Hello from Windows 7 RC1 Build 7100 x64
- Thread starter Brent
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G
Garrovick
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Gaming on Linux is fine if you're an nVidia user and you don't expect everything to work right out of the box with no tweaking.
Linux is NOT a gaming OS. I believe that the next generation of the X-Box or Playstation will be the end of gaming for the Windows PC too.
Installed 64 bit RC 7100 this weekend. I like it. Performance is great and so far no crashes. I have intsalled nearly my entire software platform without a glitch and have no drivers issues. I built my own systems and most of the hardware is about a year old.
But, so you know where I am coming from, I also ran Vista from a little before day one. Vista was absoultely a huge upgrade from XP. In fact, working on an XP machine now makes me think of someone scratching a chalk board, and it feels so old and crusty.
Vista was a large improvement unless you are running something less than a Pentium dual core and 2gb of ram. However, even that is pretty dated hardware. And since you can get 2gb of ram for 25 dollars, and a pentium dual E5200 core for about 65 dollars (if you really want to), it is not hard to be Vista ready.
Seven is not so dramatic a change, but I am certain you all know that already. It does have a new feel, and the way various parts are organized be default are somewhat different. I wasn't sure if I like that at first, but now that I am used to it, it seems to make more sense.
Gaming on Linux is fine if you're an nVidia user and you don't expect everything to work right out of the box with no tweaking.
Linux is NOT a gaming OS. I believe that the next generation of the X-Box or Playstation will be the end of gaming for the Windows PC too.
You may be right, but I hope not. I love PC gaming. However, I realize it is not where the big bucks are for most developers, with a few exceptions.
Photoshop CS4 64-bit crashed on me last night while I was using it, pretty heavily, but I think it might be related to the graphics driver as it said my graphics driver stopped responding (running an 8800 Ultra with the latest drivers for Win7 from NVIDIA). Win7 handled the crash quite well though, the screen flashed and it recovered, there was no data loss, no rebooting, all my programs and windows were all still open and nothing got screwed up, Photoshop closed down and I simply opened it again and it worked just fine. Keep in mind that Photoshop CS4 now uses OGL acceleration via the GPU. I think it was the NVIDIA drivers that were at fault here.
Bummer about the crash, but it is good news to hear that it didn't crash your entire system and recovered nicely. Did it only happen once? I assume you used the same set up with Vista, right? Did you ever experience the same thing before?
Only happened once so far, yeah I have the exact same setup for Vista with no problems like that. I am thinking its just a simple video card driver issue.
At any rate, Win7 handled it nicely, my displays flashed black, scared me for a second cause I thought it was going to reboot, but it didn't, it said it recovered and everything was exactly the same, my windows didn't resize, my icons didn't go everywhere, no data loss, it was a perfect crash and recovery, I just re-opened photoshop and it was all normal and worked fine, took all of 5 seconds.
I've been using my computer pretty heavily today, had a ton of programs running at once and Win7 performed like a champ, everything was snappy, no issues today.
That doesn't stop competent users gaming on it, natively in the case of some games. It's just the fact that Windows holds a large market share and the fact that developers seem to like using Direct3D that so many games are written for Windows and don't have a chance in hell of being ported. I personally have almost every game in my collection running smoothly through Cedega (most work fine in wine as well, for people who are too cheap to pay a mere £1 every 3 months for Cedega), the only issues that I have are due to the fact that ATi's proprietary drivers are awful, but with nVidia things are fine. I can see why it isn't popular with alot of gamers, seeing as alot of them are foamy-mouthed kids or they're technically challenged/impatient and want things to work out of the box, and until more games are written for *nix, or get good ports, you might be right.Gaming on Linux is fine if you're an nVidia user and you don't expect everything to work right out of the box with no tweaking.
Linux is NOT a gaming OS. I believe that the next generation of the X-Box or Playstation will be the end of gaming for the Windows PC too.
Not to turn this thread into a silly Windows vs *nix battle though, I can't stand mindless GNU/Linux fanboys who refuse to adknowledge that there's anything negative about their OS and hate every version of Windows without even trying it, so I don't wish to appear as one of them.
How is memory usage in RC1 compared with earlier builds? It appears to be through the roof if the indicator in your screenshot is anything to go by, but what is it like completely idle with unneccessary stuff disabled? I could get it down to mid 400s to low 500s with some services disabled in the build I tried. Not that memory usage is important on a decent system, but just curious.
Hello from 10.5 Leopard on my Toshiba A100. 
4GB was FAT32's limit.
Games for Windows isn't going anywhere. There's too many gamers out there that refuse to buy consoles. It's also cheaper for the developers of MMO games to use the computers and internet connections they know are already there in the consumer market than to use proprietary networks set up by console makers. There was no guarantee that XBOX Live would be a success and serve as a business model for online console gaming technology.
A
Amaris
Guest
Windows 7 has intrigued me from day one. I knew MS considered Vista a failure when they started assuring people a new OS was just around the corner. Vista has it's good sides and bad sides, but the bad outweighs the good. People loved XP and it's going to take a lot to get them to move.
XP still looks good, is solid and stable, fast and lightweight on today's hardware, and there's no need to switch. Now, I've seen Windows 7 and it looks very nice, maybe nice enough to eventually dual boot it on my Mac once it comes out. So does this mean it's stable?
J.
Given the first Beta was described as Microsoft's best ever and far ahead of the Beta 1 for Vista it's probably a sign that Windows 7 is pretty stable so far as a workstation OS goes.
A
Amaris
Guest
That bodes exceptionally well then. I will look into it when May 5th approaches.
J.
True for any 32bit OS, and the limit is actually 3GB, it will recognize up to 3GB. If you get XP x64 it will recognize and utilize well above 3GB. This is true for Vista and Win7, if you get the 32bit version you are limited, get the 64bit and you are not, so the OS really doesn't matter as far as that goes.
A
Amaris
Guest
Unfortunately, since I use Boot Camp, I can only use a 32bit OS, but that's okay. My iMac only goes up to 2GB and on that 2GB it does a helluva lot.
J.
Maybe a failure, but even before Vista launched Mircosoft announced that they would not go seven or so years between operating systems any longer as they had with XP, that they would shoot for about three years with less dramatic changes. Seven was an exact follow through.
As to performance, XP is much slower on my machine, but that is not surprising. It is long outdated. Vista's biggest problem was two fold. First, it lost the PR battle very early on. Second, XP was around so long that people were going to despise anything that departed from it too much, which really helped lead to the first point.
Edit: As to dual boot, I have your situation, sort of reversed. I have a PC that I recently set to dual boot to OSX (ideneb). More for curiosity's sake. I have only used it a little so far, but it seems stable and snappy. I will report back later if you want about my opinion of the OS. For now, I think I like it.
That's something I'd be interested to try just never got around to trying it though.
There's also a review up on Win7's XP VM system.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/01/windows_7_xp_mode_review/
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Amaris
Guest
Hm. Well good luck with the dual boot. OS X has a great number of advantages, one of which is speed and efficiency. Of course, it has it's drawbacks too, but I have been quite happy with it.
J.
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