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However, now that Apple has switched to the intel core, you can load windows on there in a dual boot config, making gaming on a mac much more doable.
my Athlon XP 2800+ w/ Radeon X800 XT and 1.5GB of DDR400 runs Oblivion and the games I play just fine... and my laptop handles Starcraft and Age of Empires 2, and that means I can take it places and game.
but, using windows on a mac that has the intel processor does not mean you get the superiority of the mac graphics. you are still using windows.
I dont see how vista upgrades the 'average joes' experience with computers. Like someone said, win98 would probably do for some/most folks. The biggest problem I have, is that machines are still cheap(ish), but those cheap machines really run vista HORRIBLY. To run it well you need a decent machine with a good amount of ram, and a good video card. Except you go to Best Buy and you will find a machine for $499 that barely runs it (loaded with crapware of course), and this is what the people buy, and judge this new OS by.
I met a guy this weekend at a business lunch that just outfitted his small company's traveling sales guys with 10 new lenovo laptops. $2200 a piece. His says they barely run acceptably, and are in fact slower than the 3 year old IBM's they are replacing. And this is with $2200 machines! Ouch! Needless to say he is not happy, and has commited to upgrading them to XP.
Im currently using a 3 year old cheapie laptop that I got broken from a customer. Its a 512 meg celeron 1.2 (I think). It chugged along with XP but really didnt work very well at all. It zooms along with Ubuntu on it however!Its been my everyday home machine for about a year now. I can only imagine how it would do with vista. They gave me a vista laptop at work that out of frustation I ended up giving back, my 3 year old xp toshiba one meets all my needs then some. Since I work in a windows shop, one day I will be forced to work in slow motion and switch to vista!
here is the problem. most people that will go out and buy a pre-built machine get the "extras" which is where alot of the bloat comes from.
I think 9 years for one OS with no revisions is overdoing it. I have been using Vista for the past 6 months and haven't has a bit of problems with it. I am also using it on a high end machine that I built myself and it isn't loaded with crapware that pre-builts come with. Unfortunately Vista hasn't went over as smoothly for most people as it has for me. I am certain this is because most people buy the $399 special at Best Buy that doesn't come loaded with proper hardware for Vista as it is, and add all the crapware on top of that. Instead of extending the life of XP, MS should "fix" Vista to run better and more efficiently on the low-cost PCs that most people buy. Keeping the dinosaur that is XP alive isn't the answer.
P.S. - The problem is not with MS and Vista; its with the ignorant consumer who buys a $299 budget PC loaded with crapware and expects Vista to run as fast as XP did.
Keeping the dinosaur that is XP alive isn't the answer.
P.S. - The problem is not with MS and Vista; its with the ignorant consumer who buys a $299 budget PC loaded with crapware and expects Vista to run as fast as XP did.
Why wouldnt keeping xp alive be the answer? Whats wrong with it? It does everything I need. It does everything most people need. The applications are there, drivers are there, it could be dirt cheap if m$ decided to keep it and still sell it. People would buy it.
Ignorant consumer? Everyones supposed to be a computer specialist? How about people that just see it as a tool. Expect it to be as fast as xp? If i bought a computer today it would be TWICE as powerful as any of the junk I already own. Yes id expect vista to be FASTER. not slower!!
Why wouldnt keeping xp alive be the answer? Whats wrong with it? It does everything I need.
There needs to be something called progress in the software industry. Using that logic you could say Windows 98 does everything most people do just fine so why use anything newer? 9 years without a serious OS release is horrible. I admit there are problems with Vista and budget PCs, but XP can't take full advantage of today's high-end systems. They have to use either Vista or switch to a Linux distro. If you think Windows 7 will save the day you have another thing coming. Its being built off Vista's codebase so if Vista runs like crap in 512MB of RAM, so will Windows 7. People need to stop being so cheap and buy a PC that can actually run the software. Something in the $600 range will be enough.
I'm sorry to disagree, but "progress" in the PC world ended back around WIN 95. In the early days, developers of software were putting heart and soul into exploring the capabilities of computers. I've seen stuff on the old C-64s that was amazing, given the crudeness of the platform. I've seen DOS apps run rings around WIN apps, and watched in disbelief as users migrated to the WIN apps "because the interface was prettier" and looked more like new technology.
Once the API gained popularity, software developers had to abandon their unique and often innovative solutions and code, and learn how to live within the structure and limitations of Windows or starve. That more or less worked for the big three apps - word processor, database, spreadsheet - but even there MS replaced a lot of solid code with profit-motive driven changes. For instance, independent developers couldn't use the file format for Windows Excel and expect it to remain stable when the next version of Excel was released. BTDT.
All the MS products suffer from being profit-motivated rather than only based on trying to create the best solution for a task. Add the increasing obfuscation that keeps MS certified techs employed, and the bloat that comes from packing groups of functions into a single DLL or fragment, and you end up with a software system that has to eventually fall of its own weight. Vista is close to or at that tipping point.
All change is not progress. Some change is not good. Most people don't know the difference.
From a personal point of view, back in 1994 I developed a killer 16 bit application for a niche market. I had two competitors that developed less capable and less secure apps. Over the first two years I tweaked my code to make my program rock stable, immune to most viruses, able to recover data from any crash, multiple data paths and audit trail capabilites, automatic recovery from some common hardware problems. The program was so stable that I had customers that I literally never heard from with support requests until their hard drives crashed from old age.
My competitors kept following the MS carrot, changing their software to keep up with the Windows interface and quirks. Once I had bought VB4, VB5, VB6, C++ and a few other development platforms, I realized that I could continue to pay MS for the joy of working with yet another quirky development platform - often with undocumented flaws - and spend my hours laboring to keep THEIR income stream, or I could revert back to my solid code and recognize that eventually it would become obsolete; obsolete only because I wouldn't be able to thwart the MS control of the desktop and hardware. One of my competitors has since dropped out of developing, probably from frustration and burnout, and my other has made major inroads, even with a less secure system, primarily because of pumping money into it and spending huge amounts on advertising and trade show presence.
Do operating systems need to evolve and improve? Sure, for those apps that need it. A lot of the CG apps absolutely have to have an OS that provides capabilites that other business apps don't. Where MS has missed the boat is understanding that not everyone wants or needs that new OS, and that stopping production and support for the older OSs eventually p-sses off the user. How many opportunities does MS need to charge for an OS that, for most people, supports the same old programs? How many here have bought DOS, Win 3.1, Win 3.11, Win 95, Win 98, Win 98SE, Win 2000, Win XP, Win XP pro, and Vista? The chant has gone from "Ooh! This is so much better and stable!" to "Where the H is my... and why am I paying MS for this POS?" The PC bubble has burst, time to move on to other interests. Who knows, maybe people will be "computing" using their cellphones in the future and abandoning PCs altogether.
Location: Oklahoma(formerly SoCalif) Originally Mich,
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I had MSDOS on Win98. I needed that for "Q-Basics". It was alright but confusing at first. Most people don't know that Visual Basics is loaded into XP. And what you don't have like C++ can most likely be downloaded.
Well said Harry, All change is not progress. I think they finally got it right at xp. I have always liked xp from the first time I played with it as 98 in the end (or my end for it) was quirky and at that time overridden with virus attempts. Their need for change is motivated by profit. Where Intel is in the mix? Or rather why? I dont know. But WinTel has now decided you need to buy a new computer to play with others. (I don't have to mention mention linux runs seemingly quick on anything I throw it on and does almost everything I need, so a small lightweight core IS possible). I dont see too much progress involved with Vista. I dont see too many enterprises rushing to roll it out either, they must not see the progress either. If i had one computer to deal with, Id be ok with Vista. My problem is at work i have 1300 to deal with. Our 'trial' was an utmost disaster. Most of our ancient software (this is a school, educational software is so far behind the times its amazing), wont work. It would work locally, but we have it all networked (with xp). I have over 100 packages to deal with. Of the 'trial crew', only one still runs vista by choice. The vista ready laptops we have? I personally woudln't run Vista on ANY of them. (mid to high end tecras). I tried it on our (at the time, 1 yr ago) newest models with barely accepable results. (startup, login, shutdown times, too long). Hanging between users, drive mappings timing out, legacy and older apps not working, battery life horrible, etc. Just not enough hours in the day. One day we will have to revisit it, and god willing, Ill have another profession lined up.
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