Windows 7

[Joy]

For anyone wanting to try it out, I tested it in a raid now finally, and definitely had improved FPS. I did however have random crashes, but that's more than likely a driver problem, and plenty people had reported rocking stability, so it's worth a try if you're struggling with FPS but have at least 2GB ram.

It's a free download of course, if you can't get it from Microsoft I can put up a mirror somewhere.

 

[Zermo]

Is it (alot) more demanding than xp?

 

[Joy]

No, somewhere between XP and Vista really. And they've obviously done some good work on the gaming support. I personally wouldn't install it when I had only 2 GB ram though, OS + WoW can sometimes reach 2 GB ram together, and if you then are running anything else you end up swapping, but I've managed to do that in XP as well, so <_<

 

[Croga]

Remember that Win7 (as Vista) uses up more memory if you have more memory (by caching stuff that isn't immediately needed). It should run WoW nicely with 1GB as it will remove some of the cached stuff from memory.
I'm running with 8GB at the moment and just Windows, Firefox, Outlook uses up 2438MB (almost 2.5GB).

I don't recommend running WoW on any OS with less the 2GB though but 2GB and up shouldn't be a problem for Win7 any more then it is for WinXP.

 

[Joy]

It is, in Dalaran my WoW + XP + other apps I have running use about 1.8 GB ram, that's really close to swapping territory, which is why I recently upgraded to 3 GB (one of my banks is dead). No more swapping for me now, Vista definitely uses more than XP, and so does 7, but you should still be safe with 3gb.

Of course if you only run WoW + an OS, you should be fine with 2gb, but who does <_<

 

[Jai]

64 or 32 Joy?


I've been tinkering with Vista 64 and it also seems to have upped gaming performance a tad.

 

[Joy]

64.

I wont touch Vista anymore personally

 

[Joy]

Installed the official WDM Ati driver now, and installed newer audio drivers, going to be online all day, and then try it tonight in a raid, it must be a driver problem, and this higher fps is alluring :<

Loadtimes are also faster, I guess that's the prefetching tech.

 

[Croga]

Loadtimes are also faster, I guess that's the prefetching tech.

Yup, that's the bit where more memory is very useful My WoW now loads so fast I think it's basically perpetually in memory.....

 

[Joy]

No crashes since I updated audio and network drivers \o/

 

[Ippi]

But the minimum is 3GB ram you think to be able to run win7 acceptable?

And whoohey stolen Inet ftw. When will people learn to secure their wireless connections

 

[Joy]

But the minimum is 3GB ram you think to be able to run win7 acceptable?

And whoohey stolen Inet ftw. When will people learn to secure their wireless connections

Nice

I wouldn't do it with 2 GB no.

Had a crash again today but spotted the crashing DLL, it seems to be AVG causing it, uninstalled that, crashed twice while uninstalled, had to uninstall it in safe mode, so hope this helps

 

[Joy]

No crashes since my last driver updates and removing AVG. Did the first full 25-man runs last night, definitely a smoother experience with more FPS.

Try it out if you have enough RAM but feel you could use some more FPS, it's free and you can just run it multi-boot next to your current OS. You also don't have to re-install WoW as you probably know. :yes:

 

[Sunchaser]

I just tried Windows 7 this evening and I must say I am impressed. Runs smooth, haven't even done any driver updates and the Sunwell raid went fine, no crashes or even the slightest hiccup or whatever and high framerates. And I've already fallen in love with the new taskbar with the hover over pop-up functionality. And also, I can set the folder view to whatever I want, and apply it to all folders regardless of what file types are in there. HURRAY!

Simply loving it. I feel like I might even buy this one when it comes out.... Guess there is a first time for everything.

 

[Croga]

And I've already fallen in love with the new taskbar with the hover over pop-up functionality.

You do know that has been available (as 3rd party but whatever) since Windows 2000? And fully implemented in Vista?

And also, I can set the folder view to whatever I want, and apply it to all folders regardless of what file types are in there. HURRAY!

Finally! Back to what it was! Why they ever changed that is a big mystery!

 

[Bani]

And also, I can set the folder view to whatever I want, and apply it to all folders regardless of what file types are in there. HURRAY!

Finally! Back to what it was! Why they ever changed that is a big mystery!

If there was one huge gripe I had with Vista, this was it....

 

[Joy]

Just noticed I can't install the patch in Win7, had to relog to XP and install it there. So the patch does use something from the registry, this might be easily fixable in Win7, but not sure yet.

 

[Xaverri]

Gonna try it out this weekend, hope dualbooting with Vista goes well >.>

 

[Croga]

Just noticed I can't install the patch in Win7, had to relog to XP and install it there. So the patch does use something from the registry, this might be easily fixable in Win7, but not sure yet.

Might be a UAC problem..... WoW can't patch in Vista without completely disabling UAC (no, it won't even work if you "run as administrator") unless you install WoW in a different folder then default.

 

[Joy]

No, the patcher runs, but then complains it can't find wow.exe, which makes sense I guess, it wont just search all drives, it has to be told by the registry where WoW is installed.