DX10 is do-able on Windows XP

You say in the article. " and spyware is a distant memory." It may be right now. But just you wait lol. Since Vista is so hated among the gamer and hacker community. Tons of viruses will be targeted towards Vista now. And most likely very cruel viruses at that. So hope you enjoy your peace XD. For now.

He UPGRADED. He didn't go to Vista- That's a step backwards. he went to Ubuntu and bought a Wii for games. If you don't know the idfference between ubuntu and vista, look it up.

Dude, are you reading THIS article? Because he said he upgraded... TO UBUNTU, NOT VISTA.

Obviously you weren't paying attention, Kakkoii. He was referring to Ubuntu as being "Spyware free" not Vista. WIndows has always been the most targeted OS for Malware.

If you call gaming on the Wii gaming then sure.. go ahead and do your thing. Games on the Wii are great "party games" but are far from what gamers define as real games. The true gamers stuck with Windows XP. Why would you jump to Ubuntu when 95% of games and professional software is written for windows? The author is nothing more than a vista hater bandwagon boy. The vista release was actually better than the initial XP release and in time new games will be optimized for vista. I personally only currently use vista for my media center but I could see myself eventually using vista if they made it worth my while with service packs. Right now though, bells and whistles come second to functionality and compatibility.

He's accurate in what he said, microsoft removed this "revolutionary" feature to appease a big 3d card vendor unknowingly making it entirely possible to back-port DX10 to XP. I use XP, i tried using Vista that i... "aquired" when it first came out. This was before everyone was trashing it, some people were but everyone still thought that it was the future, vista was great and you needed to upgrade or die! So i swapped, downloaded all my new drivers and booted up Vista. After setting it up for a few hours, and spending almost a week playing around with it. I didnt like the OS i thought i was just too dumb to learn a new thing and i wanted back to my comfortable XP. I didnt like all the glitz and glam and everything i tried to do like personalize my system to run optimally took so long. I gave in and switched back to Xp, saying to myself that at a later date i would switch but now i just wasnt ready. Then i started hearing everyone saying it was bad, inefficient and not fun to use. I felt better, that i wasnt the only one. I really didnt like Vista one bit. I dont know much about building OS's but for a successor to XP... im not sure what iwant. But its not softer pastel colors, tons of animations, its just too...weird.

I did the same upgrade, now having Ubuntu on my laptops, desktop PCs and also server. But I'm still running 1 XP home oem on one HDD because of 3 online games I'm unable to run in wine. one of them will be ported soon (UT3) and other 2 don't work in wine. next PC will have also ubuntu and will be used soon for satellite with motor positioner as home entertainment PC. no need for vista and hope no need for XP soon.

C'mon everyone ... isn't this whole "I hate MS" thing getting old by now? Anyone who has an IQ over 10 knows that the reason the Windows OS has more virus and security threats than Linux or MacOS is for one reason, and ONE reason only: the majority of people that use computers also use the Windows OS. Think about it, if you were a technically inclined jerk-off, with nothing better to do than sit around and think of ways to screw up other people's computers - would you waste time writing a virus for an OS that only 10% or 25% of computer users are running? Of course not, you would want to target it at the most people. That's what the pricks that write viruses and the like want to do - take out as many innocent computer users as they can. If Linux was the top OS on the market, then all the hackers would be writing crap for Linux. Linux would be a lot easier to write viruses for ... heck, most of the major distros are open-source code. Linux may offer better protection, or it might not ... but rest assured in this: Linux is just as susceptible to a virus as any Windows OS would be. If there were more businesses and the like that were running Linux, you'd see an exponentially larger number of viruses appear. MacOS is the same way ... Mac lovers love to brag about their "stronger virus protection" ... as I said before, who the heck is going to waste time writing a virus that will only harm 10% to 25% of all computer users? I wouldn't. If the MacOS was the most widely used OS, you can bet money that there'd be a LOT of viruses written for it. As far as Vista VS WinXP goes, well - technology is changing. Software is changing. Vista has support built right in for all the new hardware goodies that we all want to play with. XP is still supported, but it is aging, and eventually it will become completely obsolete just like it's predecessors. Personally, I will not upgrade to Vista until I see a game that specifically says it won't run under any OS other than Vista. That's what I did when I upgraded to XP. I ran Win98 until a little game called Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was released. And Win98 was NOT supported. So, I went that day and bought my copy of XP. I wanted to play that game, and XP was the OS I had to have if I wanted to play it. Before too much longer, there's going to be another really cool game or app that I will want, and if it won't work on XP, I'll have to upgrade. Sucks, but that's the PC industry for you. I don't hate Microsoft for making an OS that over 70% of all PC users choose to use. If you hate Microsoft so much, why not get off your butt and go make the next big-time PC OS. Just don't be angry if everyone loves your products and the 10% that don't call you a greedy selfish pig - or worse.

No Brainer ... "Said C'mon everyone ... isn't this whole "I hate MS" thing getting old by now? Anyone who has an IQ over 10 knows that the reason the Windows OS has more virus and security threats than Linux or MacOS is for one reason, and ONE reason only: the majority of people that use computers also use the Windows OS." The reason that unix and unix alike os have less virus is not only the smal user base compared to windows. A much more important reason is that it has so far been impossible to make a virus that can spread without the user giving it the ok to do so.... It would take a lot of No Brainers to make the virus spread phun intended ;)

I use xp, but only because I have to use it to play the games that I want to play. It doesn't change the fact that microsoft loves to shaft its customers for profit.

RTFM makes some good points, and that idiot that claims Linux IS safer...bullsh*t! There just aren't as many people around that have the skill or time to code for it! And, as Linux seems to be mostly for hackers/crackers/virus makers and server use, why does everyone still bang on about it? If you game, you use Windows and have a GOOD PC that didn't cost you the earth compared to a Mac, for example. And Linux can't run on the vast majority of machines like Windows can. Credit where it's due, it has to cope with alot of sh*t for an OS and still remain stable. The only time i've had blue screens is if I'VE done something, mostly setting clocks too high. Lol. Which is another point...people call windows so much, yet alot of the time i've seen user error as the cause for it! To this, i must say: ROFL Also, going to uBuntu is going backwards. It's awful. Sure, Creative have (finally) released X-Fi drivers for Linux, so i'd have sound...but that's it. And the ability to play the crappy built in Linux games decently fast...but from what i've seen and experienced, getting an OLD game to work under Linux using WINe is so much of a pain in the arse it's not worth bothering. That, and it always runs slower anyways! At least according to most benchmarks i've seen or done. At least Linux boots up a little quicker these days, though. Also, i'm actually running Vista right now. x64 Business edition. Yes, there are a few silly troubles with it not running the odd thing, but actually, since the service pack...the only game i've had trouble with is Red Faction... lol Yes, i do miss XP, and Vista seems to use the hardware a whole lot differently, Halo 2 only loading my CPU to a max of 21 percent in some places, games tend to run a touch slower under DX9 in Vista compared to XP, but look a little better. And as i finally got some DX10 hardware, and 4GB of RAM, i moved to Vista x64. No, i'm not totally happy with it, but until a hacked MacOS or a version of Linux that takes full advantage of the hardware and all the software i have is released...Windows all the way, i'm afraid. :/ Although under Vista, the CPU seems to get less points in AquaMark 3 and slightly more in graphics...i also get the feeling that somehow Vista runs some things on the graphics card it's self that can't be done under XP...very odd OS, but it works, and i haven't had a virus get in once! Though that's mostly thanks to NOD32. Once tweaked and used right, however, Vista is surprisingly good and all these that call it Me II...you just don't know what you're doing with it! o.O Take the time to explore the OS, "RTFM" from time to time if you must. Some things are different under Vista, but not that much. Except the sound subsystem which is kind of annoying, until you hear a game play that natively supports it (UT3 for example) and even the menu music somehow sounds....better....even without the X-Fi "Crystalizer" rubbish that's simply "Loudness V2.0" although it does make a difference on low quality MP3s...sort of, but you can still tell it's doing something digitally that's not natural.

Ok, lets pick the low hanging fruit first, and work our way up. Mr.Demerjian is really quite on-target when he used the term 'Upgrading to Ubuntu'. It is technically far, far superior to vista or xp for a number of reasons, such as: fully utilizing all resources you give it, like multiple processors and as much memory as you can you can slot onto the hardware you are using. Lets see, currently 9 out of 10 of the most powerful super computers use some version of GNU/Linux, likely for this very reason. That and it's stability and security of course. You know that the NYSE just switched over to 100% Red Hat GNU/Linux too right? Yeah, it powers 90% of super computers and wall-street too. He is also correct in that he is immune to spyware...as long as he uses software from the Ubuntu-Canonical repositories. Once software from the wild is installed, all bets are off, as is the case with any system onto which software from unsecured sources is installed. The repositories are built totally from secured teams submitting only source code, which is then cleanly compiled on the repository's side and made available for download. As for those foolish enough to debate the 'more virus proof' statement, there are two things you need to know. GNU/Linux is designed to be a multi-user system from the ground up and as such absolute security is built into the heart of the OS. There are to date only 120 or so viri that can even effect a GNU/Linux computer and those can only do so in lab conditions. Even IF a virus or some malicious code was written that would work, on an Ubuntu system, it could not actually install itself. Ubuntu uses Debian GNU/Linux as it's software base, and it does not allow users to run as administrator by default...this is the single most common theme in what makes windows so susceptible to viruses and such. As for virus creators not targeting GNU/Linux due to how few people use the OS, 70% of all ISPs use it to power the websites that make up the global internet, 90% of super computers use it, most major financial players and corporations use it, and top-security installations in governments use it...the home user is the least attractive of these targets. Please allow this argument to die peacefully. Oh, and remember the hacker competition earlier this year? GNU/Linux vs MacOSX, vs Windows: Yeah, the laptop running stock Ubuntu was the only machine to remain compromised. My desktop machine uses 64bit Ubuntu and has 3gigs of memory, I use it to watch movies, use training software, play games like OpenArena and Nexuiz, and program in C++ and Java using Eclipse...I have not rebooted in almost 3 wks and my machine in that time has never had to use it's swap, it has never even used more then 60% of it's memory. Before I upgraded the ram and had only 1gig, I was still able to smoothly run 2 instances of games on separate virtual desktops(another thing native to GNU/Linux) to 'dual-box' with EveOnline, WoW, and City Of Heroes. All smoothly with no lag...again in only 1gig of memory. I could not do this on the same machine running windows XP. As for ease of use, my non-profit gifts computers using Ubuntu GNU/Linux to families that cannot afford computers. We do a bit of retraining, and in a year we have had 100% satisfaction rate. This is with kids, adults, and seniors. Windoz fanboiz, please to your research when you want to step to GNU/Linux. Stop embarrassing yourselves.

This bears repeating, no matter how long it takes to get people to understand. The plural of virus is viruses. English... It's what's for dinner.