Windows XP Games and Vista
 

I've been mulling over getting back into PC Gaming but most of the boxes I've looked at show Windows XP as the required OS. I know compatibility has been an issue with some general applications and hardware on Vista so I'm wondering how accomodating it is towards games, both newish and those dating back 2-3 years.

Is there anything I should look for in the requirements or am I SOL.

Most games labeled for XP can be run on Vista. It either runs out of the box with no issues or you have to set the program to run in Windows XP (service pack 2) compatibility mode. Some companies have released patches to make sure their games run in Vista. Though some games just will not work on Vista.

In my experience it's really a crap shoot with more games than not working on Vista. I'd wager anything that has "Games for Windows" on the box will be a safe bet.

As far as I know any game that will run on XP will run on Vista fine.

When Vista first came out I'd say less than half of my games would work. Some of the updates that Microsoft has released took care of most of the issues. I did have one game screw up Vista so bad that I had to reinstall and that was Myth II. Just trashed the system for some reason.

'Fine' being open to interpretation - some games lose as much as 50% of performance on Vista.

some games also run in DX10 in vista. :P

DX10 isn't supposed to make existing titles slower, it's supposed to enable new rendering and post-processing effects ;) DX10 or not, some titles do take a big performance hit.

you got me there. I guess you just need system that can handle it. Hopefully SP1 helps vista's memory usage.

Yeah, Vista is HUGE. I bought my new computer with 2gb ram and was shocked when I saw it using almost half that at idle! I immediately went out and got 2 more gigs and obviously have seen a vast improvement in my gaming performance.

As far as specific game problems in Vista...it would shut down SimCity4 without warning on me and I have to run Bioshock in XP compatibility mode (sp2) to get sound, but my roommate doesn't...

I've not had a single game work worse under Vista x64 than under XPSP2 x86 *shrug* I've seen the reports and articles, but I've played a LOT of games, and 64-bit should be an even greater compatibility issue. I've had none.

I second that. My only issue has been with crappy drivers from my SB Audigy2