Microsoft Vista - What is it?

Yes. Formerly known as Longhorn.

I forgot the release date, but I don't want it anyway, at least not until there's a service pack or 2 for it.

yeah....my guess is it will be plagued with bugs, and not have even a 1/4 of the new features MS said it would, so wait up till some service packs come out before you even bother. stick with XP a bit longer. I know its been like 5 years now on XP....but its ok, wait a bit more.

if they get too bored with XP they can always throw a distro or 2 of linux

It will most likely depend on the file system you choose. If WinFS is finalized before you decide to buy it, then you probably won't be able to do an "upgrade install" from your NTFS. In all honesty, it's usually better to do a full install on a new OS anyway. Bacjup what you need and go to town.

Keep in mind, Vista is going to need a powerhouse to really run smoothly. Some early recomendations I have seen are dual core + 2GB of RAM.

Umm - as far as I know, WinFS is built on top of NTFS. And the Beta 1 release even installs on Windows XP. Finally, it may even be released seperately from Vista.

So as for WinFS dictating whether or not you can upgrade without a wipe, no, it doesn't.

However, common sense of course states that if you backup, wipe, install and restore, you can get rid of a lot of the gunk that you've accumulated in your OS install.

always fresh install, never just "upgrade"

yeah, from what i've seen, MS wants people to buy some really good rigs to run Vista. At this point I think my AMD64 + ATi 9700 + 1GB ram ain't gonna cut it. Hmm....stupid MSFT!

ur rig should be fine. damn microsoft is making deals with the parts manufacturers so they get more sales.

This is more than likely because a good size of Vista will be coded in C# and VB using .Net. Even the Windows people are more apt to use RAD tools. We will see. I for one will be making the plunge to Vista not because it may be plagued with bugs but because I know Microsoft will be sticking with it for the next 4-6 years. No better time to learn then now.

Last official word I heard from MS, it will be released after Vista. It was originally one of their biggest "features' to be included in Longhorn. About a year ago, they announced (not surprisingly) that WinFS would not be included in the original release of Vista. WinFS is a file system, not an add on. It is meant to replace FAT, NTFS, etc, not be an addition to NTFS.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...fs03112004.asp

WinFS is an enhancement of NTFS Thunder. check the article revenant linked

you'll be able to buy Vista with the lower video requirements and upgrade it, as supposedly all the graphics will be included in the OS, you just won't have access to it when registering the lower-end (lower cost) OS.

pretty much any system currently used will run basic Vista. The graphics-heavy Vista will require a dedicated video card, but not a crazy new one like some people think.

Vista supports at a minimum DX9 cards for the new features. You can use lower DX version cards but you need to disable the new UI service that will be running like the new "themes" service is in XP.

Windows Vista Nvidia Support:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/technology_vista_home.html

Windows Vista ATI Support:
http://www.ati.com/developer/windowsvista.html

...so if you have one of these expect Vista to run from normal to better with the "Aero" UI.

My question would be.... Will running the fancy 3d UI in Vista in the background affect the performance of programs running the foreground at all?

to clarify:

if you're fraggin in in CS:S and with your hardawre under XP you get 60fps.

Under Vista, while playing CS:S at same settings, on SAME hardawre, will you still get in the ballpark of 60FPS?

Probably not.

It depends entirely on your current hardware, and where the bottlenecks in your current hardware exist. Three things affect gaming framerates: CPU speed, GPU power, and memory. Vista will consume extra CPU and memory resources when playing games, but not GPU power. If your current max framerates are CPU or memory limited, then Vista will slow your framerates down. If your current framerates are GPU limited, then Vista will not reduce your framerates.

But the story does not end there. If you are gaming on an LCD monitor with a refresh rate of 16ms, your FPS is usually restricted to 60fps (because your LCD is 60Hz) to prevent tearing or ghosting on an LCD. Therefore, your hardware might be capable of drawing 120fps, but is limited to actually drawing 60fps due to your LCD. *IF* your framerates drop when running Vista, they might drop from 120fps to 90fps. But your system still draws them at 60fps, to accomodate your LCD monitor. In that case, no, your framerates will not drop below 60fps, even though Vista "slows your framerate".

The story doesn't end there either. Games that support x64, or any driver enhancements that boost performance in 32-bit emulation mode might offset any performance lost in the added resources consumed by Vista. So Vista itself may slow your framerates due to using additional resources, but it might also speed up your framerates if the software publisher or video card manufacturer releases a 64-bit enhanced patch to boost performance. These two effects could cancel each other out, or provide a net increase in framerates.

Nobody will know for sure until Vista actually comes out, or RC releases come out for people to review. And believe me, once Vista is available, every technology review site from here to Bangladesh will be running performance tests on every system imaginable. For now, you are left exactly where you started: lots of theory, no definitive answers.