The RAM and XP question

[Husar]

For the sake of future information - I'll have to go windows 7 eventually - does it have the same effect as vista and break nearly everything that existed prior to its launch? Or did they include decent backwards compatibility this time?

Vista didn't break that much/anything for me so I cannot really comment on this, but 7 has generally been received much better as far as I'm aware.

Also, would I be able to use directx9 in it?

Why wouldn't you?

Not sure how well it runs older games as I don't usually play them anymore, but the higher versions (professional and ultimate I think) come with an XP mode that might help in that regard, haven't tried that though, you may want to look around on the web if that's a big concern for you.

[frogbeastegg]

Why wouldn't you?

Because it comes with directx11 and reverting to an older version of directx has, in my experience, historically proven impossible.

It's a concern because directx10 was the first version to make a conscious break with previous versions. Prior versions were all backwards compatible; 10 was not. That's why I don't have it, despite having a card which supports it and gains extras features if it is present.

I don't know anything about directx11. It's not available for XP.

Not sure how well it runs older games as I don't usually play them anymore, but the higher versions (professional and ultimate I think) come with an XP mode that might help in that regard, haven't tried that though, you may want to look around on the web if that's a big concern for you.

That's the real concern. I have a lot of older games that I like to play, and I know many of them were left broken or glitchy in vista or directx10. Since windows 7 postdates them I expect it has the same issues unless microsoft deliberately paid more attention to getting older programs working. That would be a complete turnaround of attitude; when making vists and 10 they were all about focusing on the future and let the past be damned.

I did a quick google on the XP mode. Seems it's useless for gaming as it's intended for business use. Lots of resource bloat and it will not let you utilise your video card.

[Tellos Athenaios]

XP mode is simply virtualisation through HyperV: it entails running XP in a VM while Windows 7 is running alongside it on the same machine (so two OS'es running at the same time on the same hardware). Requires hardware support in your processor (an Intel with the VT feature or an AMD with equivalent feature) to work, also only included in Windows 7 Pro or more expensive -- and as you say only useful for business use.

[pevergreen]

I play quite a few old games (Win7 pro 64bit) and they work great. Warcraft 2, some early C&C stuff.

Dx9 games work fine, as do DX10 and 11 (275 card)

[Beskar]

If you can get hold of an academic address (ends with .ac.uk), you can get Windows 7 professional for £30. Unfortunately, I would be glad to allow you to use mine, but I have already used it to get Secura her copy of Windows 7.
http://www.microsoft.com/uk/education/studentoffer/

You can get Windows 7 Home from Amazon for £60

I always forget about the different flavor of sexism of Britannia. Here, you'd be swarmed with geeks who adore the fact that you game. You'd be just as irritated, probably, but for different reasons.

This is far closer to reality here from what I have seen. If anything, there is constant grumbling about the lack of female gamers, as the only female gamers we generally see is some ones girlfriend or wife. Not single and available. I have never witnessed as a case where a female gets shot down, the only time I have seen it is in the case of "newbies", who try to print-screen by putting their monitor on their scanner. I haven't noticed where a female gets looked down upon before, I would love Froggy to turn up at the meets, just to help with the diversity, as the only females are generally avatar-only.

Yeah, I have to agree with Lemur, as to my knowledge, female gamers gets millions of "I love you" after just meeting some one, as they are a rare commodity as gold-dust. I even know a couple of guys who have considered homosexually on the basis of the rarity of the mythical female gamer and they want some companionship.

[frogbeastegg]

Hmm, well it sounds like less of a disaster than vista. The general word of mouth has been positive since the beta; unfortunately I hadn't seen too much about how it relates to my own concerns, as per above.

£30 for a full version which you can use to reinstall your system if you do a reformat? For that kind of money I'd be willing to give Windows 7 a go, and if it didn't play nicely it wouldn't be too much of a nuisance to wipe it all and do a dual boot setup with XP. I don't know anyone with an .ac.uk address. Bah! I never know the right people.

I must be the wrong kind of geek. The place I work at has the largest concentration of gamers I've ever encountered, and less than 1/3 show any acceptance. It's absurd. I had to sit and listen to a group of them discussing how impossible it is to get all the achievements in the xbox version of mass effect; I've done that and it's not hard. Another time one of them was asking one of the three who will talk to me about a game; the nice guy suggested that he ask me about it since I'd played it. The response? "Oh, I'm not interested in it anyway. It must be rubbish." That's not what he was saying seconds before, and a week later he was saying he'd brought it. A couple of weeks ago I was stuck having some of the ignorant ones talk over and around me because they jumped into a conversation I was having with one of the three. I got shut out by weight of numbers. Loads more expamples I won't bore you with. The irony? Out of all of them I'm the hardest of the hardcore.

At my previous job it was better; most of them accepted me as just another gamer. Before that, nightmare. During school, college and university a grand total of one male accepted me, and he was the nice guy sort who would struggle to be anything less than nice to anyone. Every single other one was outright hostile. The other gamers I knew back then were girls, 4 of them.

[Beskar]

Wow, some of those people have a problem. It isn't typical with the crowds I have mixed with, which I jested about in my earlier post.

Yeah, it is reformatable. Only problem is if you try to use the key on different computers, you have to phone up microsoft.