Could someone explain why i shouldnt get vista?

[Heretic_Cata]

I think first you have to find out someone who can explain why you should get Vista.
Good luck with that tho.

 

[Padma]

Wow - Stop making stuff up.

I've ripped and burned CDs with built-in Windows Media Player. And for the hell of it, I just installed DVD Decrypter and ripped my Batman Begins DVD. Granted WMP can't play DVDs in folders like that, but VLC works. Afterwards I used HandBrake (search the Doom9 forums) to convert the .vob files to x264, which also happily plays in VLC.

So where's your proof that CD ripping/burning, DVD conversion doesn't work on Vista?

I've looked, and can't find where I picked that up. But I will say that that is at least implied in Microsoft's own pronouncements, including its longest suicide note inhistory. (To be honest, I am actually amazed that you were able to get quality CDs/DVDs out of Vista. But maybe you weren't trying for high quality.)

Here's something I *am* aware of. I had this little interchange with someone who had the dubious pleasure of helping a friend install Vista, on a slightly older machine (P4/512M RAM/GeForce 4MX 64MB card):

We pop in a DVD and hit play. It seemed to be a little sluggish. So we pop out of full screen mode to check the process list and mfpmp.exe (the DRM CRAP) was chewing up 30% CPU and I suspect interfering with playing. So we trying using both Media Player Classic and VLC, no better maybe even worse. I told him that it could be because Windows is recognizing that the disk is a copy. So we check out some of his DV. I showed him how to pull DV off his camcorder and save it as xvids a year ago to prevent him from getting into format hell. OUCH what a load a crap! HIS VIDEO, his PRIVATE, made for his use by his self, he owns the copyrights pulls up the mfpmp.exe chewing up HIS CPU FOR HIS PERSONAL FILES! That gets me thinking well maybe its because it is an unsanctioned (by M$ point of view) codec so I ask him if he ever played with Windows Movie Creator and saved a couple of files. He says sure, and we dig in his drive to find them. We pull it up in Windows Media Player and AGAIN!!! mfpmp.exe is started and chewing up his CPU. I shake my head. I hate to see what people end up doing with Office 2007 and that headache of DRM.

From everything I can see, if you are a serious gamer, with a top-of-the-line system, you probably won't notice Vista's crap, too much. But if you want to play "premium content" video, you had better have a very expensive HDMI-cap[able monitor, AND an HDMI-capable video card. No cheap stuff. And don't forget, that the ubiquitous, industry-standard SPDIF digital audio connectors DON'T work! They are disabled by the DRM system!

To get "Rich Media" you are going to need to be really "RICH" to afford it. I just checked Dell and HP and neither are selling systems with XP anymore. They don't offer SPDIF speakers, only analog speakers, and HP only has one monitor the 19" widescreen that can display HDCP media. Dell all the 20" or higher displays can.

So in order to use HD video you have to have an inferior analog audio jack AND the most expensive monitors they offer.

OPENGL is no longer supported natively, but only as an add-onto DirectX10. (Which I find very odd, because DirectX was originally, at least, based on Open GL....) ATI and NVidea are scrambling to produce drivers that will handle that correctly. Of course, if you want to play Windows games, why bother with OpenGL? After all, only no-name stuff like Quake3 runs that.

Here is a summary I have found:

No native support for OpenGL - to be seen how the ATI or Nvidia drivers do in enabling it.
Throw away your Digital Speakers you will not get any sound out of them
Upgrade your display to the most expensive in order to view any DRM content
Upgrade to at least 1 GB RAM most likely you should upgrade to 2GB to leave room for your applications
Upgrade to a FAST video card with at least 256MB of display memory, 6600GT as a realistic minimum. (Caveat 6xxx series might not support HDCP so could prevent you from viewing HD content. It does support WMV-HD. I couldn't find anything that listed if it does or not specifically.)
The ONLY card in Nvidia's lineup that currently SPECIFICALLY SAYS Supports HDCP and Windows Vista is the 8800 which is also DX10.

All I can say is Vista will never come near any machine I am responsible for.

 

[sliph]

I've looked, and can't find where I picked that up. But I will say that that is at least implied in Microsoft's own pronouncements, including its longest suicide note inhistory. (To be honest, I am actually amazed that you were able to get quality CDs/DVDs out of Vista. But maybe you weren't trying for high quality.)

Here's something I *am* aware of. I had this little interchange with someone who had the dubious pleasure of helping a friend install Vista, on a slightly older machine (P4/512M RAM/GeForce 4MX 64MB card):

From everything I can see, if you are a serious gamer, with a top-of-the-line system, you probably won't notice Vista's crap, too much. But if you want to play "premium content" video, you had better have a very expensive HDMI-cap[able monitor, AND an HDMI-capable video card. No cheap stuff. And don't forget, that the ubiquitous, industry-standard SPDIF digital audio connectors DON'T work! They are disabled by the DRM system!

To get "Rich Media" you are going to need to be really "RICH" to afford it. I just checked Dell and HP and neither are selling systems with XP anymore. They don't offer SPDIF speakers, only analog speakers, and HP only has one monitor the 19" widescreen that can display HDCP media. Dell all the 20" or higher displays can.

So in order to use HD video you have to have an inferior analog audio jack AND the most expensive monitors they offer.

OPENGL is no longer supported natively, but only as an add-onto DirectX10. (Which I find very odd, because DirectX was originally, at least, based on Open GL....) ATI and NVidea are scrambling to produce drivers that will handle that correctly. Of course, if you want to play Windows games, why bother with OpenGL? After all, only no-name stuff like Quake3 runs that.

Here is a summary I have found:

All I can say is Vista will never come near any machine I am responsible for.

WMP supports ripping to WMA (variety of bitrates including lossless), MP3 up to 320 kbps, and plain WAV (which is also lossless). DVD Decrypter removes CSS protection from DVDs but does not touch the video itself, and HandBrake and the underlying x264 encoders are GPLed and multiplatform. Thus the quality of my converted DVDs are dependent on the quality of the OSS converters, and not on any aspect of Vista. (As an aside, I can also use a win32 port of dd to rip .isos).

Regarding your friend's experience, I just played my own camcorder-captured videos (DV format, 20 GB per video, 640x480 29 fps) and everything runs smoothly. Also, I do not see mfpmp.exe in the process list; I do not know why your friend sees it. I believe in the end his computer is simply too underpowered to run Vista; I would've either upgraded hardware or stuck with his previous OS if I were him (yes, Vista isn't for everyone, a point I'm perfectly fine with making). The unsanctioned codec speculation is false. I have the Xvid codec installed, I've installed ffdshow (GPLed project with support for a ton of codecs) before and it worked, and VLC works fine.

I won't comment on HDMI beyond that my understanding is that the content quality degradation is part of the underlying HDCP standard (developed by Intel according to Wikipedia):

HDCP is licensed by Digital Content Protection, LLC, a subsidiary of Intel. In addition to paying fees, licensees agree to limit the capabilities of their products. For example, High-definition digital video content must be restricted to DVD quality on non-HDCP compliant video outputs when requested by the source. DVD-Audio content is restricted to DAT quality on non-HDCP digital audio outputs (analog audio outputs have no quality limits). Licensees cannot allow their devices to make copies of content, and must design their products to "effectively frustrate attempts to defeat the content protection requirements."

This makes me wonder: Can other OSs such as Mac OS X or Linux legally implement HDCP without content degradation? Note that it's not an option for Microsoft to take an illegal route; they're already a large enough legal target.

And lastly, Windows prior to Vista only supported OpenGL 1.1. Full implementations of the latest OpenGL versions (currently 1.4) have always been provided by the video card manufacturers through drivers. In Vista, XP OpenGL implementations are still supported, although they'll temporarily disable Aero when OGL apps run. Manufacturers can write new Vista OGL implementations that'll work with Aero. To cover cases where manufacturers do not provide any OGL implementation, Vista provides an OGL 1.4 implementation that uses Direct3D underneath. See this for more info. All of my OpenGL games with the exception of Alice played without problems and with great performance, including Quake 2, 3, and 4.

 

[cthom]

from a previous thread:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6319845.stm

one area of concern (out of many):

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, a security program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software". The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

you end up sharing your computer with bill gates!

 

[Harrier]

@Sliph.

All your posts, (10) since you joined 3 months ago, are about Vista and you seem to be an avid supporter.

Do my spys tell me, there is a Microsoft Trojan Horse on these forums.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

He is Bill Gates.

 

[Arcadian83]

I must agree with sliph, in that if you (not referring to anyone in particular)are going to hate Vista, at least hate it from an informed base and with well-reasoned arguments. Don't just jump on the bandwagon and spread baseless rumors and speculation. It devalues your argument to use FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and zealotry.

Besides, there are some good reasons not to like Vista, for me it is primarily Occam's Razor: the additions it makes I find unnecessary, costly, and potentially annoying. I see no need to 'upgrade' to something with no significant improvements, a larger resource footprint, and unsavory DRM elements.

 

[kryszcztov]

Let's sum up : I hate Vista because it isn't a free software, because it is expensive, because GNU/Linux can do what Vista can do (sometimes better), because I'm not into DRM (sorry... trusted computing ).

Vista ? Nada.

 

[Padma]

From what I can see, based on what MS has said, in order to do in Vista roughly everything that you can do with XP, you need to upgrade to Vista Ultimate. Anything in between will leave you grumbling about missing functionality. To install Ultimate, you need a significantly newer / more powerful system than I have. And for what? Eye candy? I have 3D eye candy right now - at least as good as Aero. For anti-customer (DRM) crap? Surely, you jest! For hundreds of dollars? When I can get everything that Vista offers (except the DRM crap) for the price of a download, all perfectly legal?

Sorry. Microsoft lost me as a sheep customer back in the pre-XP days.

Edit: FWIW, I agree that FUD need not be spread about MS. (They are quite capable of shooting themselves in the foot, easily. ) I try hard not to spread baseless information about MS. When I find I have made a statement I cannot back up, I will admit that. That said, my current understanding is that the CD/DVD comments I made earlier apply to the lowest level / cheapest Vista version. If you upgrade to a higher version, the situation is mitigated to at least some degree.

 

[GenMarshall]

From what I can see, based on what MS has said, in order to do in Vista roughly everything that you can do with XP, you need to upgrade to Vista Ultimate. Anything in between will leave you grumbling about missing functionality. To install Ultimate, you need a significantly newer / more powerful system than I have. And for what? Eye candy? I have 3D eye candy right now - at least as good as Aero. For anti-customer (DRM) crap? Surely, you jest! For hundreds of dollars? When I can get everything that Vista offers (except the DRM crap) for the price of a download, all perfectly legal?

Why do you think I am sticking with Windows XP as my primary OS and testing out a few Linux distributions as my secondary OS (running in a virtual machine on XP). I am happy with what I have with WIndowblinds (GUI skinner), DesktopX and Yahoo! Widgets (A widget program), Iconpackager (Icon skinner), and ObjectBar in Windows.

 

[kryszcztov]

I am happy with what I have with WIndowblinds (GUI skinner), DesktopX and Yahoo! Widgets (A widget program), Iconpackager (Icon skinner), and ObjectBar in Windows.

Yummy, that sounds almost as good as English jelly.

 

[GenMarshall]

Yummy, that sounds almost as good as English jelly.

I have yet to find some sort of weather widget for Linux (Kubuntu dist) that transmits to me the weather from weather.com. Since at the most, the widgets I use are mostly weather widgets.

 

[Padma]

For KDE (Kubuntu), check out SuperKaramba - using the Liquid Weather widget.

I have it hooked up to weather.com (the default).

 

[Maniacal]

I like the Widgets on Macs, they have the sweet little pop-up screen and are not clogging the main desktop, is htere something like that for KDE?

 

[GenMarshall]

For KDE (Kubuntu), check out SuperKaramba - using the Liquid Weather widget.

I have it hooked up to weather.com (the default).

I looked at it and I have no clue on how to install it .

 

[Padma]

I could just be snarky, and say

 ./configure;make;make install

but I won't.


Helping you in chat ...

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Nope

I went from Windows 98 --> 2000 --> XP.

2000 is superior.

Windows ME is effectively Windows 2000 Home. Windows 2000 would be the equivalent of Windows XP Pro now (well, pre-Vista).

On-Topic:
Vista sucks up resources like you wouldn't believe, according to what I've heard. RAM especially. I believe an OS should run in the background, like a service (or daemon, right Padma ), not as a program running in the foreground.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Upgrade to at least 1 GB RAM most likely you should upgrade to 2GB to leave room for your applications
Upgrade to a FAST video card with at least 256MB of display memory, 6600GT as a realistic minimum.

The 6600GT and most of its variants have 128mb of display memory so how can 256mb and 6600GT be the minimum?

Vista easily runs on 128mb graphics cards with Aero. But the 6600GT is more then you need. I also have a sony VAIO with a 128mb notebook graphics card and its a speed demon with Vista. I could post screen shots of my scores as proof. The 6600GT scores almost 3 times what you need to run Aero smoothly. 1gb is also works great. Of course 2gb runs better but the level my 2gb machine runs at is far beyond what anyone needs. 2gb for super high end performance, 1gb for good performance. In fact Vista does seem any slower on my 1gb machine then XP was. Of course different machines will show different results but most of that can be blamed on drivers and not the power of the hardware. My experience is first hand and with quite a few machines.

All of my games work great: World of Warcraft, Civ3 and 4, WH40k Dark Crusade, Star Wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption etc.

From what I can see, based on what MS has said, in order to do in Vista roughly everything that you can do with XP, you need to upgrade to Vista Ultimate.

Vista Ultimate does everything that every variant of XP combined does. XP Pro, Media Center and XP tablet edition. There was no version of XP that combined the capabilities of all of those. Home Premium will give most people more functionality then they had with XP home or XP Pro. A few features from pro would be missing but most of those features are better replaced by free apps anyways.

To install Ultimate, you need a significantly newer / more powerful system than I have.

The machine I'm using to type this is a Toshiba M200 tablet pc. Its a little old and is way under specs to run Vista because it has a 32mb graphics card. Its not even supported for Vista by Toshiba. Here is a screen shot. Notice I'm running Vista ultimate nicely with Aero, and yes this post is being typed in one of those windows. Your reading a lot about Vista but you don't really have the experience to accurately talk about requirements.

I agree the DRM stuff sucks but thats the price you pay for getting the content providers to support your platform. But I can confirm that I can rip protected DVDs and CDs as well as burn them with no problems and I'm using the same tools from XP.

 

[Zelig]

So in order to use HD video you have to have an inferior analog audio jack AND the most expensive monitors they offer.

Blu-ray and HDDVD discs will never play without circumvention in any operating system without an HDCP compliant video and monitor, it doesn't matter if you're running Vista, XP or FreeBSD.

Analog jacks really aren't inferior for the majority of uses. PC speakers are mostly cheap things that aren't going to benefit from a S/PDIF connection. Even the "high-end" models (Logitech Z-5500) ship with cheap decoders where the sound quality is not improved by using a digital connection.

S/PDIF is only really helpful if you're connecting your computer to reciever, in which case, you'll likely have a good set of speakers to match.

Another interesting point is that only 2 channel data is uncompressed over S/PDIF. Running a quality all analog setup can get you higher fidelity sound than AC-3.

FWIW, my speakers are worth about as much as the rest of my computer (Klipsch + Boston Acoustics setup), and I run them with analog connections, after having tried coaxial and optical. (Don't need to bother getting a reciever this way.)

No native support for OpenGL - to be seen how the ATI or Nvidia drivers do in enabling it.

Both ATI and NVidia will be releasing Vista compatible ICDs that don't run OpenGL layered over DirectX.

Throw away your Digital Speakers you will not get any sound out of them

"Digital speakers" are a weird phenomenon that has only appeared in the computer speaker market. Speakers are all analog, the only variable is the points at which the signal is analog or digital before it reaches the speakers. In any case, anything that doesn't work over a digital connection in Vista isn't going to work in XP either.

Upgrade your display to the most expensive in order to view any DRM content

Same deal as the speakers, DRM implies that it will not play in any OS (without circumvention) without the proper HDCP compatible hardware *and* software.

Upgrade to at least 1 GB RAM most likely you should upgrade to 2GB to leave room for your applications

This is a valid point to an extend... Vista runs fine with 512 MB of ram though, about as well as XP, and with more ram, Vista performance is improved from XP from better handling of the memory. And ram is dirt cheap nowadays, I can order 1 GB for $100 CAD.

Upgrade to a FAST video card with at least 256MB of display memory, 6600GT as a realistic minimum. (Caveat 6xxx series might not support HDCP so could prevent you from viewing HD content. It does support WMV-HD. I couldn't find anything that listed if it does or not specifically.)

If you want to use the new Aero desktop, this is true. However, one could purchase Home Basic, save some money, and run the same desktop as Windows 2000, with the same video card. Regarding HD content, only that with DRM is limited, I've been happily watching 1080p movies on Vista with my 7900GT.

The ONLY card in Nvidia's lineup that currently SPECIFICALLY SAYS Supports HDCP and Windows Vista is the 8800 which is also DX10.

This in NVidia's fault for being slow with driver support. Regardless, most cards work fine with Vista, and I've been gaming, albeit slower than XP for now, fine with my video card.

Vista sucks up resources like you wouldn't believe, according to what I've heard. RAM especially. I believe an OS should run in the background, like a service (or daemon, right Padma ), not as a program running in the foreground.

In fact, it caches all your ram. Unused ram is wasted ram, Vista manages memory very well, and frees it up when applications need it.


I never thought I'd be defending an MS OS... And while I personally wouldn't make the change to Vista if I already had XP, I hate seeing so much misinformation about it.

 

[Padma]

Never let it be said that I refuse to listen. I'm glad the problems aren't as severe as I have understood them. All I've had to go on is MS press releases (which are always too good to be true - like anyone else's), and anecdotal evidence. (Technically, Zelig's post just constitutes more anecdotal evidence, but it at least shows the other side.) At least it shows there is hope for those who choose to run Vista.

OTOH, Vista won't be installed on any machine I own. Hell, I won't even install XP.