Is Windows Vista's translucent windows more dependent on CPU, ram or graphics card?

Is Windows Vista's translucent windows more dependent on CPU, ram or graphics card?

Is Windows Vista's translucent windows more dependent on CPU, ram or graphics card?

what do you think?

i think the os has a special driver to use directx for your desktop, which means GPU.

id agree. it looks like the whole operating system is going to be a bigger drain on your system, someone said you will need at least a directX9 card to run it...? by then directx10 will be out anyway.

they're recommending a 256mb Vcard..likely something powerfull
here's what they're sayin you'll need:

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

It really sounded like it was GPU dependent since they wanted to use other hardware to do the task instead of bogging down the main system trying to compute it. At least thats how they made it sound in past reports. Personally I'm looking forward to the new GUI.

After reading that summary, I could've been fooled into thinking some new amazing game was going to be coming out. But no, it's just Microsoft's new hog of an operating system. Sounds like a lot of people are going to be buying new computers to run this one.

d94 thats a good summary.
Windows XP has been an excellent product in terms of transition compared to that of the older MS OS's, combind that with the up surge of new computer user growth world wide.
I can see the new OS making a huge impact when it gets here, once the service packs iron out the bugs over time, it should be all good.
(try and imagine still using winXP for the next 3 years on your core machine?)

From what I've heard, Vista will be unusually dependent on gpu power compared to all previous os's. It will be a hog in general though with regard to computer resources.

well i would love to add to the rumor mill

here is what ive heard

that it will be gpu dependent if you have a gpu that can handel it

basicly there will be teirs of os that it will install depending on the hardware it detects during install

The M$ devs talked a lot about video ram, even more than gpu. They suggested 256mb of vid ram to run it well.

Not all features of the OS will be avalible to you if you dont have a DUAL CORE....
That being said, MS likes money.
I dont think they will make an OS that an x300 will have problems with along with the poor Intergrated GFX that intel ships

I keep hearing people call Vista a resource hog... who cares? They are not designing it for people trying to run thier systems using minimal resources. It is designed for all those people buying decently powerful dells and gateways, yet only using a fraction of its power. Why not used that idle power to make Windows look better? I am sure that if you get Vista and you dont want all the resource intense goodies, there will be a way to shut that stuff down. It has been 5 years since XP came out... XPs min requirements is a 300mhz CPU... people are now getting 3686MHz+ processors, that is 10 times the min requirements of XP... why not use that idle power?

You want non graphic intense, install Windows 3.11, or maybe a 5-6 year old version of linux.

Personally, I like my OS's lean and fast. Even in linux, I'm not a big fan of bloated window managers that eat processing power and I tend more towards simpler setups. The problem with your theory is that while sometimes that cpu time is all idle, sometimes it's not, and hence when your system load is maxed out, the eye candy will slow down your system. I'll pass on that... I place speed and responsiveness over eye candy any day.

Hopefully the Vista interface will be less ugly than XP. I hate the XP interface, 2K was much nicer looking.

If vista is suppose to use the gpu for gui rendering, could this result in the gpu always running in 3d mode?

I'm with MRD on this on. Performance over eyecandy. The first thing I do with a fresh xp install is to turn off all that eyecandy crap. Lets hope that is an option in vista too.

I am going to be a naysayer here. Sorry for the negativity.


Even if Microsoft bieng so wishy-washy about the specs on this. How can we speculate on what it will want./

On the MS site it shows 3 values for the requirments of the OS. I am looking forward to the release of it like everyone else. One thing I am not going to do. Is run out and grab a copy. What the peeks of it look like, I am not liking the breif speculations of what it offers over current tech. That can change though after it hits the shelves and I get real user responces from using it. There was some serious issues fixed (in XP) before I even thought of grabbing a copy.

Think about this: How many threads are going to be created within the first 30 days of it going Gold?
The bugs/requirments, least they are taking a long time for us to speculate over it. It is still in Beta and there is many many threads speculating how or what it will be. It is even not close to being done yet. Then we will get the rest of the OS later on as patches. Remeber it is not what it started ot as. Part of the neat feature sets are not there until later, or did they change that again?

Fact:
It is going to take a stout rig to fire it off to potential.
It will not be a sissy OS.
There will a slew of new programs and tweaks to explore.
Everyone will gripe over the bugs it has.

Oroka Sempai said:

I keep hearing people call Vista a resource hog... who cares? They are not designing it for people trying to run thier systems using minimal resources. It is designed for all those people buying decently powerful dells and gateways, yet only using a fraction of its power. Why not used that idle power to make Windows look better? I am sure that if you get Vista and you dont want all the resource intense goodies, there will be a way to shut that stuff down. It has been 5 years since XP came out... XPs min requirements is a 300mhz CPU... people are now getting 3686MHz+ processors, that is 10 times the min requirements of XP... why not use that idle power?

You want non graphic intense, install Windows 3.11, or maybe a 5-6 year old version of linux.

Click to expand...

EXACTLY - many people with an older system anyways are still running Windows 98 - VIsta is not made for EVERYONE to run

Imagine in 1 years time what type of cmputers will be out? all of todays "mid range" and up systems could run Vista.

Why pay $500 for a video card that does nothing on windows desktop?

It is not like when you then play a game the desk is being rendered - your reqources will be availible for the game, not the desktop GUI.

look at how many people now are buy 2g of ram for a $50 game - BF2 - so your telling me they wont buy 2g of ram for a $300 O/S.

you dont like it - dont buy it - i guess you are the same people who wont buy UT2007 cause they want a min 2.8ghz CPU and dual cores for best game play.

I pay about $200-$250 for a video card, much beyond that is too much for me. I don't care if my video card does anything on the desktop, I just want performance in my apps (ie. games, for 3d stuff).

Also, I usually run games in windowed mode, so my desktop is rendered. That way I can swap between browsers and the game.

Only a very, very small minority of computer users have bought 2GB of RAM period, nm the percent buying it for a $50 game. So if M$ is going to rely on people who will buy 2 GB of RAM just for an OS, they're not going to sell many copies of Vista.

Personally, I have spent money on upgrades just to play games. That's different from the OS for me. For me, the OS just runs in the background. I just want it to run the apps I care about, I don't want it to hog the resources. A good OS should be inobtrusive and just do what it is told.

if only we could get DX9 and drivers for the cards and stuff to work in win95... then the games would play and the OS wouldnt be taking CRAP for resources....

what happened to OS's running on 16 megs of ram? i miss that......

Mr.Guvernment said:

EXACTLY - many people with an older system anyways are still running Windows 98 - VIsta is not made for EVERYONE to run

Imagine in 1 years time what type of cmputers will be out? all of todays "mid range" and up systems could run Vista.

Why pay $500 for a video card that does nothing on windows desktop?

It is not like when you then play a game the desk is being rendered - your reqources will be availible for the game, not the desktop GUI.

Click to expand...

Can't agree with you more on that. Truely my desktop is running other things and I run a good amount of items in teh background. And dang it I want my desktop looking sweet since a good portion of the time im running in desktop mode and want to view something other then the plain old desktop stuff.

I got the card, I got the CPU, I got the ram, I got the harddrive space, hook me up with something that looks fancy

if only we could get DX9 and drivers for the cards and stuff to work in win95...

Click to expand...

I'll pass on win 95. Having to reboot every 15 minutes is not fun.

On another note, I'd rather use my clock cycles for folding@home to help research than for eye candy, especially considering that a fancy desktop eats resources even when I'm away from the computer.