Windows 7 Not Ready!

Buy a new PC? Hardly. That's a beefy motherboard, and despite someone labelling you a Mac-only person, you clearly know your stuff.

It's rather odd that CoH doesn't work for you on Win 7. I'm sure we could fix it, but you aren't likely to reinstall it until it's done and done. We will see how things are then.

Just chiming in that I've been running CoH on the RC verison of Win7 for several months now with no problems. Frame rates have been as good or better than I was getting in Vista. So far, Win7 has been solid for me.

Dont stare blind, what apple does should work also on windows.

Certain chipset/videocard combinations, or even with certain memory just aint big friends.

It works perfectly on my Windows 7 RC machine, in fact, it's much smoother than it is on my Vista partition. I had no problems installing or anything. However, I can only get it to work on Nvidia's 185.85 graphics driver. The others I have tried presented problems.

Intel QX9650
GTX280
Windows 7 RC 7100

Just as another datapoint, I'm running windows 7 RC through Boot Camp (unsupported) on my first gen MacBook Pro (1.83ghz core duo, 2GB ram, 128MB ATI X1600 Mobility) and it works great. Seems to run a tad better than it did under XP actually.

And if any setup is probably going to fail...it's mine. Bootcamp doesn't really officially support windows 7 quite yet, I had to screw around with the registry to get it to detect the OS as Vista in order to get the drivers installed.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I'm also running hacked ATI drivers for the X1600 because the latest ones for bootcamp are like 2 years old and you have to tweak the driver files to get the normal ATI drivers to install with a laptop GPU

Okay, so for all you software experts (I am really good with hardware, but not really up to date with software) and although this is off topic, reading your posts have made me think of my rig, so here it goes:

I am currently running a 64 bit Vista machine, running AMD dual core 3.0Ghz (so about 6Ghz total), 8 gigs of memory, with a 8200 Hybrid SLI Mobo, a GT9800 (I checked and the model im using supports Hybrid tech), between the Mobo and 9800, i run 3 screens (i don't feel like using the VGA port on the Mobo, or else i could run 4).

The issue I am having is with the NVIDIA drivers.... 64 bit vista evidently wont download and/or install the hybrid drivers, so i cant set the screens to turn on or off based on whats going on, using less power. As a side affect, when I am running CoX on high settings (or any graphics intensive game) I get a Sli line where there are two slightly differant refresh rates. (By SLi line i mean all 3 screen are being read as 1, and the mobo and 9800 work together the way multiple sli cards linked run, so the 8200 processes the top 1/3 of the screen, and the 9800 the bottom 2/3). On lower settings its fine, and if I turn off the Mobo graphics drivers, the 9800 runs beautifully.

So what I am looking for is eaither the Vista hybrid 64bit app, or to find out if Win7 has 64bit setup and has the app on it.

Other than that, is there a way, without buying a splitter, to have multiple screens being read as 1, IE Coh reads the desktop's resolution, and i can't stretch the windowed mode through all three screens (at some point the client doesnt like being pulled ant further), and I am wanting to make some multi monitor screen shots.

Thanks for any help you might have.

It runs very smoothly on 7 for me. I've also noticed a battery life increase on my laptop. (Intel P8800 2.66 GHz, 4GB, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M)

Am sold so far.

I'm not even gunna read the Post. I'm already talking to Manga in Game. Heres the Skinny...

Windows 7 isn't ready for the Big Time game because of Drivers, only Cause the BIG TIME MMOs have not updated to the Beta Drivers and wont. So the problem is you have to downgrade the drivers to the more stable Vista Final Build Drivers. Which is an issue for some untech Savie Player. Your average player just thinks they can install the game and go. What no one seems to understand that even if you tell someone to Download a driver, WIN7 Auto Downloads the Newest driver!

So no Win7 is not ready for the Average Gamer and the Average gamer should stick With XP and Vista until the official Release of Win7 when the Big Game CO's will upgrade to the Final Drivers!. So Manga is right and wrong at the same time. It's not any individual Programs fault, just the fact no one can get through their head that Just telling someone to download a driver isn't going to work in this situation.
End Case, Win7 is an Awsome OS, just not ready for the Average Joe because of these little issues. So Tech people have fun with it. Average Joe, please stick with Vista for a bit longer, or go to XP (I HATE VISTA!)

OK, I'll bite. Game companies have nothing to do with driver development. Game developers write their code targeting either OpenGL or DirectX APIs that are provided through the OS. Driver developers from nVidia, ATI and others write their drivers to bridge between the OS and the hardware.

Now due to the over competitive nature of the video card market, driver writers try to provide optimization of calls from the games most used as benchmarks to squeeze the last frame per second out to look good in the benchmarks. nVidia and ATI may provide technical help for a game company to tune a game's rendering engine by providing deep insight while a game is being developed.

But to say that "Cause the BIG TIME MMOs have not updated to the Beta Drivers" makes no sense. Game companies don't write drivers. Game companies don't care spit about drivers except when a new one breaks or an existing one isn't working correctly relative to whatever 3D API spec the game developer coded to (basically showing the game performance in a poor light which then may affect sales).

Yes, I agree that the drivers available to a yet to be released OS may have issues and there is time for the big GPU manufacturers to put out a few more driver revisions before Windows 7 officially rolls out. Perhaps future drivers will resolve CuppaManga's problems and others who report exceptionally poor performance. Neither case is universal as there are a number of people who have no issues.

The reason that CoH experiences any issues is because of CoH itself. It's a very old engine, and even though it looks impressive, the OpenGL calls it uses were passé even in 2004. By my reckoning, OpenGL 2.0 was released in September 2004, and I don't think CoH was written with it in mind. OGL 2.0 is roughly comparable to DirectX 9, which introduced gubbins like programmable shaders. The jump from 8.1 to 9 was absolutely massive. While DirectX 9 has lived a very long life, 8.1 (and OpenGL 1) was only kept around as a fallback option, never as a first choice. Put that in CoH terms and I think it was outdated only months after release. Sure, Villains added some OGL2 features on top, but you can't polish a turd.

I would need a developer to confirm this but going by the dates, I see no way that CoH uses OpenGL 2.0 at its core.

Some nVidia drivers inadvertently aggravate the problem by the aforementioned performance-mongering. CoH isn't a big priority for their driver team. Likewise, ATi have a pathological hatred for OpenGL of all kinds, new and old.

That said, nVidia did co-operate with Cryptic/NCNC/Paragon Studios (yeah, it took that long -_-;; ) to sort out the Grandville black texture problem, so at least we don't have that now. Things are getting better over time, but it isn't a smooth, straight line from bad to good; it's more like a craggy dirt path across a few canyons.

Though I appreciate the potential advice, this thread seems to be straying from the original point.

If you're laughing at me because I didn't download and install multiple versions drivers for everything (even components supported by Windows 7) and keep trying until I got it right, you missed the point entirely.

The point is, if I have to spend days downloading drivers and *experimenting* to get Windows 7 to work, maybe go through another install until I get it right, then I can't in good conscience recommend Windows 7 to the average CoH player.

I didn't say it doesn't work at all, just that it didn't work where Vista did, which really should not be the case if Windows 7 *was* ready - it should work at least as good as Vista, possibly better.

I'm not a good sales person. I can't put on a smile after fighting for a week to get Windows 7 working well and tell people that Windows 7 is perfect, and the time to install it is now! Maybe it'll be great, and maybe I'll try to install it and get it to work right again, because I *can* tinker if I have to - but I still won't recommend it until the install procedure is less tinkering and more throw in the CD, have a snack, and start gaming.

We went through this before with Vista - even the devs were telling people to stick with XP a bit longer because of the problems associated with the newer OS hadn't been entirely worked out yet. So I don't see why my claim is any worse.

I don't hate Windows 7 - it has a lot of promise, and some features I still miss after switching back to Vista, particularly the audio settings/behavior and that show desktop button!

And yet many people with systems and hardware much like yours are having no problems with 7 and CoX. I'm certainly not, CoX has been rock solid for me on both the beta and RC1, and the only drivers I've downloaded outside of Windows Update are for my printer and the NVidia drivers.

Anecdotal evidence is still anecdotal.

I think a lot of the inforamtion given out in this thread is more because you and friend, made bold statements saying this is whats wrong, with windows 7. Infomation you gave out is bad, and untrue. Other posted have pointed out what the mistakes were. Yet you still deffend your comment and say we are BULLYING you. No we want someone that reads this thread because of the name know the TRUTH.

ok you had issues and dont want to try again, you want MS and the video driver venders to get together and fix something for you. Do you really think that a game forum is the place.. I would point you to Nvidia or ATI bug tracking software, and also contact microsoft support as well. I am sure they would ask you to do the same.