Anilrgowda

Microsoft's Windows Vista is nearing completion for retail distribution in January, but many buyers will discover that a stand-alone graphics processor or card is required to reap its full benefits.

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have already talked up their CPUs' importance in Vista's features and OEMs have begun touting "Vista ready" PCs before the operating system's release. But it is now more apparent with the recent release of the latest beta version of Vista, called Release Candidate 2 (or RC2 for short), that a simple CPU with an integrated graphics processor will not always be good enough. A separate graphics processor, usually reserved for the gamer set, is almost always needed to take full advantage of Vista's graphics capabilities for the most graphics-rich version of Vista, or Aero, on what Microsoft calls "Windows Vista Premium Ready PCs."

Officially, you can run a stripped-down version of Vista without a video card in a PC or a stand-alone graphics processor in a laptop -- but you might not want to.

"To realize the charm and brilliance of Vista, the user has to have a decent graphics card, because otherwise it looks like crap: It is all washed up and the colors look bad," said Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research.

A PC needs an 800-MHz CPU, 512 MB of RAM and an integrated graphics processor that can handle Microsoft's DirectX 9 graphical interface just to run Vista, according to Microsoft. For a PC that is Windows Aero ready, the requirements are more stringent. A Windows Vista Premium Ready PC for Windows Aero needs at least a 1-GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM, DirectX 9 graphics, 128 MB of graphics memory and pixel shader 2.0, which means an external graphics card or processor is almost invariably required.

During a Wired News test, an HP Compaq 8430 laptop with a 2-GHz Intel T2500 CPU, 1 GB of RAM and a stand-alone ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics processor with 256 MB of video memory could handle the RC2 version of Aero. Vista's graphically intensive features worked well and the operating system's glasslike windows and icons were nice to look at, but in this writer's opinion, a 3-year-old version of SuSE Linux's operating system is just as beautiful.

However, the TV-recording function of Windows Media Center did not work during our tests, which might represent one of the bugs Microsoft hopes to fix before Vista's release in January. But as Microsoft says, a graphics engine with at least 128 MB of memory is required to record TV with Vista.

When installing Vista, the operating system automatically assesses your system and adapts itself to your PC's CPU, memory and graphics-processing capabilities. But even with a PC that has, for example, a 2-GHz or faster CPU and 1 GB or more of RAM, Vista certainly does not deliver what Microsoft calls a full "Vista experience" if the system has an integrated graphics processor instead of a stand-alone device.1

For PCs without the requisite graphics capabilities, adding a graphics card will be enough to take advantage of Vista's graphics; however, investing $100 in a graphics card for a $500 PC just for the operating system will probably not make sense for most users.

When vendors begin their mass rollout of PCs with Vista installed next year, most systems shipped will still not be able to run the Aero version of Vista without the added expense of a graphics card, according to Peddie.

Some users may not opt for Vista's power even if they have a high-end PC with the requisite graphics engine.

"Even with a (high-powered graphics processor), Vista extracts performance and more battery life, so it is pretty yet costly in terms of machine resources," said Nathan Brookwood of Insight64. "With a notebook environment when you are not plugged into the wall, you may very well want to turn off the extra graphics because your battery is going to get sucked up."

Vista's power hungriness represents a shift in Microsoft's approach compared to when the company launched Windows XP, and before that, Windows 95, which was introduced more than 10 years ago. Both operating systems offered a range of more graphics-oriented user interfaces compared to their predecessors, but they did not require significantly more processing and graphics computing power.

"If you are a reseller, Vista is probably good news," Brookwood said. "If you are a customer or someone who buys hardware in order to run software, preferably with (graphically intensive) interfaces, it will be frustrating."