Reply #41: Windows 7 is on its way, and believe it or not, it's pretty awesome.

[Occulus]

I'm running the 7100 build of the Windows 7 beta right now, and I have to say, I'm flabbergasted. It's Vi$ta without the bad stuff. Vi$ta as it should have been and wasn't.

I won't go into a huge, long description of it, but 7 looks to be one of those rare gems Micro$oft puts out every five to seven years. Even as a beta, Win7 is faster, cleaner, better looking, and better behaved than any previous version of Window$. I like it so much, I've abandoned my XP Pro 64-bit install in favor of the Win7 "test".

Here's an example. I'm a gamer. I have several top-shelf PC games (Crysis, Oblivion, Command & Conquer 3, The Last Remnant, and others) that push my system to its absolute max. Both installations of Windows have access to the exact same hardware, as they exist as a dual-boot on the same physical hard disk.

In The Last Remnant, I get perhaps 20-30 frames per second when running in WinXP. The framerate fluctuates wildly depending on what's happening onscreen. There are stutters in the video, sometimes the audio is totally out of sync, there's an extreme loss of frames during battles, etc.

In Window$ 7, however, I get a consistent sixty frames per second or better with the exact same game. I was completely shocked. I get the same sort of performance difference in other games, Crysis in particular.

Now, games generally push the CPU, RAM, and video hardware. If it performs this well under that much stress, well... Window$ 7, FTW.

Micro$oft Window$ Vi$ta sucked, but Window$ 7 is looking like it'll be golden.