC

 

[vazel]

You can't use 360 wireless pads without buying an adapter (which I can't even find in stores anymore since it likely never sold well anyway), and I'm sure as hell not buying a wired pad for a ton of money just so I can play a game that clearly belongs on consoles on a PC instead...

3rd party PC pads, do those even exist anymore? Pretty much all PC games are optimized to be played with a mouse/keyboard, I can't imagine there's much profit in it.

If a game was made with a console(gamepad) in mind the only thing you need is a gamepad on Windows to play it the way it was meant to. Games like Dead Space can go either way with keyboard/mouse or gamepad but for games like Prince of Persia gamepads are a must.

360 pads for Windows are popular they're becoming the standard Windows gamepad to the chagrin of those of us with other brand gamepads that sometimes have broken support in games(sometimes the axis on my Rumblepad 2 is reversed and Tomb Raider Anniversay only has rumble support for 360 pads).

there's few, at least Logitech makes 'em I think? They're designed officially for PS3 or XB360, though, but work for PC

Logitech's Rumblepad 2 is probably the most popular non-360 gamepad for Windows. And it is specifically made for Windows.

 

[neliz]

You can't use 360 wireless pads without buying an adapter (which I can't even find in stores anymore since it likely never sold well anyway), and I'm sure as hell not buying a wired pad for a ton of money just so I can play a game that clearly belongs on consoles on a PC instead...

wait what what?

They don't sell the adapter separately (although, you might still find them somewhere) but you can buy the €45 "Windows" version that comes with the receiver verus the €39 "360" version in just about every store I can find over here. I never had problems finding hem anyway.

I used the pad to play Gears of War on PC. the 360 pad didn't feel comfortable in Fallout 3 (which was designed around the pad).. basically anything arcady is okay to play with the pad, like arcade flightsims (HAWX, Heroes over Europe.) Since I can share the Controller between the PC and 360, I'm certainly not wasting a lot of money just for a few games on the PC.

3rd party PC pads, do those even exist anymore? Pretty much all PC games are optimized to be played with a mouse/keyboard, I can't imagine there's much profit in it.

Enough pads by Logitech, Trust and cheaper... brands.. People still play sports games on their PC you know (Madden, FIFA etc.)

 

[Tokelil]

Did you try to google '"Windows 7" resume from sleep'? 393,000 hits, and it's only out for a few days.

Have you tried the new "powercfg -energy" command (run from elevated prompt)? If I remember correctly it will report on sleep problems as well.

That said, sleep doesn't work on my laptop either and doesn't work with Vista 64bit either, even though it is Vista certified. (When resumed from sleep, it will just randomly hang within 5-30 mins.) On my desktop resume is faster than my screen can turn on I think, so less than one second. Could get used to that on my laptop as well...

 

[green.pixel]

to the chagrin of those of us with other brand gamepads that sometimes have broken support in games

Yes, it's a shame 'cause I prefer more PS2ish controller design like Rumblepad 2 than X360's.

 

[swaaye]

As much as I prefer gaming & win7 is pushing me to upgrade my gaming rig, consoles have their place. I love gaming on a 50" plasma from the couch &, being in my forties, the idea of a full blown rig, kb & mouse in my living room just doesn't work. Plus, I'd have to fight the kids for it

I have a little beastly microATX quad core + 8800GTX running my 50" It's the only place I game now cuz that huge screen just changes everything.

 

[obonicus]

They don't sell the adapter separately (although, you might still find them somewhere) but you can buy the €45 "Windows" version that comes with the receiver verus the €39 "360" version in just about every store I can find over here. I never had problems finding hem anyway.

I'd heard reports that that receiver is extremely sensitive: unplugging it from your computer while it's on might end up burning it out.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17815336&postcount=41
http://www.fixya.com/support/t1393388-help_microsoft_xbox_360_wireless

It doesn't help that MS discontinued the standalone receiver.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Did anyone mention the difficulties in getting a Theatre 650 to work in Windows 7 yet? I'm just discovering it...

 

[swaaye]

I have one and it only really works in XP. I would never buy a ATI TV card again. I have this Theater 650 which is a pain in the ass and before that I had a Theater 550 which was even worse. The T650 was a replacement to what I thought was a defective card because I got it off ebay. I bought the MSI Theater 650 Pro brand new but it has similar issues. The card doesn't even get seen by the mobo sometimes, and in Vista while the drivers would install it doesn't work at all. And this is with different mobos even. FYI, both cards are/were PCIe.

There was also a year long period of crap drivers that spazzed out whenever there was a lot of white in the picture. The card would freak out and cause distortion and noise from the TV. Older drivers fixed this. The monthly robotic Catalyst releases just dumped out that bug month after month. Good testing over that at the ATI TV division lol.

I've stopped using it almost entirely. I occasionally get it out for vid cap usage though.

I think I remember you asking about these cards before, Digi....

 

[Richard]

I remember there was some talk of Gears of War not working with Windows 7, I've installed it on my newly Win7 64-bit system (have been using the RC without any problems so I never felt the urge to go RTM on my lappy until now). I can report that you only need to install the latest patch and it works without any problems.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Weird. Didnt work for me. The latest patch is the one that fixed that date thingy right?

 

[Richard]

Weird. Didnt work for me. The latest patch is the one that fixed that date thingy right?

Yep, this one.

Just to be safe install the latest G4WL redist.

 

[sham63]

Did anyone mention the difficulties in getting a Theatre 650 to work in Windows 7 yet? I'm just discovering it...

After the the problems I had with the ATI TV Blunder and then the 9600 AIW back in the day I am not surprised about the 650 having problems with Win 7. I am in the market for a HD card since my old PVR 150 doesn't like Windows 64 bit and 4 gb of ram. I almost pulled the trigger on the ATI 650, but I came to my senses and did some research and was glad I did not buy it. You would think a card that is still being sold would have Win 7 drivers for it.

Jim

 

[Grall]

Isn't Win7 supposed to have Vista-compatible drivers? I thought they'd be pretty much one and the same from that point of view...

Anyway, I'm sure I'm about the third-to-last person on earth to discover this, but DAYYUM, what has microsoft done with Wordpad?! It actually looks both professional and useful now! Veery nice change, probably the biggest I've seen in Win7 yet after the new taskbar.

All I have to do is figure out how to make it open a new plain text file and I'll be all set. Also, can it open word documents now, or are we all still SOL on that front without buying Office?

 

[Arwin]

All I have to do is figure out how to make it open a new plain text file and I'll be all set. Also, can it open word documents now, or are we all still SOL on that front without buying Office?

Do you mean that txt files open with WordPad by default? Otherwise I think you just save your new document as text file, and then check the 'save in this format by default' option.

I never open WordPad, so I hadn't noticed a change myself.

And yes, I also thought that Windows 7 drivers are pretty much 100% compatible with Vista. Therefore I assumed that people who have issues have upgraded from Vista 32bit, to a 64bit version of Windows 7, or are coming from XP rather than Vista.

 

[neliz]

mspaint had an overhaul as well.

 

[Grall]

Do you mean that txt files open with WordPad by default? Otherwise I think you just save your new document as text file, and then check the 'save in this format by default' option.

I know how to set .txt to open wordpad by default. What I meant was how to simply create a new text format document inside of wordpad, without having to go the route of saving it to disk first...

In the old-style Wordpad, there was a config window where you could define the default document format, I think you could pick .doc, .rtf and then plain text. I can't find this setting in the new style of wordpad, but of course I could do like you suggest, just open a new document, and then save it as text. But that's a bit cumbersome I think. Oh well. Not that it really matters.

If only it supported autosave and a backup as well! Then I'd never need another text editor...

Regarding MS Paint: about god DAMN time! They haven't overhauled Paint since windows 3.0 when it was introduced I believe, haha! What an awful program it used to be. *starts up new Paint...*

Ooh. They made it a vector art program now? Or at least partially vector anyway... Looks pretty decent, for a freebie program. Of course, it still sucks when painting with a mouse, but then again all programs suck when painting with a mouse. Wacom tablets ftw.