 |
 |
 |
Windows Vista RC2 Preview, Installation, Benchmarking
Saturday, October 14th, 2006
…It comes with a stack of new features and changes, more than we can talk about today – 
on the surface it feels like a completely new OS from the positive installation changes through to the first time you load Vista. Although, deep down, it would seem like Microsoft have created an OS which is powered by the XP engine with a bunch of pretty funky cosmetic changes on the top but also some quite utterly annoying security warnings, as well. Of course, it’s more than just cosmetic changes as we see totally revamped features such as networking, DX10 graphics support, searching and performance features like ReadyBoost but visuals is a big part of the difference between Vista and XP from what we have seen so far from the latest release from Microsoft, RC2 build 5744.
Because of these major cosmetic changes, Vista will not be for everyone. If you want to run the fancy Aero interface, which comes with certain editions of the OS (such as Vista Ultimate edition, which we are looking at today from RC2), you will need a DX9 capable graphics card with Hardware Pixel Shader v2.0 and at least 128MB of memory onboard. You’ll also need a CPU with at least a 1GHz clock speed and 1GB of memory. If you have anything less, you aren’t ready for the “Vista Premium” experience and if you aren’t ready for that, you probably shouldn’t consider upgrading to Vista. In some ways, Vista will force a lot of people to upgrade or buy new computers, which is good for the industry, but not good for the end-user since they need to spend more money. You may be able to run Vista “Premium” editions on your old computer but it will more than likely be sluggish and unenjoyable. If you run the cheap and less impressive versions of Vista, it’s very debatable if you should even upgrade.
Eventually PC users, in particular gamers (and us benchmark testers), will be forced to upgrade to Vista because it comes with DX10 and if you want to play the latest games with all the latest visually impressive graphics features, Vista is a requirement. Of course, people will just upgrade because it’s the latest thing on the streets and you gotta keep up with your pal down the street, right? Windows Vista RC2 Preview – From installation to benchmarking :: TweakTown
Popular Posts
Please read our Disclaimer
