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May 18, 2006, 11:10 AM PDT
Vista hardware reqs in the house Posted by: Rich Brown
It might be more than six months away, but now you can plan for upgrades or configure a new PC with Windows Vista in mind. Microsoft officially released the system requirements on its Web site. They break down as follows:
A Windows Vista-capable PC includes at least:
* A modern processor (at least 800MHz)
* 512MB of system memory
* A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
A Windows Vista Premium-ready PC includes at least:
* 1GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1GB of system memory
* A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero
* 128MB of graphics memory
* 40GB of hard drive capacity with 15GB free space
* A DVD-ROM drive
* Audio output capability
* Internet access capability.
Not too steep for the basic version. Pretty much any new desktop or laptop for sale right now has the guts to handle Vista lite. Premium is a different story. If you go to Microsoft's page, you'll notice footnotes after the Premium version processor and GPU requirements. According to the outline on that page, to run Aero on a single display at 1,280x1,024 (the native resolution of most LCDs), you'll need at least 128MB of dedicated graphics memory. If you need 1GB of memory for the Premium Vista, that rules out any of the current-gen Intel or other integrated chips. You can also forget about most of the lower-end HyperMemory/TurboCache 3D cards from Nvidia and ATI, because those chips share all or part of the system memory for graphics, taking away from the overall system memory total.
Now that the hardware requirements are public, you can shop smarter. Just know that you need to dig a little deeper into both the system and the graphics memory in order to get Vista to look its best.
A Windows Vista-capable PC includes at least:
* A modern processor (at least 800MHz)
* 512MB of system memory
* A graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable.
A Windows Vista Premium-ready PC includes at least:
* 1GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
* 1GB of system memory
* A graphics processor that runs Windows Aero
* 128MB of graphics memory
* 40GB of hard drive capacity with 15GB free space
* A DVD-ROM drive
* Audio output capability
* Internet access capability.
Not too steep for the basic version. Pretty much any new desktop or laptop for sale right now has the guts to handle Vista lite. Premium is a different story. If you go to Microsoft's page, you'll notice footnotes after the Premium version processor and GPU requirements. According to the outline on that page, to run Aero on a single display at 1,280x1,024 (the native resolution of most LCDs), you'll need at least 128MB of dedicated graphics memory. If you need 1GB of memory for the Premium Vista, that rules out any of the current-gen Intel or other integrated chips. You can also forget about most of the lower-end HyperMemory/TurboCache 3D cards from Nvidia and ATI, because those chips share all or part of the system memory for graphics, taking away from the overall system memory total.
Now that the hardware requirements are public, you can shop smarter. Just know that you need to dig a little deeper into both the system and the graphics memory in order to get Vista to look its best.
TalkBack
8 messages
Vista release media - CD or DVD-ROM? Both?
According to Microsoft's site you will need at minimum a CD-ROM drive to load Vista. However in another area on their site they indicate a requirement for a DVD-ROM which Amazon.com mirrors by indicating the release media will be DVD-ROM. The question is "if your DVD drive is external and it is not a bootable device will Vista have to include a CD just to load enough code to load the rest of it from the DVD?".
by Tlingzhon (See profile) - August 29, 2006 12:39 PM PDT
Hardware Requirements
I'd say the hardware requirements for the new windows build is way to demanding, leaving a lot of consumers out there who have just bought computers to eat the dust. Microsoft needs to make a lighter build of their new OS. The hardware requirements for this build is way to high, compared to XP. At least you would figure they would came out with 256 memory requirement instead of taking such a high jump, and as for the graphics card I don't even think it should matter really. Look at Mac OS X Tiger, the hardware requirements to run all the nice features in the OS is not so demanding on the hardware at all. There are a lot of people out there that are going to be lucking out once they want to upgrade their current systems.
by lepraucan9 (See profile) - May 30, 2006 10:20 PM PDT
Hardware Requirements
I'd say the hardware requirements for the new windows build is way to demanding, leaving a lot of consumers out there who have just bought computers to eat the dust. Microsoft needs to make a lighter build of their new OS. The hardware requirements for this build is way to high, compared to XP. At least you would figure they would came out with 256 memory requirement instead of taking such a high jump, and as for the graphics card I don't even think it should matter really. Look at what Mac has come out with, there hardware requirements to run all their nice features in their OS is not so demanding on the hardware at all. There are a lot of people out there that are going to be lucking out once they want to upgrade their current systems.
by lepraucan9 (See profile) - May 30, 2006 10:14 PM PDT
Less than 15 GB free disk space need not apply
Apparently this 15 GB is a *minimum* requirement. According to the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor Beta FAQ (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/faq.mspx)
a "20 GB hard drive with 15 GB of free space" is "required...to run the core functionality of Windows Vista."
a "20 GB hard drive with 15 GB of free space" is "required...to run the core functionality of Windows Vista."
by William L. Long (See profile) - May 22, 2006 10:33 AM PDT
Did I read that correctly?
15 gigabytes of free space on your hard drive?!?!?!?
I seriously hope that the majority of this isn't needed to install Vista or it is going to take forever to start up. If it isn't for installation, it could be swap space. But that is an insane amount of swap space. Hopefully it won't be set proportionally. Imagine the 15/40 ratio applied to a 300GB drive! That would be almost 116GB...
I seriously hope that the majority of this isn't needed to install Vista or it is going to take forever to start up. If it isn't for installation, it could be swap space. But that is an insane amount of swap space. Hopefully it won't be set proportionally. Imagine the 15/40 ratio applied to a 300GB drive! That would be almost 116GB...
by omniL (See profile) - May 19, 2006 8:57 AM PDT
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found this comment helpful
Windows Vista....Yeah
Okay, as for Vista itself, the requirements aren't that steep. This is Windows
first OS where they are actually having more than the basic stuff over and over
again, so they are going for higher ability without the knowhow they need of
getting it to run on more basic machines. Typical.
I wrote this comment more for the "No See Vista For A Long Time" response that
was written... Whether or not your computers will actually RUN Vista, you wont
be seeing Vista in a long time, Microsoft keeps delaying it over and over,
meanwhile Apple's going to release it's what...6th OS since XP was released?
first OS where they are actually having more than the basic stuff over and over
again, so they are going for higher ability without the knowhow they need of
getting it to run on more basic machines. Typical.
I wrote this comment more for the "No See Vista For A Long Time" response that
was written... Whether or not your computers will actually RUN Vista, you wont
be seeing Vista in a long time, Microsoft keeps delaying it over and over,
meanwhile Apple's going to release it's what...6th OS since XP was released?
by rhx747 (See profile) - May 18, 2006 2:33 PM PDT
No See Vista for a While
Well, with the steep PC hardware requirement to run Vista, I do not expect to see Vista running at my workplace for a while. We are just getting rid of Windows 95, 98, and Me PCs, still have NT 4 and 2000 workstations, and XP are just being massively deployed. It's called lack of funding...
For home use, I probably won't see it either for a couple of years. Same reason as above
--GIF
For home use, I probably won't see it either for a couple of years. Same reason as above
--GIF
by treet007 (See profile) - May 18, 2006 2:21 PM PDT
