Windows 8 Compatibility

[Mjollnir]

The Release Preview of Win8 made available today supports FFXIV without any issue, after a few hours of running it today.

The fact that it seems identical to Windows 7, other than the ridiculous metro Start Page, means this may come as no surprise to some. I can't quite work out why it took an hour to 'upgrade' my Win7.

Just thought I'd make mention in case any folk were considering trying it out.

[Lurex]

That's great news, and good to know, thank you for reporting!

[Alhanelem]

Only odd numbered versions of windows ever seem to be worth using.

Original windows (version 3.11 and prior) windows 3 (windows 98), windows 5 (windows XP), windows 7.

[Molly_Millions]

Only odd numbered versions of windows ever seem to be worth using.

Original windows (version 3.11 and prior) windows 3 (windows 98), windows 5 (windows XP), windows 7.

I was gonna keep quiet, but this comment made me speak up. What exactly is the advantage of windows 8 over windows 7 on a desktop without a touchscreen? It's my understanding that W8 has huge advances in usability for tablet PCs, but what advantages does it have for non-tablet PCs?

[Ark_mage2]

I was gonna keep quiet, but this comment made me speak up. What exactly is the advantage of windows 7 over windows 8 on a desktop without a touchscreen? It's my understanding that W8 has huge advances in usability for tablet PCs, but what advantages does it have for non-tablet PCs?

Windows 8 uses about 30% less system resources than Windows 7. I know a lot of people aren't that into the metro interface, but it is a lot faster than the last version in almost every way... including FFXIV performance.

[Molly_Millions]

Windows 8 uses about 30% less system resources than Windows 7. I know a lot of people aren't that into the metro interface, but it is a lot faster than the last version in almost every way... including FFXIV performance.

I'm not sure about that 30% number, and it looks like (at least for the moment) gaming performance it not quite up to what it is in windows 7.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/w...chmarked/19927

[Alhanelem]

I was gonna keep quiet, but this comment made me speak up. What exactly is the advantage of windows 8 over windows 7 on a desktop without a touchscreen? It's my understanding that W8 has huge advances in usability for tablet PCs, but what advantages does it have for non-tablet PCs?

I don't know, that's why I made the comment. I've been told there are a lot of back-end (performance, resource management) improvements. Beyond that, I hadn't really heard much about win8 at all.

the original design of Windows (1) worked for the time. windows 95 was a stripped down badly butchered NT (2), 98 was much better (3), ME was LOL (4), XP was the biggest improvement to windows in a long time (5), Vista was terrible (6) Windows 7 made it a lot better (7) and now Windows 8.... well, we'll see if it breaks the pattern.

[Deatheye]

I wouldn't call a game that crashes every time UAC wants something from you compatible. Lucky 2.0 should fix that.

[Molly_Millions]

I wouldn't call a game that crashes every time UAC wants something from you compatible. Lucky 2.0 should fix that.

so does windowed mode, fyi.

[Laraul]

I don't know, that's why I made the comment. I've been told there are a lot of back-end (performance, resource management) improvements. Beyond that, I hadn't really heard much about win8 at all.

the original design of Windows (1) worked for the time. windows 95 was a stripped down badly butchered NT (2), 98 was much better (3), ME was LOL (4), XP was the biggest improvement to windows in a long time (5), Vista was terrible (6) Windows 7 made it a lot better (7) and now Windows 8.... well, we'll see if it breaks the pattern.

Original design of Windows? Windows 1 couldn't even support overlapping Windows. Windows 2 solved this (and that's my limit of knowledge on 2.0). Windows 3 introduced "386 enhanced mode" which allowed multiple programs to run at once and removed the 1 MB memory limit. It was most widely seen as "that thing on my computer that let's me play "Solitare." The UI was still awkward, confusing (no, those icons do NOT represent actual files on your computer), and while it was considered Microsoft's best attempt at reproducing Apple's OS for their line of Macintosh computers on x86 machines, it was still seen as a pain by many to use and work with. Which is why DOS remained so popular until the introduction of Windows 95.

Windows 95 changed the debate between Macs and PCs from "hey, us PC users don't need a fancy graphical interface when we got a command line" to "okay we got a graphical UI now AND a two button mouse (that we never noticed or bothered with before cuz it was functionaly worthless)." I am not sure why you place it on such a low pedestal. Windows NT at the time was simply Windows 3.1 with a more robust kernel (that maybe oversimplifying it but no one ever cared about NT).

For reference, see this video and shortly after 4 minutes in, Gates says this himself (more or less). And yeah this is off-topic. But people here are neglecting Metro's UI like they did with the UI introduced with the Mac and Windows 95.