7 has DirectX 11, which matters for games.

calvin wrote:

7 has DirectX 11, which matters for games.

So does Vista, that's my point.

I thought Vista was limited to a DX10 point release via SP.

edit: There's also some minor new APIs, but 7 also introduced major internal changes - breaking up large system libraries into smaller chunks.

calvin wrote:

I thought Vista was limited to a DX10 point release via SP.

Vista RTM shipped with DX10.0. Then it was updated to 10.1 with SP1.
After SP2 they released the "Platform Update", which includes DX 11 and various other things that were backported from Windows 7: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... .aspx#_d3d

Direct3D11, the latest version of Direct3D, provides new capabilities such as improved multithreading support, tessellation, DirectCompute functionality, and dynamic shader linkage.

So an up-to-date Vista will have DX11.

I split off some Windows 10 upgrade stuff to Milliways and also deleted some childish nonsense. If anyone feels like using the word "fanboy" on here, please find a new forum to dwell at.

I found my dad's old copy of Vista still in its retail box in his desk the other day. I was like, "Hey dad, look- Vista." The face he made was equivalent to eating a straight slice of lemon rind. He hates Vista. I had to help him upgrade to 7 back when it came out.

jmrydholm wrote:

I found my dad's old copy of Vista still in its retail box in his desk the other day. I was like, "Hey dad, look- Vista." The face he made was equivalent to eating a straight slice of lemon rind. He hates Vista. I had to help him upgrade to 7 back when it came out.

I don't get the hate on Vista. After all the updates it is basically 7. I had no problems with it and rather liked it.

liqmat wrote:

jmrydholm wrote:

I found my dad's old copy of Vista still in its retail box in his desk the other day. I was like, "Hey dad, look- Vista." The face he made was equivalent to eating a straight slice of lemon rind. He hates Vista. I had to help him upgrade to 7 back when it came out.

I don't get the hate on Vista. After all the updates it is basically 7. I had no problems with it and rather liked it.

It was all the pain leading up to the updates that people remember. By the time the updates made it good, people moved on to 7, leaving only bad memories of Vista.

clueless1 wrote:

By the time the updates made it good, people moved on to 7, leaving only bad memories of Vista.

Vista actually became good and stable a little before 7 became available, but this time Window (lol) was rather short (<1 year), that very few people caught up, and most just didn't bother.

clueless1 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

jmrydholm wrote:

I found my dad's old copy of Vista still in its retail box in his desk the other day. I was like, "Hey dad, look- Vista." The face he made was equivalent to eating a straight slice of lemon rind. He hates Vista. I had to help him upgrade to 7 back when it came out.

I don't get the hate on Vista. After all the updates it is basically 7. I had no problems with it and rather liked it.

It was all the pain leading up to the updates that people remember. By the time the updates made it good, people moved on to 7, leaving only bad memories of Vista.

This. We got Vista right as it was released and had to put up with all the bugs and problems that came with it. It was my family's first ever 64 bit system as well. I had wanted to try the 64-bit edition of XP, but Vista was released and dad went ahead and bought it.

Was I running a different OS than everyone else? I had Vista SP0 and it was perfectly fast and stable, even when multitasking with 1 GB RAM. I had some shitty HW (SiS...) but Windows itself was stable as possible.

calvin wrote:

Was I running a different OS than everyone else? I had Vista SP0 and it was perfectly fast and stable, even when multitasking with 1 GB RAM. I had some shitty HW (SiS...) but Windows itself was stable as possible.

Exactly the same here. I had zero issues at launch. I also did a fresh install where many did the upgrade which almost always has problems. As with any OS install, though, some have no problems and some have many due to so many different hardware configs out there. Vista has some really annoying "features", but all can be turned off fairly easy.

GeorgeMan wrote:

I actually consider Vista as Retro. It's not a matter of age; it's a matter of rarity! […]
Show full quote

I actually consider Vista as Retro.
It's not a matter of age; it's a matter of rarity!

I think that one can have only two retro systems and have covered 99,9% of all old games.
1) A fast PC that supports XP (something like a Core i3 Sandybridge, 4GB RAM, any fast GPU up to Radeon 7950/Nvidia 780).
This would have XP SP3 installed with ALL the XP/Emulator/GOG stuff. Second OS of choice for me is Vista to cover the DX10 period, but that's me. If anyone doesn't have a more recent daily machine, it would be used also as a daily driver combined with Windows 7/10.

2) A super7 system (K6-2+, 128-256MB RAM, S3 graphics, VoodooSLI, ISA sound).
This would have 98SE to run 3D games from 1996-2000 that do not run natively (or with a glide wrapper) under XP, but also DOS games. It could also be slowed down to 386 levels for those speed-sensitive old games.

Do Vista is definitely a part of retro in my mind nowadays. 😀

Vista is still a far cry from retro as an OS and I'm still using XP on this one, Vista on another one for DVR purposes. The OS today that you could call retro is DOS. Most of it is due to the ability to use ISA sound cards on modern motherboards which no longer exist. The loss of floppy disk controllers for 5 1/4" diskettes. The inability to even read copy protected games.

As for your list of legacy systems.
I'd say something something like a 386/12MHz-25MHz would be required to run certain games that were non DOS bootable and certain CGA or Monochrome games that might only run properly on slower MHz systems.
This system would take care of Non-DOS bootable games, copy protected bootable and DOS games including all Windows 3.1X games using a Sound Blaster or GUS that needed ISA Slots.

Computer 2 - A Socket 775 Core2 Quadcore should work fine on the top end for Window 98SE gaming. I would get a motherboard that has both AGP and PCIe slot for extra compatibility and not need to find hacked drivers.

Computer 3 - For simplicity of compatibility I think you can go as high as the Z97 and still retain ease of installation. X99 could possibly work as well just the same. If you go to Z170 there are a lot of issues you will have to deal with to achieve a working system but is still possible. But in theory XP/Vista/W7/W10 should function on Z170 without issues for your main rig.

clueless1 wrote:

How about this: retro is personal to each individual. If it brings on a feeling of nostalgia for that individual, then it is retro for them.

Very true but in your case Vista doesn't conjure nostalgia of that nature since most of what runs on Vista Windows 7 can or should be able to run. But as far as the user interface, I prefer Vista's over Windows 7. As far as stability I found Vista SP2 DX11 is more stable than W7 SP1. Perhaps if MS had released a genuine W7 SP2 this might have changed things for stability.

Tritium wrote:

Being considered retro has nothing to do with rarity. Suppose some old stash of 100 million original IBM 8088 PCs were found, no […]
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Being considered retro has nothing to do with rarity.
Suppose some old stash of 100 million original IBM 8088 PCs were found, no leaking batteries, ready to go!
Would that make these IBM 8088 systems not retro anymore? Of course not.

Retro does have a lot to do with age or perhaps era, though I think that's not all of it.

🤣 leaking batteries. 😀

clueless1 wrote:

How about this: retro is personal to each individual. If it brings on a feeling of nostalgia for that individual, then it is retro for them.

Hmmm... I think hardware would bring more of that than the OS alone. That's why the software on the OS is what makes something nostalgic in conjunction with the hardware. Say there were no games ever made for Vista would anyone really find it nostalgic? Then you see a Arcade center full old school arcade game machines where you can insert quarters and play on them like back in the day. I think that would bring more nostalgia to people than playing it on Mame with USB controllers. Or seeing a line of people waiting to play you sticking a quarter on the screen.

Scali wrote:

liqmat wrote:

It is retro because Blizard says so! haha Article came across my news feed today.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/355057/blizzard-en … ws-xp-and-vista

As many others seem to have done, they stop support for Vista at the same time of XP. Which is somewhat strange from a technical standpoint. Firstly, because Vista is a few years newer, and should maintain support longer. Secondly, since Vista is much closer to Windows 7 than it is to XP, in terms of technology.

Well XP has been getting extended support due to its popularity beyond its original support timeline. I'm surprised they didn't just plain out kill Vista support first than years late finally do the same for XP. They really want to kill off Windows 7 so everyone will migrate to Windows 10. That's their end goal. I have a feeling W7 may become the XP 64 equivalent of an undying OS. There aren't any real limits that can't be patched easier than XP so I foresee W7 will get some 3rd party unofficial DX12 patch while W7's ascension and domination will continue and MS will be forced to make Windows 11 with DX13 exclusive.

Scali wrote:

Vista RTM shipped with DX10.0. Then it was updated to 10.1 with SP1. After SP2 they released the "Platform Update", which includ […]
Show full quote

calvin wrote:

I thought Vista was limited to a DX10 point release via SP.

Vista RTM shipped with DX10.0. Then it was updated to 10.1 with SP1.
After SP2 they released the "Platform Update", which includes DX 11 and various other things that were backported from Windows 7: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... .aspx#_d3d

Direct3D11, the latest version of Direct3D, provides new capabilities such as improved multithreading support, tessellation, DirectCompute functionality, and dynamic shader linkage.

So an up-to-date Vista will have DX11.

Exactly. Hence why the only real advantage that Windows 7 has is the Intel USB 3.0 driver support and games that no longer work on Vista which in theory should if they compiled it for Vista. However recently I've tested my onboard 3rd party USB 3.0 ports and they are much faster than the USB 2.0 ones. So Vista SP2 DX11 is pretty damn good still and not stuck on USB 2.0 only speeds. The problem is getting USB 3.0 3rd party PCIe cards that have drivers that make it perform in Vista as fast as on W7.

Now all we need is some sort of spoof and dependency patch that makes Vista mimic a Windows 7 OS so you can install and run all software made for Windows 7.

clueless1 wrote:

liqmat wrote:

jmrydholm wrote:

I found my dad's old copy of Vista still in its retail box in his desk the other day. I was like, "Hey dad, look- Vista." The face he made was equivalent to eating a straight slice of lemon rind. He hates Vista. I had to help him upgrade to 7 back when it came out.

I don't get the hate on Vista. After all the updates it is basically 7. I had no problems with it and rather liked it.

It was all the pain leading up to the updates that people remember. By the time the updates made it good, people moved on to 7, leaving only bad memories of Vista.

Also the technology has caught up to make Vista very enjoyable to use. Try Vista SP2 DX11 on an Ivy Bridge Quad Core i7-3770K or better CPU anyone who dissed it when it first came out will now see how much better it is than what is around now. 32GB-64GB of memory with Quad core this OS runs amazingly smooth and the user interface is one of the best.

Had W10 and Vista came out today simultaneously and Vista had DX12 support which would you choose?

Time to change your avatar name to Clued1. You're too informed.

Btw, is that a chocobo as your avatar? I beta tested FF7 so it seems familiar 20+ years later.

windows 7 MMX support ended before the distro what about vista? i know xp did on POS edition

Vista is compatible with hardware and software made as recently as 2014. Is 2014 "retro"? No. So neither is Vista.

WDStudios wrote on 2021-06-23, 04:56:

Vista is compatible with hardware and software made as recently as 2014. Is 2014 "retro"? No. So neither is Vista.

That's a strange criterion, and is not even technically correct, because Vista is compatible with some hardware and software made even in 2021, and yet I am sure I can find something made as early as 2012 that is not compatible with Vista. Like, I dunno, Microsoft Visual Studio 2012???

Some drivers are compatible, which is no surprise with how close Vista SP2 and Windows 7 are internally. Windows 2000 also had limited driver support after death, thanks to long life of Windows XP. That being said, Windows Vista is long past it's prime. All major browsers dropped support, Steam support dropped, DX12 not supported, etc.

Yes but "not supported" and "retro" aren't the same thing. I've recently been playing the 2013 Shadow Warrior remake on a Geforce GTX 780 on my WinXP partition. Who here would consider that "retro" gaming?

Almost 14 years old, official support for everything major dropped long time ago - retro. Heck, Windows 98 acquired retro status without even reaching 10 year mark.