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One In Two PCs Won't Run Vista's Interface
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Feb 10, 2006 05:39 PM
from the new-pcs-may-be-required dept.
from the new-pcs-may-be-required dept.
ThinSkin writes "While integrated graphics seem to handle Windows XP and 2000 just fine, they won't be able to handle Vista's 3D 'Aero Glass' compositor, which will prevent roughly half of all PCs from running Microsoft's new OS. Performance class cards that can handle DirectX 9.0c are up for the challenge." From the article: "After years of delays and several feature revisions, one of Vista's main selling points is the Aero Glass interface. However, as Peddie notes, users already have the ability to start constructing a PC that should be Vista-ready before the OS even ships. Microsoft also said this week that it would reserve its Halo 2 videogame for Vista."
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Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:5, Informative)
Back in 2004, Microsoft announced that Longhorn would automatically detect a computer's graphics capability [com.com] and show one of three GUIs: Aero, Aero Glass (the really high-end interface) or a classic Win2K-style interface.
This new article doesn't actually say the PCs won't be able to run Vista, but that they won't be able to take advantage of Aero Glass. It doesn't mention the three tiers of interface, but it does say this:
Sounds like one in two machines will be stuck with classic. Or maybe even some of those will get the mid-level GUI. But it doesn't say they won't be able to run the OS.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Insightful)
Without a visual difference I'm not sure there's much left even for -us- to notice much benefit of Vista over XP.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... that's because that page is talking about the customer benefits of having a Windows Vista-capable PC, which are simply that you get to run Windows Vista with all the eye candy turned on. Maybe you should look for a relevant page, instead of complaining that an irrelevant page is irrelevant?
As for your actual point, the advantages of Vista over Windows XP seem to me to be roughly equival
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Interesting)
Honest!!!
yesterday we had a major outage in our LAN due to "unknown" factors. As the only iBook user, i saw the traffic that was the result of a worm. It didn't affect me of course, but i saw my Desktop bellyaching.
Wish Apple would push Mac Mini as a replacement to Vista/XP with Virtual PC bundled in for FREE.
It would sell like hotcakes.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:5, Funny)
whereas we, hardcore computer users, don't see any benefit of Vista over XP.
Parent
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Informative)
Well, except Vista looks very different from XP even without the "Glass" high end interface. In fact, there's really no way to make it look like XP at all - it either looks like Win2000, it looks like Glass or it looks like a flat, opaque version of Glass.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure they would; they'd notice the helpful DRM.
Re:But casual users are huge on the upgrades (Score:3, Interesting)
This is probably the most insightful comment in this entire story. Think about what Vista is going to do to the bottom end of the PC market - the Sempron-and-256M-and-integrated-graphics-for-$300
That and integrated cards are no slouch (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd wager that at least the GMA 950 will be enough for the more advanced interface, and even the GMA 900 will be.
Parent
Re:That and integrated cards are no slouch (Score:3, Interesting)
At this point in Vista's development, GMA 950 (desktop and mobile) will run Aero [intel.com], although that page I linked to doesn't say which level of Aero ("Standard" or Glass).
An older version of Intel's notebook guidelines for Vista (before the current 945GM chipset was released) said that GMA 900 would run Vista without the new Aero interface.
The key difference is support for Windows Vista Displ
Re:That and integrated cards are no slouch (Score:3, Insightful)
Please, enough with the fearmongering. FUD is no better when it goes against MS than when it comes from it.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Interesting)
Only a quarter of current desktops could run it (joking)... If they keep up at this rate, by the time Vista is released ALL desktops will be able to run it.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, it doesn't really take up CPU cycles so much - if you've got the video hardware for it, most of the big stuff should happen there.
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Vista != Vista's 3D Interface (Score:3, Interesting)
In my opinion, there really is only one reason to get a newer version of Windows.
Support.
That is the only reason I have *ever* gotten a newer version. Software I wanted to run would not run on the current installed version...
And, no... I'm not going to call it an "upgrade" either...
(And, no... I've never gotten Windows as an included OS either.)
Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Switch (Score:3, Informative)
Um... No... There is quite a level of difference between OSX's Graphics and what Vista is bringing to the table. Even Video cards that don't support Glass will be able to do amazing 3D application and animation effects that OSX STILL can't do without the application being written for OpenGL.
I know this is a common myth, but truly, trust me. There is a big difference between Vista's graphics and OSX. And I am not so muc
Re:Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
Because a PC will be cheaper.
After all Aero Glass is mostly based on developments seen quite a while ago in OS X.
Everything I've seen suggests that Vista's display system is technologically better (resolution indepependent, for example).
Re:Switch (Score:4, Funny)
Does this mean that no matter how large your display, the start menu will cover it all?
Parent
Re:Switch (Score:4, Interesting)
Mac users upgrade within the Mac family, Windows users within the Windows family. In twenty years nothing has changed that equation.
Parent
Re:Switch (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Um, compatibility with their software? (Score:5, Insightful)
Faced with such a choice, I think I'd just stick with the fully-functional system I already have. Luckily, there's no such issue anyway, as for 99% of Windows users, Vista doesn't require a new box to run at all.
Parent
Re:Switch (Score:5, Insightful)
Its also true that you can get a dell desktop with monitor for 300-400 dollars and that a mac mini is 500 plus you need a monitor. However, the mac has a real video card in it too. You can't game on a 300 hundred dollar dell. Most don't even have agp or pciE slots to upgrade your onboard video and standard pci don't cut it anymore. Before you try to say macs aren't upgradable, my wife's powermac has a retail ati 9800 in it and it shipped with a geforce 4 mx 32mb AGP card.
Your argument is 5 years old. Steve jobs now wants to ship affordable computers and thats part of the intel switch.
Finally, if you are referring to home built pcs, must people don't do that. Sure slashdot readers can slap a computer together for a few hundred bucks thats quite nice, but my mom or cousin can't. Apple sells computers and if you compare dell, sony, gateway, lenovo (or whatever ibm pcs are), or hp i think you'll see they aren't cheap. Dell's gaming line is quite expensive in fact. You can even buy a powermac or well equipped iMac for Dell prices. Dell gaming or dell precision workstations are in the quality realm of apple powermacs.
Now lets see you build a core duo for less than apple with a 17 inch widescreen lcd display, remote control, radeon graphics, and other specs in a small form factor. 17 inch lcd displays are cheap, but not widescreen displays. Price DELL out on those.
Parent
Re:Switch (Score:3, Interesting)
At the time Apple deems the hobbyist market worth pursuing, they will release products that the hobbyist market will be interested in.
Otherwise, you can assume that Apple doesn't see any money in the hobbyist market; in other words, the market is too small to pursue.
They don't make tablets or PDAs either. I think
Re:Switch (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to mention that you're paying for much higher quality. The Dells in our office break down every nine months, floppy drives go out, monitors go
Re:Switch (Score:4, Insightful)
Show me a pc at half the cost with Apache, Perl and a boatload of other *nix software factory installed... and also runs Dreamweaver, PhotoShop, Quicken and MS Office natively.*
Yeah, you can get Apache and Perl and install them yourself... but, time is money.
Or you can build a Linux box and buy VMWare and Windows and come out a little $$ ahead... if your time is worthless. (I did this, but I also bought a Mac... Maximum flexibility! But, the pc cost about a grand more than the Mac did.)
You don't save as much once you take the value of your time into account. (well, not the value of *my* time... yours may actually be worthless, I don't know)
You won't be done with the product activation in the time that someone can set up some of the Macs!
*Hey, some of the Macs still run this stuff natively.
Parent
Not necessarily bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
A) Get some decent integrated graphics systems (or see NForce boards take off in popularity)
or
B) See big computer retailers putting at least adequate graphics cards into their base systems.
This will do wonders for the ability to play games on cheap laptops.
The people with older graphics systems that can't run Vista? Chances are most won't need to upgrade anyway, and XP-compatible consumer software won't be going anywhere for a long time. Sure, they won't be able to run Halo 2 PC, but hell, if they can't meet Vista specs, they sure as hell can't meet the game's specs.
Inaccurate Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, go back to 2001, I remember knowing many people whose PC's ran awful slow when running XP in Fisher Price mode, so they'd revert to the classic look and things were fine until they had a slightly better PC a little later.
Same will happen here.
Joe Sixpack? (Score:3, Informative)
I would guess over 90% of /.ers (when forced to use Windows) use the W2K Style, with the rest enjoying XP's Aero or a 3rd party skinning app. I hope Microsoft opens up the format for the Themes so such an additional app isn't needed. It would be a
Re:Inaccurate Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it very telling that OS X already surpasses Vista's current interface (what you see in the betas is mostly what you're going to get according to Microsoft) but runs on much less demanding machines, like a Mac mini. OS X Leopard is just going to widen the gap further between Microsoft and Apple in the interface department.
Parent
Re:Going on a rant, just ignore me (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple. Every OS Sucks:
http://www.deadtroll.com/video/ossuckscable.html [deadtroll.com]
Small Goof in the description (Score:3, Informative)
They can run the OS, just can't take advantage of Aero Glass.
dont be evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:dont be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Since so many users (especially businesses) will continue to use XP Pro while it's still under "extended support," I'm sure third-party software will continue to be written for XP if many of the software company's customers are still using XP. Only Microsoft has an interest in shutting out a large number of existing XP users (so users will upgrade to Vista).
Parent
What does aeroglass DO? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does the desktop requre more graphics calculations than a modern video game? Somebody please whack me with the cluebat.
One In Two PCs Won't Run Vista's Interface (Score:4, Funny)
One In Two PCs Won't Run Vista's Interface
That's nothing, zero out of my three PC's will!
How this kind of marketing might work (Score:5, Insightful)
So what you do instead is construct a message that seems threatening for about forty-five seconds -- just as long as an editor will review it in the pending articles queue: you say, hey, my new software product is going to have really stringent hardware requirements. Oh, the editors say, this is perfect! It's interesting, controversial, and definitely front page material.
What they don't see is the second touch: you subtly phrase the article so that the impression left on reader is not that your product is incompatible, but that it is exclusive. Oh, they think -- I have a high-end system! I've got to try out this Vista thing on it!
Suckers.
Re:How this kind of marketing might work (Score:3, Funny)
-b
Re:How this kind of marketing might work (Score:4, Funny)
The simple explanation is that it's simply another article.
Parent
One in Two PCs won't run Vista.... (Score:5, Funny)
This is NOT true.... (Score:5, Informative)
Vista scales its graphics to three levels, the basic level which still supports all of the WPF applications, scales the OS UI back to look like Windows 2000. This level however does not use WPF effects for the UI, such as transparent 'glass' Window Frames, etc.
The second level is a cross between WindowsXP and the Vista Interface. Again it supports all the WPF applicaitons, however the UI, visually is themed and looks somewhat like the higher level 3D 'Glass' Vista UI.
The third level is the 'high' level 'glass' and basically works on any Video Card that has basic DirectX 9.0 features built in. This level brings the WPF and 3D effects to the UI.
You get Glassy WIndow Frames that not only are transparent but also do a blur effect on the Windowsw Frames with Shading. This level also takes full advantage of your cards 3D Acceleration features throughout the basic Windows UI.
However even in the 'basic' mode Vista will run on ANY video card, Vista will still do amazing looking 3D effects on a crap card with the WPF, and if possible take advantage of any 3D GPU acceleration features in your video card.
For example if you are running a 1998 ATI Rage 128 32MB Video card, you are going to run in the seconde level of quality, and can turn it down to the basic level if you choose. (See, even old cards run in the second level, just like they would be themed in WindowsXP.)
Now even if your video card is only able to run in the second level or lets say, it has no 3D acceleration features, Vista will still properly run WPF and 3D WPF designed applications.
For example the WPF Chess game that comes with Vista, has reflective tile, smooth lines, is a full 3D applciaiton workspace, and runs with or without a 3D GPU in the computer. (The power of software rendering of WPF and DirectX.)
What Vista won't do on older video Cards is map the UI to 3D RAM on the GPU, and slow down your computer interface to display cute animations or glass if your Video card is not fast enough to do that.
So if you are running a computer with a video diplay older than a Geforce FX 5200, then you won't get the pretty UI, but if you have an old FX 5200 you will, and most people can pick this level of card up for almost any computer for like 30-50 US. (You can even buy a PCI version for your 500mhz system that has no AGP port, get the pretty Vista high level Glass.)
There are some recent 'cheap' Intel onboard chipsets that don't support enough 3D to the high level 3D display mode, and there are also some onboard Video that uses shared Memory, etc that won't support the high level Vista display mode.
Sure these people won't get the 'glass' effect, but they will be able to do everything else. And if they want the prettier interface, buying a video card that is considered 'low level' by today's standards is not such a big thing. If these people are playing WoW or any other game released in the past few years, they already have had to buy a newer video card anyway.
And Vista without Glass is not ugly or losing a lot for people, all it means is that Windows itself won't be sucking your GPU power and RAM for 'pretty' effects, when it is not necessary.
This not much different than people turning off themes in XP, expect there is a new level of UI themes in Vista that is a full 3D UI implementation that Windows itself uses for displaying runing applicaitons and the Windows Shell Interface.
If anyone has any doubts or questions go to the WinSuperSite, he seems to have the ability to release information on Vista without breaking an NDA. http://www.winsupersite.com/ [winsupersite.com] (You can even see him explain this, screen shots of the different modes, and why and how it works.) -It is actually pretty slick and smart of Microsoft.
One thing Microsoft if introducing with Vista is a new Display Driver Model Called the LDDM an
"...up to the challenge" (Score:3, Insightful)
Performance class cards that can handle DirectX 9.0c are up for the challenge.
Should something as simple as a UI require as much horsepower as a top of the line first person shooter?
Re:Hasta la Vista, Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you are still running win3.1, eventually you will 'upgrade' if you want to use windows. Drivers wont exist for old machines, software wont run.. They will win in the end.
Re:It helps the economy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Making people spend additional money in order to be able to do the same things they already do today does not "help" the economy in any sense. It just decreases efficiency and increases expenditure without creating new wealth.