The Unfortunate Consequence of Trying Out RC's

So I am always up for trying some new things, like food, games, and even software. Well, with Microsoft, it has been hit or miss. With their beta release or RC of Vista, to their Windows Home Server, to lastly their service pack 3 for XP. You never know what your going to get.

With the release candidate for Vista, the usual disappointments were there at 1st. No driver support for most items, I had a hell of a time trying to get certain components detected or working properly. Second was the compatibility of older programs with the newer operating system. Some software worked great for awhile and then just shutdown with exception errors....this proved to eb the biggest problem of them all for me. And lastly, the hardware upgrades that were necessary for the launch of Windows Vista. My current system at the time of the test passed, but not by much and the video card would have worked, but not with the DX10 functionality....which will not suit me when DX10 games come out (at the time).

Windows Home Server was a whole new thing to me. I usually just had a machine running a copy of XP and had it networked as shares for me to use as storage. In the case of the Windows Home Server, it gave you back up software that was easy to use and pretty self explanatory. On top of that, it allowed me to have it for all of my systems with connector software. Anyone on the network could pull or upload to it. making for a great system to have. Currently, I have had no issues in the installation process and or the maintenance of the system, thus proving to be a good solid system so far.

Lastly, is the the dreaded Windows XP Service Pack 3. This little gem, according to Microsoft, was supposed to improve efficiency by upwards of 10%. No so much the case for me and my systems. In fact, during boot-ups, my experience have been much longer and I have not seen any optimization of network processes or hardware detection. This, so far, is not what it has been toted to be and is a flop in my eyes. Only time will tell when the full service pack comes out.

Crysis Hardware Requirements

I will say that the game of the year (at least in my opinion) does eat away at your system's resources like a starvin' Marvin, but lets also remember, you still can get great success from your system and the game without having to dish out the 5 Grand to Alienware for a 3 SLI graphics card setup. SLI Zone Gizmodo

There has been a lot of commotion on the inter-web about this issue since the game developers may be in the pockets of companies wanting the consumers to upgrade to their products. We saw this with Tom Clancey's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) and the use of a physx card. From all of the reviews, there have been very few that insist that this is necessary for the ultimate game play. Also, take one of the largest software companies in the world tried to do this with their newest operating system, Microsoft's Windows Vista. The bringing of this new shiny new OS was supposed to help MS get their handle on those thinking of joining the Apple arena. It has caused grief and financial loss for the giant.

With game publishers using their landscape as a advertisement ground, how long before subscriptions are necessary, oh wait, they already are. Take Steam. Steam is a product that allows its users to install their games on their computer and or use them anywhere a internet connection is found. Now, since its inception with the ground breaking Half Life 2, this platform has grown exponentially and now carries almost all of the biggest games. There is also security form game makers when they use Steam. They can be rest assured that the game is not being copied with the key. Each key is specifically connected to the account bearer. And lets say that you do not want to hold on to all of those pesky boxes that collect from the games you buy, you can purchase and download all of the games online. It will keep all of the records for you. Keys and all!

Finally, the point I am trying to get to is that no matter what is said or protested, companies will try to get you to upgrade, advertise, or even adopt security measures. That is the nature of progression in the technology field. With the new inventive ways to get more frames per second (FPS), or optimize virtualization with multi-core processors, the future will change all of the time. Trying to keep up with it is a spendy journey that will result in disappointment if you think you will find the be all to end all.