Some of you have been around long enough to remember a few codebases ago when I blogged about my experiences with Windows Vista RTM. I installed it for about two weeks before reverting to Windows XP SP2 due to performance issues.

Specifically, I complained about:
1. General lag in UI with Aero Glass enabled. Also, WDDM and LDDM/XPDM drivers don’t mix.
2. Audio choppiness in legacy games such as Starcraft and Diablo II
3. Unintuitive and redundant Control Panel navigation
4. Aero Glass does not support Heterogeneous Multi-Adapter Configurations

There were other issues which were too minor to recall this far into the future, but these are the four that stick out most in my mind. However, with the recent announcement that Windows Vista SP1 will be released in early 2008, I’ve been reconsidering things.

1. General lag can be worked around, either with new hardware or by disabling functionality. Worst case scenario would be to disable Aero Glass. There may be WDDM drivers available for my Radeons 9250 and 9550.
2. I can play legacy games on Lefty, a side computer that’s far removed from ever supporting Windows Vista.
3. I can create a custom navigation plan to get around the Control Panel until they fix it.
4. I can switch to a Homogenous Multi-Adapter configuration, thus allowing all of my video adapters to utilize the same driver.

Multiple monitors are a big deal to me, and if I can’t have Multimon I don’t feel as effective at whatever I’m doing - Think of it as a form of claustrophobia. Unidaptaphobia: The fear of running out of desktop space.

According to the aforementioned link, “WDDM drivers do not support Heterogeneous multi-adapter multi-monitor implementations.” This basically means that if I want to utilize WDDM (and therefore support Aero Glass), all of my video adapters have to use the same driver. So either I get all three generations of Radeons I’m using to share a driver, or I get three of the same generation of Radeon.

The problem, of course, arises that the different generations of Radeons very seldom span slot form factors. In other words, I may be able to get PCI, AGP, and PCI-Express Radeons (As I’m currently using one of each), but it is unlikely that I can find, for example, a Radeon X1650 in all three types. Therefore I may need to replace my motherboard with one that has three PCI-E x16 slots. Damn.

What did you expect? That I’d go down to four (or even two) monitors just to support Microsoft’s idea of the future? As the consumer, is it too much to ask that they respond accordingly to the increasing prevalence of Multiple Monitors in the home and workplace? I suppose I should be happy that at least the cards are supported, as Vista’s driver base lost alot of support for older hardware. My Radeon 7500 didn’t cut it; but my Radeon 9250 just barely scratched by.