Senethro
Overlord
Now after extensive patching and service packs and stuff Vista is almost tolerable. Still wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Civ5 and Games for Wndows??
- Thread starter CanuckSoldier
- Start date
mantis2007
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2007
- Messages
- 93
OK, let's get back on topic -- but first:
1) It is entirely reasonable for someone to "still" be on XP. May 2010: 59% of all internet users are on Windows XP. What a bunch of suckers? No. Until November 2006 (less than four years ago), XP was the only version of Windows you could buy. If you buy a new computer more than every four years, consider yourself lucky. If you buy and have expertise to install ~$100+ OS upgrades for your computers, consider yourself even luckier.
2) Windows Vista SP1 (and SP2) are entirely reasonable operating systems. If you bought a computer as late as last spring, and it came with Vista, there's no rush to upgrade. As of May 2010, 27% of internet users are on Vista. I doubt that a quarter of the world's computers are utterly insufferable.
3) Windows 7 is more than just a "glorified service pack." It's probably the best version of Windows ever made. That doesn't mean everyone has to use it, though. As of may 2010, about 12% of internet users have upgraded to 7.
May 2010 stats: http://statowl.com/operating_system_market_share.php
Now, back on topic:
Steam is much better than Games for Windows in just about every way. GfW digital rights management is much worse than Steam's model. So, I'm excited that Civ V is on Steam. I'm also excited that Civ V will have some features exclusive to DirectX 11. That Civ V can scale down to people on XP and DirectX 9 is impressive. Given the size of this project and the quality of the engineering they've got over there at Firaxis, I wouldn't worry at all about Windows compatibility issues.
1) It is entirely reasonable for someone to "still" be on XP. May 2010: 59% of all internet users are on Windows XP. What a bunch of suckers? No. Until November 2006 (less than four years ago), XP was the only version of Windows you could buy. If you buy a new computer more than every four years, consider yourself lucky. If you buy and have expertise to install ~$100+ OS upgrades for your computers, consider yourself even luckier.
2) Windows Vista SP1 (and SP2) are entirely reasonable operating systems. If you bought a computer as late as last spring, and it came with Vista, there's no rush to upgrade. As of May 2010, 27% of internet users are on Vista. I doubt that a quarter of the world's computers are utterly insufferable.
3) Windows 7 is more than just a "glorified service pack." It's probably the best version of Windows ever made. That doesn't mean everyone has to use it, though. As of may 2010, about 12% of internet users have upgraded to 7.
May 2010 stats: http://statowl.com/operating_system_market_share.php
Now, back on topic:
Steam is much better than Games for Windows in just about every way. GfW digital rights management is much worse than Steam's model. So, I'm excited that Civ V is on Steam. I'm also excited that Civ V will have some features exclusive to DirectX 11. That Civ V can scale down to people on XP and DirectX 9 is impressive. Given the size of this project and the quality of the engineering they've got over there at Firaxis, I wouldn't worry at all about Windows compatibility issues.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well not to be to big of a sceptic, but they had a good team for Civ4 too, but never did patch the MP mod system to fix the conflicts caused by Vista/7 UAC.
So it would be nice to have official confirmation that they have engineered a solution to have 100% cross platform compatability.
And btw GfW has nothing to do with the digital distribution system, that is GfWL, people are still confusing the two here. No PC games wants to ship today without the GfW logo on it, that is just a fact of marketing, and it is independant of any distribution sytem be that Steam or GfWL, or D2D or any other method.
CS
This in my opinion and experience is an exageration.
I have had no issues at all with Vista and recomend it over XP, old hardware depending.
The latest PC has Win7 and would certainly recomend that over both Vista and XP (again old hardware depending if you have something specialised or expensive to replace that does not have post XP drivers).
The Vista bashing in my experience has been a bandwagon and gained traction from the mac world and their advertising campaign.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Yes 7 is what Vista should have been, but most of the bad rap for Vista was not the OS, it was all the poor drivers that video card and other OEM's shipped, IIRC over 70% of crashes in Vista in the first 6 months were all driver related. And of course 7 improved on the things like UAC that was annoying, but mostly it just benifited from the time to optimize the core of the OS and by then the driver problems were a non-issue.
CS
In my opinion, a number of factors were responsible for giving Vista such a bad launch. Probably the biggest of them was that computer manufacturers were installing Vista on hardware that had no business running it, and as a result most Vista systems sold for the first year or two had half the power it needed for basic computer use. The second problem was an extension of the first, which was the decision to ship 32 bit Vista as the "Standard", when even bargain bin computers were going to be hitting the 32 bit memory address space cap within the OS's (short) lifetime. Microsoft must have realized on some level that they were going to be forced to deal with the switch to 64 bit sooner rather than later, and pressured hardware manufacturers to make both 32 and 64 bit drivers for Vista. The problem was that Hardware manufacturers responded by simply not supporting Vista at launch, even though they had ample opportunity to do so. Combined with the regular launch problems all products face, Vista simply couldn't shake its bad reputation even after problems were fixed.
Its kind of sad because in the end Vista turned out to be a good OS. I have Vista 64 running on my gaming computer and probably the most noticeable upgrade over XP is stability. The only times I have to restart the computer is for windows/driver updates, with heavy daily use my current uptime is at 50 days (which isn't abnormal). This is a pretty big contrast to my XP machines which usually required a daily reboot.
Its kind of sad because in the end Vista turned out to be a good OS. I have Vista 64 running on my gaming computer and probably the most noticeable upgrade over XP is stability. The only times I have to restart the computer is for windows/driver updates, with heavy daily use my current uptime is at 50 days (which isn't abnormal). This is a pretty big contrast to my XP machines which usually required a daily reboot.
M
Me,myself,and,I
Guest
Vista is never an "upgrade"
Hence the "Upgraded FROM windows Vista TO windows XP" stuff.
Hence the "Upgraded FROM windows Vista TO windows XP" stuff.
CanuckSoldier
Emperor
Well I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, except for Vista SP2's larger footprint, I would never go back to XP SP3 for the very simple reason that I like knowing that when I plug a new device in that Windows Vista has a driver for it, and it becomes a 30sec install and use. XP's driver database is 3 years old which means a trip to the OEM web site, if your lucky, to get a driver.
So unless you have an old machine that can't handle Vista, there is no reason to stay with XP, and if you can't handle Vista likely Win98 SE all patched, is likely an even better 32 bit OS for weak computers than XP 32 bit is.
CS
don't forget the craplets that wouldn't even work on Windows Vista
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