01/15: Some Early Windows Vista Final Reaction
Posted by Jared
First of all, I'd like to thank Patrick for the privilege of being a MB co-blogger! I'm looking forward to bringing analysis a few times a week on Microsoft, its products, and its effect on the ever-changing technology landscape.
Beta testers and business users have had the good fortunes of being able to run Windows Vista's final release before it's made available to the public at large on January 30. The initial reaction seems to be pretty positive, despite a relative dearth of Windows Vista-compatible hardware drivers at this time.
Here's Jason Burns of philoking.com, who has installed Vista on a recent HP Pavilion model and doesn't seem to be reporting any driver issues:
Neowin.net member Punio4 shares his Windows Vista experiences in this Neowin thread. His PC is similarly configured to mine; and he and I both share the pain of limited support for our onboard sound of choice, nVidia's SoundStorm technology. This may end up precluding a great number of Athlon XP users from upgrading to Vista in the short term (at least until Realtek gets some replacement drivers into a stable state -- right now, they are anything but stable).
I run Windows Vista Business on my custom-built PC. It's powered by an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with 2GB of RAM. Video is driven by a Chaintech nVidia GeForce 6600 with 256 MB video RAM. The Aero user interface is gorgeous, if just a tad bit sluggish at times when scrolling Web pages (thanks mainly to unfinished nVidia video drivers). It's worth noting, though, that my system's performance is far better with Aero enabled than when it is disabled. Offloading the rendering of the user interface to the video card really does make a palpable difference in the system's responsiveness. My Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 TV tuner/recorder works quite well (though the video skips sometimes -- again, this may be a fault of unfinished nVidia drivers). There is some limited support for my Saitek X52 flight control system, but some of the functions (such as the LED display in the throttle) cannot be configured at this time. I think my biggest hangup, and unfortunately my current deal-breaker with Vista, is with the bundled sound driver, largely rewritten to support the new Windows Vista audio stack. For one, it is only capable of stereo output; my motherboard is capable of 5.1 sound. Second, it sounds like something in its EQ permanently turns the treble up to full blast; there is so much high-end, sometimes there is clipping and even cancellation, causing some quality problems not observed on Windows XP. I may have to come to terms with buying an Audigy card for the machine, though I find that largely unnecessary considering I already have excellent sound capabilities on the motherboard. Despite these issues introduced by the new audio stack, gaining the ability to regulate each application's volume on a separate basis is extremely sweet!
Once the driver issues shake themselves out -- give the vendors a few more months to get the situation totally under control -- Windows Vista is going to be quite a home run. It's already an incredibly robust, responsive, and stable OS. Its performance on my older hardware has really surprised me, and it will probably get even better once updated device drivers become available. Of course, the real truth will be told on January 30, when John Q. Public will finally get to install Vista.
Beta testers and business users have had the good fortunes of being able to run Windows Vista's final release before it's made available to the public at large on January 30. The initial reaction seems to be pretty positive, despite a relative dearth of Windows Vista-compatible hardware drivers at this time.
Here's Jason Burns of philoking.com, who has installed Vista on a recent HP Pavilion model and doesn't seem to be reporting any driver issues:
Overall the machine runs fantastic, it’s fast, I rarely see much processor load, almost always none on the second chip (I run a memory/CPU monitor on the widget bar) The memory is usually around 40% and I have seen it spike to 50% when idle, but that’s pretty rare.
I used this machine exclusively over Christmas vacation and had no crashes, problems, etc. It’s rock solid. I will mention the “are you sure” screens are a little annoying, but that’s a minor thing.
I used this machine exclusively over Christmas vacation and had no crashes, problems, etc. It’s rock solid. I will mention the “are you sure” screens are a little annoying, but that’s a minor thing.
Neowin.net member Punio4 shares his Windows Vista experiences in this Neowin thread. His PC is similarly configured to mine; and he and I both share the pain of limited support for our onboard sound of choice, nVidia's SoundStorm technology. This may end up precluding a great number of Athlon XP users from upgrading to Vista in the short term (at least until Realtek gets some replacement drivers into a stable state -- right now, they are anything but stable).
I run Windows Vista Business on my custom-built PC. It's powered by an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ with 2GB of RAM. Video is driven by a Chaintech nVidia GeForce 6600 with 256 MB video RAM. The Aero user interface is gorgeous, if just a tad bit sluggish at times when scrolling Web pages (thanks mainly to unfinished nVidia video drivers). It's worth noting, though, that my system's performance is far better with Aero enabled than when it is disabled. Offloading the rendering of the user interface to the video card really does make a palpable difference in the system's responsiveness. My Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 TV tuner/recorder works quite well (though the video skips sometimes -- again, this may be a fault of unfinished nVidia drivers). There is some limited support for my Saitek X52 flight control system, but some of the functions (such as the LED display in the throttle) cannot be configured at this time. I think my biggest hangup, and unfortunately my current deal-breaker with Vista, is with the bundled sound driver, largely rewritten to support the new Windows Vista audio stack. For one, it is only capable of stereo output; my motherboard is capable of 5.1 sound. Second, it sounds like something in its EQ permanently turns the treble up to full blast; there is so much high-end, sometimes there is clipping and even cancellation, causing some quality problems not observed on Windows XP. I may have to come to terms with buying an Audigy card for the machine, though I find that largely unnecessary considering I already have excellent sound capabilities on the motherboard. Despite these issues introduced by the new audio stack, gaining the ability to regulate each application's volume on a separate basis is extremely sweet!
Once the driver issues shake themselves out -- give the vendors a few more months to get the situation totally under control -- Windows Vista is going to be quite a home run. It's already an incredibly robust, responsive, and stable OS. Its performance on my older hardware has really surprised me, and it will probably get even better once updated device drivers become available. Of course, the real truth will be told on January 30, when John Q. Public will finally get to install Vista.
