Oh Microsoft you make me chuckle

Windows 7 and me

So after using my shiny new copy of windows 7 for a week, I can judge how it feels different to using vista for the past couple of years.

These points here are observations made from my daily use of my computer and how things have changed between systems.

First things first, booting is a bit faster, not massively as some may say but faster none the less (this could be due to windows applying updates as it starts up till things settle down a bit) . The thing that is quite a bit faster is shutting down, even when its applying updates its still pretty fast. The new taskbar is very nice, I like the way it lays out the windows for each program just above the icon, allowing you a preview of each windows as you hover over. The other neat thing you can do here is right click any running program on the taskbar and pin as a shortcut.

Im usually not one of shortcut gimmicks etc but I really like the new drag to the edge of the screen features. I now naturally find my self dragging windows to the top of the screen to full screen them, and even better dragging one to each side to compare two windows. The side by side  feature is really useful as its quick and really helps when your choosing files to upload somewhere or just looking at two different articles at once.

One thing that was amazingly simple to do is set up printer sharing. On vista I had to dig out the driver CD for the printer when setting it up across the network but windows 7 installed it on its own and in seconds too.

So how are things on the games front? Well for all the slack vista got it really wasnt to bad in the end, and I do not think there is much difference in terms of performance between vista SP2 and windows 7. There were a few games that vista did not get on too well with, one being Company of Heroes and these issues seem to have cleared up now. Of course if theres still problems windows 7 has theXP mode if your using professional or above. I do not know if these issues were to do with vista or direct x 10, but we will have to wait a few months to find out what direct x 11 will bring us.

Well thats all for now, I cant really think of any other features to comment on for the moment, I might try out some old games on XP mode at some point and see how that goes.

Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts (My Vehicles)

I got Rare’s Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts for my 360 as it seems to be lacking any platformers, aside from Kameo (Also by Rare). The game is great fun and takes some ideas from garrys mod and the gravity gun from half life 2. It has fun physics and a Lego like vehicle construction mode. Nuts and Bolts lets you build your own vehicles out of pieces you buy and collect throughout the singleplayer mode. The vehicles you make can be used in singleplayer or online. I cant wait to make a good selection of vehicles to use online against other people. Here are some of my vehicles I have made so far. My favorite vehicle so far is the racing hovercraft, I use it in all the water races and when I want to travel between land and water.

You can see my new photos and everyone elses online at the Banjo Kazooie Showroom here!

NXE Hard Drive Installs

Well as you know I was in the beta for the NXE. One thing I did not get round to in it was to test the “install to harddrive” feature. I took a look at my hard drive space and noticed I would only have space for one game if any. Not knowing how much space the games take up I put the idea off until I could find out. This brings me onto the first problem with the feature, which is that as soon as you press the install to hard drive button thats it. There is no “this amount of space will be used” or anything it just starts installing. Luckily I found a list of space requirements for the different games here.

So I had 8GB free and after scanning my games collection decided mass effect would be the best game to try. After all it stutters quite a bit and there is those annoying texture “pop in” instances.

I started installing it but left a stop watch on out of interest to see how long it took to install. The install was 12 minutes long, which is pretty slow for 6.8GB in PC standards.

With the game installed I booted it up to see what the install improves. The first thing I noticed is the texture “pop in” is still very much present, It did seem a bit better however. The main thing I noticed was that the game no longer stutters as much, and the loading pauses are gone. This makes it much better to play as the stutters used to get annoying sometimes.

So the install gave me a worthy performance boost, although not impressive enough to warrant leaving the game taking up over a quarter of my hard drive. If I had a 60/120GB hard drive I would leave it on, but with almost no space on my hard drive now I am going to end up unistalling it pretty soon.

Another test related to this feature I decided to try was removing the disc after launching the game. This would of been a neat trick as it would allow you to lan with your friends with only one disc. Unfortunatly the game exits back to the dashboard as soon as you press the eject button.

NXE Slowing Down Live

I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I had trouble downloading the media update from live. It seems now though that live in general has slowed to a crawl. The marketplace is pretty much unusable, I tried both the new windows version and the 360 version. I managed to get the photo party software on my xbox, but that was only because it was on the spotlight menu. It seems once  a download gets going its fine, its just the marketplace navigation that is the problem.

Not sure if this is related but gears of war is so laggy its unplayable online at the moment. I would of thought the game servers would be seperate but it appears the nxe rollout could be affecting games too.

New Xbox Experience Manipulating Your Avatar (NXE)

Did you know you can move your avatars head with the right analogue stick whilst on the dashboard. Keep spinning the head around and your avatar will get dizzy. I also found out you can make your avatar wave by pressing the right analogue stock down. If anyone finds any more ways to manipulate your avatar let me know!

You can also get a nice image of your avatar (see above) by going to http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/GAMERTAG/avatar-body.png. Just enter your gamertag where the caps are.

Testing the New Xbox Experience

I applied for the NXE test a while back and it seemed like I was not chosen. Luckily I was chosen for the last wave of the 360 NXE testers and downloaded the new 360 update last night.

The update was very fast (approx 5 minutes on a 2Mb line) after which the console is reset with the new interface. When you sign in after the update you will be asked to make your avatar. You can either choose a random one or create one in the same sort of way you create sims/miis. After creating your avatar, you can take a picture of it to use as your gamerpic.

Windows Live Revamped

Did you like the old windows live interface? No me neither, and it was a nice surprise to see a completely new interface in the newly released live update. The “everything must be a shade of grey” look is gone, and replaced by a pleasant easy on the eyes experience.

There are still some issues with highlighting buttons with the mouse but hopefully these will be gone soon. Using the keyboards fine its just when you hover over a button with the mouse sometimes the button underneath it will be highlighted instead. Overall its a big improvement over the old look and I can forgive microsoft for the minor control issues it has.