Well, Windows Vista’s release isn’t looking as sunny as everyone was hoping. I have yet to try it out, but I am planning on buying a new laptop in about a month or so that will be preloaded with Home Premium. I was psyched…until I read this.
Apparently, a number of games suffer from major performance hits or simply don’t work under Windows Vista, even though the system is supposed to be backwards compatible with DirectX 9 games. I’ve looked into it, and one game I was particularly looking forward to finally being able to play–America’s Army–has a number of problems in Vista, most of which are solved with a simple workaround (luckily). Unfortunately, not all games are that easily fixed.
I’m slightly worried that this new laptop won’t do what I was most expecting it to do, which is perform better at gaming than my current laptop. I even plan on ordering it with a 256 MB ATI graphics card, dropping $100 more than if I stuck with the integrated stuff. I want to play games, but it’s looking like that will be a crapshoot for the foreseeable future. But what other choice do I have? I know I want a new laptop. The one I have is getting on in years and really isn’t the best for gaming. But no matter what I do, the new laptop is going to have Vista. I suppose I could get an old copy of XP and install it, but I don’t want to do that just to play games. I suppose I’ll just risk it. After all, just having a dual core laptop with a 256 MB graphics card will be worth it.
Hopefully, Windows and game developers will get on the ball to fix these problems. Vista is supposed to be all about entertainment but it won’t be if people can’t play pre-DX10 games. I’ll keep you updated on this in the months to come, especially once I get my hands on a Vista laptop.
