Windows 7, Gaming, and Why You Should Care

October 22, 2009 is almost here and with it, the official release of Windows 7. Gamers are a tight knit community that always makes their voices heard when it comes to their computing needs. With the pain and suffering inflicted by Vista fresh in the minds of millions, Microsoft needs to hit a home run to have any chance of winning those hearts back.

[Nihilism]

Bring on the pc articles BIoodmask, me likey

[Baka-akaB]

nvm

[GamerPS360]

cod5 took the most hit @ tom's page. I am gonna test and see the difference myself. I just don't want to believe that win7 performs so bad cod4 adn 5.

hardware phenom II 940 @3.4
8 gig Ram 800 speed ddr2
pair of gtx 280 sli @615

[ForROME]

Im already using it and it runs my games much faster than xp or vista did, not to mention the OS is silky smooth only one driver didnt work and that because Im using 64bit

[Nihilism]

were you running 64 bit vista prior to windows 7?, i'm trying to find out from someone who had, if windows 7 is worth the upgrade

[GamerPS360]

that's the biggest lie ever. Vista 64 runs games as good as win 7. I have vista 64 ultimate and win 7 64 ultimate and only the game has some significant difference is far cry 2 which was 7fps on max setting. Every other games that I have either 1-2 fps difference favouring win7 or vista 64. I tested it on crysis, stalker, re5, far cry 2, fallout 3, mass effect, l4d, battlefield 2 and few others. Now, Vista 64 is as stable as xp. I have yet to see 1 blue screen in whole year of usage and very rarely computer freeze(less than 5).

http://www.guru3d.com/artic... to back up my statement.

I heard, for other multitask win7 is better but for gaming purpose it has no benefits as of right now.

[Baka-akaB]

@GamerPS360

I can agree with you that it doesnt make it run that faster or faster at all in most .

However the no benefit part ? A stable os that so rarely crash and isnt rebooting when it's apps or games crash is the biggest benefit of all .

See i've seen mmos like aion , War or AOC crashes on a few pc that are obviously too low in specs ( like 1-2 gb of ram) ... and when they did , they most of the time took down the entire os with them , obviously hitting the hardest on xp , and far less but still far too much in vista .

While i and many others , have seen outdated pc still breath and not crash and burn under win7 , even if obviously strangled and slowed down . Memory shortage would kill the running apps or games , maybe even crash graphics interface and drivers like Catalyst , and you could even experience win7's whole interface going into basic mode and disabling aero .... but most of the time it still stands , and you'd just be able to relaunch everything again .

Win 7 is kinda the proof that vista was at first a good idea , but the cure was a worse poison than the illness it sought to fix .

[roybatty]

http://www.tomshardware.com...
But I am getting an 'unhand-led exception error' on boot. Something to do with .NET framework :(
I don't know if it is affecting anything, but I can't get rid of it no matter what I try. And I'm not about to sit through reinstall right this minute.
I use W7 RC, q6600 2.4ghz, Ati 4870, 4gig ram

@ guy above me, I have never EVER had Windows vista crash on me. Not a game or an app, and rebooting? WTF? You got that from a Mac fanboy or a Linux nerd? I mean I know Windows is kinda crap, but It doesn't crash and reboot. Total BS.
And i have been using and building PC's since windows 3.1

I currently have Windows 7 RC and Mac OS 10.7 on dual boot. (yea MacosX on a PC, SUCK THAT MAC NERDS! IT RUNS ON MY CHEAP ASS DELL XPS!)

[Baka-akaB]

How about you stop your assumption crap ? Some of us do work in IT you know and see more than small home networks and a wide variety of PC , from lew end to high end gear .

I did mention far less crashing than xp , but it's still there . And win 7 building from it crashes even less .

You makes macOS run on a PC ? Good for you... i bet this wasnt covered by hundred of blog tutorials or forums .

[Bnet343]

Hearing a lot of good things about Windows 7. Yeah ... now I'm starting to consider it.

[Major_Tom]

Heard the exact same things about Vista before, so what is the actual difference between that generation and this one? Windows 7 actually works as advertised, not completely over the hill better than Vista but it's still better than vista.

[krouse93]

I really depends on your hardware you have in your PC Major_Tom. 7 is much more effiecnt tho too.

[Major_Tom]

Um.. Not really, I actually read and check the performance charts and am not a sheep.

It's a bit better than Vista that's the honest truth, it needs more support and that will come with time.

[emk2004]

for me personaly the only thing i use my computer for is internet searching and play wc3. im prity sure that upgrading would be a waist of money since wc3 is 5 years old i think and runs fine on xp anyways.

[DiffusionE]

To me, it's worth it. It's not "way over-the-top better" than Vista as many people claim. But it is much better, and that's the whole point. You can't stick to XP forever. Sooner or later, you're gonna have to upgrade anyway. Might as well be sooner rather than later. If you're a dedicated PC gamer, Linux is not a good alternative. And Mac? Puhleeze!! Soon Microsoft will drop all XP support and so will game devs.

Personally, I still think Win 7 uses more memory than I would have liked. But it's lesser than Vista so I'm fine with it. It's not the perfect solution, but it is the best solution available at the moment.

[TheDude]

I know when apple makes innovations like the iphone all the other company's copy and follow, but come on having the shortcut icons on the bottom has been on apple computers from the start and the "easy" search box has been on apple computers for years. I know some people will say that its not that bad but microsoft is an OS company who became really famous and rich with it, but they still have to copy things the other manufacturer has been doing for ages.