I am one of those impatient freaks who always has to have the latest updates for everything. I was part of the original beta test group for Windows95 and proceeded to beta test most of the following operating systems up to and including Windows2000. On my iGoogle homepage I have RSS feeds from FileHippo and other software update sites. When I download share/freeware I almost always exclusively download only packages that are a couple of months old. Current. Updated. Beta. For me it has to be new, better, faster, easier. So it is no surprised that I recently downloaded the Windows 7 beta.

Since this is a Runescape blog I will restrict most of my comments to Runescape on Windows 7. But I will make a couple of comments here about the OS in general. First of all, Windows 7 is Vista without all the problems and annoyances. Or maybe it is better stated as, Windows 7 is exactly what Vista should have been. It is clean, efficient, powerful, and stable even in its beta form. The security, at least in terms of the UAC and annoyance factors, is effective yet hardly intrusive at all. I have yet to run in to a significant application comparability problem with any of the software I use on my may XP machine (Dreamweaver, OpenOffice, PhotoImpact, etc.) Its boot and shutdown times are slightly faster than even WindowsXP. Provided Microsoft does not fugg things up between now and the eventual release of Windows 7, it should be the OS to bring respect back to Microsoft and even to bring back some of the lost customer base that Microsoft has sacrificed to Apple and other OS developers. As of right now I would be happy to have Windows 7 as a replacement to XP, even in its beta.

Now on to Runescape related issues. After first installing Windows 7 I ran into a problem getting Runescape to display in any HD format, small, large or full screen. This same issue happens when I occasional reinstall Vista just to try to give it another chance (which within a couple of days I usually axe it). But simply installing the most current nVidia Vista WHQL drivers solved this problem immediately (as with Vista). The only remaining problem I have is that occasionally during some games and other graphically intensive programs the system will freeze totally and require a reboot. However, I do not believe this to be a Windows 7 problem.

My system and its nVidia 6800 graphics card were completely stable prior to my February 2007 installation of Vista. After that time I started experiencing rouge freezes in conjunction with graphic card error messages. After I gave up on Vista and returned to XP these problems continued and still continue to this very day. Yes, now they are in XP for me too. I suspect that something in the early nVidia Vista drivers physically messed up the card (don’t ask me how and nVidia and Microsoft will never admit to it). Either that or my fairly old card could not handle the continual and added strain of the new OS 3D graphics and puked out on me. In either case my card is questionable at best and I do not consider the freezes in Windows 7 to be anything but normal hardware issues that I have with all the OSs on my computer.

Aside from the hardware related freeze ups, Runescape runs practically identically on Windows 7 as it does on XP. I have noticed that the loading of Runescape takes a little longer and that when displaying some graphics it take a very insignificantly longer period of time to display on their first showing. But after running the game for a minute or so everything runs smoothly and I have noticed no increase in lag time while playing Runescape. I chalk up the slightly longer load times to my computer being at the bottom end of the recommend minimum requirement for Vista and Windows 7. My computer is a Pentium 4 3.00Mhz with 1gb of RAM. That really isn’t much compared to the standard equipment on systems currently sold in stores today. Though I have not tested it, I suspect that any system with my minimum speed and a minimum of 2gb of RAM should have no perceptible effect on game performance compared to XP. In fact, I would wager that performance might even be slightly better.

I have read in some places where people have encounter HD issues with Windows 7 and Runescape. I cannot speak to those issues because every installation is likely to be different. Different hardware. Different specs. Different setup. And of course every user has different skills and abilities when it comes to computers. I have been a computer consultant for the better part of twenty-five years and my skill set is significant compared to most. When I installed Windows 7 it was clean and very precise and in a very efficient order making sure that almost all drivers and updates were installed prior to any other software installation what-so-ever. I only used the graphics drivers that came with Windows 7 out of curiosity as to whether they would work or not. They did not and therefore my recommendation is that prior to trying out Windows 7 and Runescape first install the absolute latest WHQL Vista drivers for your graphics card. Also, load the latest version of Java. Outside of those items, Runescape should run fine out of the box.