4 ms·

I feel exactly the same. For me Win8.1 was the pinnacle of Windows. The whole "tile-world" part of the system was misguided but ignorable, and didn't harass any

by m_fayer 11y ago

I feel exactly the same. For me Win8.1 was the pinnacle of Windows. The whole "tile-world" part of the system was misguided but ignorable, and didn't harass anyone. Tile-world aside, it was one of the most stable and performant OSs I've used. In comparison, Windows 10 makes my top-specced late 2013 Thinkpad feel like an overheating budget machine. All together I must have spent a few workdays trying to fix the machine, and despite being quite knowledgeable about Windows administration I'm still having performance issues and still have the feeling that the system really answers only to MS HQ, and has no intention of ceding control to its owner (me).

briHass 11y ago
Just a thought...did you do an update or a full, clean reinstall of 10 over 8.1? From my anecdotal testing: 4 machines with update 8.1 -> 10. One was fine, the other 3 performed very poorly. Doing a clean install fixed my perf issues. The one that was fine had a almost stock (no additional software) install of 8.1 that was a few months old.
speeder 11y ago
I have Windows 8.1 I also love playing some older games (right now I am in a SimCity 4 binge). I am seriously considering the next time I buy a computer, to ditch windows entirely, and use only Wine, I am having in Windows 8.1 to put Wine DLLs in more and more game folders, also if you enter many serious gaming forums, people recommend you stick with Windows 7. The reason is that Microsoft in their DirectX pushing tactics (that started when they said that WinXP would not be able to run DX10 features at all... despite hackers proving that it ca, also the Xinput vs DirectInput bullshit) they started to resort to stuff that sometimes I am not sure if is just bad coding or intentionally evil. For example for SimCity 4: The game uses DirectX7 (yes, it is that old :( ), and relies heavily on DirectDraw (that I still think is one of the most awesome pieces of tech MS ever made), on Windows 8.1, DirectDraw is completely emulated, partially with software, partially with D3D (or OGL depending on some dll combinations you have), and in a crappily coded manner. Wine ddraw.dll instead translate all DDraw calls to OpenGL equivalent in 2D, still is not perfect, but the different is obvious, DDraw games run like crap in Windows 8.1 native, and frequently run even better than when they were designed in first place when using Wine (be it in Linux, Mac or in Windows using Wine DLLs). Another game that works in Windows 7, but not in 8.1 or 10 without Wine, is the RPG "Arcanum" from Troika Games, also for the same reason: it relies on DDraw, and Windows 8.1 onwards DDraw emulation is so bad that this game renders most of the screen black, or in a wonky manner. So if I am using Wine, on Windows, more and more, why nose use Wine on a NIX anyway? Also many of the newer games have NIX support by default too (source engine games for example). EDIT: a link to someone complaining of this issue on Microsoft forums: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/directdraw-emulation-is-broken-in-windows-881/4edfc685-72b2-4688-95ed-c745ddd38825 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-g...

by m_fayer 11y ago

briHass 11y ago

Just a thought...did you do an update or a full, clean reinstall of 10 over 8.1? From my anecdotal testing: 4 machines with update 8.1 -> 10. One was fine, the other 3 performed very poorly. Doing a clean install fixed my perf issues. The one that was fine had a almost stock (no additional software) install of 8.1 that was a few months old.

speeder 11y ago

I have Windows 8.1 I also love playing some older games (right now I am in a SimCity 4 binge). I am seriously considering the next time I buy a computer, to ditch windows entirely, and use only Wine, I am having in Windows 8.1 to put Wine DLLs in more and more game folders, also if you enter many serious gaming forums, people recommend you stick with Windows 7. The reason is that Microsoft in their DirectX pushing tactics (that started when they said that WinXP would not be able to run DX10 features at all... despite hackers proving that it ca, also the Xinput vs DirectInput bullshit) they started to resort to stuff that sometimes I am not sure if is just bad coding or intentionally evil. For example for SimCity 4: The game uses DirectX7 (yes, it is that old :( ), and relies heavily on DirectDraw (that I still think is one of the most awesome pieces of tech MS ever made), on Windows 8.1, DirectDraw is completely emulated, partially with software, partially with D3D (or OGL depending on some dll combinations you have), and in a crappily coded manner. Wine ddraw.dll instead translate all DDraw calls to OpenGL equivalent in 2D, still is not perfect, but the different is obvious, DDraw games run like crap in Windows 8.1 native, and frequently run even better than when they were designed in first place when using Wine (be it in Linux, Mac or in Windows using Wine DLLs). Another game that works in Windows 7, but not in 8.1 or 10 without Wine, is the RPG "Arcanum" from Troika Games, also for the same reason: it relies on DDraw, and Windows 8.1 onwards DDraw emulation is so bad that this game renders most of the screen black, or in a wonky manner. So if I am using Wine, on Windows, more and more, why nose use Wine on a NIX anyway? Also many of the newer games have NIX support by default too (source engine games for example). EDIT: a link to someone complaining of this issue on Microsoft forums: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-gaming/directdraw-emulation-is-broken-in-windows-881/4edfc685-72b2-4688-95ed-c745ddd38825 http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-g...