Windows Vista and gamers 2/1 Updated

Theenternal

Theenternal

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Well, it is only a short time before Microsoft releases the next installment of Windows. I fortunately got to install my legit copy of Vista Ultimate that was given to me from my visit to the Windows Vista Bus team.

http://windowsvistablog.com/

The Vista bus was more or less a promotion designed to reach users in a low key way.


The million dollar bus (before the extras) sported a multitude of plasma screens, sectional AC, and a streamlined comfort of leather. In addition to the satellite internet, tv, gps, etc.

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Now there are a slew of websites out there with in depth reviews of every little feature and enhancement. However, I will only touch base on a few of them and in addition reveal/reconfirm some of information I got from my little interview.



I have been running Vista for about 2 days now after owning it for 6, Vista bus team member Brandon strongly advised that Ultimate is the only way to go. After questioning him of the pricing structure and any student pricing. He noted that *Student discounts are a topic of concern* and that Ultimate was "a lot." Afterwards he gave me the only copy given out during this visit to Gainesville.
The pricing structure is as follows.

Full versions

* Windows Vista Home Basic: $199
* Windows Vista Home Premium: $239
* Windows Vista Business: $299
* Windows Vista Ultimate: $399

Upgrade versions

* Windows Vista Home Basic Upgrade: $99
* Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade: $159
* Windows Vista Business Upgrade: $199
* Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade: $259

A comparison chart can be found here. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

It is also noted that some people are just flat out buying a cheap pc for their copy.
People who purchase the Ultimate Edition can purchase an additional 2 more premium licences at 50$ a piece as part of a "Family Pack"

(Family Pack Link)
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/familydiscount.mspx

This would be a viable way to split for 3 people to get vista, or something to look out for people who are using ultimate and don't plan to use the family pricing for themselves.

Also note that new activations will cause old ones to expire once and if they are connected online when a new one takes place.

Each key is designated per language and that all language versions are on the same disc. In other words your copy's "text language" comes out in is dependent on what key you enter. All versions are also on the same disc and the install of ultimate vs basic is determined by the key. The exception is the 32 bit/64bit which will be seperate discs. At this time users of 32/64 bit editions are free to move back and forth as long as it is the relative version that they purchased.

---------------------------------------------------
VISTA and HARDWARE

Tom's Hardware has a good review of Vista and Gaming Specs
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html

*Hardware changes, From what I was told, Microsoft toned down the systems response to licensing and hardware changes. A user can make unlimited hardware changes, or move the copy to another system. However once a "significant" (which they never fully detailed) is made, users may need another activation.

The real world requirements reports have spanned anything from

512mb-2gigs of memory
1.5 ghz single - dual core
128- 256 mb of video memory.
(20 gig install)

Vista does feature a memory boost option aimed at laptop users that will enable them to cheaply boost performance with a USB Thumb Drive (aka sword of 1000 truths) or SD Cards.

I was concerned as my PC is now fairly old and I did not want to hinder my performance with a new OS until I upgraded the hardware. Much to my delight everything is running smoothly, including my games.

My PC Specs

Athlon 64 3ghz (Venice)
Geforce 6600 gt 128 mb
1 gig memory


I upgraded the install instead of doing a full. (will do later when I have more time) The process took about 45 mins, much better than on my coworkers laptop of 3 hours. Fresh installs are noted to taking much faster, as quick as 15 minutes.

Many of my configurations stayed intact, network, mydocuments, etc. And only a few programs did not work.

*old uninstalled anti virus software was causing repeated warnings after about 2 hours of non stop warnings Vista adjusted to it.

*a small bit sized program also gave problems coincidently.

Overall, It is really refreshing to see Vista and ditch the aging Xperience. The enhanced clear text and visual eye candy does well to relax eyes. And with only a few interface changes aside the Vista visit is a positive one.





Gaming and Vista
--------------------------

I took the time to remember my CAG breathren and get as much gaming information that I could. Like I noted earlier much of this confirms what has been leaked,rumored, or noted elsewhere already.


*Xbox Live and Vista: Starting with Halo 2, Microsoft aims to bring Xbox live to PC users. This will have to be on a game to game developer option, so don't look forward to every PC version of a 360 game to have Live connectivity. Also it was not known at the time if PC Live users will always or selectively be in the same community as 360 users.

*Xbox 360 connectivity: The 360 Controller, Camera, and HD-DVD will be usable on a Vista PC.

*Xbox 360 extended Media: The 360 will function as a media extender for the media-mode features of Vista.

*In that black area under the first display unit in the bus was a 360, a copy of Gears of War, and several other 360 titles.

-Enternal
 
Don't forget the OEM retail channel. Plenty of places like Fry's and PC CLub will sell you the OEM Vista when you buy a major system component such as a CPU, motherboard, or hard drive.

Prices for the OEM versions run about half of what the full retail version run. So you can easily have Vista Ultimate for $200 as part of building a new system.

I just built a new Core 2 Duo box (2GB RAM, Nvidia 7300GT 256MB, 2GB USB connected CF card for ReadyBoost) last week and installed Vista Ultimate off of an MSDN download.

I just got around to installing Office 2007 Ultimate today. It changes so much stuff that they could market it under a different brand than Microsoft and everybody would believe it was developed by a different company. But OTOH, all of the changes make sense in of themselves. It'll be annoying for longtime Office users but there was a lot of old ugly stuff that was overdue to die.
 
[quote name='CitizenB']It'll be years before I upgrade to vista.[/QUOTE]

Maybe, maybe not. Vista Home Basic was advertised in today's paper as part of a pretty decent PC for under $400. Companies that get the really big volume licenses will very nice Vista Ultimate machines for under $1,000 by summer.
 
[quote name='epobirs']Maybe, maybe not. Vista Home Basic was advertised in today's paper as part of a pretty decent PC for under $400. Companies that get the really big volume licenses will very nice Vista Ultimate machines for under $1,000 by summer.[/QUOTE]

I build my own pc's. So it'll be years before I own a vista machine. My desktops are always windows, and my laptops will always be Mac. Plus vista going to have a lot of updates in the first year to fix minor problems. With all OS release's its like that. I'm happy with xp so no vista for me.

Thanks for the info OP.
 
If anyone here is a student, especially in engineering/computer sciences, or business fields, check with your university and they may offer a free download and key for Vista Business.
 
Got a question here. In order to run Vista, I might have to upgrade my Harddrive. Right now I'm running XP and it's based on my C Drive. I have a total of 18 GB dedicated to that drive, and it is only used for Windows software/updates. I'm using 10 Gigs now with 8 left over. If I upgrade, would it fill it up completely or would it be too much?

How would I go about giving it more gigs from another Drive? My D, E, and F drives have plenty to where I can give the C drive some more Gigs if it is possible to do.
 
[quote name='Judhudson']Got a question here. In order to run Vista, I might have to upgrade my Harddrive. Right now I'm running XP and it's based on my C Drive. I have a total of 18 GB dedicated to that drive, and it is only used for Windows software/updates. I'm using 10 Gigs now with 8 left over. If I upgrade, would it fill it up completely or would it be too much?

How would I go about giving it more gigs from another Drive? My D, E, and F drives have plenty to where I can give the C drive some more Gigs if it is possible to do.[/QUOTE]


You have to repartition the drives and you would lose the information on the drives that you repartition. :(
 
Why would anyone work as a Microsoft QA Engineer for free like that?

You couldnt pay me to upgrade to Vista until its been out for at least a year or two.
 
[quote name='honkydorky']Whats really the reason to have Ultimate? Why not Premuim? What features from Business would the average user/gamer ever really need?[/QUOTE]

IIRC, Ultimate has a couple backup features that the Premium version doesn't. Extremely minor stuff, unless there's something that I'm missing. Oh, and for those who are thinking about buying the OEM, maybe reconsider that -- if you change your mobo, you might run into problems reactivating Vista. Retail version seems like the way to go.
 
Yeah, if you have OEM and change significant hardware, you might need to call to have your copy reactivated. And that's not a fun thing to do.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Yeah, if you have OEM and change significant hardware, you might need to call to have your copy reactivated. And that's not a fun thing to do.[/QUOTE]

I've heard reports that sometimes, MS will just b el ike "sorry, you changed your comp too much" even when you do call them. And being on hold for an hour before you can ask some guy who's paid in rupees for a new activation code is... awful.
 
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/175801

An interesting article I found about Vista

Highlights:
Vista's legal fine print includes extensive provisions granting Microsoft the right to regularly check the legitimacy of the software and holds the prospect of deleting certain programs without the user's knowledge. During the installation process, users "activate" Vista by associating it with a particular computer or device and transmitting certain hardware information directly to Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Vista also incorporates Windows Defender, an anti-virus program that actively scans computers for "spyware, adware, and other potentially unwanted software." The agreement does not define any of these terms, leaving it to Microsoft to determine what constitutes unwanted software.

Once operational, the agreement warns that Windows Defender will, by default, automatically remove software rated "high" or "severe," even though that may result in other software ceasing to work or mistakenly result in the removal of software that is not unwanted.

For greater certainty, the terms and conditions remove any doubt about who is in control by providing that "this agreement only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all other rights." For those users frustrated by the software's limitations, Microsoft cautions that "you may not work around any technical limitations in the software."
Click to expand...
And with regards to Next-gen DVDs:
He noted that Vista intentionally degrades the picture quality of premium content when played on most computer monitors.
Click to expand...
 
[quote name='Theenternal']You have to repartition the drives and you would lose the information on the drives that you repartition. :([/QUOTE]

How much space does vista require on the boot partition? Can't it be installed on a different partition?
 
[quote name='jthieme']How much space does vista require on the boot partition? Can't it be installed on a different partition?[/QUOTE]


From what I have been told it takes 20 gigs, I installed it to its own 160 gig drive so I have plenty of space.



To the guy who asked how it runs on my 3ghz and the guy who asked how my games are running.

My system is running a lot smoother then when I was running xp. After about 2 days of running xp without a reboot my system would grind a little and that is no longer an issue.

For the games that I have been running, everything seems the same. I love frame rates just as much as most gamers and if vista was tearing up my frame rates then I would go back to xp. I have not benchmarked the rates, but I can say that wow runs silky smooth on high settings for my aging box.



Also updated the original post with hardware change questions.
 
What are your thoughts on things like all the DRM verification and disallowing unsigned drivers?

[quote name='epobirs']Don't forget the OEM retail channel. Plenty of places like Fry's and PC CLub will sell you the OEM Vista when you buy a major system component such as a CPU, motherboard, or hard drive.

Prices for the OEM versions run about half of what the full retail version run. So you can easily have Vista Ultimate for $200 as part of building a new system.

I just built a new Core 2 Duo box (2GB RAM, Nvidia 7300GT 256MB, 2GB USB connected CF card for ReadyBoost) last week and installed Vista Ultimate off of an MSDN download.

I just got around to installing Office 2007 Ultimate today. It changes so much stuff that they could market it under a different brand than Microsoft and everybody would believe it was developed by a different company. But OTOH, all of the changes make sense in of themselves. It'll be annoying for longtime Office users but there was a lot of old ugly stuff that was overdue to die.[/quote]
 
[quote name='Theenternal']From what I have been told it takes 20 gigs, I installed it to its own 160 gig drive so I have plenty of space.



To the guy who asked how it runs on my 3ghz and the guy who asked how my games are running.

My system is running a lot smoother then when I was running xp. After about 2 days of running xp without a reboot my system would grind a little and that is no longer an issue.

For the games that I have been running, everything seems the same. I love frame rates just as much as most gamers and if vista was tearing up my frame rates then I would go back to xp. I have not benchmarked the rates, but I can say that wow runs silky smooth on high settings for my aging box.



Also updated the original post with hardware change questions.[/QUOTE]

Good to know. Everything is beta drivers right now so that's definitely encouraging to hear. Really, what I'm most interested in with Vista though is whether or not it feels smooth... as though it's as streamlined as a console's OS. From what I've seen, it very well may accomplish that... I'll see for myself on Friday I guess.
 
I upgraded more than a week ago, and I can't believe how smootly it went. It installed all of my motherboard drivers, graphics card drivers, my RAID drivers, even my oddball sound card driver was installed automatically. I have never had an installation go so smoothly.

DRM will not be an issue for me, as I have another machine that runs MCE 2005. As a comparison, Saturday I added a second HD tuner card to that machine and it took over 5 hours to complete (I ended up resinstalling the OS because the drivers would not start up for the tuner). It was quite the contrast to the Vista install.
 
Gaming on Vista is almost impossible right now.

Well... its doable, but Nvidia doesn't have SLI support for Vista and the audio cuts out constantly. I've tried a bunch of drivers and none of them worked.

I went back to XP after about 2 months.
 
[quote name='Kayden']What are your thoughts on things like all the DRM verification and disallowing unsigned drivers?[/QUOTE]


Both are inconsequential. The DRM has been around in various forms since the first DVD kits shipped for PCs. Macrovision support was always there. More importantly, there has been a lot of outright lies spread about the HDCP support in Vista. It has no effect whatsoever on content not tied to HDCP. I've been able to play a wide variety of 720p and 1080i files at full resolution.

HD playback on Vista works great and doesn't put much load on my system. Whether content that invokes the DRM will create an annoying amount of overhead remains to be seen. It isn't going to matter to many people until HD-DVD or BD drives are much, much lower priced. By that time the average new PC will have some features that greatly accelerate internal transport of encrypted streams, eliminating most of the added overhead.

It's much like the evolution of video cards to support DVD playback. When DVD first shipped, the Pentium 133 was the fastest thing you could buy. In fact, I installed the first shipping DVD kit in a Gateway review system that was also notable for being the first generation to ship with Win95. Back then, having a full hardware decoder solution was critical. The CPU simply didn't have the horsepower and the video chips of the day were no help.

When the Pentium 233 with MMX came out, software DVD playback was doable but it really used up the whole system. A decoder board was still very preferable. But some engineers noticed that only certain portions of the DVD playback process accounted for nearly 90% of the CPU load. Further, these function by themselves could be reduced to about $10 of addition cost on a video chip and that number declined fast. Having one of those newer video cards made it possible for that same P233 machine to do DVD playback to a TV while still doing some useful work on the VGA display.

What used to be $1,000 encryption/decryption chips are now $3 gate arrays that can be easily subsumed into the motherboard chipset. The longterm result is that a machine can comply with HDCP with little impact on the rest of the system's performance during HD content playback.

If it still matters by the time the needed drives are inexpensive.

The signed drivers requiremnt only applies to 64-bit. Anyone seriously in need of 64-bit support would be ill advised to use any unsigned drivers as such persons are more likely to have more at stake in the system's stability. In many high-end situations, the choice between a slight performance increase and greater stability is not a choice at all. Stability wins every time.

It will be several years before consumers will have real reason to go 64-bit. By that time the driver signature issue will have largely played out without most having ever known about it. If product quality is notably improved by the requirement it will cause more companies to make the investment for WHQL testing and will make consumers wary of small companies that cannot manage it. This will matter less for products like video cards that are largely identical across many vendors and get their drivers from the GPU company.
 
Vista sounds pretty cool.

hopefully, the bad stuff about it will turn out to be completely overblown, like so many other things whistleblowers have called on MS. Pretty sure there were a whole bunch "hell in a handbasket" cries when XP came out as well.


More importantly, I'm waiting a few years for most of the security problems and bugs to be ironed out.
 
[quote name='Apossum']Vista sounds pretty cool.

hopefully, the bad stuff about it will turn out to be completely overblown, like so many other things whistleblowers have called on MS. Pretty sure there were a whole bunch "hell in a handbasket" cries when XP came out as well.


More importantly, I'm waiting a few years for most of the security problems and bugs to be ironed out.[/QUOTE]

It really seems as though Vista has a lot of potential... at least, far more than any MS' OS has ever had before. Hopefully it'll be enough to make gaming accessible and help the PC gaming market grow.
 
I tried it out today at a CompUSA. Smooth is the word. Everything is now a whole lot easier to find when you want to manage your computer's settings. I didn't get to see a lot of action since it's a CompUSA computer and it's limited to what can be done to it, but I loved the look and style. I'll pick me up a copy of Ultimate in a few weeks. Already got Office 2007 thanks to a Microsoft Convention my dad got to go to.

I'm going to pick up a 320GB Sata WD Hard Drive for 99 bucks tomorrow as well, so I'm going in prepared. Will have to install XP again though then update to Vista :(
 
[quote name='Judhudson']I tried it out today at a CompUSA. Smooth is the word. Everything is now a whole lot easier to find when you want to manage your computer's settings. I didn't get to see a lot of action since it's a CompUSA computer and it's limited to what can be done to it, but I loved the look and style. I'll pick me up a copy of Ultimate in a few weeks. Already got Office 2007 thanks to a Microsoft Convention my dad got to go to.

I'm going to pick up a 320GB Sata WD Hard Drive for 99 bucks tomorrow as well, so I'm going in prepared. Will have to install XP again though then update to Vista :([/QUOTE]

How's Office 2007? I've heard it's a pretty drastic change from past versions.... I probably need to pick this up sometime since I don't have any Office stuff for my home computer...
 
It's definitely different... I'm not sure how well it'll work on lower end systems. I haven't played with it much myself, but it just seemed like Office 2003 with a new face.

[quote name='Chacrana']How's Office 2007? I've heard it's a pretty drastic change from past versions.... I probably need to pick this up sometime since I don't have any Office stuff for my home computer...[/quote]
 
I'm not sure how it is yet, I'm in the process of backing up data and writing down the programs I use to reinstall them when I put in a new harddrive. But like Kayden mentions, that's exactly the same deal that I heard. Can't wait to try it out.
 
So is it correct to say that right now, Vista is sort of a "luxury" OS? How long do you think it will be before Vista is absolutely essential... like, do you think we'll get to a point where you're gonna be left behind if you don't have Vista? Will there be a wave of Vista-native software with programming that will be alien to older versions of the OS?

I'm not even sure if XP ever got to that point... on the other hand, with Win 95, it didn't take long for it to feel like an essential upgrade.

I guess I'm just paranoid. I feel like MS just has us trained to expect a new OS every few years, whether it is truly necessary or not. Is Vista just the same Windows wrapped in a more attractive, accessible GUI? Or is it a major overhaul from the core up that opens up tons of new possibilities? Because it seems like a lot of the Vista features can be done in XP, just with a little more research and effort on the part of the user (as opposed to being built-in and readily available with Vista... xbox 360 connectivity for example).
 
Only thing I hate about Vista is Forced Registration...but is it any worse than Forced Registration in XP? It was going to be, but then toned down, so I don't know.

Out of principle, I wish I could avoid any software with Forced Registration (or of course DRMed crap like X-Box Live Arcade), but practically I pretty much need to use Windows, which sucks.
 
[quote name='BustaUppa']So is it correct to say that right now, Vista is sort of a "luxury" OS? How long do you think it will be before Vista is absolutely essential... like, do you think we'll get to a point where you're gonna be left behind if you don't have Vista? Will there be a wave of Vista-native software with programming that will be alien to older versions of the OS?

I'm not even sure if XP ever got to that point... on the other hand, with Win 95, it didn't take long for it to feel like an essential upgrade.

I guess I'm just paranoid. I feel like MS just has us trained to expect a new OS every few years, whether it is truly necessary or not. Is Vista just the same Windows wrapped in a more attractive, accessible GUI? Or is it a major overhaul from the core up that opens up tons of new possibilities? Because it seems like a lot of the Vista features can be done in XP, just with a little more research and effort on the part of the user (as opposed to being built-in and readily available with Vista... xbox 360 connectivity for example).[/QUOTE]

XP got to that point fast, both with stuff not supporting 9x, and just with newer hardware needing XP for good performance. Vista isn't the same kind of drastic change since it's the same basic OS (well, tons of stuff changed, but still it's NT). The main thing is probably Direct X 10. Microsoft claims they're not releasing it for XP because that's "confusing" for people :roll:
Well, it probably is because people are stupid, but we all know perfectly well it's so they can sell Vista.

The Live functionality seems pretty iffy...are they going to try to CHARGE us to use it on PC? :lol: I can't see that going over on PC, where all of live's functionality is free (well, aside from meaningless things like "points".
 
[quote name='BustaUppa']So is it correct to say that right now, Vista is sort of a "luxury" OS? How long do you think it will be before Vista is absolutely essential... like, do you think we'll get to a point where you're gonna be left behind if you don't have Vista? Will there be a wave of Vista-native software with programming that will be alien to older versions of the OS? [/quote]In the realm of games that'll happen pretty fast. Halo 2, Geometry Wars, and the rumored Gears of War PC ports are all going to require Vista (though I wouldn't be surprised to see hacks available shortly thereafter to get it running in XP).

I doubt you'll ever "need" Vista in the terms of work usage though. The same can be said of XP too. Windows 2000 is still a viable, and in a lot of ways, better platform than XP, especially in the business world. As my gaming has gone from all PC to no PC in the span of about 3 or 4 years, I'll be waiting a while before I upgrade I think, especially waiting to see if the DRM issues turn into as much of an issue as it theoretically may be.
 
[quote name='daroga']In the realm of games that'll happen pretty fast. Halo 2, Geometry Wars, and the rumored Gears of War PC ports are all going to require Vista (though I wouldn't be surprised to see hacks available shortly thereafter to get it running in XP).

I doubt you'll ever "need" Vista in the terms of work usage though. The same can be said of XP too. Windows 2000 is still a viable, and in a lot of ways, better platform than XP, especially in the business world. As my gaming has gone from all PC to no PC in the span of about 3 or 4 years, I'll be waiting a while before I upgrade I think, especially waiting to see if the DRM issues turn into as much of an issue as it theoretically may be.[/QUOTE]If that's the case, I can definitely take my time. I'm in a similar situation where my gaming emphasis has shifted away from the PC, ever since the mid-nineties. In the last five years, I think the only "new" PC games I've gotten are Unreal Tournament 2004 and the new Sam & Max games. All my other PC game-related ventures have been with older games or emulation of some sort. Also, since I already own a 360 (and all the games you listed as examples) I have no interest in playing those Xbox ports on PC. So unless I see something new that reeeeeeeeally grabs my attention, I guess I'm just not the target audience for Vista!
 
[quote name='daroga']For those not in the know on the DRM issues, here's a decent write-up on it. I was unaware of the details until I read this.

Vista should be avoided like the plague.

http://forums.blagblagblag.org/viewtopic.php?t=3220[/QUOTE]

Gutmann is utterly and completely full of shit. His claims have been refuted by numerous independent testers. I was able to test HD content playback and systems loads within a few minutes of getting Vista installed. It simply works and doesn't cause any undue system load. The DRM is only an issue for HD-DVD, Blu-ray, or any other format adopting the HDCP standard. That is currently zero formats, since even HD-DVD and Blu-ray have only bothered with a subset of the spec to date.

It is likely that HDCP will never be fully implemented in any consumer platform. Not only does the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on drive make it problematic, at the recent CES HP was demonstrating both HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives that conencted via USB. Put simply, sending data over USB is an absolute no-no for HDCP compliance, yet a rather sizable company like HP feels they aren't going to be challenged in their intent to release these products.
 
[quote name='Apossum']Vista sounds pretty cool.

hopefully, the bad stuff about it will turn out to be completely overblown, like so many other things whistleblowers have called on MS. Pretty sure there were a whole bunch "hell in a handbasket" cries when XP came out as well.


More importantly, I'm waiting a few years for most of the security problems and bugs to be ironed out.[/QUOTE]

The best was Steve Gibson announcing that XP would destroy the internet, thanks to its support for raw sockets. This is a feature that had been in Unix systems for over a decade when XP was launched, so why the same feature in XP was going to be such a disaster defied explanation. The only difference was how numerous XP systems would eventually be but that didn't matter because the basic security issue was nowhere remotely dire as Gibson believed.

Steve Gibson used to be widely respected for his work but turned into a crank in recent years.
 
If USB is a no-no for compliance, then how the heck can ANYTHING be okay by their standards? I presume USB is supposed to be out because the transmissions can be intercepted-but that's true for anything.
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']If USB is a no-no for compliance, then how the heck can ANYTHING be okay by their standards? I presume USB is supposed to be out because the transmissions can be intercepted-but that's true for anything.[/QUOTE]

No, take a look at the HDMI spec. It isn't the 'armor-plated cables' that were joked about when the protected path issue first began but pretty close. With HDMI you have point-to-point encryption entirely separate from any encryption already on the content as stored on disc. (This is a major cost increase for implementing HDMI but one that'll become minor over time and volume.) This allows the content to continue being encrypted even after the decoding process within the player. Other aspects of HDMI are designed to make even passive signal interception difficult. This makes designing an HDMI switcher a real pain and drives the price of those items up quite a bit.

This has all proven futile, since the recent cracks of HD-DVD and Blu-ray were directed at the key storage rather than the encryption itself. Once you have the key you can pretty do whatever you want. But that isn't Microsoft's problem. Microsoft and Apple both want to get a place in the home entertainment center. To do that they have to comply with Hollywood, Inc.'s DRM directives. Microsoft took an active hand in this so they'd know what was coming and not be handed an impossible spec sheet.

So what it comes down to is that MS can say they did what was asked of them, so lets get on with business. Redmond knew this stuff would fall under hacker attack quickly. They just don't want to be shut out of the HD content playback business. Hollywood, Inc. would be perfectly happy to have playback only on dedicated devices with no consumer access to the innards. When they tally the installed base of DVD playback systems they largely ignore tens of millions of portable and desktop computers in existence. (Partially because it's difficult to predict whether the capability is actually being used, much like likelihood of Blu-ray movie purchases by PS3 owners is much less certain than HD-DVD movie purchases by owners of the Xbox 360 add-on drive.)

The licensing of playback over USB drives makes it clear that even the Hollywood, Inc. people know this is a futile farce and that growing the base of HD disc players matters far more to their futures than the incipient piracy of that content.
 
epobirs, once again, your knowledge is most helpful. :)

I'm a wee bit confused on the driver issues and hope maybe you could clear it up. Let's say I buy a gameconsole->USB adapter for controllers, and it has its own driver. In order for that to function, is the driver going to need to be approve Microsoft, or is it possible to have a "3rd party" device (in the realm of computers, I suppose it's just the small guys) on the computer or not?
 
If am at all capable of forming a logical conclusion, I believe it shouldn't be a problem at all if you're on 32-bit Vista. As epo said earlier, the signed driver issue was only with Vista64. However, with the sheer number of peripheral devices, I wonder it its just internal components that need signed drivers, like video cards and what not, or if it would indeed be for all devices reguardless how trivial.


Oh, epo, I have a question about drivers myself. In that Gutmann writeup, he said that Vista was requiring all hardware to have individual drivers instead of comprehensive packages like Catalyst drivers. Additionally, manufacturers could no longer have variations of cards where they would have a basic layout and then add/remove components on a per model basis. Everything would need to be a totally closed system.
Is that:
A) also total BS
B) Something that would only be required when HDCP is enabled
C) true
D) something I'm not smart enough to think of?

[quote name='daroga']epobirs, once again, your knowledge is most helpful. :)

I'm a wee bit confused on the driver issues and hope maybe you could clear it up. Let's say I buy a gameconsole->USB adapter for controllers, and it has its own driver. In order for that to function, is the driver going to need to be approve Microsoft, or is it possible to have a "3rd party" device (in the realm of computers, I suppose it's just the small guys) on the computer or not?[/quote]
 
[quote name='daroga']epobirs, once again, your knowledge is most helpful. :)

I'm a wee bit confused on the driver issues and hope maybe you could clear it up. Let's say I buy a gameconsole->USB adapter for controllers, and it has its own driver. In order for that to function, is the driver going to need to be approve Microsoft, or is it possible to have a "3rd party" device (in the realm of computers, I suppose it's just the small guys) on the computer or not?[/QUOTE]


For now, requiring signed drivers is only an issue for 64-bit Vista. As Imentioned previously, this is unlikely to become an issue for consumers for quite a long time.
 
[quote name='Kayden']If am at all capable of forming a logical conclusion, I believe it shouldn't be a problem at all if you're on 32-bit Vista. As epo said earlier, the signed driver issue was only with Vista64. However, with the sheer number of peripheral devices, I wonder it its just internal components that need signed drivers, like video cards and what not, or if it would indeed be for all devices reguardless how trivial.


Oh, epo, I have a question about drivers myself. In that Gutmann writeup, he said that Vista was requiring all hardware to have individual drivers instead of comprehensive packages like Catalyst drivers. Additionally, manufacturers could no longer have variations of cards where they would have a basic layout and then add/remove components on a per model basis. Everything would need to be a totally closed system.
Is that:
A) also total BS
B) Something that would only be required when HDCP is enabled
C) true
D) something I'm not smart enough to think of?[/QUOTE]

Gutmann's claim is something exists solely in his mind. He has never done any hands on testing with Vista on any hardware, nor has he had any direct interaction with people who developed this stuff. He seems to have drawn all of his conclusions from rumors and vague second-hand info. On top of this, he appears to be one of those CS types who has little comprehension of how stuff works in the real world. He gets respects from some Linux zealots I know but they would do the same for anyone who goes on an anti-Microsoft tirade with any appearance of academic credentials.

I cannot think of any reason why ATI or Nvidia would be prevented from doing multi-product driver packages. Nothing in the support for protected path changes the fact that many chunks of code are going to be shared among cards using the same GPU family. At worst, you'll see ATI and Nvidia producing separate packages for Vista that cover many cards, with and without HDCP capability. Also, there is no reason why a HDCP capble cannot be run without the HDCP active. You wouldn't be able to play protected HD-DVD or Blu-ray movies but other that that the card would do everything including HDMI output.

If someone approached ATI or Nvidia and told them, you've got to make cards that only work with this DRM active, their response would be to ask how many unit sales are going to be guaranteed. Because without some guarantee that would be making unsellable video card, both companies would tell the Hollywood, Inc. lawyers to go pund sand up their collective ass. The GPU companies want a piece of the HD content playback business but they aren't going to stake their futures on it.
 
The USB thing still makes no sense. The content coming off the disc is still encrypted. It's the computer that decrypts it...

so I still don't know why USB would be treated any different from any other kind of interface.
 
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