Vista

[Soulrev]

So I just installed Windows Vista Ultimate edition on one of my hard drives and fired it up. It seems to be a pretty cool OS. I've only messed around with it for about an hour though. It seems to like to eat up memory. I'm only running 1gb of memory on my system right now and it's using 40% of my memory just for the OS. I'm going to go through it later and tweak it and see how low I can get the resource usage. There seems to be a ton of useless services running in the background by default, and a lot of services that are new to me, so it's going to be fun doing the testing to figure out which ones I can get away with disabling. There's a very, very small tweak guide out right now at www.tweakvista.com that tells you like 15 services that can be disabled, but of course there's many more "useless" services than that.

Useless is a relative term, of course. I mean, I know I don't need the Help and Support center running in the background, because I'm not a dumbass and I don't need Microsoft's bs help files. And the security center, which is also useless to me. Among many other things.

Overall from what I've seen so far with the OS it seems to be very pretty with nice neat little effects and such, like the way windows open and close and stuff. Supposedly Vista will be a better OS for gaming. With 40% of my memory being used for the OS, we'll see about that. I mean, with my XP, tweaked, I can get my memory usage down to about 196mb which is just under 20% and that's with a couple of background programs running like services for my fingerprint reader and shit like that.

Also being a totally new OS things are a bit different. It's basically the same principal that XP uses just different ways of doing things that I have to get used to. Other than that it seems to be pretty cool. I'll let you guys know how the tweaking goes and share some of my results. I probably won't have a chance to tweak it until later this weekend, though.

[Onyx]

Does anyone else think that the main purpose of Windows upgrades are to force us to buy more expensive computers with more memory?

It seems every time a new version comes out one needs to add massive amounts of RAM and sometimes a faster processor.

With that said, I'll probably buy it in a year or two once some of the major bugs are worked out. I do believe I sold my soul to Microsoft years ago so might as well give them my money too.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

No. People demand that thier computers do more things. Windows 3.1 had no ability to get on the internet without 3rd party apps. Windows 95 had very limited multi-media capabilitys.

[Rayne]

Does anyone else think that the main purpose of Windows upgrades are to force us to buy more expensive computers with more memory?

It seems every time a new version comes out one needs to add massive amounts of RAM and sometimes a faster processor.

Not nessecarily.

I have (currently) 3 computers. I have my 1999 Hewlett Packard desktop that is being used by my ex. It's got 128 mb of RAM (and there's no space to add more) and a 8 GB hard drive. It's got an old Intel processor. It won't store much compared to computers today.

Now, I have a Toshiba laptop with 512 mb of RAM and 100 GB hard drive. It has an Intel Centrino processor. I don't remember the rest of the specs. It does a lot more. Runs better programs, and I have a HUGE amount of data stored on it. It's a gaming model of the particular laptop.

This thing (my Mac laptop) has an Intel Core Duo processor .... 512 mb of RAM and a 60 GB hard drive. It'll do about the same as the Toshiba. A little faster because of the processor difference.

It's all about what you want to do.

Sure, I can run Microsoft Picture It 1999 and edit photos on my old HP desktop just like I do on the Toshiba with JASC. But I can do a whole lot more with the newer software ... and I can do it more efficiently (faster and store more).

Another example. I have a 4x CD burner in my desktop.

I have a 24x+ in my Toshiba. It takes probably 3 hours to burn a cd in the desktop, it takes about 15 minutes in the Toshiba.

.... it all comes down to speed and efficientcy.

edit: spelling error

[Soulrev]

Honestly I encourage people to study up on computers and build/upgrade their computers themselves. It's so much cheaper if you can do it yourself rather than relying on sub-standard pre-built computers from Dell or Gateway. I say sub-standard because these companies, while they might be popular sources of PCs, they don't use the best technology out there, and they charge a lot for their computers.

Sure, you can get what seems like a good deal from Dell on computers for around 800 bucks and think you're getting an awesome computer, but I bet my PC I built over a year ago will outperform 95% of Dell's computers they're selling now. And the ones they have that will compete with mine, cost more than I spent on mine.

I really want to start my own custom gaming PC company. Something to compete with Alienware except without the ridiculous pricetags. Maybe after the military...

But anyways, Vista.. I'm still a bit suspicious if this OS will actually be better for gaming performance, but I'm working on seeing if that statement is true.

[Gaf The Horse With Tears]

DX 10 kicks ass...

and um $200 is the upgade price dude...

[Soulrev]

Lets just say I'm not at liberty to say where I obtained this. Not in public anyways.

[xopher]

I'll be "upgrading" to Vista for one reason and one reason only.

Halo.

Yes, I am an idiot.

I <3 my XPS.