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What Operating System Do You Use For Gaming?
Damon
Member UncommonPosts: 170
I saw someone make a post that 50% of gamers use Windows XP as their operating system. So, I thought I would post a poll for those of us here, and see what truth we could find among ourselves.
Comments
WIndows XP for years until I decided to buy a gaming laptop that came with Windows 7. I don't care what my operating system is for gaming, I just use whatever I have at the time. If I buy a gaming laptop with Windows 8 in a year, then that's what I'll use.
I used to build my own computers but I just don't care to anymore.
Windows 7 64-bit for the win.
<childish, provocative and highly speculative banner about your favorite game goes here>
short of being a techie type, theres only 2 OS's that i would consider suitable for gaming, and thats XP and win 7 64 bit version.. Vista and Win 8.. ones a lemon and the other is an itunes wannabee..
Windows 8 Release Candidate 64-bit
See if you were a bit of a techy you'd know that Vista SP2 is Windows 7 so that lemon is more like fresh home made lemonade nowadays. I use Vista SP2 32bit as most games do not utilise 64bit OS' so its a bit of a misnomer using one unless you play a lot of 64bit games. When I played WoW many moons ago I used Slackware Linux now there's a proper operating system hand configured from the install no wizards to be found anyway other actually in WoW of course.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
people are still using xp? amazing.
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Xp is still very popular in the slightly less developed parts of the world. Places that have internet infrastructure but just aren't caught up to us.
I work in the tech support field and provide some software support for thousands of independent contracters here in NA and I would say that maybe 25-30% of the people I help still use Xp, with most using 7 and the odd Vista here and there. However these people are not gamers in the least. 100% of them just buy their computers at Walmart and Best Buy and use them until they break. Every gamer that I personally know uses 7 nowadays. Xp can still function fine for most games though.
Why not is a better question its rock solid and supports over a deacdes worth of games.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
Yup. It just works.
Anyway, I started using XP because WoW ran better there instead of under Linux and Wine. I didn't seem to have any of the weird issues my friends had though...it just didn't run as smoothly under Linux.
My perfect system would be to run a Linux machine, and then run various virtual machines for whatever OS worked best for the game or software I wanted to use. While this can work now for a lot of software, gaming isn't a recommended use.
** edit **
From what I've heard, if you can get a machine with 4gb of ram or better (more is better) Windows 7 64 bit is the way to go.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Well it will never run as good under Linux as it does under Windows.
Cause it is Windows version run using wine wrapper / "something similar to emulator".
If Blizzard would make native Linux version then it could run as good as under Windows.
Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
XP might work perfectly well for launching games but my PC is used for a lot more than just gaming, so obviously I want to run a modern OS on it, not one that is more than a decade old.
Thank you, everyone. It seems that Windows 7 is used by most of us, which makes sense to me.
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits - nice original black box from Microsoft
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
As long as you have lessthan 4 gigs of total memory and a gfx card that only supports dx9 you are right.
My personal MS OS ever was win2K, it was really solid but I eventually had to move to XP to be able to play all games.
But XP can´t run a modern gaming computer anymore and it really isn´t so great as many people think, it is all the years of fixing it up that paid off, win 7 is already as stable.
Vista on the other hand never really became good, just as Windows ME never did either.
It depends where I sit in my house.
I use either Vista (kinda sucks if I am trying to load new games) or Windows 7.
I don't own any apple products. Donations accepted....
Life is Short, Read a Book.
I stuck with Win2K a long time too, but at a point I moved to Windows XP Pro 64bits for professional reasons. Win2K was an excellent, rock solid and stable OS.
Completely skipped Vista too - talk about a pile of crap. I directly upgraded my XP 64 bit to 7 Ultimate 64 bits, and the upgrade was flawless.
My favorite MS OS is definitely Windows 7. A very good OS with everything one would need included. I will most likely completely skip Windows 8 like I skipped Vista, tried it and there's nothing I want over 7, looks like another bloated pile of crap ruining a very good OS.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
No, the claim was not 50% of GAMERS, but 50% of PCs.
The issue discussed in the original thread was not so much the amount of current gamers, but rather the POTENTIAL audience, which many game companies are very focused on - they want to expand the audience playing MMO's. You don't do that by cutting out a potential market of 45-50%.
Also, as I point out in the last post on the original thread, the fact that XBox 360 is also DirectX 9, is an additional factor in holding back the move to DirectX 10+.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/5114156#5114156
XP x64 and Win 7 64bit. I don't see a switch to Win 8 for several years. I try to avoid dot zero technology when possible.
Stopped using XP when I upgraded my PC to over 4GB this was a long time ago. Plus the limitation to DX9 too was annoying don't get me wrong XP was stable but so is Windows 7 for me only time I ever had issues gaming was when my CPU overheated due to the fact I needed to re-thermal paste my CPU. So I can't complain XP was solid for me but so is Windows 7.
Been using Vista x64, but I plan to finally upgrade to 7 soon. I had a license for 7 since it was released, but Vista was okay and I always felt that reinstalling was too much for a hassle for a minimal upgrade. Now that I bought an SSD it's a good opportunity to install 7. Plus I have so much useless junk on my Vista installation that it's about time I did a clean install.
I thought about 50% of all computers were still running XP. When it comes to gaming machines, I'd consider it to be significantly less than that. Gamers will want the newer machines and when Win7 (64) works so well you'd be a bit weird to stick with XP on a new machine.
I wonder why Vista was so bad for gaming.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Steam data shows that the vast majority (over 70%) of gamers use Windows 7 now.
Source: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=pc
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023