[The Editor Writes: When we received this submission we, collectively, couldn't decide whether it was simply a bait question intended to start a flame war, or a genuine request for a comparison of Win7 and Win8 when used predominantly for gaming. There are many Windows users in our community and, I suspect, a fair number of gamers, so I have elected to run the story. Let discussion commence!]
I'm going to start by saying that I am not a gamer. However, I have helped people build systems over the past few decades.
Recently, a friend of mine asked me to help her 17 year old son build a gaming PC. The list of components can be found in the full story below for those that are interested.
The hardware looks to me like it would make a good gaming PC, but I'm not sure that Windows 8 is appropriate.
My question is: Is there any reason to choose Windows 7 over Windows 8 for gaming? As an additional question; is there a particular Linux distro that is well suited for hardcore PC gaming?
Components:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-BK 76.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0" Monitor
Keyboard: Rosewill RK-9000BRI Wired Standard Keyboard
And yes, there is no mouse listed.
(Score: 2, Redundant) by buswolley on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:35PM
Next.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:43PM
blushes.
so I didn't read your post.
My apologies..
subicular junctures
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:37PM
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard, really? Get an MSI mainboard, if you're using an MSI GPU and steer clear of Gigabyte. Make it dual or triple-boot with win8,7 and LMDE with Crossover.
(Score: 1) by thomasdotnet on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:12PM
The Gigabyte board paired with a 4690k processor indicates they live near a Microcenter. It's a good motherboard, Gigabyte has made good strides in quality, and the mobo/proc pair for ~ $300 including tax is a nice savings.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pert.boioioing on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:38PM
There is no good reason to opt for windows 7 at this point. Windows 8.1 has superior memory management, CPU utilization and SSD performance. Don't let people throw the "metro" canard around -- you *never* need to interact with it in 8.1
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:41PM
until you look for a start button...or just want an ordinary Control Panel to make changes to computer settings.
subicular junctures
(Score: 1) by pert.boioioing on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:44PM
What are you talking about? There are many start menu options and the control panel has the option to revert to the classic view.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:49PM
Oh really? I had not heard. Thanks! Wrong all over the place then.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:52PM
And I thought the start button/menu was delayed and not actually put in 8.1? Full screen is not a start menu.
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 1) by pert.boioioing on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:04PM
"Does the photo viewer still open in full screen mode by default?"
-- Not to my knowledge since it has never done that for me.
"Does F11 in Win8 still, unlike in every OS before it, do nothing to get you out of the full screen app?"
-- If you're talking about the desktop photo viewer "esc" escapes out of fullscreen mode.
"And I thought the start button/menu was delayed and not actually put in 8.1?"
-- Although there is a start *button* in 8.1 MS still hasn't seen fit to remedy the start menu however there are several 3rd party alternatives.
These are trifling matters though. If you're going to use windows, 8.1 has so many underlying improvements over 7 from boot and sleep/wake times, UI responsiveness, file IO, CPU use, memory management, device management, multi-monitor support, etc., that the only good reason to select 7 at this point is if you already have a paid license for it or can obtain one at a significant discount over 8/8.1
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:50AM
So, the choice is still between Windows 7 or an unsupport 3rd party product.
Yet, the fanboys claim that there are no reasons to pick Windows 7.
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:40PM
The OP would probably appreciate being told which third-party alternatives you would recommend.
(Score: 2) by keplr on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:21PM
What about connecting to a wireless network? Probably not an issue for a desktop, but I don't think there's a way to access that without using the Metro-style menu. I think Windows Update is only available through the Metro UI, too.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 1) by pert.boioioing on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:01PM
In 8.1, both wifi config and windows update have quick-access systray (or "notification area" if you prefer) icons as well as more traditional control panel options to access their respective functions in desktop mode. There is no reason one ever needs to use the metro interface again, unless so desired, once the initial system setup has been configured.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:51AM
Actually, the Metro interface makes a damn fine quicklaunch once you customize it. And with icons you can actually SEE.
I run deskscapes so I don't have any icons on my desktop. A moving starfield looks so cool as wallpaper and I hate spoiling it.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1) by arslan on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:15PM
So 8.1 is finally back to classic mode as a first class citizen now? I've been staying away from 8 like a plague, but if it is back to the old interface and usability pre 8, then might be a good time to try it out...
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:25AM
No, its not.
But there are third party shells. Windows 9 is said to have classic on desktops and Metro/Modern on tablets.
But for the current story, it hardly matters what you click to launch your game. Once you are in, its all the same.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Adamsjas on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:09PM
Agreed, once you are in the game there is little difference. You will be all mouse/keyboard/controller from that point on.
Win8.1will multitask with the best of them. As long as your games will run there that's probably the way to go.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by arashi no garou on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:34AM
I have pretty much the same specs as the summary listed, though my video card is a GT 440 since I don't do much gaming that would need it (mostly older Steam and GoG stuff, newest game I play is Skyrim). My machine (Lenovo M91p) came with Windows 7 Pro and that's what I run alongside Crunchbang Linux. I've tried Windows 8.1 on it, and it's a bit faster than Windows 7 for UI stuff. I don't like Metro so I used a start button replacement for it.
As for gaming, I never noticed any differences; Steam ran fine, games all ran fine, and the same compatibility settings I needed for some GoG games in Windows 7 were present in Windows 8.1. So I'd say go with 8.1 if you don't mind the occasional trip into Metroland.
Still, I went back to Windows 7 as it is good enough for what little I do in Windows. Maybe my next PC will run 8.1 or 9; then again maybe it will be a pure GNU/Linux system.
(Score: 1) by Wierd0n3 on Wednesday August 06 2014, @05:30AM
I'm not too worried about the OS choice anymore, I recently built a HTPC for myself, and it is a bit overboard.
I7-3770s
ASRock H77-M
16GB Ram
7TB HD (Combined)
NVIDIA 610 (only a $20 card, i wanted it because the built in graphics flickered during video playback)
52 inch 3d plasma tv (awesome)
I run XBMC-untu and have it start a DE, with xbmc starting up automatically, then from a menu i can launch Steam Big Picture mode, any emulators, and control that from a Xbox controller.
Steam on Linux has a (admittedly) small selection of good games, but even if i did this in windows, once you have steam loaded, who cares what the rest of the interface looks like. (you can also add outside games to steam to standardize the interface to your collection)
Two reasons why i have this system on linux.
1. I want the ability to ssh into the system to take care of file moving/renaming and system setup tasks.
2. tightVNCserver is a godsend. while watching a movie, i can have handbrake churning on a bunch of DVD's compressing them to save space. hard to set up multiple jobs in the CLI
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @10:40AM
Bullshit. Win 8.x is totally crapped-up with background services and processes phoning home like a damned 4G telephone all the time. Whatever threading efficiency it gained was eaten by "features".
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:39PM
The OS doesn't matter that much if the video drivers are there to power your games, which they will be with both Win7 and Win 8. Get a good video card and RAM,and a good internet connection, and you're set.
..and choose Win 7 because Windows 8 will annoy you to hell...even with the 8.1 patch.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khedoros on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:46PM
Between different OSes, the number of games supported goes about like this: Windows > MacOS X > Linux. More games are available for Linux now than ever before, but I can't think of a single commercial game that is available on Linux that wouldn't be available on Windows. In my experience, Linux is a second class citizen in terms of GPU driver support as well, so although in general I'm more comfortable in Linux, it's not a serious option for gaming. There's Wine, which can run many Windows executables (including games), but that can be anywhere from mildly annoying to hellish to get games working with correctly.
I have less experience in gaming on Apple hardware, but I know that the software selection would be a subset of what's available for Windows.
(Score: 2) by chromas on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:08PM
If you want to do anything useful with Wine, be sure to install a recent snapshot. The stable releases I've tried in any Linux distro's repo are always useless. The stable versions always had problems like stuck or crashing installers and broken multi-display support (non-refreshing windows). I've played StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 (disappointing as it was; some of the monsters show up like SN mod points) with almost no troubles. I did run into some silent disconnects and crashes-on-exit and last I checked, you had to disable font antialising in Steam to see text.
Additionally, more productive things like Reaper and Vegas work fine.
(Score: 1) by Urlax on Wednesday August 06 2014, @11:30AM
I have dual monitors on Win7, and have different backgrounds on each. (without any 3rd party software)
just get a .jpg which is the same resolution as both monitors
(for example 2x1920x1080= 3840x1080 jpg)
set the image as a background and select "tile" as position. the image will be tiled from the left uper corner, but because it is bigger than the screen, the right half will overflow, filling both monitors.
of course it would be great to have separate background jpgs, but that only makes sense if they're static. (i have some widescreen landscapes, so the slideshow has to be in pairs, but this solution works perfect for that)
the boot aspect seems an advantage to switch to 8, as well as the memory (i have 20GB now), but i hate the interface and see no other reason to switch.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GlennC on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:47PM
I honestly do not intend to start a flame war.
My friend's son is interested in building a gaming system, and the list I received is what I put in the post.
I am personally of the opinion that if one MUST run Windows, then Windows 7 is the better choice. I don't know if there are any gaming specific advantages to one version over another. The boy's mother prefers Apple products, and since she is not knowledgeable, has asked for my advice.
I've also found out about SteamOS, and am curious as to the possibility of using it to introduce the young man to the wonders of Linux and, through that, to usage of a computer beyond gaming.
I appreciate all thoughtful responses, and invite NCommander and the rest of the site staff to police this post and its replies.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:55PM
Well, you might want to ask the kid what games he wants to play. If the list he provides is available on Steam or GoG in Linux - then you could introduce it that way.
I had attempted to keep my kid OUT of commercial games by providing a PC with Linux. and while it was surely functional the day in and out complaints that it didnt run Word, or this or that was enough for me to abandon the experiment.
but i did tell her that I wasnt going to support a windows system.
So in the end she learned about computers by trying to fix it herself.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday August 06 2014, @09:32AM
Oh, but Linux does run Word! You could either install it using Crossover, from Codeweavers [codeweavers.com], which is a commercial version of Wine [winehq.org], or, presumably, use the free version of Wine.
(Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:28PM
It can now; but not so much 8 years ago. frankly - i wanted her to adopt Open Office; but it could not compete with what she was already using at school.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:04PM
Was a tricky one to call, but i'm glad we went with your submission. I'm personally interested in the response.
I'm hoping someone can put a good case forward for a flavour Linux, but not really expecting it. I use Windows 7 for gaming, it's convenient and every game will work on it if the hardware is up to par. That being said, SteamOS and Steam on Linux is likely to be a viable option in the next couple of years, on the hardware you specified. It's good now from what I have read, and much progress has been made in a very short time, but continues to lack AAA titles.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Hawkwind on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:09PM
I did a build based on the Steam specs and have been happily running Mint on it since January. Also I've been able to get all games that I play to either run straight up (via Steam), through Wine, or through Play On Linux.
That said, I did all this realizing I may be disappointed at some time in the future.
(Score: 1) by Freeman on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:39PM
Windows 7 vs Windows 8/8.1 shouldn't make much difference when playing games. Now, if you are going to provide support for them. I say choose your poison. SteamOS / Linux is not ready for prime time. That being said, I haven't actually tested SteamOS a whole lot. I got it running, but noted that the vast majority of my steam games are not Linux compatible. Which means I am staying with Windows for a while longer.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:16PM
SteamOS is not intended for desktop use. It is designed for the TV+gamepad paradigm. That's not to ignore the additional limitations gaming on Linux currently adds - SteamOS does not play most games on Steam, only the ones with Linux support.
I would also not recommend it as a Linux gateway OS, because it's designed to keep as much as possible out of sight and out of mind. It's all still there, but it makes as poor an intro to Linux as, say, Android.
(Score: 2, Informative) by wantkitteh on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:03AM
The issue with SteamOS is that it is heavily customized to improve response times with quite a lot of compatibility issues with basic programs that gives it an impractically short available applications list and make it terrible for actually learning Linux on beyond gaining a cursory knowledge of the basics of the file system through the GUI.
I did run SteamOS for a while with an AMD graphics card, not a good choice, but I was quite impressed with it's performance after an update to the proprietary drivers came out. However, I saw an article somewhere (can't for the live of me remember where and my Google Fu has gone to bed for the night already) that compared the open source and proprietary AMD drivers on both SteamOS and Ubuntu 12.10 in which Ubuntu actually had a marginal performance lead in both synthetic benchmarks and game tests, even though Windows 8 did beat them both consistently by at least 10%. (Seriously, must find it, I really hope I'm remembering that wrong.)
So I installed Mint Cinnamon and dropped the Steam client onto it. Never looked back.
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:24PM
As always, it depends on exactly what you want to do.
For a developer using VMs, locally, Win 8 (assuming pro) has hyper-v built in and gives you close to an order of magnitude speed improvement even over fully paid VMWare workstation. Yes you could run server OS (or linux host), but then you can have driver and support issues on non-server hardware, especially if using a laptop. I switched to 8 for that reason alone and never looked back, VMWare licence binned.
Outside of that use case, 8 is _noticeably_ faster in general use, allegedly supports SSDs better in particular, and given it has been out a couple of years now, driver support for most new hardware is likely to be better than 7. Note that when I say it is faster, I mean faster when upgrading a 7 installation in-place with all the existing applications remaining installed - so it is not just the speed improvement due to general crap clean-up when you reinstall a clean OS, it is genuinely faster.
Win 8 will let you use touch/"metro"/"modern" stuff if you ever want to - and sometimes it does get in the way when you don't want it. However, you can pretty much configure it so you never need to see it. The metro apps are less featured but there is nothing you have to use them for - all the old desktop stuff is still there as well (there are changes from 7 but nothing seems to be _missing_ or only available in metro versions).
Start button is back in 8.1 (it only took a one line script to replace it in 8), but it launches the start screen rather than a menu. Personally I prefer it that way, but again it depends on you usage. With a lot of stuff installed, 7 start menu became very slow, and cumbersome to navigate when it exceeded the size of the screen. The start screen is a lot faster, with the same amount of stuff installed (I think it renders much faster in part because it is full screen - no window redraw issues with all the other stuff you have open) and easier to customize, and the type-and-search functionality is much much better (default way I use it now).
Like the other metro stuff, you don't have to use any of the silly "live tile" things - maybe if I lived in a basement having a weather tile to tell me what the weather is like where I am now would be some use, but I don't, so I stick with Mk1 eyeball and Mk1 window for that.
Also, and possibly relevant for gaming, Win 8 & 8.1 has better multi-monitor support than 7, and better support for high DPI.
SteamOS looks very interesting for the future - but, to me, it would be a question of do you want to play games _now_ or play with what you might well be playing games on in a few years time.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:23AM
Better to just install Steam on a normal Ubuntu system, though maybe with KDE or Xfce instead of Unity. Depending on what types of games he likes, though, Linux game availability be anywhere from "nearly everything" to "completely nonexistent". The big publishers are slow to react, so generally they don't want to support Linux, or the ones that do still haven't gotten to it yet, which means all the over-hyped, high-budget AAA titles are off limits for native support.
If he likes older games, indie games, etc. there's a better chance, though. Older games are getting packaged up in wine or dosbox for Linux porting (System Shock 2, for example); indie games and small studios are more likely to have cross-platform support; and there are a few outliers with bigger games that got Linux support added later, such as Firaxis (Civilization 5, XCOM: Enemy Unknown) and Croteam (Serious Sam 3). About half my Steam library works in Linux thanks in part to various Humble Bundles I've acquired.
The problem is, just about any game that works in Linux will also run in Windows, but the reverse isn't true, so if gaming is all he really cares about, Windows is all he'll run, even if you try to set up a dual boot. If you really want him to get into understanding and using a computer, you'll need a different approach. Assuming, of course, that there's any motivation on his part, you'll probably get farther by supplying a separate, Linux-only system that provides some other draw for him.
Set up a slick, eye-candy window manager like compiz or kwin (with extra effects on), turn on all the transparencies and blur effects and spinning cubes, and rig it up to work in familiar ways while appearing different. Make it shiny and awesome looking as a contrast to the boring Windows environment, basically.
If his interest in games also extends toward creating them, play up that advantage with a development environment and resources for cross-platform game dev.
Finally, don't forget to talk up the Linux safety advantage. You can probably ignore everything else here and just say, "Here's Linux, it won't get viruses when hunting porn."
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:42AM
Win8.1 has a much smaller footprint on the processor than Win7.
On my AMD 8320 octocore, it runs at 2%.
Most problems with the interface have been fixed. I use the metro screen as a quick launch with icons large enough to see. I use all customized small squares that link to my programs and not the 'metro apps' for the most part.
I was always a quick launch fan so my desktop would be clean of icons. I like my desktop starfield active wallpaper as I use Stardocks Deskscapes.
I hated Win8. But now I have to say 8.1 is definitely the best Windows for a gaming rig. Better resource management, smaller footprint, and easily customizable. As to the no start button issue, a right click in the top right corner brings up a simple menu with more options than the start button ever did.
Oh, and anti virus is built in and free.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:47AM
a right click in the top right corner brings up a simple menu with more options than the start button ever did.
Specifically I mean to things like event viewer, task manager, command prompt, network manager, all the useful stuff, is two clicks away instead of buried.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Wednesday August 06 2014, @05:21PM
The top right corner of what? I run two monitors but I've tried right clicking in the corner of both and didn't see this menu.
I hardly feel those controls are "buried" though. If you were still hunting through the start menu then you missed one of the most important changes in Windows 7. If using a keyboard in 7, 8, or 8.1 it's a matter of typing 'Win Key + ev + enter' is enough to bring up event viewer. 'Win Key + taskm + enter' brings up task manager. You can type the entire name of the control, or just enough for search to find it. Once you get used to it makes it difficult to go back. You can actually launch any application, control panel, msc, or indexed file in this same fashion.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday August 07 2014, @05:56PM
OOOOOOPs.
Typo. I.R.A. Idiot? Top left corner of my main screen on a dual screen.
it brings up a simple text list of :
programs and features
power options
event viewer
system
device manager
network connections
disk management
computer management
command prompt
command prompt (admin)
task manager
control panel
file explorer
search
run
shut down/sign out
desktop
Or you could install something like this:
http://www.pokki.com/windows-8-start-menu [pokki.com]
That was linked to from MS own page for a start replacement.
Oh, I did know about the hotkeys, I was only referring to getting to those items through the menu system. Which 8.1 has simplified (and since I use those apps regularly, but not often, I find it an improvement) I always had to have a list of hotkey combos since (I don't program) I could never remember them when I need them.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday August 07 2014, @11:16PM
Oh, my.
I overlooked something very important.
Click the corner where your start button SHOULD be.
I have had my pop out menu on the left side of the screen for so many years I forget I am the only one who likes it like this, and that most peoples menu is across the bottom.
Puts lawn up for sale, as I am no longer competent to keep the kids off it....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:13AM
2% at idle that is.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 1) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday August 06 2014, @09:21AM
I have noticed a gain of at least 5 fps after moving from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1, playing NFS - Hot Pursuit 2 and TESV - Skyrim.
If you take out the cost from equation then Windows 8, hands down, beats Windows 7 in gaming performance. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't even tried playing graphics heavy games on Windows 8. It might be because it has better memory management, or because it has a better version of directx, or because Microsoft was forced to optimize 3D for metro interface, I don't know and I don't care. I login directly to desktop and and never see Metro at all.
I pirated so the choice was easy.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:44PM
Two questions immediately crossed my mind when seeing this - does he have a console and what about PC gaming interests him?
I'm a big fan of GOG and Steam's recent push into Linux gaming is interesting, but that is because I'd be good with those choices. However, I must say that I don't game on Linux - I play on either a console or Win7 PC depending on the game. Technically, I also game on phone/tablet - but those are just time-wasters and probably not germane to the discussion. The take-away here is "use what platform provides the best experience for the game" assuming the point is to play. If he wants to learn about computers, you still want to think about keeping his interest, so while I'd say LINUX! maybe he ends up with a system he never uses because he doesn't like the game selection.
To continue my uselessness, the only device in my house that runs Win8.1 is my Surface Pro 2 - and that works perfectly (by design) with the OS. I have no idea how well it would work as a desktop only, nor do I care to find out. However, since I already have tiles that pop seamlessly to the desktop, I'd guess that it wouldn't be the end of the world. A couple of reasons to go with 8 (again, depending on the situation) is the performance and support. Other people have addressed the performance improvement, so I will add that eventually games will start using Win8 (and then 9) features such as the Store, Live, DX12, etc. Add the fact that Win7 will get little support here on out - you have to weigh your comfort level being the tech-support with what he can do to support himself.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Wednesday August 06 2014, @07:01PM
What you really need to do, is talk to the end user. Find out how tech literate he is, how comfortable he is with Win7 and Win8, etc. The answer will likely present itself pretty quickly. I'm guessing since his mother is an Apple user, and asked your advice instead of his, that he's fairly illiterate.
As for Linux, if it's right for him, he will figure it out on his own. Anything more than a suggestion will be a waste of time and effort, and will lead to dissatisfaction.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:52PM
SteamOS [wikipedia.org] will bring a lot of further improvements to Linux graphics drivers and Linux support for some games, but not soon enough. I say put Windows 7 on the machine, and let the kid dual boot later if he wants. The kid may be eligible for a discount copy of Windows 8, if he has an .edu email address or a friend has one.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday August 07 2014, @12:10AM
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2363780/linux-gaming-rising-7-big-name-pc-games-that-now-call-linux-home.html [pcworld.com]
It's really happening, if people believe... All it needs is support. Sure, you might miss out on a few big name games for now, but there are plenty to actually play. Plus, there is the ability to stream them from a windows box until such time as they become available.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1) by BTRE on Tuesday August 05 2014, @09:57PM
Any distro that has relatively up-to-date drivers should do for gaming. You'll want the proprietary drivers for that card as nouveau isn't up to snuff for newer cards. Considering that this is a linux novice, I'd say go with Mint (preferably debian edition which is based off testing and thus semi rolling release) or even Ubuntu. Not sure how many "hardcore gamer" games there are out for linux on steam right now, but there's a library of at least 600 games at the moment. If he expects to play Battlefield and CoD and the like, he might be better off sticking to windows since I don't think they'll get ports for quite some time. I'm more than happy with steam on linux at the moment and I've been playing games for 20+ years. It's a smooth experience for the most part.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:00PM
What is hard core pc gaming? That boring FPS sequel crap? Then you need a really nice video card and a "competition" mouse WTF that means. OMG is that stuff boring even if its the only "real" gaming.
If you mean every freaking minecraft mod that can be simultaneously loaded without item collisions then I think you need more memory.
If you mean flight sims then you need the best monitor money can buy. The graphic card probably won't be the limiter, nor memory or CPU, probably. Also SSD because you don't need load stuttering to ruin the illusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:48AM
You are a good decade out of date old-timer. Nobody cares about dpi and such in mice anymore. Today's game developers push hard on multicore systems. A good CPU has been more important than having a good GPU for the last few years (on that note that i5 in this build is quite underpowered compared to the rest of the setup). More cores the better. SSD is just like liquid cooling and the like, it is for bragging rights as it makes no difference in game play past a splash screen. Oh, and there aren't any flight sims anymore. That died 15 years ago.
(Score: 1) by thomasdotnet on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:23PM
Unless you are implying he should go with an AMD hexacore, or a Xeon processor, then what do you suggest? There is the 4 core i7, or the 4 core i5. I don't know of any games that use hyperthreading, so i7 doesn't hold much advantage. the 4690k is 3.5 ghz, and unlocked so it can be overclocked into the 4 ghz range. Also, as I piped in earlier, the Gigabyte mobo and 4690k proc combo from Microcenter is a good deal.
As an aside, the machine as specced would do really well as a Hackintosh. Needs more memory than 8GB no matter what you're using it for, but it's versatile.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:32PM
Like heck an SSD doesn't make a difference other than a splash screen.
Some games are especially sensitive to seek times in their texture packs. Lord of the Rings Online, with the high-res textures, visibly stuttered off my 7200 RPM drive, was much better on my 10,000 RPM drive, and is completely smooth off my SSD.
Any game with frequent level loads is going to be a lot more pleasant running off an SSD, even if it's just shorter load times.
(Score: 1) by black_trout on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:08PM
I find it hard to believe that your friend's son is passionate enough about gaming to warrant the price delta over a console, but does not care enough to research the pros and cons of each OS and choose for himself.
That being said, I run a Windows 8.1 machine to fuel my Steam-centric gaming machine, and have found it to be a smooth and pain-free experience.
(Score: 1) by dwmoody on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:32PM
I have been using Windows 8 since shortly after it released. It works fine. The performance improvements over Windows 7 are noticeable and appreciated. Shortcuts like Winkey+X are useful. If the UI niggles bother you too much, Start8 is $5 and fixes everything that bugged me; open source alternatives exist as well.
I can't think of any reason to prefer Windows 7 over Windows 8.1 except curmudgeonliness.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:41PM
Have you seen how cheap Vista is on ebay now? It's great for those of us who use linux for actual work and want Windows there as a toy.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:44PM
I suppose that I should also add Windows 2000 and 98 for all of the older/better Windows games. (points to the fact that you didn't specify modern PC gaming.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:43PM
That'd be covered under "hardcore".
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday August 05 2014, @10:58PM
Vista is an utterly unworkable mollasses-slow turd which should never be installed on anything. Ever.
You'd be doing the world a favor in buying those Vistas and burning them immediately upon their arrival.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:17AM
The biggest problem Vista had was and still remains driver support. If this hadn't been such a fiasco then probably it wouldn't have gotten the bad rap it does. Will you even be able to get clean Vista drivers for modern gear?
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Wednesday August 06 2014, @04:36AM
I think it was the large memory and GPU requirements (which were expensive at the time), another way of putting the above mentioned slow-moving mnolasses-like, turdish qualities.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday August 05 2014, @11:56PM
What kind of games will he be playing? The game engines running those titles will dictate the answer you're looking for, I bet.
My initial gut reaction, as a veteran computer repair technician and fairly avid gamer myself (both PC and PlayStation 2/3) is go with Windows 7. It is the friendliest, least-messing-around experience in general. That said, October is the last you'll see of front-line support for it (security updates will continue, but it will be hard to find for sale and driver support etc. will begin to decline).
As far as Linux goes - well, if he's adventurous and/or wants a challenge, there is a lot of interesting and potentially career-enhancing stuff to learn. However, for anything other than idle or indie titles, the selection is rather lacking; or at the very least, setting up WINE will be an exercise in patience probably equal to the challenges of the games themselves. I have a number of games off of Humble Indie Bundles that have native Linux ports, but they are not what you'd call AAA titles that he might be after.
For my part, I'm planning to build a new gaming machine for the release of Witcher 3, and most likely it will be running Windows 7 exclusively. The developers have been keenly interested in Linux support, but it's just not there yet to release a Linux version of the game (they are also affiliated with GOG.com who have recently introduced Linux support for some games). So that should tell you something for the here-and-now.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by CoolHand on Wednesday August 06 2014, @10:52PM
Are you saying that the Witcher3 won't be coming to Linux. All indications I've seen say otherwise, and considering they retroactively ported the Witcher2 to Linux, that's a pretty good sign in and of itself. I expect the Witcher3 to be launched concurrently with the official Steam Machine, which is why it's hush-hush. There are quite a few very nice titles that have come out for SteamOS/Linux lately, including Civ5, the Metro's, Xcom, and some others. The next Unreal Tournament is looking to be a great title also. I've accumulated almost 90 Steam Linux titles in the last year (mostly 50-75% off list price during sales), and am hoping to talk my kid into going with a Steam Machine instead of a PS4 (thus have been holding off on the PS4 purchase). Plus, the in-house streaming feature that has come out for Steam clients actually seems to work fairly nice, so if a title isn't out for SteamOS/Linux, and one has a decent Windows box available, one can always go that route.
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:30PM
As to whether it will eventually I can't say. I hope it is, I could start considering going all-Linux at home. However, like I said the devs have gone on record [gamingonlinux.com] as saying they're not prepared for that just yet. Linux port of Witcher 2 is news to me. Quick search indicates it's not a proper port but, once again, a configuration of WINE that makes the Windows version run on Linux. Not ideal IMHO, nor from what I've read particularly user-friendly to get optimized. I love both Linux and games but the reality is we're not there yet as far as I can tell.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday August 07 2014, @09:56PM
Witcher2 - it's actually a wine-like wrapper called eON, not wine. I've heard it may actually play better in wine, though. Some people have found it plays fine as-is. I think it depends on graphics card/driver. I bought it, but haven't tried playing it yet..
http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-witcher-2-assassins-of-kings-enhanced-edition-released-for-steamos-linux.3746/ [gamingonlinux.com]
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1) by acharax on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:41AM
Many older games will have problems with Windows 8 (and 7, for that matter) because they will need proper DX9 (and older) support, the fallback implementation in DX10+ isn't flawless and will make itself apparent sooner or later (Glide wrappers can "fix" this for games that support 3dfx Glide). To make matters worse, GPU drivers for the newer OS versions tend to drop game specific hacks that're necessary for many older titles to run correctly (they can sometimes be gotten to work if you manage to guess another game's executable name that happens to share the same hacky branch inside the driver and rename the game's executable to that).
(Score: 1) by aXis on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:41AM
Windows 7 is still the dominant gaming OS, and developers know it. Unfortunately, hardware drivers will abandon Windows 7 quite quickly so next upgrade you might be forced onto 8.1 anyway.
As it currently stands all games will work well on Windows 7. Most games will work just fine on Windows 8.1 (and that situation should keep improving), but a few might have issues that require tweaking or config changes to get them going.
Mostly it just depends on your desktop prefence. I know I'd be happy with 7 for a while and have no desire to change.
(Score: 1) by Nollij on Wednesday August 06 2014, @07:08PM
What do you base this on? I just checked, and nVidia still supports XP on the 780 Ti, and AMD still supports the Radeon R9 2xx on XP. AFACT, DirectX is the only thing that doesn't support older versions of Windows. Now, older cards/GPUs lose support quickly, but they will be supported on Win7 as long as the cards are supported.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:18AM
Clearly it's Windows 98 FTW!!!!
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:12AM
Well, that depends, how much do you hate this kid?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:34AM
and any game that REQUIRES 8. is a crap game.
might change someday. but true right now and for the near future.
(Score: 1) by deimios on Wednesday August 06 2014, @04:28AM
For speed you'd want windows 8.1 x64.
For compatibility you'd want windows 7 x64. (This is my main OS since Dynasty Warriors 8 just didn't run on win 8)
For older game compatibility dual boot windows XP x86.
If you want linux then an Ubuntu variant or SteamOS x64 if linux native games or x86 if wine dependent.
It all comes down to your requirements. You can of course quad-boot but that is a PITA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:57AM
I assume by PC gaming, you mean mouse and keyboard. In that case, go for an OS that was designed for mouse and keyboard, i.e. Windows 7 (at least until Windows 9 comes out).
If you mean a tablet, go with Windows 8.1, which was designed for touch.
(Score: 2) by nightsky30 on Wednesday August 06 2014, @12:37PM
Linux if you can manage some games natively, some in wine. Windows 7 sadly for everything else.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:30PM
I've read all the responses so far, and have some feedback:
- I agree that my friend's son is not only interested in playing games on this system. He's been tinkering with different things for quite a while, starting with LEGO blocks as a young child. He's interested in how things work, and I'm happy to help in any way I can.
- It appears that most of the game publishers continue to target Windows 7 as a platform. However, Windows 8.1 has better memory management and SSD support. Any potential issues with the Metro interface can be worked around by using one of a number of third-party tools.
- SteamOS, while it is a good start, is probably not the ideal platform for my friend. It appears that a better Linux solution would be to go with a more mainstream distribution such as Ubuntu or Mint and add the Steam components.
Again, I sincerely thank my fellow Soylentils for your assistance.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @04:46PM
iOS got GTA3, X-COM: Enemy Unknown and Bioshock before Linux did. It can also run classics like Wolfenstein and popular indie games like World of Goo and Minecraft.