pouët.net

psonice: agreed, it had some issues pre-SP1, still, for just normal usage it runs more than fine! Only real issue i came across with are some old opengl-based games that don't wanna run, probably due to bad code there tho :P

parapete: that's called evolution ;) besides having a duocore+2gb ram+8800 should be quite spot-on for running modern day demos at a decent FPS too anyway.

maali: it's still got some issues, WAY less than when it launched mind. And it may 'run fine' on a modern pc, but you have to bear in mind that most people don't have one that new, and that where vista 'runs fine' xp 'flies' and leaves a whole lot more cpu time, ram etc. free for the rest of your apps.

Except it's not if the OS is using up all those resources. ;)

Anyway let's hope they get their act together with Windows 7.

If you're running XP...

what? To run the latest demos, you need an AAAMIIIIIGAAAAAAAA with an 060 card.

Screw consumer OSs and demotool writing, I prefer writing the whole fucking OS myself! Everyone should switch to GBA demos. : )

thats the one indeed. xp for me too. until something worth the reinstall turns up.

lets face it, by the time directx11 comes out vista will be the standard platform, and we'll all have machines with 8gb of ram that chew through it without any problems.
nobody wanted xp when it came out either - 2000 was working fine. look at us now. :)

not entirely true

smash: I think it's different this time. The change is much bigger, the issues are much bigger (especially if you're moving a whole company over to it), and the requirements are much bigger (comparatively). Companies aren't moving over to it as fast as they moved to xp (here, we moved over to xp after 1 year if I remember right. It's now 18 months into vista, and we're thinking to re-evaluate it in next year).

You can tell it's different from the way microsoft are responding too - they're promising to cut down on bloat for windows 7, that it'll be out pretty soon (next year I think), and from the sound of it it'll be 'what vista should have been'... but still without most of the features promised for vista ;)

I'm using Direct3D10 and I'm really happy with it. But it's a pitty I need 10.1 to do hardware pcf with texture arrays.

It took me 3 years to switch to WinXP (mainly because I STILL dislike it, but some nice features need it, like USB 2.0)

To me, Vista is like Window ME, bloated, slow, buggy and hyped, I tought that Microsoft could learn with their errors, but I am doubting that (Bob, then ME, then Vista...)

There are a system on Steam site where you can see how much of the steam users has something specific...

Only 15% of the users has Vista, and only 10% of the users are using DX10 (that means that there are Vista users that use DX9 only, EVEN having a DX10 capable card)

I think I used win98se up to 2006 or so. Beat that. ;)

I'm absolutely amazed that the scene, as techminded as it is, can say things like that from Vista.

Vista is slow on old hardware... yeah, and Debris quite doesn't work on a Pentium 4 either.

I can understand that you (as individuals) can find no reason to upgrade to Vista... that is more than right, understandable, and respectable... slow? of course: more features = slower on same hardware. That is to expect... and I agree that if you don't use those features, you shouldn't upgrade (same as I would see no benefit on upgrading Windows 2000 to XP if you didn't use the features).

*I* do use them. Windows Desktop Search is -so- much faster and works so much better in Vista than in XP. The UI is not just "eyecandy" (most of the eyecandy I have turned off), on the contrary: Messageboxes (with indirect rendering) are much more clear, the new start menu is just great, taskbar-thumbnails make everything a lot easier, DWM tends to hang SO MUCH LESS than GDI compositing... there's a bunch of useful (from user-side) stuff in Vista... but there's even more under the hood for developers. NTFS metadata finally works (if you say it works in XP, it means you have never really used it)... it's no WFS but it does work (and very well, may I add), DirectX 10 has some decent features, and there are tons of nice Win32 API enhancements which makes developers life easier (that is: once they begging dropping XP compatibility... for now, it only really makes double the work)

Could all of this run as an XP minor upgrade or service pack? more than probably... but I mean: what's the whole point on releasing new versions of software? Fix bugs, and add features... if those are not enough (as in number), make a minor upgrade (or service pack), if they are: release a new version.

Whoever telling about the money to upgrade feels -really- too cheap (as for personal use, a company is a different story): investing what... $200 on 5 years (since XP was released)?... and let's face it, most of you have never bought any version of Windows for personal usage.

There are a lot of good arguments against upgrading to Vista (main one being: it doesn't have anything I'll use), and I am not saying anyone should upgrade if they are not going to use anything that comes with it (same as I hate anyone telling me I should use Linux or OSX)... but saying it's slow (which it isn't, in modern hardware), it's buggy (it definitely isn't as buggy as XP), kind of "it's bloated" (which it is, but you know you can uninstall plenty of things you don't use, don't you?)... or the worst of them all: it's expensive... now that sounds really silly to me.

I was called out to install some stuff on a new pc for a technology challenged freind. Based on a 2 hours in company with vista i can say with absolute certainty that i hate every single byte of it.

I dont know about stability or anything but going from 2000 to xp was no problem at all it was the same basic experience. The "feel" i got from vista was awfull. I felt alienated by a piece of software i have used comfortably for the better part of 10 years.

I dont like software being insisting to the point where i start to question myself and what im doing. "are you sure", "absolutely sure?", "seriously, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE FUCKING DOING? yes or no" , "ok then, the operation you requested has been granted". ...

No.



It's quite often hard to buy a PC (especially a laptop) without also paying for Windows. I own many more XP licenses than I need, and I don't think that's uncommon at all.

you got that right

ah, well... if default configurations and "feeling home" are taken into account, then I guess software developers should just never try to major-upgrade anything, at all... it will always be confusing...

Ah, and if an OS is to be installed on millions of computers worldwide, remind them to use a default configuration for sceners who actually know what they are doing on a computer.

Oh, come on...

... and as a Linux user I feel the same about way Linux, but then I guess we're both in a minority at the moment.

I run Linux on a laptop (for testing purposes only)... and I can say I find no use for it (other than testing my work stuff)... but I'll never say it's slow, buggy... or expensive :-)

Ah, and it has "UAC-like" prompts too :-)

jcl, i've never used vista much so i really don't know, but



has been my biggest complaint, too. can it be turned off? is there a point to it (other than forcing hardware and software companies to buy a "certified" license from ms)?

skrebbel: Wasn't this fixed in SP1, to some degree at least? (never used vista, so I don't know for sure).

eebliss/skrebbel: yes, you can turn that off you know :D

Jcl, as an out-of-the-box experience meant to upgrade joeschmoes computer, i can easily see why he is so pissed off about it. go look it up people are not happy, dell had to offer up XP again to the frothing masses of average users who just couldnt figure out what they were looking at.

Clever manufactureres of software can go across several generations of a software and make their users feel at home everytime within minutes, and those that cant do that get flogged. Right now MS gets proper floggin for being a bunch of pillards who dont understand the most basic psychology of humans as a species.

skrebbel, yes you can turn it off, but you will have to look up how. Its not streight forward, as in something you would stumple upon in "settings"

Wow. This thread has gone off-topic.

According to the article in the first DirectX11 will have GPGPU interfaces. Which I think might be a very interesting thing to use in demos. Then again, similar functionality is already available through libraries like CUDA (which is afaik NVidia only).