It doesn’t look to great for future Vista users planning on playing SWG. Check this article from IGN:
SWG Fails To Work On Windows Vista
“The game installed on Vista without any problems. Vista includes a new feature called “User Protection” that is basically a series of checkboxes to ensure that you know that you are installing a program. It’s a little annoying but besides this little change the installation process runs exactly as it does on Windows XP.
Once the game was installed we were presented with Desktop and Start Menu icons just like in XP. Up to this point nothing has changed but as soon as we clicked the SWG shortcut our world was turned upside down. It wasn’t because of the “User Protection” dialog box that now pops up when you run a program that caught us off guard but rather the fact that we couldn’t even start the launch program. As soon as the launcher checked files before bringing us to the update screen it would either close down or cause a system crash. After some careful exploration of Vista’s compatibility settings we found that Galaxies must be run in Administrative Mode as well as under either XP or 2000’s compatibility emulation. If you leave the game running in the default compatibility you are bound to have it crash from time to time.
Compatibility Settings Required To Run SWG On Vista
Once the game was running we spent over 10 hours evaluating how the game preformed in the Vista environment. Performing basic tasks like going through the games menus and inventory screens worked without a hitch. We even passed the tutorial on the space station without any incident. So far Vista is handling SWG on par with Windows XP.
Once we finished the tutorial our adventures in Mos Eisley began. Unfortunately this experience was not as enjoyable but not because of the game’s content but because the frame-rate of the game would drop between 10 and 15 frames per second. This is of course an improvement when compared to the few times that we played without enabling the Windows 2000 compatibility mode. Without 2000 compatibility enabled.
Memory Usage While Running SWG On Vista
When trying to investigate the problem the lagging frame-rates we checked many different areas that could affect it. Our copy of Direct X was up to date, video drivers up to date as well. So we checked the only other place that made sense, the task manager. It turns out that SWG was using up roughly 480 megs of memory leaving around 20 megabytes for the system to operate on.
While running SWG on Vista we also found that CPU usage spiked whenever we casted a force power that drew significant amounts of particles on the screen or when there were several players on the screen at one time. When compared to the XP setup there where more times when the Vista installation used 100% of the CPUs resources.
CPU Usage While Running SWG On Vista
After spending over a month with Galaxies on Vista we can tell that there is certainly some major work to be done. As Vista heads towards completion and eventual release in to gamers hands SOE will have a bit of a battle on its hands to ensure compatibility. For those of us who enjoy a stable game we’d recommend sticking with a Windows XP setup. If your still interested in venturing in to Windows Vista territory make sure you have enough memory, at least 1.5 gigs, or you too could experience choppy visuals and system crashing memory consumption.”
So uh..yeah. Don’t plan on playing SWG on Vista until SOE does some major tweaking and compatibility fixes. The CPU and Memory usage to me was the most shocking, it was at 100%…that’s not a good. Let’s hope for those who plan on using Vista that SOE will fix up compatibility and those major memory problems. Well I just thought this was “worthy” of sharing, especially for those who are planning on using Window’s Vista.
That’s it for now,
-Okro
