Diamond, What Little Is Known? | Quote: “For those who do not know, Diamond is the next version of Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition. Diamond will be based on Windows Vista like the past versions of MCE have been based on XP. Because of the complexity and how advance the UI is, it is said that Diamond will have its own special Aero Tier. A tier requiring much higher system specifications than even Aero Glass. Not too much is known feature wise about Diamond, but I can tell you of a couple features. DRM will be much improved with Diamond, I am not sure how exactly, but the way DRM files are handled and verified will be much easier and quicker. As someone who buys their music from the MSN Music Store (Yup, they use DRM) I will find improvements in this area useful. The second feature I can tell you about is that TV Viewing, especially HDTV will be improved with better quality viewing.
No one outside Microsoft knows what level of graphical power and memory Diamond will need. But I am hazarding a guess that the GPU power will need a recent DX9 card and around 2GB of RAM. Why that much RAM? Well for those who currently aim for the premium MCE 2005 experience these days will know that for a lag free session with MCE, you require around 1GB of RAM. So with the new graphical and other requirements of Diamond, I can make a guess that 2GB would be around the “recommended” amount of memory for a good experience.”
Ummm…. MCE 2005 doesn’t need 1GB of RAM to be lag free, that’s a bad statement. 512MB will do just fine.
Hey Chris. I guess 512MB does fine, but I have fine, you get the best experience with 1GB. Yea I guess you are right 🙂 512MB is fine. Glad you pointed that out.
I’m not sure I agree. I noticed a considerable improvement in performance and reliability when I upgraded the memory in my MCE system. It was almost unbearable prior to that. I guess your mileage could vary.
Unfortunatley the "fine" requirements do not offer the best experience. They seem to be the min, which is clearly driven by cost instead. With an increase in memory all systems do better… why not recommend more here. It’s not like you are printing it on the Vista or Diamond box.
In none of my experiences did +1GB of RAM provide the "best experience". 512 did the best, adding an additional 512 was "fine", but the users never saw an increase in performance. More might always be "better", but the statement of "for a lag free session with MCE, you require around 1GB of RAM" is incorrect in my experiences.
I can take your word for it… just seems like you need some serious juice in order to handle the visuals not too mention the core functions for Diamond, vs. the current iteration of MCE…