While not technically a feature, one of the things in Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar that long time players will notice is the significant improvement in graphics quality.

Military Starbase in GalCiv II: Dark Avatar

VS.

Military starbase in GalCiv II: Dread Lords (original)

These kinds of improvements are present across the entire expansion pack.  Moreover, because of improvements in how we did the textures, they actually use less memory.

We are pleased to announce that Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar has gone gold!

It's been a long journey but we think players will be pleased with the results.  The expansion pack will be released on February 14th. You can pre-order it here either as a download or have a CD sent to you (and download it while you're waiting).

We'd like to thank all the people who helped beta test the game. You helped us find bugs, balance the game, add new features, and just make the entire project worthwhile for us. Thank you so much!

If you have any questions, ask them here and we'll do our best to answer.

Windows Vista is here and we've been doing so many articles that it's tough to narrow it down to just a handful to recommend to users looking to find out more about Windows Vista.

But we're going to try...

• Vista Purchase Caveats

• Windows Vista: Parental Controls

• Stardock's Windows Vista Road-Map

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 1

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 2: UI Changes & Additions

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 3: Controls, Apps & Games

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 4: Tools for the Power User

• Touring Windows Vista - Part 5: Wrap-Up

I don't pull all-nighters very often -- only when things are so busy that there's just no way to get critical projects completed.

Today is one of those days.  With GalCiv II: Dark Avatar due to go gold today, all the Vista stuff, and new people starting this week, there's just too much to do.

This time, I'm keeping a log in Excel to see how productive I am. When I'm done, I'll post it.

Windows Vista has gone from being 1% of traffic of WinCustomize.com last week to over 5% on January 30th -- the official release date of Windows Vista.

Any bets on where it'll be next week?

Windows Vista has come out.  And I have to say, I really like it. Should you switch to it right away? No. I can't recommend it yet until the video driver situation is ironed out.

But down the line there are a number of pretty nice things in it that I think people will want to take a close look at.

Here's 5 reasons I think Windows Vista will appeal to gamers in the longer term or at least once the video driver situation is sorted out (if you're a gamer, WAIT a little bit until the video driver situation is good or you may find your favorite games don't run well):

#1 Windows Vista comes with included, standardized performance benchmarking.

So Vista literally gives your PC a score in all kinds of categories (CPU, Hard disk, video).

As a result, imagine games in 2 years coming with their requirements listing what your performance ratings have to be instead of vague requirements we have today. We'll also have a standard way to know just how resource intensive a game is.

My system rating is 4.0 for instance.


#2 The Games Explorer. This is a thing that lets people easily manage all the games on their machine from a nice big friendly, Media-Center like console (though not nearly as nice yet but I think this is the direction they're taking). So a PC box with Vista could be mor eeasily used as a set-top box for gaming.


#3 Parental Controls. Games that are Vista compliant include their ESRB rating. If parental controls is enabled, only games with the proper ESRB ratings can be played on the machine (and ones that don't comply get exluded entirely -- it will be interesting to see how this works out).


#4 DirectX 10


#5 Better casual games. The 3D desktop has the advantage that you can do fancier things in little desktop type games. Plus, Vista comes with several casual games.

While Windows Vista doesn't have much impact on what Stardock's developing (GalCiv II supports Windows 98), there are certainly a lot of nice features that we think will maek Windows Vista a better experience for gamers down the line.

Some of you may have been reading the recent articles in PC World, MSNBC, and elsewhere about how you can use parts of Object Desktop (such as WindowBlinds) to make Windows XP feel a lot like Windows Vista.

Today, Stardock has rolled out its plans for Windows Vista.  Consider how much Stardock's software can transform Windows XP to make it not just "prettier" but more functional, one can imagine what Windows Vista makes possible.  Now, a more definitive road-map is available.

Check it out!

ActiveWin.com's Andre Da Costa along with Byron Hinson and Fernando Fhualpa have taken an exhaustive look at Windows Vista Ultimate.

This is, so far, the most comprehensive review we've seen for Windows Vista yet. Everything you might want to know is in here. Check it out.

Microsoft officially introduced the world to Windows Vista today.  Windows Vista is Microsoft's next generation operating system to replace Windows XP.

At the launch today (see video here), the major features of Windows Vista were demonstrated. One feature we here at Stardock are particularly proud of being part of is the Ultimate Extra called Windows DreamScene. DreamScene allows users to play high-definition video content as their animated wallpaper.  Microsoft selected Stardock Design (official announcement coming soon) to create content for it including the one they demonstrated at the launch.

Stardock also has developed software for Windows DreamScene that extends the feature set even further -- to support dynamic content as well as a new format specifically for animated wallpapers (.dream files). The new program is called Stardock DeskScapes and will be released shortly.

Windows DreamScene is scheduled to be available for Windows Vista Ultimate Extras as a technology preview soon after the Windows Vista Launch with it generally available to Windows Vista Ultimate Users as an Ultimate Extra later.

WinCustomize.com is the site Microsoft is sending users to obtain additional animated wallpaper content including "Evening Dream" which is what was shown at the launch (and will be available exclusively at WinCustomize.com).  Users of Stardock Object Desktop will get the first crack to use Stardock DeskScapes.

More to come.

Microsoft Launch Video
Stardock DeskScapes home page
Stardock's Windows Vista road-map

Microsoft officially introduced the world to Windows Vista today.  Windows Vista is Microsoft's next generation operating system to replace Windows XP.

At the launch today (see video here), the major features of Windows Vista were demonstrated. One feature we here at Stardock are particularly proud of being part of is the Ultimate Extra called Windows DreamScene. DreamScene allows users to play high-definition video content as their animated wallpaper.  Microsoft selected Stardock Design (official announcement coming soon) to create content for it including the one they demonstrated at the launch.

Stardock also has developed software for Windows DreamScene that extends the feature set even further -- to support dynamic content as well as a new format specifically for animated wallpapers (.dream files). The new program is called Stardock DeskScapes and will be released shortly.

Windows DreamScene is scheduled to be available for Windows Vista Ultimate Extras as a technology preview shortly after the Windows Vista Launch.

WinCustomize.com is the site Microsoft is sending users to obtain additional animated wallpaper content including "Evening Dream" which is what was shown at the launch (and will be available exclusively at WinCustomize.com).  Users of Stardock Object Desktop will get the first crack at using Stardock DeskScapes.

More to come.

Microsoft Launch Video
Stardock DeskScapes home page
Stardock's Windows Vista road-map