Lost Planet: DirectX 9 vs. 10 Comments by Alec Meer

@ Talha
I'm sorry you are having so many problems with Vista. I have to admit I am running alot of my old stuff on XP still (I dual boot between Vista and XP), simply because I couldn't be arsed to re-install everything (and feared some may have issues).
The Splinter Cell problems are well documented and not being a fan of/or bought the game haven't experienced this. But I can well believe it is a driver issue, not everything can be a 'user error' for sure.
I do regret the tone of my initial post. I sometimes lose it when I allow daft comments by other people to wind me up.
I agree that Vista should have made PC gaming easier and hasn't. I also agree this hasn't been the smoothest transition for PC gamers.
I just can't see the point in slagging off Microsoft and nVidia, things will get better.

@ kangarootoo
I apologise for sounding like a twat, like I said to Talha I do regret the tone of my initial comment.
I guess you could call me an enthusiast and I can tend to be a little snobby and defensive about PC gaming but having said that I'm seriously considering getting a PS3 once they've dropped in price a little! Then I'll be able to satisfy my driving/fighting hunger which is an area my PC doesn't deliver in.

@kang - the article is wank. I'm well interested in hardware and software and wear me geek badge with pride (unless I'm outside of the house) but this article is akin to an Argos catalogue's lingiere section when yer after hardcore pron.

@tahla - sounds like you upgraded to Vista too soon. Go back to XP. Problem solved. Early adopting for gamers is well risky, always has been. Or did you have no issues running a game on Win98 the day it came out?

Some people just don't learn... Honestly, why on earth rushing to upgrade to Vista? It's bloody ridiculous.

Early adopters of new OS MUST be ready to face a lot of problems and keep tweaking and patching their systems until everyhting's sorted.

The same goes for pretty much anything else, DX10 included. That's how it always was and that's how it'll always be.

@UncleLou: Hey you weren't rude or anything - I just got p.o.'ed at the way you termed my post as a straightaway exaggeration. That's all. My point is this: while you may be tech savvy enough to keep your PC gaming running smoothly, a majority of the gamers are not. That's what has contributed to the rise of the consoles.

@Pablo2k5: Well no regrets are needed - we have all been there one time or another. Your subsequent posts have cleared away any hard feelings I could have had about that. And thanks for reading my rants so thoroughly!

For the record, I am dual-booting with XP. Here are two POSITIVE things I'd like to share about PC gaming that I encountered during the weekend:

1) In case you are dual-booting, most games installed on XP work as it is on Vista (believe it or not). Just locate the .exe file, make a shortcut on the desktop, locate the saved profiles from the XP installation (more often than not they are in My Documents or a sub-folder - you'd have to look) and copy them into the corresponding Vista location. I am currently playing Flight Simulator X, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six Vegas and Top Spin 2 in both XP and Vista off the same installation. Just remember to duplicate the savegame files after every play.

Well, what;s the point then, you might ask. It's just a perfectly geeky thing to do! ;-)

2) Colin McRae DiRT demo is running like a dream on my system with all settings cranked up. Honestly didn't expect framerate this smooth

DirectX wha...?

Civ 4 runs fine in Vista.

That's, uh, all I need. None of this fancy crap. ;-D