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| Gaming on Vista : Pro’s & Con’s |
Submitted By: Nikhil Dandeker, Microsoft Student Partner. |
Gaming has reached a level of sophistication, never seen before! It has now become a form of entertainment for one all! Be it Solitaire or Minesweeper for the occasional gamer or Games like Half Life 2 or Age of Empires for those who need their daily shot of adrenaline. Gaming has indeed very much become an integral part of everyday life on the PC; and Vista promises to be a great OS for the job !
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The Vista Gaming Experience Page on the Microsoft website, states that Windows Vista supports DirectX 10 (“the most powerful gaming graphics platform ever built”).The catch here is that DX10 is backward compatible with other versions of DirectX. So, it is possible to play old games on Vista (Yes, it is possible, though some of them may need a little tuning and some might just not work at all. Majority of games though, seem to work just fine.)
But the new games that will come out will NOT work on Windows XP. This is because of the fact that DX 10 is available only on Windows Vista. To summarize it, XP support DirectX upto DX 9.0c and Vista supports upto DX 10. More on Wikipedia.
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| Now, Microsoft has tied up with LucasArts, AMD, THQ, Nvidia, etc. for Gaming. But all said, not many titles for DX10 are available as of now. Also, the titles that are available support DX9.0 rendering as well. This can be attributed to the lack of DX10 compatible graphic cards, as, while both Nvidia and ATi have formally released DX10 compatible cards, the range of cards available is very narrow. Also, a recent hack has claimed that though DX10 was supposed to run only on Vista, the creator has in fact, been able to run the DX10 games on Windows XP as well! Whether this actually works, remains to be seen. With all this talk of DirectX, one may think that OpenGL is forgotten, however, that is not the case, and Vista fully supports OpenGL. Wikipedia has also compiled a pretty exhaustive list of games that will feature DX10 support. . |
| Now the interesting part! The thumbnail images that are shown here are of the games to be released supporting DX10. |
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Unreal Tournament 2007 |
These screenshots are sure to leave anyone impressed! The graphics performance of these systems seems comparable to that normally associated with consoles. While it’s clear that Microsoft is serious about the Gaming market with the Vista OS, the inevitable question arises : Is the current graphics hardware capable of rendering such rich graphics? The answer to this question is slightly tricky, since Nvidia and ATi have actually launched graphics card for DX10, but the stability of the graphics drivers is what remains to be seen. Also, there are some recently launched low cost graphic cards (GeForce 8400GS, for one) which support DX10, which though not meant for the hardcore gamer, are still usable at normal resolutions without any problems.
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| And, does the basic graphics requirement of Windows Vista burden the graphic cards (Aero, etc.)? Benchmarking tests have shown that there is a general drop of about 10 to 15 % from XP to Vista because of the heavy requirements of the OS itself. This can be improved by switching to the basic display profile in Vista. |
| One related point; worthy of attention, is the PhysX (physics) engine. Many of the mainstream graphics card manufacturers are NOW including PhysX engines as standard but they are also available as separate plug-in cards. These cards create more realistic smoke, fire, water and clothing than has been previously seen in PC games. |
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| Lastly, for fans of old DOS based games, does Vista spell doom? Nope! You can use DOSBox to run legacy games on Vista. Granted, that it does require quite a bit of coaxing, but the games DO work. I myself played an old game of Crusader: No Regret and it worked remarkably well. A nice guide to this can be found at acpmag . One more thing is that, some games Windows based games might refuse to run on Vista, in which case, I would advise you to try convincing your game to run, by running it in compatibility mode. |
| Ardent Gamers have reported problems running their favorite games in Windows Vista, are holding off, for SP1 in the hope that it will address certain issues pertaining to performance. with processor performance hitting 100% when it really shouldn’t be too. |
| And there is a major news update for ALL Gamers: Microsoft has issued a press release on 10th of July, 2007, stating that a gamut of 30 games is being released REAL soon. Not only that, the titles have been named. Also, the major game studios like THQ, Eidos, etc. have decided to come up with games that will support the “Games for Windows — LIVE”. For ALL Gamers, this is AWESOME news and it further consolidates the fact that Microsoft is taking Gaming on Vista very seriously. |
| And finally a set of Pros and Cons about gaming on Vista: |
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| PRO’s. |
1. Hardware compatibility with Xbox 360 controllers. WOW!! Also on the way is a wireless dongle which will also give support the headset, steering wheel, controller, etc. This is specially a cool feature for those who already own an Xbox system.
2. Cross platform support with Xbox 360. This feature though not highlighted much in the upcoming titles, will allow for cross platform gaming and communication.
3. With the recent press release, we can be sure that Microsoft is committed towards Vista for Gaming. The games coming up, prove that.
4. DX10. You can hate it now, but you have to accept the fact that DX10 is very much pushing up the ante as far as graphics is concerned. Screenshots are testimony to that. Also for an extra WOW, lookup the official trailer of the game ‘Crysis’ set to release soon , which is SURE to keep you spell bound by the sheer quality of in-game graphics.
5. Parental Controls over games. Now whether this should be considered a 'Pro' or a 'Con" is  debatable. Vista allows parents to allow or to block individual games, set time limits, etc. Time for kids to get smarter!
6. Launch saved games directly. Microsoft has its own ways of adding the ‘WOW effect’ and this feature is one of those. A nice addition.
7. Better multi-player functionality. Vista improves on this aspect of gaming and multi-player gaming is now really much smoother, without hitches.
8. Games Explorer. Keeps track of all the games on the system. A bit buggy currently. Let’s hope that Microsoft fixes it in the SP1 for Vista. |
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| CON’s. |
1. Compatibility problems. This is one of the main problems plaguing Windows Vista. Support for old hardware and software is lacking. So some games refuse to work, even in compatibility mode.
2. Hardware availability. Let’s face it, the amount of graphics hardware available for DX10 currently is very less and though this will change over a period of time, it is currently a major deterrent for heavy gamers to move to Vista.
3. Lack of titles. With most of the industry adopting the wait and watch strategy, has meant that there are hardly any titles available which actually harness the actual capability of DX10.
4. High Cost. Vista has high basic requirements, due to which playing games on Vista requires up-to-date and powerful hardware which is costly.
5. Shortcuts. Most of the gamers would rather prefer to have the shortcut of frequently played games on their desktop. Restricting this is an unwanted feature which can be rather irritating. |
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These Links May Interest You:
How to Enable Games in Vista Business.
The Parental Control Feature. |
External Links:
Microsoft Games * Microsofts New Train Simulator * List of Vista Compatible Games * MSN Games For Vista |
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