Well it’s lasted longer than a couple of friends tipped, and I’m still impressed. It looks like MS might actually have a winner here. Certainly it’s possible to be significantly more productive with the GUI in this OS than ANY previous Windows. Between those improvements, and the Powershell that they’ve been pushing with their new generation of products, I think that this is a strong move forward on MS’ part. I could easily be persuaded to purchase this Version of their OS. This is what Vista SHOULD have been. Don’t waste your time with the 32bit version, if you’ve got the hardware go 64bit. Whether you run any other 64bit programs or not, you’re going to see significant performance increases out of your box. I benchmarked a good 20% better in Supreme Commander, and I’ve noticed much better CPU and Memory Management with regard to the system as a whole while REALLY giving it a workout. I can’t imagine such aspects disappearing in the Retail Product that’s forthcoming.
Archive for the ‘Games’ Category
Release (Candidate) Me…
Well I bit the bullet tonight and installed the Windows 7 RC (64) tonight just to see if it looks even remotely like a reasonable upgrade to XP.
The installation was certainly the most uninteractive windows install I’ve experienced in all my windows installs going right back to Windows 2. But that said, it did pick up most of the hardware without any fuss. Networking worked, video picked up the dual head and monitors, speakers appeared to work. I installed the available Vista 64bit drivers for sound, network and chipset to see if they’d improve or break it. Seems to be running fine. Go figure!
I’ve not been a big fan of the “Vista” look, and Windows 7 certainly hasn’t lost that, but I suppose that’s to be expected. In many ways it’s just Vista SP2. However it does seem quite snappy, and after a bit of tweaking, I found a configuration that is tolerable.
Unfortunately I can’t find 64bit versions of most of my currently used programs, or most of my games. Still it’s interesting to watch them perform in the “compatability” mode I guess for such situations. The multitasking DOES actually appear to actually work much more “pre-emptively” than previous incarnations of the MS OS. Obvserving CPU usage, and memory usage almost has me convinced that this MS OS actually delivers on some of those long and tired promises. I actually DID find myself, multitasking under Windows as never before. I found no obvious struggles, at least at this stage, which I will admit was only a cursory workout for the moment. I’ve thrown on “Forged Alliance”, as this seems to be one of the most intersting CPU tests I can find in recent times, and so far, short of a crash when exiting, it did well. Others are yet to follow.
It MAY last the week out: more than I can say for most Linux Distros (bar SuSE) and XP64.
MS Whoredom…
Finally been giving the xbox 360 a bit of a go again since I’ve been otherwise occupied watching some videos, series etc over the last few weeks. Gave Assassin’s Creed a bit of a run again, and also F.E.A.R. 2. gained an hour of play. I’d forgotten just what a fine looking game Assassin’s Creed was when it came out. It really was quite luxurious while in game. It’s amazing that I see the game for $25 now, although I don’t recall it being that expensive when it came out. I’m in the last Chapter of Resident Evil 5, but was just losing concentration I think, so will leave it for another night.