Is your computer (Windows) Vista “premium” ready?
Posted by multippt
Yes you have heard of Windows Vista, the new generation of Windows that will make its debute next year, 2007. By then, I’m sure you have heard of numerous guides to preparing your computer for Windows Vista. Some of this guides show guidelines to enable your computer to be Windows Vista ready. Of these, some of them go a step further and prepare them to be Windows Vista “premium” ready. However, this guide you are reading is different from those guide. This guide will show you the minimum requirements for your computer to be Windows Vista “Premium” ready, and yes, this means your computer should be able to get those nice Aero glass effects if you follow this guideline.
Processor
Your processor needs to have a processor speed of at least 1.4 GHz (to be safe, though 1.0GHz is the minimum for Windows Vista “premium” ready computers), which is quite common in new computers. However, if your computer have a processor speed lesser than that, chances are, you would need to replace the processor with a more powerful one, or get a new computer.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
Large amounts of RAM is very useful for an operating system that will utilize the computer resources fully (in this case, Windows Vista). 1GB of RAM is recommended. Of course, the more the merrier. 1GB of RAM is quite common in computers available in the market at the moment. In case your computer do not have this amount of RAM in your computer, you can choose to upgrade the RAM (since RAM is the most easiest hardware component of the computer to upgrade compared to the rest).
Graphics
You need a relatively powerful graphics card (specially for Aero glass). A video card with 128MB of graphics memory should be quite adequate for those who have a resolution of 1920 by 1200 and lesser. Video cards such as ATI Radeon 5500 and above, NIVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 and above, and Intel GMA 950 and above should give the much needed memory. However, if your computer screen resolution is as much as 2560 by 1600 may need up to 512MB of video memory. Other than that, your graphics card needs to support DirectX 9.0 (or above, though DirectX 10.0 enabled graphics cards will be available by next year, 2007), video card 3D acceleration, WDDM support, and pixel shader 2.0.
Hard Drive
This shouldn’t be a problem if your computer has at least 15GB of free disk space (for installing Windows Vista). However, it is recommended that you have at least 40GB of total hard disk space.
DVD Drive
This is needed to install Windows Vista, since Windows Vista only ships on DVD.
