1) No, most people DO NOT know their PC specs. Look how many people literally dismissed the "Your video drivers are too old to play this game. You MUST update them." dialog and then posted how buggy GalCiv II was? The numerical performance rating system is really quite nice.

I'll bet you anything you like that having a number there won't change a thing as for as ignoring warnings then complaining about it is concerned. People refuse to read the most basic popups that scream at them it won't work if they ignore it.

2) I think more and more people will be playing their PC on their high-def TV in their living room. The GAme Explorer makes doing that much easier for average users.

Can you further explain what the explorer actually does? I can see people sitting at their screen to play a game, but most games install their own launch icon. Launching an explorer to launch a game is... pointless, if the game already has a double-click launch icon.

And I don't agree that anyone will be modding a game from their TV screen, or rummaging through it's directories while flicking through their favourite adverts. I still don't see the point of it. Is it a DL manager/launcher/update manager/etc like SDC?

3 has been covered by my earlier post

4) DirectX 10 is a pretty major update. I'd argue that MS should be getting paid for it. We charge for expansion packs. MS has been giving away DirectX updates for years now on XP (DirectX 9 was a pretty big improvement too). DirectX 10 isn't a big deal for us, but for first person shooters, it's a pretty big deal.

I don't play FPS. Yes, it looks like a major update. I don't like that it's vista only at all, and DX10 is a reason not to get vista atm, when you see the price of the only DX10 native cards.

5) Having a desktop that is already a 3D surface means that game developers can make 3D games much easier. Right now, it takes quite a bit of effort to make nice looking casual games. I can think of quite a number of casual games that dont' exist right now that are possible now that I can do 3D on the desktop using WPF.

I'll concede that, since I don't know much about 3d development.

But the other 4 points are still bleh, and the only reason I'll get vista, as I said, is dx10. This is nothing to do with vista's performance at all, and if I could get dx10 on XP, there would be no time I'd ever get vista. I just don't see the point of it as an OS.

So go ahead, reserve your right to hate all things MS. I just think you are ignorant of both the law and business realities

And you're just an ignorant asshole, to be honest. But I reserve my right to hate you too. Microsoft are the leaders in the market but their products are annoying when they simply refuse to do what you want. Right now, I'm attempting to fix a computer that had basic errors starting with bad PBR. They've continuously escalated and for some god unknown reason windows is now quite sure that the hard drive doesn't exist. Hooray.

And vista is an overpriced overhyped piece of crap, from what I've seen.

And as for your "get a life" comments, response being "go lose yours" jackass.

Perhaps it doesn't for you but it most certainly does for me. I'm proud to hate Microsoft. I despise Microsoft more than Republicans despise Hillary Clinton. I loathe Microsoft even more than Democrats loathe Bush.

It is rare that I get to see you so 'passionate' about something Mumblefratz, especially this. Your rant was definitely well thought out and pretty much pushed right on through to the heart of the issues.

Vista has brought this practice right out in front of everyone, because at this point they are so confident and control the market to such a degree that they just no longer care what we think.

And DethAdder, I believe you hit the nail right on the head with that one.

Vista is just another step in the direction of hiding any and all significant OS function on the pretense of making it "easier" and "simpler" (why does this remind me of "kindler, gentler machine gun hand"). I don't want a Media Center. I want to know what files I have on "my" PC and where they are without having to Google for them. I don't want cartoon character puppy dogs or paper clips to "help" me. I want a start menu that’s clear, concise and usable without having to hide a bunch of crap that I don’t want by using personalized menus. Yes, I do want to be shown hidden files and folders. No, do not hide extensions of known file types. No, do not hide protected operating system files from me (Yes, I *am* sure, you flaming a$$h0l3). No, I do not want software error reports downloaded to Microsoft. No, I do not want Windows to automatically check for every new POS update that Microsoft chooses to spit out. No, I do not have .NET Frameworks installed on my new PC. Yes, I specifically uninstalled it. No, I do not want to apply the 133 security updates to .NET Frameworks that Microsoft has deemed to be critical to my system performance.

Couldn't agree more!

The only good thing about Vista is that it might make me skip XP altogether and upgrade from Win2000 as soon as it'll prove to be necessary. As long as I upgrade my machine at the same time I shouldn't lose much performance...

What the hell? Does Gal Civ II run under Linux? Damn, if it runs under linux I could move to Linux as a primary OS. BTW - Microsoft is not so bad. Why does the Enter key not work in the reply box?

I will never ever buy Vista or a PC which comes bundled with Vista.

I already have dual boot with Linux. Wine WWW Link">WineHQ made big steps forward in the last month and even directX 10 is not out of range WWW Link">WineConf 2006 (search for "Direct3D10").

The Wine developer are very helpful and willing to fix issues. Many games already run out of the box WWW Link">Wine Application Database including some of the most popular and latest state-of-the-art games.

Are there any Linux Geeks at Stardock? It would be a great step forward to make Stardock Central and GC II running on Wine and I doubt that it would cause too much pain. You could start with an unofficial project and I'm sure that there will be a lot of committed testers. I personally would be very please when I could help in any aspects.

I know that Brad is somehow a burnt child due to the demise of OS/2. But IBM can't do the same with Linux. Currently Linux is on a roll and with Vista this will get a great boost.

I know that Stardock lives from products for the Windows desktop and that this will no change but it is nothing wrong with having a second horse in the race.

Currently Linux is on a roll and with Vista this will get a great boost.

i would love to believe this, I could even almost believe it if I hadn't been burned by the hope so many times. the fact of the matter is linux is not yet viable for the average user. until someone simplifies the system down to the level of windows or mac "click this button and wait this long" type processing it will remain out of reach. Windows, like it or not, works on whatever hardware (that meets the minimum requirements) that you slap it onto. Linux can run into so many issues because of the wide range of hardware it runs on and the non-unified support base for said hardware inside the linux community. Macs are the flip side of this coin, hardware customization is totally non-existant and thus it runs so tightly that it rocks, but you cannot custom build a mac like you can a windows or linux box (X86 mac version hacks aside).

the fact of the matter, in my mind, is this, Mac has such a closed system, the OS cannot help but one tightly and smoothly with fewer devs than windows. Windows in comparison runs on almost anything you can put together without blowing up, what is the result of this? the system is bloated with hundreds different devs coding all different projects trying to integrate them into one solidified system. for as much as I hate the OS for all its fault, i have to give props to the fact that they have managed to do it succesfully for so long (yeah yeah, i use the term 'succsefully' rather loosely here). Linux is stuck in between, with millions of people working on it but not enough focused a single unified system, you have Gentoo, Ubuntoo, Mandrake, DSL (damn small linux) just to name a few distros, with literally dozens of GUI's, KDE, GNU being the most prominent among them. but almost none of this is unified! and so supporting the same wide range of hardware as windows become hard as heck, while maintaning the friendliness of mac also becomes hard. when someone pulls as many devs for a single linux OS as windows has, or they start limiting hardware (impossible for an Open Source distro) I doubt linux will ever live up to its full potential for home use

From what I have read, do I hate vista? Absolutely

As a PC Gamer will I buy it - Well, I will have to won't I? But I will hold out until the bitter end.

A good chunk of Vista is MS's attempt to woo the Media companies to get into bed with MS. Did you know that Vista spends a lot of CPU cycles so that it can spy on you? It literally does an internal poll over and over again to make sure you are not using some sort of dodgy hardware that will allow you to copy that protected medium (Ha! The joke's on them - HD and Blu-ray security have already been bypassed). Why would I want the computer to waste performance to spy on me? How is that a benefit to me as a customer? Oh right - customer's mean nothing to a monopoly.

Why would I want to spend money on an OS that runs SLOWER than XP? I will have to because they are only doing DirectX 10 for Vista (which John Carmack from ID says is ONLY to get people to buy Vista. There is no reason it couldn't be done in XP). Don't believe that almost anything runs worse in Vista than XP? See for yourself

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html

And Vista has so-called tilt-bits (again to spy on you) that if anything strange occurs it decides that you are doing something dodgy and actively works against you. Yeah - right, in the IT world NOTHING every strange, or unpredicted happens.

I also heard that Casual game companies are quite upset at the development of Vista. Namely the hoops that they have to jump through to get their game to actually work on vista, increases their development costs significantly.

That is why I hate Vista. Its not so much that it is a new OS, and yeah - some of the arguments against Vista were also levelled at XP. However Vista marks a significant change in how MS views customers. Customers are no longer there to be serviced. Rather they are to be monitored as criminals and have to pay (in terms of money, hardware performance and stability) for the priviledge of this surveillance. But hey, its a new viewpoint right? Guess why they called it Vista?

Will most people run out and give MS billions of dollars to be treated this way? You had better believe it! I wish I was wrong - but Vista will be crammed down everyone's throats, and MS will profit from this new ideology.

Oh well ... what do I know?

Dano

Gosh, wish I'd had time to follow and participate in this thread before things got so thick and fierce.

Put me down as Old-School MS-hater, Defender of Brad, and Vexed by Vista.

On the Vista business, I must confess that while many concerns voiced here are legitmate (not least things related to the economics of an unchecked monopoly), I know that I will eventually really value some stuff in Windows Vista.

That's despite how much I dread Vista's arrival in my work life and how many times it will annoy or outright harm me before SP2 is released. I don't believe MS innovates anywhere near as well as they think they do, but the sheer volume of new crap means that some gems will be hiding amongst the sputum. I like System Restore *a lot*.

Thanks for the Tom's Hardware link.

Yep, as you can see from their review, ALL graphics/video/sound developers should avoid Vista like the plague for the time being. Business users though could find things to love when they upgrade their office systems.

Currently it seems vista is a enthusiasts nightmare. Probably as intended too sadly. Microsoft wanted to make sure those pesky enthusiasts are kept under control.

Perhaps in a couple of years Vista will be evolved through service packs to be something people might actually want...guess we will have to wait and see.

Speaking of DX10 there is an article on Firing Squad with Tim Sweeney Mr.UT engine himself. According to him DX10 offers little to nothing in the visual department. It does allow programers to optimise a bit better and has some welcome "incremental" changes that will improve performance some.

He also said developers will be doing dx9 compatible games (at least they will) for the next 5 years most likely. Since alot of games use their tech it is unlikely that gamers will NEED to upgrade for at least several years. Most gamers will probably upgrade when they buy a new system.

So far I'm thinking Vista is in danger of becoming another Windows ME.

Since my business is Graphics I obviously will not be upgrading to Vista. Of course if Microsoft fixes peoples concerns and adds REAL open GL support and removes the drm crap then of course I'll reconsider.

I think that most games are done with DirectX, and some are also programmed with OpenGL, but to create graphics, most of the really high end systems that are made specifically to create/render graphics use OpenGL cards.  You can use DirectX on those machines, but it's not as fast and the programs are more likely to crash.

Why everybody swears and get so mad all of a sudden? What's wrong with you? Most of you never really tried the new OS, and are basing this on bigotry against the corporation (I'm a REBEL!), or twitched reviews. I never tried the OS, so I really have no opinion whatsoever. I'm sure it has alot of merits, and as of right now, alot of downfalls, like every other darn OS release in recent history.

You people have a really short memory.

Most of you, or your friends said the same darn things about XP when it was released: "it's an overhyped Win2000!, it's trying to control me and you and your mom too!, it's not working properly!, I prefer my Win98 - which works!, hey, it's just killed me dog, and made all the people in Africa starve!", but now everybody uses it and say it rocks. You guys are....I don't know. You just hate. It really proves us humans are really a bad race to deal with.

Stardock, this proves that the humans in GalCiv 2 really shouldn't be all that diplomatic, but instead, quite militaristic and hateful of everything they feel like.

Edit: oh, and Mumblefratz, go ahead and try to run GalCiv2, or almost any other game on anything other than an MS OS. Most of them don't work, right? Well, there are a couple of reasons why 90% of the computers in the world show that little window symbol when they're switched on. Most of the things you hate so much, can be turned off, but not all of the people in the world know how exactly to operate a PC and its innards. You and I are on the minority, here. That hourglass cannot be avoided, it was on MACs, it's on Linux machines, it's everywhere that you have a GUI-based OS. Again, you people just love to hate, but you take for granted everything that is working just fine.

And what's really dumb here is that you'll all have the exact same stupid and inflamed argument when a new OS will be released, this time, you'll stick to "Vista is working just fine, why do I need Windows (insert silly marketing name here)?"

Charge you for using your computer?? Where in blazes did you find out about that? Seriously, I don't know all the fuzz about Vista being bad, wrong and whatever you say. Most of the "bad things" (WGA, Validation, DRM, etc.) from "big brother" is their attempt to secure their stuff from being pirated. Their DRM schema is basically a "I don't trust people because people lie, cheat and lie" statement. If you pay for the stuff you will not have any trouble at all (I haven't got any problem with XP's WGA, Validations, etc.) Altough I find the protection schemas an annoyance at most I fail to see a problem at all except for the cracking/hacking community. If they manage to subvert the "product protection" schemas we will see a new brand of virus/spyware threat.

I guess you have not read some of the many problems encountered by people who have problems related to WGA (in Windows XP). And the problems are not because their Windows is pirated. At least some of them are related to WGA wrongly labelling legitimate Windows as pirated.

The possibility of Vista locking out the computer if it decides that it is pirated, however small, is unacceptable to me. As someone else have mentioned, Vista uses more CPU cycles to check and check whether it is pirated and to spy on users. Plain ridiculous and unacceptable.

You may have your reason to like Vista, but I certainly do not, and my opinion is shared by many others here.

I will never pay Microsoft another cent of my money. If any future games require DirectX 10 I will just not buy it (including games made by Stardock). I will avoid Vista now or in the future for as long as possible. I used to buy new versions of Windows soon after they are released, but not for Vista.