Testing Valve Games on Vista Beta

Stub

This article or section is a stub. You can help by expanding it.

This space is for people (the user community) testing the compatibility and/or the performance of current Valve games as well as the Steam platform, on the next generation Windows.

Purpose

The idea is to help Valve optimize their games for the next consumer platform by giving them performance samples similar to what they gathered with their stress tests.

Current Vista

• Build 5308.17 (2006-02-17) - Staged build. Released on February 22, 2006.
• Build 5308.60 (2006-02-23) - Unstaged build. Released on February 28, 2006. This build was released as a result of Windows Server "Longhorn" having many issues. There are supposedly no changes to Windows Vista since build 5308.17, but some people claim that this build is "faster, smoother, and without memory leaks".

Community Discussion & How to get the CTPs

Steam Forums Vista Discussion

Drivers downloads

These are the latest drivers, but might be for an older Vista build. For each of the following set of drivers, please read the readme for the list of supported devices.

ATi Catalyst Video Drivers

• Catalyst Beta Driver for Windows Vista Build 5308

Nvidia nForce System Drivers

• Nvidia nForce Intel/AMD Drivers 32 bit
• Nvidia nForce Intel Drivers 64 bit

Nvidia Forceware Video Drivers

• Windows Vista x86 February CTP 32 bit
• Windows Vista x86 February CTP 64 bit

Possible Format to Post results

You might just use the same as given here

Reports

• User: nba1341
• Game: : Counter-Strike:Source
• OS: Windows Vista Home Basic (6.0, Build 5308)
• DX: Version 10
• CPU: iP4 3.06 GHz 533 MHz FSB
• Video: NVIDIA Geforce FX Go5600 (Driver Version: 6.8.0.0)
• Memory: 1.25GB PC2700 DDR So-Dimm

Video Settings

• Shader Detail: High
• Model Detail: High
• Shadow Detail: High
• Texture Detail: High
• Filtering: Triliniear
• Water: Simple Reflections
• AA: none
• VSync: off

Average FPS

• 57.43 FPS (800x600)
• 39.58 FPS (1024x768)

To Do

• Adding publisher details to steam client/game executables. Will help in publisher verification at Vista security checks.

Disclaimer

Valve currently doesn't support Windows Vista as a gaming platform.

Links

• Windows Vista
• MSDN Half Life Coding4fun
• WGF a.k.a Directx 10

Screenshots

Videos

HL2 in a Windows