Another reason to hate Vista... It's a major memory hog

**Spino** · 10-12-2006, 18:25

Unbelievable. Yes, I know, I'm stating the obvious but it's the implication for gamers that really bugs me. Now that 1gig systems have become the norm MS throws an OS on us that, at least as far as gamers are concerned, needs 4 gigs to run state of the art games smoothly. :anger:

http://www.bcchardware.com/index.php...1&limitstart=0

Here's a few choice paragraphs to chew on before the benchmarking section begins...

That's right dear friends! A fresh install of Windows Vista Ultimate will hog over 1GB of system memory - just to run. This screenshot was taken at first boot and from there, the memory usage only climbed until it stabilized at a mere 1.11GB - almost 28% of our system's memory. Granted there is still 2.89GB free, but out of the box Vista is a RAM pig.

We booted up with 2GB of memory installed, fearing that we would see results very similar to what we captured above. With less memory available, Vista stripped itself down to a mere 680MB of memory at first boot and leveled off somewhere around 784MB. It's using less overall memory, but with less RAM installed it is now using over 38% of our memory just to operate. We are now down to 1.2GB to run all of our applications.

Compare these numbers to my current install of Windows XP on my main machine. I have a ton of applications open and am running 63 processes at the moment. I have two instances of Folding @ Home running, two instances of Firefox, a single instance of Internet Explorer running, with Outlook open, Skype, MSN, a backup program, Trillian, Palm Desktop, NOD32 and Ultramon to control three displays. On this heavily bogged system, I'm using 563MB of RAM and I have a lot going on. Under Vista, this would hog much more memory.

**Blodrast** · 10-12-2006, 19:12

Honestly, did you expect anything else from M$? Has this been different for any of their previous OS versions ? Nope. Each and every one of them advanced the memory requirements by jumps and stretches.
Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed in them - I would have expected them to require at least 16GB of RAM - I mean, what the hell NEW OS is that that doesn't make 90% of all existing hardware insufficient to run it ? I think they're losing their touch. [/sarcasm]

**drone** · 10-12-2006, 19:28

PC manufacturers have to be salivating over this. Let's replace a reasonably stable and compact (in terms of today's computing ability) OS with a brand new OS, bound to be riddled with security holes and bugs, that takes up much larger resources and offers very little new functionality? Yeah, that sounds like a plan. I'll definitely be using XP for my next machine.

Wonder how long it will be before M$ stop selling XP, or even better stop supporting XP, to force people to upgrade? If initial sales of Vista bomb, I'm sure they will try something to recoup their loses.

**Spino** · 10-12-2006, 19:38

Originally Posted by Blodrast

Honestly, did you expect anything else from M$? Has this been different for any of their previous OS versions ? Nope. Each and every one of them advanced the memory requirements by jumps and stretches.
Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed in them - I would have expected them to require at least 16GB of RAM - I mean, what the hell NEW OS is that that doesn't make 90% of all existing hardware insufficient to run it ? I think they're losing their touch. [/sarcasm]

Well WinXP forced people to upgrade their memory in a similar fashion but the benefits gained by using WinXP over Win98SE or WinMe were enormous. Tragically, other than gaining access to DX10 I cannot think of a major reason why the average PC gamer, let alone the average PC user, should upgrade to Vista. Vista is obviously not the world changing, revolutionary step forward that MS would have us think it is, and it certainly isn't worlds apart from WinXP. Given Vista's ~~revolutionary~~ evolutionary step forward I would love to know why in blazes does it require more than twice the memory as XP to run smoothly and three to four times the memory to run games smoothly? Very, very irritating.

**BDC** · 10-12-2006, 20:58

Clearly those few hundred extra MBs of ram used are all the anti-piracy stuff... *cough*

I was under the impression all this 3d business would actually improve things as it shifts the stress to the graphics card. Ah well.

**Lemur** · 10-13-2006, 06:23

In case you weren't loathing Vista enough by now: Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use

By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb Technology News

Microsoft has released licenses for the Windows Vista operating system that dramatically differ from those for Windows XP in that they limit the number of times that retail editions can be transferred to another device and ban the two least-expensive versions from running in a virtual machine.

The new licenses, which were highlighted by the Vista team on its official blog Tuesday, add new restrictions to how and where Windows can be used.

"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once.

The new policy is narrower than Windows XP's. In the same section, the license for Windows XP Home states: "You may move the Software to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Software from the former Workstation Computer." There is no limit to the number of times users can make this move. Windows XP Professional's license is identical.

Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. "You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system," the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.

Vista Home Basic, at $199 for a full version and $99 for an upgrade, and Vista Home Premium ($239/$159), are the two most-affordable retail editions of the operating system scheduled to appear on store shelves in January 2007.

Although the Vista team's blog did not point out these changes, it did highlight others. "Two notable changes between Windows Vista license terms and those for Windows XP are: 1) failure of a validation check results in the loss of access to specific features; and 2) an increase in our warranty period from 90 days to 1 year, which brings Windows in line with most other Microsoft products," wrote Vista program manager Nick White.

Specifically, the Vista license calls out the ramifications of a failed validation check of Vista.

"The software will from time to time validate the software, update or require download of the validation feature of the software," it reads. "If after a validation check, the software is found not to be properly licensed, the functionality of the software may be affected."

Vista's new anti-piracy technologies, collectively dubbed "Software Protection Platform," have met with skepticism by analysts and criticism by users. Under the new program, a copy of Vista that's judged to be in violation of its license, or is counterfeit, is disabled after a set period, leaving the user access only to the default Web browser, and then only for an hour at a time.

**Xiahou** · 10-13-2006, 07:10

Wow, Microsoft really sounds like they're going out of their way to hand us a big "screw you" this time around.

Wonder how long til they start scanning your network for unapproved software instead of just the single computer?

**screwtype** · 10-17-2006, 18:36

Originally Posted by Lemur

The new licenses, which were highlighted by the Vista team on its official blog Tuesday, add new restrictions to how and where Windows can be used.

"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once.

The new policy is narrower than Windows XP's. In the same section, the license for Windows XP Home states: "You may move the Software to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Software from the former Workstation Computer." There is no limit to the number of times users can make this move. Windows XP Professional's license is identical.

This is what happens when you have a product which has no effective competition.