And here’s a shot of the various Windows 7 upgrades. So far, I’ve installed several onto the five gaming systems I have set
up here. Some, of course, have already been running Windows 7, which I obtained from my Technet account, and have been using in articles on Windows 7.
There’s not really a lot I can add to the hoopla about Windows 7. Like any new OS release from Microsoft, there is good and bad. But for our weekly LAN party group, I’m looking forward to moving everyone to 64-bit Windows 7.
Four of five gaming rigs in the basement lab are now running Windows 7.
Windows 7 & Gaming: So Far
I’ve been running games on Windows 7 since the release candidate. Bear in mind that most of my games are either fairly new or, if older titles, have been re-purchased from Steam or Good Old Games. I’ve run into relatively few issues. The most common problem between different titles, oddly enough, is the inability to play the startup video. This is true with Blood Bowl and the updated, free-to-play Dungeons and Dragons Online. As far as problems go, this is pretty minor.
Here’s a partial list of games I’ve played under Windows 7. These are games I’ve actually played fairly extensively, not just fired up and checked to see if they ran:
- Anno 1404
- Left 4 Dead
- Mass Effect (needed to install the free DLC to get it to work — but this may have been a Radeon HD 5870 driver problem.)
- Plants Vs. Zombies
- Risen
- Dungeons and Dragons Online
- Demigod
- Sins of a Solar Empire
- Section 8
- Prototype
- Red Faction: Guerrilla
- Blood Bowl
None of these are particularly old titles. All of these run on Windows 7 64-bit.
Friday Night Follies & the Windows 7 Launch Party
The usual crew was on hand, plus Robert Heron from HDNation. We played D&D online for about five hours.
I’d mentioned earlier that four of five of the gaming systems were running Windows 7. By that, I meant the actual release version; the fifth system is still on the release candidate. All are running the 64-bit version.
We did run into a couple of glitches, but I’m not convinced they were Windows 7 related. D&D Online crashed to the desktop on a couple of systems. Another odd quirk: occasionally the game would spontaneously change resolutions, and you’d see a “window” on your desktop. I put the word “window” in quotes, because it wasn’t a real window. You could see the desktop underneath, but the game was still running in full screen, exclusive. Fixing the problem was easy: press ALT-ENTER twice. The first time would put it in true windowed mode, the second time would kick it back into its original resolution in full screen mode.
The reason I’m unconvinced that this is a Windows 7 specific issue is that we saw the same behavior on at least one Windows Vista system a couple of weeks back. The problems seem to manifest mostly on systems running ATI graphics, though I haven’t tested this extensively to be completely sure — only one of the systems is running an Nvidia-based card (a BFG 275 GTX OC), and it had relatively few issues.
Next steps is to install Windows 7 on some of the other family systems, and see how those fare. One thing is for sure: XP and Vista are done in the Case House. I’ll keep a couple of Vista and XP partition backups, just for testing. But we’ll be a Windows 7 household going forward.
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4 comments
Markeyse J Mundy
October 23, 2009 at 10:36 pm (UTC -7)
Yessir!
Daniel
October 25, 2009 at 3:43 pm (UTC -7)
That’s great, windows 7 is a lot better than previous operating systems from Microsoft.
Tim Verry
October 29, 2009 at 10:48 pm (UTC -7)
Oh, kool, you play Sins’? Would you be interested in a WAN game sometime?
Double Headboard
August 16, 2010 at 7:08 pm (UTC -7)
Plants Vs. Zombies should be given the title “game of the year”, this game is so addictive-.~