[archermitch]

I was just wondering which version of windows I should get. (xp, vista, etc) I already have a copy of 2000, but I was wondering if all the game I want would work. I'm a pretty frequent gamer and I will buy games in the future if they don't come out for the Mac already. I need to know which Windows will suffice my needs and get me what I want in the long run. I'm already going to have 2000 running in the beginning.

[Janichsan]

For Bootcamp, you'll need at least Windows XP, so your copy of Win2000 won't do you any good. In your place, I wouldn't buy Win Vista yet. Not, that it's not supported (it is) or that it's extremely bad (for Windows it's surprisingly good), it's just that Vista still has some issues and that some programs (including games) have some problems with Vista.

Win XP is the Windows of choice for the time being - preferably XP Pro. You'll be able to get XP way cheaper than Vista anyway.

[archermitch]

i didn't actually want vista. Most games haven't come out for Vista have they? I don't buy Halo games either so there goes the incentive. It sucks that 2000 won't work. Why not? I guess I'm getting xp. Keep in mind I will be buying all Half-Life, Max Payne 2, NOLF 2, and F.E.A.R. so if there's any issues there I should know about.

[Janichsan]

archermitch, on April 11th 2007, 10:25 PM, said:

Why not?

Because Apple limited BootCamp to Win XP SP 2 and above. This is probably an artificial limitation, but it's also possible that Win 2000 wouldn't support the hardware properly.

[archermitch]

oh. Will all Half-Life games run on xp?

I guess I would have used xp anyways... What is the price range on xp?

[PeopleLikeFrank]

archermitch, on April 11th 2007, 06:32 PM, said:

oh. Will all Half-Life games run on xp?

Yep.

Quote

I guess I would have used xp anyways... What is the price range on xp?

I've seen it around for ~$60-100. Depends on what version, but you should find any flavour around somewhere for under $100.

[archermitch]

so then I guess its final! I'm getting XP! Are games being ported to Vista? Will Vista have less issues by the end of this summer?

[Dark_Archon]

archermitch, on April 11th 2007, 07:14 PM, said:

so then I guess its final! I'm getting XP! Are games being ported to Vista? Will Vista have less issues by the end of this summer?

Games don't need to be ported to Vista, but some have compatibility issues which may or may not be fixed in patches depending on the age of the game. According to Microsoft, Service Pack 1 is coming out this summer, so it may fix some issues, or it might just create new ones. The driver issues are up to other companies to fix.

The fact of the matter is people don't buy Windows separately, they use what their computers come with. XP didn't become dominant until people replaced their Win98, and Win2k boxes, and Vista won't become dominant until people replace their WinXP boxes. The main sale of Windows is through bulk licensing to manufacturers like Dell and HP, and to businesses. The sale numbers aren't particularly spectacular in the consumer market, especially considering it has 80%-90% market share depending on how you define the market, and what you include.

[Janichsan]

Dark_Archon, on April 12th 2007, 02:27 AM, said:

According to Microsoft, Service Pack 1 is coming out this summer, so it may fix some issues, or it might just create new ones.

Wow. The quickest Microsoft service pack ever? SP1 for XP took about a year...

[Huntn]

From May 07 PC World, Techlog by Harry McCracken:

Did you know that MS's end user license agreement for most Vista versions forbid you to run Vista inside a virtual machine? Vista Ultimate ($400) is exempt.

At the same time MS offers its own competitor to Parallels and VMware called Virtual PC and distributes it on a section of its site that's devoid of scary warnings about security threats.

Isn't that precious? Besides MS being hypocritical, what exactly does that mean from a practical standpoint? No tech support from MS for your Vista install?? Well, there is probably no tech support for XP either which I think is normally provided by the hardware maker and in this case don't look to Apple.

[Dark_Archon]

Huntn, on April 23rd 2007, 08:43 PM, said:

From May 07 PC World, Techlog by Harry McCracken:

Did you know that MS's end user license agreement for most Vista versions forbid you to run Vista inside a virtual machine? Vista Ultimate ($400) is exempt.

At the same time MS offers its own competitor to Parallels and VMware called Virtual PC and distributes it on a section of its site that's devoid of scary warnings about security threats.

Isn't that precious? Besides MS being hypocritical, what exactly does that mean from a practical standpoint? No tech support from MS for your Vista install?? Well, there is probably no tech support for XP either which I think is normally provided by the hardware maker and in this case don't look to Apple.

Vista Business is also exempt. I'm not sure how the legal stuff works in their licensing, but you might not be allowed to install some versions of Vista on Virtual PC.

Besides, Vista is selling so poorly at this point, I'm sure they would be happy if people were buying Vista Home even if it was to install on virtual machines. Dell is even starting to sell XP on consumer machines again due to the large demand. Before, they were just selling XP to corporate customers that needed all their software to be the same version.

There is no reason to upgrade to Vista. All the actual changes (other than cosmetics) were removed, such as support for a somewhat current filesystem. (NTFS doesn't support Journaling).

DirectX 10 might have been a reason for gamers to switch, but Vista performance is so much worse than XP performance for games, that gamers don't want to switch until they absolutely have to.

The only real changes are "security" based.

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[archermitch]

it's amazing how many viruses pcs get! One of the reasons I have a Mac. I don't understand why the security wasn't fixed years ago. I mean how did Macs do it? Besides being a smaller part of the market and harder to write viruses for. I'll try to find some numbers on how poorly Vista is selling.

[Huntn]

Dark_Archon, on April 23rd 2007, 09:25 PM, said:

DirectX 10 might have been a reason for gamers to switch, but Vista performance is so much worse than XP performance for games, that gamers don't want to switch until they absolutely have to.

I'm not sure who to believe as I've read about the crappy state of drivers in Vista. Then I read this PC World article that said if you have 2GB of RAM, that the performance hit with Vista is negated.

archermitch, on April 23rd 2007, 10:53 PM, said:

it's amazing how many viruses pcs get! One of the reasons I have a Mac. I don't understand why the security wasn't fixed years ago. I mean how did Macs do it? Besides being a smaller part of the market and harder to write viruses for. I'll try to find some numbers on how poorly Vista is selling.

I have no experience with Vista, but with XP and me using my PC for gaming only, I've got a good Anti-virus program but I've seen no real problem with viruses in XP. I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm just not picking them up. Now if I was using it for all the other things I do online with my Mac, then it might be an issue.

[bobbob]

Dark_Archon, on April 23rd 2007, 07:25 PM, said:

All the actual changes (other than cosmetics) were removed, such as support for a somewhat current filesystem. (NTFS doesn't support Journaling).

DirectX 10 might have been a reason for gamers to switch, but Vista performance is so much worse than XP performance for games, that gamers don't want to switch until they absolutely have to.

The only real changes are "security" based.

Uhh, what?

NTFS is a journaling filesystem. Their proposed WinFS still runs on top of NTFS, and not being released means almost squat, since you wouldn't notice anyways.

DirectX 10 does constitute an improvement (even a performance one, for games that use it effectively), and games will start using it as Vista and DX10 careds are picked up. It's inevitable.

The security changes don't need scare quotes. There are some very real, very important changes. You know the 0-day hole found in the Quicktime plugin for Safari at that conference last week? Under OSX, that gives someone access to your files. Under Vista, they get access to an empty sandbox that IE runs in.

[archermitch]

Huntn, on April 24th 2007, 07:11 PM, said:

I'm not sure who to believe as I've read about the crappy state of drivers in Vista. Then I read this PC World article that said if you have 2GB of RAM, that the performance hit with Vista is negated.

Well, if the effects of vista are negated is anything gained? Of course, you do have the games variety, but I think that performance-wise Vista doesn't improve. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Huntn]

archermitch, on April 24th 2007, 10:08 PM, said:

Well, if the effects of vista are negated is anything gained? Of course, you do have the games variety, but I think that performance-wise Vista doesn't improve. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know other than the article implied that with 2GB RAM, Vista's performance was just as fast as XP. I'm assume it's an overhead issue in that Vista has more of it.

[Dark_Archon]

I'd actually say get Vista. Some games require Vista, you have a DX10 card, and if you get XP now, you may decide a few months down the road that you want Vista instead which means you'll have to buy another copy of Windows.

[teflon]

aaron_c, on September 19th 2007, 04:17 PM, said:

p.s. Opened a new account.. used to be dubbaplate here.

you shoudlve PMd battle cat, that way he couldve just changed your name for you, and youd have the post count of dubbaplate and all your previous posts wouldve been re-branded.
im sure hed be able to do the same now if you got in touch with him.

as for which windows to buy, if you only want to get one, get vista, because in about a years time itll probably turn into something alrightish for performance in games thanks to DX10.1