Gaming Hotness for Windows Vista


Posted by Nick White on Monday, December 18, 2006 10:40 PM 12 Comments

As the holidays approach and you find yourself with a little extra time to kill (who am I kidding??), check out one of the ~750 Games for Windows kiosks placed at local GameStop stores.  The kiosks show off some pretty impressive games for PCs that will look downright spectacular on Windows Vista using DX10.  I took a photo of one of them placed on display here in MS' Building 3:

You can expect stores like Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Circuit City and others to have re-branded Games for Windows sections following Windows Vista's retail general availability.

Also, drop by the Games for Windows site to find out about the latest in gaming on Windows (it's a pretty cool site).

DEC 19
 

Posted by mrmckeb

Very cool indeed! Although thanks to (what I call) the "America First Policy", we'll probably never see these in Australia. :(
DEC 19
 

Posted by newscientist2000

Great Idea, makes you wonder why this hadnt been done earlier.

What are the specs on the machine inside?
DEC 19
 

Posted by Randy Scholes

I don't think i'll ever get a chance to see one of them in my area... I gotta say i think microsoft release the xbox 360 wheel for windows also :)
DEC 19
 

Posted by Brandon LeBlanc

Sn4k3 - you bring up a good point. If the Xbox 360 controller can work with Windows, why couldn't the Xbox 360 Wheel? I don't have one to try but would be interested to see if the Xbox Team intended or intends to make it work for racing games on Windows.

DEC 19
 

Posted by someone

Speaking of DirectX, I as a Microsoft customer would like to see something new done to DirectSound, DS3D and DirectMusic in the next version of Windows. Developers would love a hardware-accelerated sound API that uses Vista's new audio stack.
DEC 19
 

Posted by PowerHouse

@someone

While nothing new has been added to Direct sound, a lot of capabilities have been removed.  This is in part because of OpenAL which will take over.  Unfortunately, from what I have read, there will no longer be any audio acceleration for older games.

============================

Anyway,  those rig look slammin'.  They really are bring a whole new life into PC gaming.  I remember back in the 90s when I would go to a store and be able to play Doom and later on Quake on rigs like that.  This will most certainly be a success.  The next point which I love is bring LIVE to the PC.  I have always wanted to play cross-platform matches.  The only thing that might be a problem is the use of mouse and keyboard against controllers.  Yes, they have the option as well but from what I understand a M&K are always going to be more precise than even the best players using controllers.  No worries though - I'll be sticking to my M&K.
DEC 19
 

Posted by PowerHouse

There should really be an "edit" button.  I just realized that Google Tool bar made a number of mistakes when it auto corrected my stuff.
DEC 19
 

Posted by Jiffy_No0b

I can't wait for Crysis.
DEC 25
 

Posted by exyeuer

Windows Vista is the best os in MS history!!!

We like it!

Congratulations for Microsoft!
DEC 29
 

Posted by MarauderX

Very nice, thanks for the pic.

How about some online games?
JAN 31
 

Posted by Michael_Moor

Hey "Nick White",thx for share

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http://www.dl4all.com
MAR 04
 

Posted by GunVapor

--snip--

The good news is that the Creative ALchemy Project allows you to run your favorite DirectSound3D games on Windows Vista as the developers intended - with full hardware accelerated 3D Audio and EAX support! This is done by translating DirectSound calls into OpenAL. In order for this to happen, a couple of files need to be installed into each game directory. This is handled automatically by the ALchemy installer - but can also be performed manually by advanced users.

--snip--

http://preview.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx

for other sound card vendor i have no clue
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