Chapter nineteen. Playing Games

IN THIS CHAPTER

Installing and Configuring Game Controllers 370

Building a Better Gaming System 372

Embracing DirectX 373

Troubleshooting Game Problems 374

The Bottom Line 378

You might find this hard to believe, but one of the most technically demanding applications for your personal computer is playing games.

That's right. Playing games.

There are a few very logical reasons for this.

First, the newest PC games feature sound and graphics that are nothing short of stunning. Very realistic, very high quality. It's very demanding on your hardware and operating system to create these graphics and move them around in real time.

Second, the oldest PC games were based on the old DOS platform. Maintaining compatibility with DOS-based games is a huge challenge for the operating system. Especially one, such as Windows XP, that wasn't built on that old 16-bit platform. And XP doesn't claim to have 100% perfect legacy support.

Given these challenges, I was pleasantly surprised to discover what a good job Windows XP does with both the oldest and the newest PC games. The OS incorporates all the latest DirectX standards used by the newest games, and has an extremely high compatibility with the older games.

I'll go out on a limb and say that Windows XP is the best PC-based operating system yet for game playing, which is something I didn't expect to be saying.