Amazing vista details emerge..


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A Tech Strategist within Microsoft, Nigel Page, has gone on record to discuss the hardware requirements for Windows Vista, due out next Christmas.

System breakdown

Graphics: Vista has changed from using the CPU to display bitmaps on the screen to using the GPU to render vectors. This means the entire display model in Vista has changed. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB is a happy medium, but you'll actually see benefit from more. Microsoft believes that you're going to see the amount of video memory being shipped on cards hurtle up when Vista ships.

CPU:Threading is the main target for Vista. Currently, very little of Windows XP is threaded - the target is to make Vista perform far better on dual-core and multi-core processors.

RAM: 2GB is the ideal configuration for 64-bit Vista, we're told. Vista 32-bit will work ideally at 1GB, and minimum 512. However, since 64-bit is handling data chunks that are double the size, you'll need double the memory, hence the 2GB. Nigel mentions DDR3 - which is a little odd, since the roadmap for DDR3, on Intel gear at least, doesn't really kick in until 2007.

HDD: SATA is definitely the way forward for Vista, due, Microsoft tells us, to Native Command Queueing. NCQ allows for out of order completions - that is, if Vista needs tasks 1,2,3,4 and 5 done, it can do them in the order 2,5,3,4,1 if that's a more efficient route for the hard drive head to take over the disk. This leads to far faster completion times. NCQ is supported on SATA2 drives, so expect them to start becoming the standard sooner rather than later. Microsoft thinks that these features will provide SCSI-level performance.

Bus: AGP is 'not optimal' for Vista. Because of the fact that graphics cards may have to utilise main system memory for some rendering tasks, a fast, bi-direction bus is needed - that's PCI express.

Display: Prepare to feel the red mist of rage - no current TFT monitor out there is going to support high definition playback in Vista. You may already have heard rumblings about this, but here it is. To play HD-DVD or Blu-Ray content you need a HDCP compatible monitor. Why? Because these formats use HDCP to encrypt a video signal as it travels along a digital connection to an output device, to prevent people copying it. If you have just standard DVI or even an analogue output, you're going to see HD scaled down to a far-less-than-HD resolution for viewing - which sucks. This isn't really Microsoft's fault - HDCP is something that content makers, in their eternal wisdom, have decided is necessary to stop us all watching pirated movies.

Bit-Tech's Thoughts

Amusingly, Page admits that there are no monitors out there that will do HDCP, and that this is a problem. Frankly, it's the consumer's problem, however, according to him. "It's up to you [the users] to say, 'Where's my HDCP?'" One of the major problems is that Hollywood knows that Microsoft dominates the operating system sphere, and so it can arm-wrestle MS into working with it. If there was more competition, Hollywood would have to be a little more cautious about what it tries to get away with. We come back to the age-old problem. Content is being forced onto us that is, to all extents and purposes, crippled. It's not like any of this stuff is actually going to make any difference - we're still going to have dodgy films on the net, probably in no less quantity than we have now - so why would be pay to be screwed, when we can just get an uncrippled version for free?

But, that's a little off topic. In terms of the hardware stuff, it seems obvious that hardware makers are rubbing their hands in glee. It's been hard to persuade people to upgrade their WinXP boxes, since they can handle pretty much anything thrown at them, unless you're a gamer. Graphics companies are going to be selling a bucket-load more GPUs, since now practically every system sold for Vista is going to need one. It's no coincidence that Nvidia is re-introducing onboard graphics for its motherboards very soon. 2GB of RAM for high-end systems is pretty chunky, and it could be that we start to see RAM prices go up as suddenly, a big percentage of systems are being built with 4 times the current requirement. If you thought SATA2 had been slow to take off, expect every new enthusiast chipset to have it built in next year, and for drive makers to start shifting over to it quick - if they're not building a huge number of NCQ drives by the middle of next year, they risk missing out on loads of orders come Vista.

Original Source: APC Start

Bit-Tech

Edited by oddcrap
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2GB... wow.. i got 2GB of ram.. but thats a lot for a system... and that's gonna be good for vista.. same with dual-core. this is sweet news... very sweet news indeed. thanks for posting (Y)(Y)

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,Sep 7 2005, 18:59]interesting, especially the last bit about display and the hdcp compatible monitors.

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Indeed I think it means were all going to be playing our games on medium unless you have a "HDCP" monitor due to the rendering nonsense. :cry:

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No where did he say these were requirements. These are more inline with what they expect for PCs that come with Vista preinstalled.

I swear, MS people can't say anything anymore without there being a sensationalist news story about it.

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No where did he say these were requirements.  These are more inline with what they expect for PCs that come with Vista preinstalled.

I swear, MS people can't say anything anymore without there being a sensationalist news story about it.

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you are right, these arn't requirements.. just specs people believe, or know work well with Windows Vista... which is weird, cause vista is still in Beta 1 stage.

but i assure you, the requirements will be double, if not more then Windows XP.

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so would my laptop work with it?

P4 2.66 ghz, 512 mb ram ? 64meg graphics?

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No one knows yet for sure... But I think it could, but probably not all the eye-candy

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Bus: AGP is 'not optimal' for Vista. Because of the fact that graphics cards may have to utilize main system memory for some rendering tasks, a fast, bi-direction bus is needed - that's PCI express.

That part right there is going to make a lot of people wait a good while before using Vista. I'm not going out and spending 1500+ for new pc (with PCI Express) so I can run Vista. I suspect most people wont.

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Talk about overstating the requirements. This is more of a "best case scenario" case since 95 percent of PCs out there won't have all these things, even when vista ships.

Remember : Microsoft wants to sell vista to Joe Dad and Joe Mom that have a 2.4 Ghz CPU they bought "a year or two ago" and aren't going to upgrade for a while.

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Sounds like this is going to be like Windows Media Center. You basically have to purchase a PC with Media Center installed since it only will work with limited hardware.

I hope it is not like that at all.

Another thing I hate about Media Center is that a friend of mine bought a Sony VIAO Media Center Edition that costs $2400.00 and he didn't like the on-board sound card. So he bought a $200.00 creative card and when he called in a few months later to warranty a part that went bad, they said he broke the warranty opening the case and adding a sound card and now he's screwed. I can't beleive Sony screwed him over after he paid $2400.00 for the PC. The other thing is that you HAVE to take the PC to a Sony authorized dealer if you want the part replaced and they charge large service fee's just to replace something simple. I hate Sony for that.

I wrote that paragraph because I really hope Vista doesn't wind up like that. I'll have to stick with XP and Debian if that does.

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