Microsoft Windows Vista

[crashdome 3]

Quote[/b] ]I heard that the system requirements for Vista were going to ridiculously high, because of some vector based UI...

Is that a rumor or what? I can't imagine that will have any positive impact on the gaming side of things.

System specs for the 3d UI are pretty basic by todays standards. By the time it's released any shelf PC will run it just fine. MS saw Mac doing it and they are trying to follow that trend. By no means is it required specs, however. The 3D UI is *optional*.

I still say that this is a good move by MS. Only the PC geeks/gamers are running consoles or minimalist UIs. It reminds me of the leap of Windows. I had Windows 3.1 and I tossed it very quickly. By Win95, I was doing more than gaming and it was a big help in terms of applications, but still pure hell to get working. By Win98, it was a requirement for me. I see the same technological progress with the 3D UI. Mac (again) was the first to commercialize something new and now MS is going to capitalize on it. From an application stand-point this is going to be WAYYYYY better than GDI. I fricken hate GDI. It's worthless for me to write any visual apps (such as the recent press-layout tool I made for our Customer Service dept). DirectX is too complicated for something so simple and in all honesty, I should have just ordered Visio and been done with it. This new 'Avalon' system should be easier to code better looking and functioning forms for applications.

From what I understand, instead of coding controls to look easy to the user, you code the function of the control. You can then design any layout or visual interaction with the control seperately through XAML. You'll probably be seeing things like buttons and menus resizing and moving based on need. For example, you have a main menu or main toolbar on a form... but the user is currently entering data into a datagrid or group of textboxes.. the main menu or toolbar "minimizes" or "moves" and the datagrid/text boxes take primary visual focus. Before this, you needed to code a control capable of doing such functions along with the underlying properties of a textbox/datagrid/button by adding custom GDI methods directly to the control. Now, the programmer creates a textbox/datagrid/button control and it's appropriate methods and the designer uses the XAML to layout the screen without interfering with the control's main code. Extremely handy IMO. I have my users *constantly* ask to have "everything on one screen". Well, ... they are idiots. You can't fit the world into a paper bag. This XAML thing will make them much happier and me, as a result, less frustrated. I just have to learn it now...

In terms of games.. it's completely useless.

As far as XBox is concerned.. you can only blame the consumers for the popularity of that garbage. Atari revolutionized it and then Nintendo turned it into a monster. Sony gave it steroids. Everyone bought into it and now every company and their dead grandmothers wants to dive into that money pit.

[der bastler 0]

More like rats jumping a sinking ship. Microsoft is seeing what is happening to pc gaming and wants a piece of the pie before Sony becomes a gaming hardware monopoly.

Exactly. PC games business stagnates, from a gameplay point of view.

At least there's Grumpy Gamer: http://grumpygamer.com/

http://grumpygamer.com/7973586

Now that's what I call good gaming stuff. Sadly such games are a nearly extinct species, 'cause fps and rts sell better...

Same goes to simulations. Microprose anyone?

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]the PC geeks/gamers are running consoles or minimalist UIs. It reminds me of the leap of Windows.

I fall under that category I guess.

The more minimalist for gaming. The better in my opinion. I'm also one of those people who found the idea of windows XP absolutely abhorent.

The only thing I can say to XP's credit is it's much more stable.

I can't help but think of all the new useless junk that ends up increasing the system requirements for new operating systems that I don't need that could have gone towards running my existing applications better on newer hardware. It just seems like there's something wrong with that to me.

I'm also one of these people that:

-Hates Valve's Steam because it forces you to run software that has -nothing- to do with their game, taking up valuable system resources.

-And hates M$ .net, and Sun's java.... etc because it's virtual machine, to hell with ease of use in content creation. I want end user efficiency.

[crashdome 3]

I want end user efficiency.

Thats a pretty broad statement.

end user as in.... you?

end user as in.... geeks/gamers? (not meant negatively)

end user as in.... the majority of people in the world that can't click a mouse to save their life?

efficiency as in......?

I myself am a .Net programmer and I can say that my end users are asking for changes/flexibility/expansion constantly. I would say our main software is almost entirely different than it was 12 months ago. We just change as a business so rapidly. If I were building in C++ or under some other framework, I'd be years behind instead of days behind. Altogether, the cost savings alone is more than enough to justify hardware upgrades.

I must say using .Net (or any other similar framework) and the new Windows server and client OS has increased productivity/efficiency in not only my dept, but also my users departments. While I sound like a bad MS commercial, I am speaking the truth. We manage linux/mac/windows based systems. Our Windows system is by far the easiest to maintain and upgrade. Back in 2000 or earlier I probably wouldn't have said that, but Windows is really starting to become a very flexible system - if done correctly - and that goes for any OS.

I'm also not promoting .Net specifically, but I'm pointing out that efficiency is dependant on the situation and tasks. Now, if I were writing software for a sub-atomic analyzer (not that I even know what that is...) I can imagine that it's probably a better idea to go a bit more low-level.   Windows in general is also not made for geeks/gamers. One must remember that Windows is primarily still an OS targeted at business offices.

*EDIT* - I do agree about the Valve system though. I don't own or use anything made by them, but I am familiar enough with the system to understand that it's very excessive for a 'game'.

[denoir 0]

Indeed. I work for a fairly small company (we're just a couple of people) and we've been developing our product for two years now (soon to be released). Thanks to .NET and Visual Studio we've managed to do in two years more than our competitors have in five years with tenfold resources. Five years ago, there's no chance in hell we would have been able to achieve that.

And that's thanks to Microsoft blatantly cloning Java and other frameworks and improving upon them. Bad behaviour? Perhaps, but with the extraordinary results, I really couldn't care less.

[Daddl 10]

.Net's great, but I miss the the plattform independence Java offers. The 'write once - run everywhere' approach is perfect if you want to use the same libraries for applications using a wide array of platforms (smartphones, handhelds, desktops and servers). Of course there's some M$ stuff for that, too (ASP for example), but you are always limited to the Windows OS family.

Mono hasn't yet advanced to the point where I'd say you could run any .Net app without further efforts on a Linux machine in the near future. They haven't implemented the full 1.1 framework yet, but M$ is already talking about V3.0 (and V2.0 is to be released with the new VS in November).

Still, I'm quite eager to get my hands on the new VS2005.

[Airbourne Alchaholic 0]

It looks great... but then again, so did Windows XP

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]Windows in general is also not made for geeks/gamers. One must remember that Windows is primarily still an OS targeted at business offices.

Your statements about .Net in your own words from your own personal perspective are valid in their own right. I can't argue with that, or with the above statement.

However. It's ironic that the vast majority of PC gaming software runs primarily on windows. Which sucks... (I wish there was a more stripped down gaming friendly OS. Although I suspect that'll never happen. The F-ing shitbox will see to that) and I have successfully thus far dodged the .Net bullet quite well. I've missed out on a few programs that could have been made in C++ or even VB... which annoys me, since they're relatively insignificant end user utilities. They could have been written easily in C with little or no detrement with exception for the effort required to make it.

And yes. I mean end user efficiency on MY end. Since it occurs to me that .Net, once installed sort of integrates itself into your OS like some kind of binary "Cymothoa exigua". You just can't seem to just run it when you want to run some .net program. It more or less always seems to run some stupid little thing after it's installed, in the background.

[crashdome 3]

However. It's ironic that the vast majority of PC gaming software runs primarily on windows. Which sucks... (I wish there was a more stripped down gaming friendly OS. Although I suspect that'll never happen. The F-ing shitbox will see to that) ....

And yes. I mean end user efficiency on MY end. Since it occurs to me that .Net, once installed sort of integrates itself into your OS like some kind of binary "Cymothoa exigua". You just can't seem to just run it when you want to run some .net program. It more or less always seems to run some stupid little thing after it's installed, in the background.

1) I can't think of there ever being a 'gaming friendly' OS marketed as such. Even a linux-based system is hard for the average 'gamer' to maintain. Although I agree 100%. I'd love to see more stripped down versions of an OS that optimizes performance for gaming purposes only. As far as MS is concerned, the X-box IS a media based (including gaming) version of Windows in a very stripped down form... yet you blast it as if it's just the opposite? I dont understand.

2) What always runs in the background? IIRC The .NET Framework (other than the CLR) is primarily nothing more than libraries... or am I missing something?

If you can hold out, by all means do so. However, as of Windows Vista, you'll have no choice. It really isn't as bad as you think... I mean.. I'd really like to see someone who got a significant performance drop after installing .Net - I just don't think it's that bad and I wonder if it's merely a subconscious hatred to need to follow MS whenever they say 'jump'. Which I can respect whole-heartedly. I hate it myself sometimes, but if I do jump and I am better off than I was... well.. then I guess I am happy until I see something someone else has to offer.

I think you are right on about the gaming OS though. I just don't think it is financially feasible without compromise to the point you end up being a Nintendo clone anyways...

[Baphomet 0]

Quote[/b] ]yet you blast it as if it's just the opposite?

No. I blast it because it in all likely events is the stripped down OS that I'd like... on the PC!

It's just that it does me -no- good being on a pile of shit console.

And when I mean microsoft will see to it because of the shitbox. It's because they'll simply market the hell out of that and shoot for the lowest common denominator, which of course is going to afford/prefer/etc a console. It's a more broad demographic than marketing and designing a product to a considerably smaller group of people. Such as myself. Haha.

As far as the whole .Net thing goes. It seems to me the last time I downloaded .Net. Certain things I would run would take longer to load.

Such as internet explorer. Even just general navigation through the GUI seemed to occasionally suffer from brief pauses when loading certain windows for some reason. I never had that problem when I didn't have .net installed.

That shit bothers me.

And I'm not sure exactly what it is that stays resident when you install .net on your computer, I am under the impression there's other shit associated with it that you simply can't kill using the task manager to eliminate it totally when you don't want to use it.

[denoir 0]

The .NET framework is no different than the Java platform. You have your virtual machine and a JIT compiler. Beyond it, it's just a class library.

It's nothing that should/could interfere with the performance of windows etc It's also nothing you can "unload" per se, as there is nothing to unload.

Btw, Windows Vista is supposed to be some 90% written for .NET. I suppose that it will seriously speed up porting it to a 64-bit version.

[mattxr 9]

you could build a gaming operating system, its just microsoft could see the possibilites and they could buy you off.. and take it as there own idea..

[vektorboson 8]

you could build a gaming operating system, its just microsoft could see the possibilites and they could buy you off.. and take it as there own idea..

If you release your Gaming OS under GPL, then M$ can't buy you off...

I think Game Developers could indeed profit from an open source (not necessarily GPL) Gaming OS, since they could tune that OS for their Game if necessary (without restrictions).

It's a shame that we are dominated by M$, there were quite some nice concepts on OS.

[EiZei 0]

you could build a gaming operating system, its just microsoft could see the possibilites and they could buy you off.. and take it as there own idea..

If you release your Gaming OS under GPL, then M$ can't buy you off...

Yes they can, they just buy all the devs and leave the code out to rot. It will cause some major delays at least and quite possibly kill the whole project. Or maybe they will just use their enormous patent portfolio.

I still see no reason to go vista, it only means worse performance and more DRM for me. Not to mention that microsoft products are not excatly cheap.