<!--quoteo(post=1653809:date=Oct 3 2007, 09:08 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Oct 3 2007, 09:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1653809"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would be a bigger fan of vista if it didn't crash so much. It's more temperamental than my last girlfriend. XP so rarely crashed on me until the Mobo started dieing. Now, I am amazed when Vista doesn't crash during a night of playing/surfing. Talk about lowering my standards <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You see I've had Vista 2 months now and it's never crashed. More or less on 24-7, XP crashed a heck of alot for me.
<!--quoteo(post=1653809:date=Oct 3 2007, 04:08 PM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Oct 3 2007, 04:08 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1653809"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I would be a bigger fan of vista if it didn't crash so much. It's more temperamental than my last girlfriend. XP so rarely crashed on me until the Mobo started dieing. Now, I am amazed when Vista doesn't crash during a night of playing/surfing. Talk about lowering my standards <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/asrifle.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="::asrifle::" border="0" alt="asrifle.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
locallyunsceneFeeder of TrollsJoin Date: 2002-12-25Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is often referred to as "user error".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you mean my error in upgrading to Vista, then yes. I'm not messing with the drivers other than to make sure I have the latest version. I download the critical patches. I don't install Bonzai Buddy. I'm not overclocking anything. I built my XP box from scratch just like this box and thus far, Vista has been far less stable for me.
BlooVillage Fool of UWFJoin Date: 2006-11-09Member: 58497Members
One positive feature with Vista is that it fixes it's own problems. I've had no problems after my last post. The only thing i can't stand now is the devilish user account ask-about-everything-you-do thing WHICH I CAN'T TURN OFF! well in fact i can, but then i cant delete my own files. Which is funny in a ironic way...
<!--quoteo(post=1654193:date=Oct 5 2007, 09:03 AM:name=Bloo)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bloo @ Oct 5 2007, 09:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654193"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One positive feature with Vista is that it fixes it's own problems. I've had no problems after my last post. The only thing i can't stand now is the devilish user account ask-about-everything-you-do thing WHICH I CAN'T TURN OFF! well in fact i can, but then i cant delete my own files. Which is funny in a ironic way...
"You need premission to to that".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
BlooVillage Fool of UWFJoin Date: 2006-11-09Member: 58497Members
<!--quoteo(post=1654216:date=Oct 5 2007, 01:14 PM:name=Sonic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Sonic @ Oct 5 2007, 01:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654216"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Are you on the administrator account?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm really loving Vista so far. Especially the updates to Windows Explorer, which have seriously changed the way I organize my files and find them. Ever since that patch to fix a few memory issues and disk issues, I haven't noticed any drop in speed compared to XP. Say about 3 FPS in games, which is small enough to be considered a normal inconsistency between tests.
Vista really can't be blamed if you're trying to run it with extremely old hardware. Trying to keep all the drivers for old hardware as well as new ones would cause an even more enormous bloat. Still, Vista retains very good backwards compatbility. I've had no problem using an old parallel port scanner from 2001 on Vista, save for a small software bug on Canon's part that affected XP too and is easy to work around.
To get Red Alert 2 to run on Vista, right-click the EXE, go to Properties, go to the Compatibility tab and check "Run this program as an administrator". If that still doesn't work, try setting it in compatibility mode for Windows XP (don't do this initially, it'd be better to run it out of compatibility mode).
By the way, you can make UAC a LOT less annoying by disabling the screen blackout thing. I had to disable this because it kept resetting the colour settings I set with PowerStrip for my second monitor. To do it, type "Local Security Policy" in the Start menu's search box, open the search result, go to Local Policies\Security Options, scroll down in the right pane until you see "User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation", double-click it and set it to Disabled.
As a side note, PeerGuardian is completely worthless. It gives you a completely false sense of security, since there's no possible way that they can block every hostile IP, or even a small fraction of them. In fact, government agencies and anti-warez companies can just go out and sign up with a regular old ISP if they want. If anything, PeerGuardian makes your computer <i>less</i> secure because you may start thinking that your connection is completely secure and you don't have to worry.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Vista really can't be blamed if you're trying to run it with extremely old hardware.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> That depends on your definition of "really old". Does my current system (AthlonXP 2800, 512MB DDR, GeForce4 MX440) count? I don't know about you, but it seems reasonable to me to expect that ANY operating system should be able to run smoothly on that. Sure, you shouldn't expect to run Aero or any of that crap, but I should be able to make it comparable to XP through tweaking. I can't say weather Vista can be tweaked that much or not (my impression is no), but your asertion that Vista can't be blamed if it can't is ridiculous to me.
<!--quoteo(post=1654979:date=Oct 9 2007, 10:19 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 9 2007, 10:19 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654979"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That depends on your definition of "really old". Does my current system (AthlonXP 2800, 512MB DDR, GeForce4 MX440) count? I don't know about you, but it seems reasonable to me to expect that ANY operating system should be able to run smoothly on that. Sure, you shouldn't expect to run Aero or any of that crap, but I should be able to make it comparable to XP through tweaking. I can't say weather Vista can be tweaked that much or not (my impression is no), but your asertion that Vista can't be blamed if it can't is ridiculous to me.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I would expect it to run on that... though that does qualify as pretty old hardware.
It's only 5 years old. And thats assuming it was built when the components were first released. Considering the high cost of brand new components it seems ridiculous to upgrade as often as many PC gamers do. And I never buy brand new hardware anyway, since it drops in price so dramatically and quickly. This system is capable of doing every single modern computing task in a reasonable time frame <i>except</i> render the latest games. And it would be able to do that just fine if developers weren't constantly pushing the make-it-pretty-to-distract-from-the-crappy-gameplay mentality. So I tend to get upset when someone suggests that I shouldn't expect to be able to run the latest operating system because it is a piece of software that should be designed to <i>not</i> be resource hungry.
I was talking more along the lines of peripherals from the late '90s/early 2000s from companies that have moved on long ago and have no intention of making new drivers.
Well, I expect a little more out of my hardware manufacturers, but I see what you're saying: It's not Microsoft's fault if those manufacturers choose not to support their products that long. I had assumed you were talking about overall performance, my bad.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's old.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Is a five year old car old? A 5 year old TV? No, they still perform the tasks expected of them and so does my system. Let me ask you something, In the past 7 years, how much have you spent on computer components? And what can your system do that mine cannot? If I were to guess at the answers, they'd be $X,000 and "Play Bioshock", respectively. So my next question is: was it worth it?
<!--quoteo(post=1654984:date=Oct 9 2007, 10:39 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 9 2007, 10:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654984"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's only 5 years old. And thats assuming it was built when the components were first released. Considering the high cost of brand new components it seems ridiculous to upgrade as often as many PC gamers do. And I never buy brand new hardware anyway, since it drops in price so dramatically and quickly. This system is capable of doing every single modern computing task in a reasonable time frame <i>except</i> render the latest games. And it would be able to do that just fine if developers weren't constantly pushing the make-it-pretty-to-distract-from-the-crappy-gameplay mentality. So I tend to get upset when someone suggests that I shouldn't expect to be able to run the latest operating system because it is a piece of software that should be designed to <i>not</i> be resource hungry.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Dude, that setup is older then 5 years. The first computer I ever built was that powerful. I was 14 at the time. That video card cost me $40.
Now, I don't know your financial situation, I don't WANT to know. If you don't want to put down the small amount of money(300$ is probably a good amount) every 2 years or so to stay with the technology curve, then don't. However don't blame the industry for making use of the technology that is readily available to everyone. Nobody is stopping you from running windows 2000 on a 1ghz pentium 3. Don't expect the industry to cater to you though.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Dude, that setup is older then 5 years. The first computer I ever built was that powerful. I was 14 at the time. That video card cost me $40.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Athlon XP 2800: released October of 2002. GeForce 4 MX440 (AGP 8x): released October of 2002. 2007-2002 = 5 years. You may confirm with Wikipedia on the following pages if you like: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_XP_microprocessors" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_A...microprocessors</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_Graphics_Processing_Units" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...rocessing_Units</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nobody is stopping you from running windows 2000 on a 1ghz pentium 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Until very recently, I did just that (well actually it was XP, which worked great with a bit of tweaking). The only thing that made me upgrade was that I wanted to take better advantage of Virtualization software. And I'm fine with upgrading under those circumstances, they make sense. Theres really nothing VMWare or Microsoft could have done to make VMWare or VPC work better on that system. Games are a different story. If you want to use the latest greatest graphical effects, go ahead, all I ask is that you let me tweak that ###### so it runs better. Its not really that big of a deal to me though, since console gaming really is superior nowadays anyway (outside of indy games, but those usually aren't resource hogs anyway). If I was required to upgrade to get comparable performance out of Vista I'd be pretty pissed, because theres a lot MS could, and should, do to make it run better, and because there is no significant gain.
<!--quoteo(post=1654988:date=Oct 9 2007, 11:00 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 9 2007, 11:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654988"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is a five year old car old? A 5 year old TV?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> If a new car is more than twice as fast as a five-year old car and a new TV has three times the resolution of a five-year old TV, then yeah, they're considered pretty old in comparison.
Ah I was thinking of the AGP 4x version of the 440. Still. 5 years is a long time, considering computer power doubles every 18 months.
Sure, your computer is good enough to email, browse the internet, do basic stuff. If that's all you are going to do that's fine. However if you want to play video games and stay fairly recent, you have to upgrade more often then every 5 years. There is no way around it. Those of us who want to stay close to the curve are going to upgrade, and the industry knows this. They program for us, and we upgrade to keep up with them. They are not some evil machine that is dragging us against our will into spending money on computer components. There's not much more to say about it.
So a brand new Prius is pretty old then right, because a Formula 1 car can easily go twice as fast. And clearly my 5 year old TV is too old, since a 1080p HDTV has nearly 7 times the resolution. Right? No, of course not.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure, your computer is good enough to email, browse the internet, do basic stuff.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> My system can do <i>anything</i> yours can do, except play the latest greatest wizbang graphic heavy games. Thats hardly just "basic stuff". Hell, if we were only talking about the "basic stuff" we could get away with a 200mhz ARM processor, a few megs of ram, and a 1GB flash drive. The OLPC exceeds the "basic stuff" needs very easily.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They program for us, and we upgrade to keep up with them. They are not some evil machine that is dragging us against our will into spending money on computer components.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if they expect to keep me as a customer then they will not try to force me to upgrade hardware unnecessarily. I don't think thats an unreasonable request.
Oh, and the 4x version of the GeForce 4MX 440 was released February of 2002, so still 5 years.
<!--quoteo(post=1654994:date=Oct 9 2007, 08:27 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 9 2007, 08:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654994"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if they expect to keep me as a customer then they will not try to force me to upgrade hardware unnecessarily. I don't think thats an unreasonable request.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> I don't think they want you as a customer, or care enough to avoid making tons of money off of the people that do upgrade all the time.
I also have an Athlon XP 2800 with 512 MB RAM, the only difference is my 9600xt video card that I added after buying the computer about 2.5 years ago.
They're not forcing you to upgrade for no reason. They're making you upgrade if you want to take advantage of the new features. If you don't, disable them or stick to XP. Either way, you can make Vista run just as well as XP and still get some improvements out of it.
<!--quoteo(post=1654994:date=Oct 9 2007, 11:27 PM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 9 2007, 11:27 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1654994"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->So a brand new Prius is pretty old then right, because a Formula 1 car can easily go twice as fast. And clearly my 5 year old TV is too old, since a 1080p HDTV has nearly 7 times the resolution. Right? No, of course not. My system can do <i>anything</i> yours can do, except play the latest greatest wizbang graphic heavy games. Thats hardly just "basic stuff". Hell, if we were only talking about the "basic stuff" we could get away with a 200mhz ARM processor, a few megs of ram, and a 1GB flash drive. The OLPC exceeds the "basic stuff" needs very easily. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if they expect to keep me as a customer then they will not try to force me to upgrade hardware unnecessarily. I don't think thats an unreasonable request. Oh, and the 4x version of the GeForce 4MX 440 was released February of 2002, so still 5 years.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Actually, it is an unreasonable request. They are a company centered around making money.
The money they would have to spend to make Vista efficient enough to run on 5 year old computers would definetly be higher then the money they would make by allowing people in your situation to upgrade OSes easily. Ill break it down better.
You have a 5 year old computer. Most people who haven't upgraded their computer in 5 years don't even know how to install a new OS. Those people would just end up buying an entire new computer. As of the release of Vista, you really couldn't buy a pre-made computer that was too slow to run vista. See the problem?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Actually, it is an unreasonable request. They are a company centered around making money.
The money they would have to spend to make Vista efficient enough to run on 5 year old computers would definetly be higher then the money they would make by allowing people in your situation to upgrade OSes easily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> True, but just because it is less profitable doesn't meant they shouldn't do it. It was really profitable of them to implement anti-competitive business practices to maintain their monopoly, but would you really say that no one should be pissed about them doing it? Or that we're unreasonable for expecting them not to?
I know they don't care about people like me. Thats obvious. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
This complaint boggles my mind. This expectation that computer programs should run smoothly on "ancient" (in computer terms) systems is crazy. To be frank, I really don't want newly released computer programs to be handicapped by people unwilling to throw some money at new upgrades. Seriously - just stop buying new software if you don't like the speed at which it's running. Technology improves. Adapt or die.
<!--quoteo(post=1655001:date=Oct 10 2007, 12:24 AM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Oct 10 2007, 12:24 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1655001"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->True, but just because it is less profitable doesn't meant they shouldn't do it. It was really profitable of them to implement anti-competitive business practices to maintain their monopoly, but would you really say that no one should be pissed about them doing it? Or that we're unreasonable for expecting them not to? I know they don't care about people like me. Thats obvious. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, I never get mad/dissapointed at companies, I only get impressed. If they do the monopoly thing Im just neutral, because I didn't expect better. However, if they go and sacrifice large amounts of money just to make customers happy, then I'm impressed.
I can understand not being disappointed, since that would require you to expect something of them in the first place, but how can you not get mad when they actively seek to destroy competing products that could have made your life easier/better?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This complaint boggles my mind. This expectation that computer programs should run smoothly on "ancient" (in computer terms) systems is crazy. To be frank, I really don't want newly released computer programs to be handicapped by people unwilling to throw some money at new upgrades. Seriously - just stop buying new software if you don't like the speed at which it's running. Technology improves. Adapt or die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I swear, its like people don't have the ability to read more than one or two posts, maybe they need to upgrade their brains. How old is your brain? 20 some years? Thats fricken' ancient man. Here, I'll quote the relevant portion of my previous post so that you won't have to buy some more wet-ram:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The only thing that made me upgrade was that I wanted to take better advantage of Virtualization software. And I'm fine with upgrading under those circumstances, they make sense. Theres really nothing VMWare or Microsoft could have done to make VMWare or VPC work better on that system. Games are a different story. If you want to use the latest greatest graphical effects, go ahead, all I ask is that you let me tweak that ###### so it runs better. Its not really that big of a deal to me though, since console gaming really is superior nowadays anyway (outside of indy games, but those usually aren't resource hogs anyway). If I was required to upgrade to get comparable performance out of Vista I'd be pretty pissed, because theres a lot MS could, and should, do to make it run better, and because there is no significant gain.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But please, continue finding reasons to call me crazy because I don't believe in wasting hundreds of dollars on new kit every year.
So keep the horse and buggy, but stay off the highways where the cars go. Don't expect businesses to cater to a nearly dead market of computer hardware to satisfy users who aren't willing to put money into a new system!
You say that you're a fan of consoles more than PCs for gaming (that's another crazy thing, but I'll skip ranting about that). I noticed that Gears of War isn't compatible with the XBOX, nevermind the PlayStation 2. What's up with that? They should've just given me the ability to tweak it to work with the older systems. They're only a decade or so old - that's not that old. Is my ten year old car no longer able to drive on the road? Why then can't an XBOX play an XBOX 360 game?
Your complaint of backwards compatibility with software and hardware that is outdated is silly because you seem to only apply it to the PC, and do so irrationally. Developers do a very good job of scaling their games to work on older systems (believe me, until this year I had a system worse than yours). There comes a moment when older systems aren't worth catering to any longer, because there's a larger market in the new hardware owners - the ones who will be more likely to purchase a new game to make use of the new hardware.
It's progress. It's how technology works. If obsolescence wasn't accepted in technology, we would, as I mentioned earlier, still be using horses and buggies as our methods of transportation. Cameras would still be using plates, instead of film, instead of digital. Cars would run on leaded fuel. Homes wouldn't have indoor plumbing. Televisions wouldn't display images in color. We'd still have cell phones the size of a brick because we couldn't change the battery technology that advanced to lithium ion, on the chance that someone out there still wanted to use their old Motorola bag phone.
All these things couldn't be possible if we didn't advance and make the previous technology obsolete. In PC gaming, "obsolete" can mean anything from two years to six months. It's the way that market works. You're going to have to deal with it, because there are plenty of people happy to spend money on new systems - and that's where the money is (and it's a business, so it's all about the money). If it weren't for the people willing to move to the next piece of hardware, there wouldn't be the games out there with great graphics that you'd find time to complain about.
There are plenty of games made in the past decade that can run on your PC. Play those. If you want to play the new games, you must be ^ this technologically advanced to play them. Either get up to that level, or don't play them. I know you're complaining that the games should be scaled to an even greater degree to make up for your market of non-advanced PC gaming, but I protest that the developers are already doing a fine job making their minimum system requirements very approachable for older PCs.
EDIT: Oh, and if I'm sounding heated here, I apologize. I'm not trying to make this a huge debate. I just enjoy typing. Please forgive the rambling.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Your complaint of backwards compatibility with software and hardware that is outdated is silly because you seem to only apply it to the PC, and do so irrationally.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Lets say for the sake of argument that the above is true (it isn't, entirely). Whats it going to cost me to upgrade an XBox to an Xbox360? Lets say $500. And how often do I have to pay that? Well in the case of the 360 it was 3 (almost 4) years. But thats atypical for the console industry, usually its more like 5. $500 every 5 years isn't so bad, but if we were to take the recommendation offered in this thread for PCs we end up paying $300/Year to keep up. Thats 3 times as much to play the same damn game.
Besides which, I'm not talking about "backwards compatibility", if that term can even apply to PC hardware, I'm talking about not wasting resources. Lets say hypothetically that instead of Vista MS released a new version of XP, lets call it XP: The Next Generation. The only difference between XP and XP:TNG is that XP:TNG consumes twice the resources. It would be unreasonable to expect people to upgrade their hardware for the same experience wouldn't it? Clearly. So lets say XP:TNG also has fancy Wizbang graphics, and something usefull, like better stability. Lets also say that you cannot tweak the Wizbang graphics. Would it still be unreasonable to expect people to upgrade their hardware for the better stability, knowing that if MS wanted they could have given us the better stability without the resource hogging Wizbang graphics? I would think so. And if (notice the if) Vista were similarly encumbered by unnecessary resource hogging, it would be similarly unreasonable to expect people to upgrade to that.
To sum up: I'm not talking about supporting the horse and buggy here, hell, I'm not even really talking about supporting a 5 year old computer here. I'm talking about not wasting resources unnecessarily.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There are plenty of games made in the past decade that can run on your PC. Play those. If you want to play the new games, you must be ^ this technologically advanced to play them. Either get up to that level, or don't play them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Again with your memory problem. Maybe you didn't notice the part where I said that I don't play them. I chose the more economic option that made more sense to me: consoles. No more upgrade treadmill, no more reading specs, no more useless suggestions of "upgrade your drivers and hope like hell that it fixes the problem".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's the way that market works. You're going to have to deal with it<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Let me ask you something. Do you dislike something? Anything? Well, ######ing deal with it. Don't complain about it, just deal with it. Complaints are never legitimate fool. Seriously, some of you guys seem to think that because a situation <i>is</i> a certain way I don't have the right to complain about it not being the way it <i>should</i> be, so you guys must never complain right?
Comments
You see I've had Vista 2 months now and it's never crashed. More or less on 24-7, XP crashed a heck of alot for me.
This is often referred to as "user error".
If you mean my error in upgrading to Vista, then yes. I'm not messing with the drivers other than to make sure I have the latest version. I download the critical patches. I don't install Bonzai Buddy. I'm not overclocking anything. I built my XP box from scratch just like this box and thus far, Vista has been far less stable for me.
"You need premission to to that".
"You need premission to to that".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As quoted earlier "User Error".
Yes, yes I am...
Vista really can't be blamed if you're trying to run it with extremely old hardware. Trying to keep all the drivers for old hardware as well as new ones would cause an even more enormous bloat. Still, Vista retains very good backwards compatbility. I've had no problem using an old parallel port scanner from 2001 on Vista, save for a small software bug on Canon's part that affected XP too and is easy to work around.
To get Red Alert 2 to run on Vista, right-click the EXE, go to Properties, go to the Compatibility tab and check "Run this program as an administrator". If that still doesn't work, try setting it in compatibility mode for Windows XP (don't do this initially, it'd be better to run it out of compatibility mode).
By the way, you can make UAC a LOT less annoying by disabling the screen blackout thing. I had to disable this because it kept resetting the colour settings I set with PowerStrip for my second monitor. To do it, type "Local Security Policy" in the Start menu's search box, open the search result, go to Local Policies\Security Options, scroll down in the right pane until you see "User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation", double-click it and set it to Disabled.
As a side note, PeerGuardian is completely worthless. It gives you a completely false sense of security, since there's no possible way that they can block every hostile IP, or even a small fraction of them. In fact, government agencies and anti-warez companies can just go out and sign up with a regular old ISP if they want. If anything, PeerGuardian makes your computer <i>less</i> secure because you may start thinking that your connection is completely secure and you don't have to worry.
That depends on your definition of "really old". Does my current system (AthlonXP 2800, 512MB DDR, GeForce4 MX440) count? I don't know about you, but it seems reasonable to me to expect that ANY operating system should be able to run smoothly on that. Sure, you shouldn't expect to run Aero or any of that crap, but I should be able to make it comparable to XP through tweaking. I can't say weather Vista can be tweaked that much or not (my impression is no), but your asertion that Vista can't be blamed if it can't is ridiculous to me.
I would expect it to run on that... though that does qualify as pretty old hardware.
That's old.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->That's old.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is a five year old car old? A 5 year old TV? No, they still perform the tasks expected of them and so does my system. Let me ask you something, In the past 7 years, how much have you spent on computer components? And what can your system do that mine cannot? If I were to guess at the answers, they'd be $X,000 and "Play Bioshock", respectively. So my next question is: was it worth it?
Dude, that setup is older then 5 years. The first computer I ever built was that powerful. I was 14 at the time. That video card cost me $40.
Now, I don't know your financial situation, I don't WANT to know. If you don't want to put down the small amount of money(300$ is probably a good amount) every 2 years or so to stay with the technology curve, then don't. However don't blame the industry for making use of the technology that is readily available to everyone. Nobody is stopping you from running windows 2000 on a 1ghz pentium 3. Don't expect the industry to cater to you though.
Athlon XP 2800: released October of 2002. GeForce 4 MX440 (AGP 8x): released October of 2002. 2007-2002 = 5 years. You may confirm with Wikipedia on the following pages if you like:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Athlon_XP_microprocessors" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_A...microprocessors</a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_NVIDIA_Graphics_Processing_Units" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of...rocessing_Units</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Nobody is stopping you from running windows 2000 on a 1ghz pentium 3.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Until very recently, I did just that (well actually it was XP, which worked great with a bit of tweaking). The only thing that made me upgrade was that I wanted to take better advantage of Virtualization software. And I'm fine with upgrading under those circumstances, they make sense. Theres really nothing VMWare or Microsoft could have done to make VMWare or VPC work better on that system. Games are a different story. If you want to use the latest greatest graphical effects, go ahead, all I ask is that you let me tweak that ###### so it runs better. Its not really that big of a deal to me though, since console gaming really is superior nowadays anyway (outside of indy games, but those usually aren't resource hogs anyway). If I was required to upgrade to get comparable performance out of Vista I'd be pretty pissed, because theres a lot MS could, and should, do to make it run better, and because there is no significant gain.
If a new car is more than twice as fast as a five-year old car and a new TV has three times the resolution of a five-year old TV, then yeah, they're considered pretty old in comparison.
Sure, your computer is good enough to email, browse the internet, do basic stuff. If that's all you are going to do that's fine. However if you want to play video games and stay fairly recent, you have to upgrade more often then every 5 years. There is no way around it. Those of us who want to stay close to the curve are going to upgrade, and the industry knows this. They program for us, and we upgrade to keep up with them. They are not some evil machine that is dragging us against our will into spending money on computer components. There's not much more to say about it.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sure, your computer is good enough to email, browse the internet, do basic stuff.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My system can do <i>anything</i> yours can do, except play the latest greatest wizbang graphic heavy games. Thats hardly just "basic stuff". Hell, if we were only talking about the "basic stuff" we could get away with a 200mhz ARM processor, a few megs of ram, and a 1GB flash drive. The OLPC exceeds the "basic stuff" needs very easily.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->They program for us, and we upgrade to keep up with them. They are not some evil machine that is dragging us against our will into spending money on computer components.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if they expect to keep me as a customer then they will not try to force me to upgrade hardware unnecessarily. I don't think thats an unreasonable request.
Oh, and the 4x version of the GeForce 4MX 440 was released February of 2002, so still 5 years.
I don't think they want you as a customer, or care enough to avoid making tons of money off of the people that do upgrade all the time.
I also have an Athlon XP 2800 with 512 MB RAM, the only difference is my 9600xt video card that I added after buying the computer about 2.5 years ago.
My system can do <i>anything</i> yours can do, except play the latest greatest wizbang graphic heavy games. Thats hardly just "basic stuff". Hell, if we were only talking about the "basic stuff" we could get away with a 200mhz ARM processor, a few megs of ram, and a 1GB flash drive. The OLPC exceeds the "basic stuff" needs very easily.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if they expect to keep me as a customer then they will not try to force me to upgrade hardware unnecessarily. I don't think thats an unreasonable request.
Oh, and the 4x version of the GeForce 4MX 440 was released February of 2002, so still 5 years.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, it is an unreasonable request. They are a company centered around making money.
The money they would have to spend to make Vista efficient enough to run on 5 year old computers would definetly be higher then the money they would make by allowing people in your situation to upgrade OSes easily. Ill break it down better.
You have a 5 year old computer.
Most people who haven't upgraded their computer in 5 years don't even know how to install a new OS.
Those people would just end up buying an entire new computer.
As of the release of Vista, you really couldn't buy a pre-made computer that was too slow to run vista.
See the problem?
The money they would have to spend to make Vista efficient enough to run on 5 year old computers would definetly be higher then the money they would make by allowing people in your situation to upgrade OSes easily.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
True, but just because it is less profitable doesn't meant they shouldn't do it. It was really profitable of them to implement anti-competitive business practices to maintain their monopoly, but would you really say that no one should be pissed about them doing it? Or that we're unreasonable for expecting them not to?
I know they don't care about people like me. Thats obvious. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I know they don't care about people like me. Thats obvious. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, I never get mad/dissapointed at companies, I only get impressed. If they do the monopoly thing Im just neutral, because I didn't expect better. However, if they go and sacrifice large amounts of money just to make customers happy, then I'm impressed.
Then again Im a cynical ######.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This complaint boggles my mind. This expectation that computer programs should run smoothly on "ancient" (in computer terms) systems is crazy. To be frank, I really don't want newly released computer programs to be handicapped by people unwilling to throw some money at new upgrades. Seriously - just stop buying new software if you don't like the speed at which it's running. Technology improves. Adapt or die.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I swear, its like people don't have the ability to read more than one or two posts, maybe they need to upgrade their brains. How old is your brain? 20 some years? Thats fricken' ancient man. Here, I'll quote the relevant portion of my previous post so that you won't have to buy some more wet-ram:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The only thing that made me upgrade was that I wanted to take better advantage of Virtualization software. And I'm fine with upgrading under those circumstances, they make sense. Theres really nothing VMWare or Microsoft could have done to make VMWare or VPC work better on that system. Games are a different story. If you want to use the latest greatest graphical effects, go ahead, all I ask is that you let me tweak that ###### so it runs better. Its not really that big of a deal to me though, since console gaming really is superior nowadays anyway (outside of indy games, but those usually aren't resource hogs anyway). If I was required to upgrade to get comparable performance out of Vista I'd be pretty pissed, because theres a lot MS could, and should, do to make it run better, and because there is no significant gain.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But please, continue finding reasons to call me crazy because I don't believe in wasting hundreds of dollars on new kit every year.
You say that you're a fan of consoles more than PCs for gaming (that's another crazy thing, but I'll skip ranting about that). I noticed that Gears of War isn't compatible with the XBOX, nevermind the PlayStation 2. What's up with that? They should've just given me the ability to tweak it to work with the older systems. They're only a decade or so old - that's not that old. Is my ten year old car no longer able to drive on the road? Why then can't an XBOX play an XBOX 360 game?
Your complaint of backwards compatibility with software and hardware that is outdated is silly because you seem to only apply it to the PC, and do so irrationally. Developers do a very good job of scaling their games to work on older systems (believe me, until this year I had a system worse than yours). There comes a moment when older systems aren't worth catering to any longer, because there's a larger market in the new hardware owners - the ones who will be more likely to purchase a new game to make use of the new hardware.
It's progress. It's how technology works. If obsolescence wasn't accepted in technology, we would, as I mentioned earlier, still be using horses and buggies as our methods of transportation. Cameras would still be using plates, instead of film, instead of digital. Cars would run on leaded fuel. Homes wouldn't have indoor plumbing. Televisions wouldn't display images in color. We'd still have cell phones the size of a brick because we couldn't change the battery technology that advanced to lithium ion, on the chance that someone out there still wanted to use their old Motorola bag phone.
All these things couldn't be possible if we didn't advance and make the previous technology obsolete. In PC gaming, "obsolete" can mean anything from two years to six months. It's the way that market works. You're going to have to deal with it, because there are plenty of people happy to spend money on new systems - and that's where the money is (and it's a business, so it's all about the money). If it weren't for the people willing to move to the next piece of hardware, there wouldn't be the games out there with great graphics that you'd find time to complain about.
There are plenty of games made in the past decade that can run on your PC. Play those. If you want to play the new games, you must be ^ this technologically advanced to play them. Either get up to that level, or don't play them. I know you're complaining that the games should be scaled to an even greater degree to make up for your market of non-advanced PC gaming, but I protest that the developers are already doing a fine job making their minimum system requirements very approachable for older PCs.
EDIT: Oh, and if I'm sounding heated here, I apologize. I'm not trying to make this a huge debate. I just enjoy typing. Please forgive the rambling.
Lets say for the sake of argument that the above is true (it isn't, entirely). Whats it going to cost me to upgrade an XBox to an Xbox360? Lets say $500. And how often do I have to pay that? Well in the case of the 360 it was 3 (almost 4) years. But thats atypical for the console industry, usually its more like 5. $500 every 5 years isn't so bad, but if we were to take the recommendation offered in this thread for PCs we end up paying $300/Year to keep up. Thats 3 times as much to play the same damn game.
Besides which, I'm not talking about "backwards compatibility", if that term can even apply to PC hardware, I'm talking about not wasting resources. Lets say hypothetically that instead of Vista MS released a new version of XP, lets call it XP: The Next Generation. The only difference between XP and XP:TNG is that XP:TNG consumes twice the resources. It would be unreasonable to expect people to upgrade their hardware for the same experience wouldn't it? Clearly. So lets say XP:TNG also has fancy Wizbang graphics, and something usefull, like better stability. Lets also say that you cannot tweak the Wizbang graphics. Would it still be unreasonable to expect people to upgrade their hardware for the better stability, knowing that if MS wanted they could have given us the better stability without the resource hogging Wizbang graphics? I would think so. And if (notice the if) Vista were similarly encumbered by unnecessary resource hogging, it would be similarly unreasonable to expect people to upgrade to that.
To sum up: I'm not talking about supporting the horse and buggy here, hell, I'm not even really talking about supporting a 5 year old computer here. I'm talking about not wasting resources unnecessarily.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->There are plenty of games made in the past decade that can run on your PC. Play those. If you want to play the new games, you must be ^ this technologically advanced to play them. Either get up to that level, or don't play them.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again with your memory problem. Maybe you didn't notice the part where I said that I don't play them. I chose the more economic option that made more sense to me: consoles. No more upgrade treadmill, no more reading specs, no more useless suggestions of "upgrade your drivers and hope like hell that it fixes the problem".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It's the way that market works. You're going to have to deal with it<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Let me ask you something. Do you dislike something? Anything? Well, ######ing deal with it. Don't complain about it, just deal with it. Complaints are never legitimate fool.
Seriously, some of you guys seem to think that because a situation <i>is</i> a certain way I don't have the right to complain about it not being the way it <i>should</i> be, so you guys must never complain right?