I'm a new user and i really want to know, why do games just NOT work with Vista..?

I'm a pretty new user to this forum, and i joined mainly for one reason.
I need an answer, why does Vista ruin so many great games. After playing
several games, some old some new, I can only notice one consistent
theme..issues with my games. While some issues may be attributed to
games themselves, i am however finding a very aggravating connection
between my new laptop and vista and a huge jump in computer game
problems.
My specs: 2 GB RAM, 32bit OS, 2.50 Ghz processors (dual processors),
and 100 GB of memory
To start i have problems with the following games:
Diablo II
Warcraft III
StarLancer (god i'll be damned if anyone has heard of it)
Unreal Tournament 2004
D2, WC3 and UT2004 i played ludicrous amounts of, so the errors i
really noticed, however starlancer i restarted playing only recently and
arleady found bugs with it.
For starters, D2. I know that utilizing add ons and various programs to
help me through the game is 'cheating' and against the rules, however it
still does NOT explain the massive lack of programs such as Maphacks and
other things. I mean, for christs sake, its such a harmless hack and
SOOO many people use it (not to mention there are far worse, more
common, more easily found hacks like bots) but yet, almost not ONE
maphack for diablo 2 works on vista (the main reason i quit the game).
The only i that DID work, crashed the game persistently after several
map reveals.
Ok, so lets pause for a second, i'm ranting about a game addon that's
illegal, but why the hell is vista the OS that's giving me the biggest
headache ever with this..
Next, WC3. my favorite game. Well, only a recent problem, but MASSIVE
issue. Whenever i log on my account to B.net (for those that are
unfamilar, the program/servers that support multiplaying online), it
crashes the game (window freezes completely). Never had any problems
till only recently (played on my vista laptop for like a year and
suddenly after doing updates i noticed this issue). Ok, so maybe this is
the game's fault..
Moving on..Starlancer..i used to have SOME issues with playing the
game, specifically, at the end of specific missions, the game would
crash. Well god help me, cause now its happening after every
mission..Let's assume that, god forbid, there's something wrong with the
damn cd...
Next UT2004, the harbinger of troubles for me. Before i always had
resolution setup problems with D2 and WC3 (always in the wrong
resolution until a friend fixed it) but UT2004 really pushed this issue
to resurface for me. The game crashes randomly, but most annyoingly of
all, the computer randomly (after leaving games and whatnot) changes the
resolution to the most minimum it can have. So now i randomly have
chaging resolutions...
Now, while my old computer sucked hard and this laptop im using is a
massive step up (as much as 7 times better than my old computer in some
specs), i have never ever had issues such as these playing my games.
Sure it could have been laggy as hell or my games were a bit slow, but
for christs sake at least my games worked. When i recieved my laptop, i
actually thought that my days of stressing over video games were
actually over. HA! What a joke, in fact, my days became different and in
some ways worse. I have come to realize that vista is indeed a massive
joke, ruining gaming and other things amongst many, draining processing
power from the computer and doing absolutely nothing good.
If anyone can tell me anything about my errors, the help is
appreciated, however after searching for answers through google and
being unable to find any to my problems, i have simply given up and can
only hope these issues stay at a minimum.

But more importantly, can someone please tell me, what the hell is it
about Vista that just RUINS games compeletely?


--
Asteroth

I can't say I've experienced any issues with gaming on Vista, although I
don't play any on your list anymore. Have you tried running any of the
offending games in compatibility mode? I imagine you're a prime
candidate for running windows 7 when it comes out (or even the RC) as
I've heard it runs XP programs better then vista. I wouldn't know as I'm
only 30% complete in downloading it. Hopefully someone can chime in for
you, I may have a copy of UT2004 with me that I can try installing and
running, I'm away from home so I don't have my software book.

And just because I'm petty, you wouldn't say 100GB of memory, it's a
100GB Hard Drive (memory generally refers to RAM). Disregard if you
don't care.


--
truthkid

truthkid, thanks for the suggestion and correction (didn't realize my
mistake)


--
Asteroth

Again I'm petty, so flaming/thanking are both in order. But back to your
original question. Are you running the latest versions of all your
programs that run like crap? I'm not going to say Vista is without
flaws, but running older games on newer hardware/os generally doesn't
result in an ideal experience (this is heavily dependent on how the game
is coded). I'll be off work in a few hours, I probably have a copy of
UT2004, I'll see how it runs.


--
truthkid

Wc3 and D2 Were indeed new versions. UT2004 and SL (starlancer) i am
unaware of any patches for.
Interestingly, i played another mission in starlancer just now, i
finished it like usual, and game crashed. then i loaded the game as an
administrator (something i never had to do for anything to work) and it
worked without a single error. I have no idea if the two events are
connected or maybe the game just stopped glitching, but at least one
problem disapearred, if not temporarily.
However i am still curious to see why these things happen. I understand
vista has its flaws, but is there anything in its programming that makes
it less compatible for video games and more viable for say..programs for
work. I understand that Vista Business is probably intended
for..well..work.


--
Asteroth

Don't let the business suffix throw you off, that just indicates its
vista with X features turned on, and Y features turned off. Try running
all your games as administrator, perhaps UAC is ruining the party. If
they all run better, well then we have at least one perp in the lineup
identified.


--
truthkid

I tried it again, and i was right. I ran the program again normally,
ended a mission and game crashed but when i ran as administrator the
problem never occured again. Also noticed a difference in the sounds my
CD/DVD drive was making (normally was MUCH louder than as
administrator).
What exactly is going on here? you said UAC, what is that?


--
Asteroth

Asteroth;1083954 Wrote:
> I tried it again, and i was right. I ran the program again normally,
> ended a mission and game crashed but when i ran as administrator the
> problem never occured again. Also noticed a difference in the sounds my
> CD/DVD drive was making (normally was MUCH louder than as
> administrator).
> What exactly is going on here? you said UAC, what is that?

UAC is User Access Control. ('User Account Control - Wikipedia, the
free encyclopedia' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control))
Essentially it makes an admin account function like a user account
unless specifically asking for administrator rights. It's a measure that
Vista added to protect users from programs taking advantage of most
people assigning their primary login as an administrator for convenience
sake. You could right click the shortcuts of your games and go into the
Compatibility tab and check "Run the process as an Administrator" and
that may or may not clear it up per game.

If you would like to turn it off (which trades of some security with
convenience):

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/48...ntrol-uac.html


--
truthkid

I think it worked.
So that's one game that's been fixed, thanks a lot for the help, i'll
try the others this weekend or sometime.


--
Asteroth

Great, I hope this clears up the issues on your other games. No luck on
having a copy of UT myself, I'll see if anyone I work with has the games
you mentioned.


--
truthkid