Vista Casts A Pall On PC Gaming? 425
simoniker writes "In an opinion piece, casual game publisher WildTangent's CEO Alex St. John (himself a Microsoft veteran and one of the DirectX creators) has sharply criticized some of Windows Vista's features as they related to video game creation, noting: 'We have found many of the security changes planned for Vista alarming and likely to present sweeping challenges for PC gaming, especially for online distributed games. The central change that impacts all downloadable applications in Vista is the introduction of Limited User Accounts. LUA's can already be found in Windows XP, but nobody uses them because of the onerous restrictions they place on usability. In Vista, LUA's are mandatory and inescapable.'" Meanwhile, the word has also come down that games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.
gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Interesting)
Gaming and computing are two different animals. This is even more true for mult-user computing, a la Unix, OS X, XP, and now Vista. And, some of today's security problems in Microsoft's security model are directly related to and introduced by gaming requirements early on (circa 1992, 1993).
Gaming demands high-end, near-to-the-hardware, unencumbered access. Multi-user computing demands flexibility, equitable distribution of resources, and if properly done, capability of extremely high and granular security.
This puts the two activities at odds in deciding how to implement a "computer" -- probably one of the main reasons hardcore gaming usually is the domain of dedicated consoles and hardware.
In NT's early days (which eventually became Windows 2000 and Windows XP) Microsoft caved to requests for compromised access to "rings" of kernel security to give better (and acceptable) performance for game developers -- most notably there were some passthroughs for video hardware access. I don't know if there were other compromises but I suspect there were. These compromises contributed to security problems (but were not the cause of all of Microsoft's security headaches).
From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista... it should be very hard for limited users to do much more that use the machine. Unfortunately, gaming typically requires access to the machine that, under the covers, is much more than typical and casual access to the innards. This is probably why Microsoft has gotten into the game console market... they finally have hardware/software dedicated to and around gaming.
It's probably a tough pill to swallow for gamers and developers used to being able to pull it off in XP (and previous generation Windows), but it's probably a better security world on whole for general computing and Vista users.
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Insightful)
Put another way: Consoles are finally running close to the resolutions that I was on my PC in 1996, because of hardware limitations that they were not able to free themselves from (using a tv instead of a dedicated display, like a computer monitor).
The Cell CPU was great while the PS3 was still on paper. Now its being outdone by mid-range PCs.
Bleeding edge, high end gaming will be the PC for quite a while to come, because PCs are upgradeable without a 5+ year wait for the next "generation" of boxes.
Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:3, Insightful)
The 360 has 3 cores, 48 unified pipelines, 512 megs of GDDR3 memory and an insane bus speed between them. Hardly "mid range" by any PC standards considering PC's are still fighting to catch up.
The problem with consoles most of the time isn't console power but demand to get games out the door before having a finished product. On pc's they jus
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:4, Interesting)
Second a $400 computer wont be able to keep up with your 360 but thats not how you should look at it. A computer is a multi-purpose system. Think of it this way. You spend $1000 for a computer that is no good for games but has a decent CPU and ram. $1000 is not an unreasonable price to get a computer that is up to the specs of a 360 not including the video card. So lets say you have this computer in your house and you want to play video games. Your options are spend $400 on a 360 or $400 on a video card for your computer. A $400 video card will be much faster that the video card in the 360. Also your computer will benefit in other ways from having a good video card.
I think your original comparison was kind of an apples and oranges arguement but when you consider the full cost of a 360 and the full benefit of a nice PC you can see why 360's are not that great.
Also i should mention that i used to work for microsoft on the 360. I have played almsot every game to ever be released for it and i can say that most are junk. The "best" games for consoles are the sports and racing games which are not something i enjoy. I much prefer RTS and FPS games which is where the PC blows consoles out of the water.
I think game selection should be the most important criteria in chosing a PC or console. As i stated above $400 will get you nearly the same PC or console gaming hardware (i think PC wins but not by very much). However if you are someone who is a big racing or sports fan and like to have friends come over and play Madden or Gran Turismo then a PC is something you shouldn't even consider.
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:5, Informative)
The 360 is already at that point. You actually patch your games now. Thanks, Microsoft.
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also, 512meg isn't bad when you don't have the overhead from the OS + antivirus + tons of various apps.
Re:Not sure what consoles you are referring to. (Score:5, Interesting)
* (Lack of proper punctuation brought to you by Firefox grabbing all my apostrophes as "Fast Find" requests.)
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:4, Insightful)
Why does it matter how 'high end' the hardware your game is running on is? Are PC games are just glorified benchmark demos? This is exactly the reason why I gave up on PC games. I don't want game developers deciding when I should upgrade my PC. Is that new graphics card going to make my wordprocessor process words faster?
Two of the real strengths of PC gaming are online play and user created content. We are going to start seeing that on consoles this generation. That's a far bigger threat to PC gaming than Vista.
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Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:4, Informative)
Commercial graphic houses and CAD designers had 2048x1600 resolution back then.
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Informative)
You weren't running any games at 1600x1200 on that S3. You were mostly at 320x200. Your Windows resolution *might* have been 1600x1200, but then you would have also had a $1,000 monitor.
--Jeremy
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"you would have also had a $1,000 monitor."
In 1996 I bought a CTX 800x600 monitor for about $700. So you're probably talking considerably north of $1000.
It was a hyperbole that someone tried to defend as fact.
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Check usenet for examples.
For instance, in this thread somebody asks the price of a monitor very similar to the one I purchased. Post was from May, 1995, and the price quoted at CDW was $640.
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.forsale.comput ers.monitors/browse_thread/thread/eb455bd15c9ddba6
There are a ton of examples like this. Set the date-range criteria in advanced groups search and type in:
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:4, Insightful)
The 17" monitor was a Viewsonic 17GS and in 1995 (3), cost me $350 + $50 shipping from an early auction site (that I can't remember the name of, it was similar to overstock.com in that they sold large quantities of items in mostly dutch auctions). In the email I was bragging to my roommate that I got quite a deal. I did find one online seller offering the 17GS for $770 in 1995 [google.com], so my used (sight-unseen) monitor was about half price.
In 1997, there were a number of 19" monitors capable of 1600x1200. The only inexpensive Hitachi monitor that could do that was the 751, though I don't find it on the newsgroups for sale under $1000 in 1997 (mostly around $1100). Maybe if you're equipping a whole office you can get a discount...
An 800x600 monitor for $640? In 1995? I stand by my original statement. Anyone who bought that got ripped off.
Ross
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Interesting)
OP:
Can anyone recommend a 21 inch monintor and video card to do 1600x1200 in
24 bit color. My guess is that I'd need 6 or 8 megs of video ram. The monitor
should be able to do 1600x1200 at 70hz.
Answer:
You will need 8 - 10 Mb of VRAM for that. Salient Systems Corporation has
a board called the AT3000 which supports up to 10Mb of VRAM. Our home
page is http:/www.salientsys.com. We have loads of customers, mostly in
medical imaging and image processing, who run this card at high res/high
color.
What application are you running?
[...]
I forgot to answer the monitor portion of your question. You will need a
monitor capable of about 200Mhz. Hitachi makes a really nice 21"
flat-screen which we use. The Accuvue HM-4521-D. It's really bueno and
can handle the bandwidth. Colors and images are sharp as well. The AT3000
will sync just about anything but Hitachi seems to have the edge on
big-screen monitors.
Viewsonic makes one also but I don't believe the quality is there. The
Hitachi costs around $2,200 I believe.
There you have it. That's about $2700 in 2006 dollars.
Used to be True.. (Score:5, Informative)
Direct hardware access is so passe, now its about API's and how fast they can be accelerated between CPU/GPU and Physics accelerations.
Writing games on DOS/4GW and Win32s is a thing of the past. If you want to see a game, check out the DirectX 10 enabled games and then tell me vista isn't a gamers os.
blah
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No thanks.
I like DirectX fine but this enables mediocrity at the OS level.
If there is a piece of the game that seems glitchy and the programmer spend 2 weeks trying to tweak it and to an avail, he will have to have a work around when in fact the issue is with the DX API.
Looks like vendor lock in deeper than just a simple Win32.
Re:Used to be True.. (Score:4, Insightful)
This excludes any OpenGL game from being able to get certified with the 'Games for Windows' program.
This is beyond Vendor Lockin, it's antitrust lawsuits begging to happen.
Forcing developers to use DirectX is HORRIBLE for games in general. I'm not arguing the 'DirectX versus OpenGL' featureset list - this is a matter of choice.
Any vendor that limits our choice as developers and your choice as game-consumers is BAD. This is a bad decision and a drastic situation for the gaming industry on PC, period.
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How convenient for Microsoft...almost as if it's by design.
Games are pretty much the only thing keeping me from going 100% Linux, and I doubt I'm unique in that regard. Microsoft might fight a little dirty to keep its gaming dominance, and they've proven that antitrust lawsuits aren't going to slow them down.
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Unless you can provide a citation, I'd say you're pulling that out of your ass. The wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] makes absolutely no mention of of Direct X. Nor does the official games for windows page [gamesforwindows.com]. Thanks for the pointless rant.
Who's Encumbering my Access? (Score:2, Informative)
Gaming and computing are two different animals. ... Gaming demands high-end, near-to-the-hardware, unencumbered access. ... From what I've read, Microsoft has made some tough but I think "correct" choices for security in Vista.
A reasonable OS makes resources available, without compromising security. You don't have to be able to overwrite system files to gain access to video card functions. There's also no reason to restrict other programs, such as email or browsers when your OS has been designed to per
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And don't get me started on security in X, the whole thing has to be run suid root.
I think that this is a good read (written by a former developer of Xgl) on how X is currently nothing more than hack after hack:
http://jonsmirl.goog [googlepages.com]
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Of course the performance allowed by vanilla X is so godawful, that to get any decent performance at all requires "extensions" to X that basically ignore X architecture and are essentially hacks to provide high performance that wasn't even considered in the decade X was invented.
Exactly, and IMHO is primarily why Linux is yet to be taken seriously by anyone but fanboys on the desktop...
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On the desktop?
I wager that everyone who says "Linux isn't ready" knows full well what Linux is, and can name at least one reason why they don't recommend it to their clients/boss/relatives.
If Linux were ready, well, a free OS that's just as good as that new $300 MS thing is going to make a bigger dent than Linux has.
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Interesting)
Once they make this 'Windows Game Profile 1.0' and they say you can do X, Y, and Z, but not A, B and C, we'll be in a lot better place.
It'll mean that games that meet the "Windows Game Profile 1.0" spec don't need to be tested against the riggors of installation, it'll just mean that during runtime, the application binaries are limited in what the system allows it to perform. All in all, this would mean a more stable OS, and a simpler install. The tradeoff is that developers will be restricted from using API's that they probably shouldn't be using anyways. (Anyone not following the spec/profile could just release games as they do today).
Of course, that would mean that Microsoft would have an immutable, simple, straight-forward API to implement games on Windows. Could they not implement this because it means that -alternative- Windows implementations (Wine) would have too easy of a time porting?
Re:gaming introduced early compromises (Score:5, Informative)
Writing applications and games properly (Score:4, Insightful)
Having worked in a secure environment since NT4 and having to comprimise security for applications which thing that c:\program files\... should be a read/write directory... let me get this straight...
Games creators are complaining that they need to write responsible applications which obay basic security methodology?? SHOCK HORROR!!! THE INDUSTRY IS GOING TO FALL APART!!!
Sorry, the only sympathy you're going to get here is "About F*CKING TIME!!!"
The administrator account is for
Ok. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure that will make both of those Zune owners [penny-arcade.com] very happy.
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Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)
*In Vista when you're going to full screen with a good deal of games, the OS switches you from Aero mode to Basic mode, which can take a boatload of time when you're also trying to load the game, and update nProtect all at the same time. nProtect has a penchant for running right as a game decides to go fullscreen.
The fucking game industry is one of the main... (Score:2, Insightful)
If WV makes it hard for the gaming industry then I'm all for Vista... and I usually are a MS-hater... If he got a problem he should move to Linux or xBSD, then he could distribute his fucking games as Live-CD's.
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So . . . password required then? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Now that's security, isn't it? It works everywhere else, right? No malicious webpages have installed anything anywhere after those warning dialogs were added to IE...
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You're Kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're Kidding me? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. WildTangent is malware. No big surprise he'd be against proper security.
vista privilege elevation (Score:2)
I've worked on migrating some projects to be Vista compatible and it has some strange "features". With regard to what you said: Flash games aren't installed. That alone is a world of difference in Vista's rules. Attempting installation of an app pops up the privilege elevation dialog (try renaming some random
FTA (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep, he helped Microsoft shove Directx down all our throats now hes complaining, and surprised, they're trying to shove something else down our throats.
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That is exactly what direct X is supposed to get rid of.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
They just don't want to work with it. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:They just don't want to work with it. (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, Run As? Been available since Windows 2000.
I've never ran with Admin rights permanently on any Windows box since I had the option of using a LUA. Never caused me any hassle. Any programs that needed admin rights (games, usually) would be given a new shortcut on the start menu to run it as a privileged user.
However, I've come across very few programs that can't be persuaded to run by relaxing filesystem and/or registry permissions. Much better than running with admin rights over everything. In my old job I used to build Windows OS images for a computing department at a university. The OS had to be locked down so that everyone had Guest privileges, but the 200+ pieces of software available still had to run correctly. Great challenge, I loved it. Took up two months of my working year.
Yes, I know it's not a solution for the average user. Just making a point that it's not entirely impossible.
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So what you're saying is that it's better just to run with admin rights ALL the time?
I didn't think so.
Of course 'Run As' is exploitable (especially if you use the
Principle of least privilege. It
Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, he makes a good point about the Game Explorer widget. Disclaimer: I have not, and probably will not for some time if at all, installed Vista on any of my computers yet. According to this article, though, it would seem that Microsoft is actually blocking games from running via any other means than the Game Explorer. This somewhat reminds me of Apple with iTunes in that using something else to sync an iPod takes more effort than most people would want to put forth. It would also seem to mean that installers will have to create special cases for Vista, which seems pointless to me. Admittedly, Microsoft could argue that limiting execution rights to the Game Explorer interface was necessary to enforce parental controls, but there are many other, less intrusive ways they could have gone about this (off the top of my head: deny execution rights to normal users, detect an attempted execution, if equal to or under parental ratings, run under a special Gaming account automagically, otherwise, ask for an escalation).
The obvious point is that Microsoft would seem to have a conflict of interest here; making PC gaming attractive may draw attention away from the X-box 360, something Microsoft would want to avoid at all costs. Are they making it difficult to run games in order to make the 360 seem much simpler by comparison? Maybe. I suppose I'd have to have both Vista and a 360 to find out, which I don't plan on having together for some time if at all.
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Installed Halo, now a fairly old game, onto a Vista machine and BAM, straight into the games menu thingy.
OK, so it's published by Microsoft Game Studios, but still, it proves that a special installer may not be required.
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From what I've read in the past, this isn't the case. You will need to use GE to get the "Games for Windows" certification, but just as now, any app can be installed and run however you like. All your XP games for example, will still install and run, but they likely won't be in GE.
It would also seem to mean that installers will have to create special cases for Vi
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With the next version of Direct X, microsoft are only releasing support for it on the Vista platform. They don't want you to create 2 installers, they want you to only support Vista.
Or course, if I was tackling the problem of updates, like say the steam platform would require, I'd just install a service when the game is installed by an admin. The user account could download new content into a temporary location, then tell the service to install it.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Where things have changed in Vista, is if you have an account that has Parental Controls applied to it to limit the kinds of games that can be run. Vista knows the ESRB (& other ratings boards) ratings for quite a large number of games, and can block access to them if the parents don't want their kids to play them... but that's not the default setting. You have to go out of your way to set it up.
Sigh (Score:2)
The games explorer is a new feature to help people out and yes, parents can use it for parental control. Vista does NOT mandate your use of it.
Wild Tangent? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't sound surprising to me that a company that sets of security flags as is, would be concerned about new security features. I'd be more interested in what the developers at ID, SOE, or EA have to say about how the features will affect the ability of them to develop games, in particular online offerings.
Re:Wild Tangent? (Score:5, Insightful)
I may be wrong, but doesn't Wild Tangent have a rep for being pseudo spyware?
Yes, it does. It's also a bitch to get off a computer once it's on! I don't know how many hours I've spent at various times getting it off of people's computers. That's why I find it particularly ironic that their CEO would be complaining about Vista's restrictions. I have no plans to ever put Vista on any computer I have, and am not a particular fan of Microsoft, but anything they did that prevents Wild Tangent from getting on a computer earns a "thumbs up" from me! Who'd have thought, Microsoft did something right, out of the box?
Chilling effect, my ass. (Score:5, Informative)
The "problems" Alex St. John identifies are essentially that his business model doesn't work so great when people have to click a couple extra buttons and type a password, and that he would really prefer it if children could install his products without parental involvement.
Bitch, bitch, bitch.
The real problem here is that the world is changing and WildTangent has to change with it. Yes, that's difficult. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it will cost money they didn't need to spend when they were targeting XP. And yes, they may actually need to give serious consideration to getting ESRB ratings. But these are the natural and normal cost of doing business in the modern world; if you can't evolve and grow and change with the rest of the planet, your business dies, and good riddance.
The whole article is just a bunch of FUD. Alex is basically claiming that Microsoft is trying to kill his business, because he doesn't know how to do business the way he needs to do it on Vista. He's afraid that consumers won't click two more buttons and enter a password to play his game. He's afraid that parents won't let their children play his games. But the answer to this problem isn't to reduce security, it's to make a better and more compelling game! Weren't you already trying to do that ANYWAY?
Don't get me wrong, I think there are still problems - the ESRB needs to better address the needs of casual game developers who produce fifty $10 games and generate about $200K in annual revenue. The current system is too heavily geared toward console and PC developers who have multi-million dollar budgets. But blaming Microsoft for everything is just a tired old excuse that invariably comes trotting out when someone is too damn lazy to read the direction of the wind and rig his sails accordingly.
ESRB + small devs == disaster. (Score:2)
I'm all for supporting higher security, I don't see why any games need administrator rights on a machine (my last 2 certainly run fine without them), but anything that might require all games to have ESRB ratings is just plain stupid. Kiss goodbye to freeware games for s
Games work fine without an ESRB rating (Score:2)
Really people, spend some time learning about Vista if you are worried about it, or if you want to effectively criticize it. It amazes me the misinformation floating around about it. It's not helpful if you are trying to talk people out of it either. If you say that Vista is e
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Please promise me that you will never work on a project that has a user interface!
The fact is that by forcing people to "click a couple extra buttons and type a password" you begin to annoy everyone, and people with little understanding
Multiple customers at play here (Score:5, Insightful)
There are multiple customers at play here. Yes, Wild Tangent (and other developers) are in a sense a customer, since they develop on Windows/Vista/etc. However, don't forget that your end-user consumer is also a customer, and the extra security on Vista is targeted towards them.
I work with a lot of customers who NEED the extra security, because frankly, they don't really know how to properly secure their computer. They're the ones who install every toolbar/screensaver/gadget because it's cool, yet don't understand why their computer is so slow, and why all these windows keep popping up. On one hand, it's tempting to fault them, because they're making bad decisions. On the other hand, the OS can do a better job of hand-holding these consumers and making the right choices for them. (Does Grandma really need to learn how to secure her computer? She just wants to use the Internet to play Hearts and send e-mail to her grandkids)
Unfortunately, catering to one customer base (the enormously large novice user-base), tends to piss off a few others, most notably power users (who already know how to secure our systems, and don't need to be prompted every single time), and developers. Some of these developers, are the evil spyware/adware-writing kind, which are customers that we don't really want in the first place. Other developers do have legitimate needs, but will now need to do some extra work to get their applications to work on Vista in the first place.
I'm fine with that. At MS, our own developers have to conform to the extra security requirements in Vista. Yes, it means more work, but I see that as a good thing. Our hope is that FEWER of our end-user customers will come in with support problems, which are ultimately tied to not our code, but spyware on their machine.
Remember the days when it was dead-easy to get anyone to install an ActiveX control? That was the worst. Similar complaints were lodged against MS when WinXP SP2 came out, since in small ways, it limited how easy it was to install controls.
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> but will now need to do some extra work to
> get their applications to work on Vista in
> the first place.
I'm going to tell a story about that.
Several years ago, the MFC libraries were updated with a minor change: developers were no longer permitted to combine window styles and control bar styles in the same bit vector. Suddenly, upon installation of this update, many applications lost their toolbars; the control bar constructor was failing, so no cont
Games Will Go On (Score:2)
This is a crock (Score:2)
He's just pissed because WildTanget is, essentially, spyware. They sell crappy games through their poor interface and it is going to become harder for them, with IE7 more than with Vista. Normal games
Stupid or misquoted? (Score:2)
Your game, no matter how much I like it, does not need nor deserve unlimited access to my computer. If you think it does, I will take my business elsewhere because you have no idea about coding, obviously.
See, the only stuff that your game should ever need to touch is its own damn data. So as long as whatever restricted account I run your game and/or auto-updater as as write permissions to those files, it should work, right? Even in windos it should be possible t
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Let's play a game. Replace "game" with "a program". Now we have this:
The artical's author was talking about downloading and installing a program requires a lot more hoops to just through
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No, you're just not paying attention. The artical's author was talking about downloading and installing the game requires a lot more hoops to just through in order to function. He never mentions that his applications needed any type of secret sauce thats being held back from him. Why don't you try reading the artical again.
In which case, this is a good thing, as NO application should be installing things into system areas without my EXPLICIT say-so, and this is exacty what LUA was designed to prevent.
This publisher produces a collection of downloadable games that include demos. The problem this publisher is having is that downloading these demos is really installing an application, so LUA makes it a lot less convenient.
There are a few options here:
Spyware (Score:2)
Sure... (Score:2, Funny)
It works on Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
So, if it works on Linux under a limited user account... why isn't it possible on Windows? Perhaps they need to start up some kind of emulation project... they would call it Beer since Cider and Wine are taken
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Right now I am playing WoW with no issues.
Heh. Hear, hear! In fact, I've noticed that the performance in many cases is actually slightly better than under Windows XP. The framerates are identical; the NVIDIA driver is equally performant under XP and Linux. Network latency is better. It's rare that my latency ever goes over 100ms (though I have some help from QoS in the router). Load times are waaaay better. I use software RAID-0 on dual SATA drives as my main disk. I used the Windows VIA SATA-RAID driver to do basically the same thing, but the dis
Reminds me of Old DirectX (Score:2)
WildTangent? (Score:2)
What sounds like the real problem is that Microsoft has a crappy framework that you can try to squeeze games into, or you can put your game links somewhere else and have people not find them. I suspect WildTangent has a lot of conte
Free auto-updater system will be a help to games (Score:2)
Wrong (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. Many sites already have instructions for turning off User Access Controls and giving you the ability to do anything you want. Vista sucks big time, but not because of Limuted Use Accounts.
Wait a sec (Score:3)
If I download a game as an executable file, sure I expect to get a warning maybe. Then I expect the exe to run but with reduced privileges so it cannot harm the rest of the system. It should get access to my home directory, read-only access to other non-critical OS files such as libs, and be protected from making unauthorised Internet connections. Obviously a malicious exe may be able to gain elevated privileges by exploiting security flaws, but these holes should be patched regularly by the vendor to prevent other people from using the same exploits. Right?
If LUA requires me to enter an admin pass for every exe I download then that really *is* bad. However, I would expect it to be well designed enough not to. Any system that demands that of a user will ultimately result in the user keeping the admin pass on a sticky note on their screen and just giving every exe they run the keys to their entire system.
Someone educate me here.
Zune games, can't wait! (Score:2)
> games will be on the Zune by Summer of next year.
Just in time for nobody to give a crap.
We need different OSs for different jobs (Score:2)
So a "perfect" system would allow you to tune its performance according to your needs. It would allow you to turn on and off security features, features that ensure absolute stability and other tweaks, depending on which task is at hand. If you run a server, you will want stability and security, but you don't need special graphics abilities. If you run games, you
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Here's an idea (Score:2)
That ought to just about put an end to it.
WildTangent != Gaming (Score:2)
His complaints have little merit and cry of someone who doesn't want to get with the program and be more security-minded. Nevermind the fact that companies like his are what help spread malware, spyware and "attached" installations via games for kids.
Not pointless (Score:2)
The big reasons behind them is part to not allow malware piggyback on legit software and part to inform a user that machine local (and not just user local) changes to the system is about to be made, for example by copying something out of your user folder. Try copying things inside
Seems like bullshit to me (Score:3, Interesting)
- Mummy, better security makes it an infentisimal amount more challenging to hawk our products!
- Woah no! We don't like this game explorer concept!
- Waaaah, parental controls prevent kids who shouldn't be playing our games anyway from playing them!
- Boo hoo, trying to run a game from outside the game explorer results in strange behaviour (this is the only legitimate complaint)
It just sounds like a list of whiney bitching... because it is.I mean seriously, Microsoft have gone out of their way to improve gaming on Vista and all these guys can do is complain that kids are properly protected and that LUA makes pushing their product harder? I'm sorry, but I'll take an extra security dialog to get a demo if it results in fewer of the general internet-unsavvy users infecting themselves, and Microsoft are NOT your marketing company; it's not their concern that your strategy can't cope with a minor change.
Jesus christ.
What about all the work that's gone into DX10? All the consultations with game studios and hardware developers? The tightening of the requirements for cards to be certified as DX10 capable which is designed to make your jobs easier?
Quit the ungrateful highschool bitching and respond to change.
It's something that tends to happen in the real world, and it's for the better.
FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely retarded... (Score:4, Insightful)
You fucking morons that are faulting Microsoft for this: How do you justify the bullshit that you're spouting? For almost ten years now, it's been, "Windows sucks because there's no security by default.", and, "Never hook an unpatched Windows box to the internet, because it's asking for trouble.". Lack of security was one of the main reasons given to switch to Linux (which, by the way, has required a user or root password to accomplish certain things for quite awhile, unlike Vista, which has just implemented it.) So, in actuality, you're just whining for the sake of whining. Microsoft, to you, can never do anything right, even when they do something right. I use Kubuntu and FreeBSD. I have exactly one 20g Windows partition on one computer, solely for the occasional college work that cannot be done in Linux without jumping through hoops with Wine or DosBox; so I have no disclaimer to give. It's simply common sense that the increased focus on security in Vista, while long overdue, is a Good Thing (TM). Those that want to bitch about having to enter a fucking password to install or run some things have no leg to stand on. Pure trolling, is what it is.
There. I feel better now.
Re:This is completely retarded... (Score:4, Informative)
I did read the comments and I would say that virtually 100% accuse this guy of spreading FUD and wanting to be able to install spyware. About the only negative comments on MicroSoft were about them trying to lock games into their platform and Vista, which has nothing to do with what the original article was about, he absolutly does not care about the lock in.
Scares me that a developer is this stupid... (Score:3, Informative)
#1. All MS has done is move the Vista security up to what every other major OS does. Does this developer NOT realize that a game on OSX or Linux would require the same 'privledges' if written as the developer suggests?
#2. If the person is pushing this argument based on 'demos' or download games, then they can code the freaking game with security in mind, so that it installs in the 'USER' area of the OS, and it WOULD NOT NEED to elevate privledges. This is pretty easy to do, as anyone that develops simples applications and demos for Windows with security in mind, or OSX or *nix with security in mind.
#3. This is one of the stupidest arguments I have seen in a long time. So what does the author of the article suggest? Have MS make Vista less secure so he doesn't have to learn about security and how to write an appliation that doesn't need administrative level access to run?
Maybe we should all go together and get this idiot a book on NT security so he can code his 'demos/games' so they don't install into an administrator area of the OS and then any Limited User Account can easily install or use them.
My mouth literally dropped open when I read this article, all the while I was thinking, nah, this has to be a gag, he can't really be this stupid about writing an application with NT security in mind.
No wonder MS left XP security open for program compatibility if this is the type of idiots that are STILL programming applications after Windows has moved over to NT for over 5 years now. Oh my gawd the horror, he might have to learn security APIs or learn what areas of the OS are off limits to idiot programmers...
Geesh....
What do you mean limted user accounts are unsable? (Score:4, Interesting)
I force myself to use them and my wife who uses the same machine
A few ACL changes make the games perfectly usuable install all games in c:\games and have that directory full control to all users
This means the total impact of a foolish action by a user can wipe out their account and all the games on the system. Much better than an admin account being compromised (ok ignoring priviledge ecalation attacks)
I recently had to remove a trojan from my wifes account - a fairly trival procedure given how limited her access to the system as a whole was. Reading up on the particular trojan I found that had it been able to get admin access it would have been much harder to remove.
Ok I'll concded on XP home without ACL controls its bloody hard to accomplish this. But if you have XP pro you really have no excuse.
(and to explain no I'm not a windows fan - I loathe the system especially as I frequently have to admin them in my work. I much prefer linux and am quite familiar with winex which I have work with extensively and created start up scripts for several games that would not work trvially out of the box. however I also know just how much of a pain it is to do this so stick to dual booting. not liking the OS is no excuse not to secure it properly)
Let's cut to the chase (Score:3, Interesting)
They have lots to gain from the death of PC gaming.
Why support it?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
...which is the very first change I made in Vista -- it's my computer and I won't have the operating system disallow me from copying a backup of Firefox from the network to my machine when I'm an administrator (you cannot copy from a network share to Program Files. You must copy to your Documents folder and then move from there to Program Files). This and it constantly bringing up another dialog box to confirm that I actually meant "yes" when I clicked "yes" while I tried to delete a few sho
Re:mandatory and inescapable. (Score:4, Funny)
- No
"Please! It does all this neat stuff! Don't you want it installed?"
- No
"Okay... so, you're saying you DON'T want it installed?"
- No
"Good! Install progress: 22%..."
Re:mandatory and inescapable. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
OK...but are the restrictions on Vista's LUAs any more difficult to work with than using root privileges to install a game on Linux, or entering an administrative password to allow installation on OSX?