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at what point is vista quicker than xp?

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Hey, all. Yes, it's another I-hate-Vista thread. But I actually have a real question, too, so please bear with me.

When I upgraded from Windows 95 to Windows 98, Windows 98 was faster. Of course, if I ran 98 on a 486 or Pentium classic, it would be slower than 95. The same happened with Windows XP. On my old K6-II 500 with 64MB RAM, 98 was hands down a better performer than XP. But on my Athlon 950 with 512MB RAM, Windows XP was faster.

Now Vista has come, and it's slower than XP on certain hardware. No problem, right? Because with the latest hardware, Vista is actually as fast or faster, yes? Apparently not. I never quite understood how this could be the case, but after over a month of using Vista and going without XP, I can now speak with experience that Vista truly feels slower. On Vista, even the simplest, light-weight applications like Wordpad can take a few seconds to load. Larger programs like Adobe Audition and OpenOffice.org can take up to a minute. Videos freeze and stutter. Even the internet was slower!

I finally went back to XP, yesterday, and it feels truly wonderful! I never realized how much I love that OS.

Now, I'm a special case, because I was only running on 1GB RAM. Supposedly you need at least 2GB to adequately run Vista. But is that really true? Everything I read on the net seems to speak of Vista as a slower performer, even on the fastest, most souped-up systems. For example, Anand himself made this comment a few days ago, when reviewing the Eee Box:

On a side note, after using Windows XP all day on this thing I've completely forgotten how light the OS feels compared to Vista.
(source)

I don't know what kind of system Anand runs, but I would suspect his would be pretty cutting edge. Yet running XP on a compact mini PC feels faster to him!

So, what gives? Is Vista ever faster than XP?
 
2GB of RAM, a dual core CPU, and a GeForce 6 series/Radeon X series or higher GPU.

The biggest performance boost will be from SuperFetch, otherwise the two are fairly equal.
 
Originally posted by: ViRGE
2GB of RAM, a dual core CPU, and a GeForce 6 series/Radeon X series or higher GPU.

The biggest performance boost will be from SuperFetch, otherwise the two are fairly equal.

:thumbsup:

I also want to say that 1 gig of RAM does make that kind of a difference. If I was using a single core system and only had one gig of RAM then I would most certainly stick with XP. Vista is as fast as XP and sometimes faster on the right hardware. Programs actually open faster on this computer with Vista.
 
2GB ram is definitely a sweet spot. A dual core cpu is handy as is letting Vista index files and sort out your program use patterns so give it a week or two to a month to get used to the way you work.
 
Vista does NOT run well on 1 GB.

Don't get me wrong, it can run.
I have it running happily with 1 GB on my notebook.

But for serious use, you want 2 GB minimum, 4 GB ideally IMO.

If you actually have the extra RAM, Vista utilizes more, just for itself even.

As an example, on my system here with 8 GB, it will idle at far higher than 1 GB usage just for the OS, just to put things in perspective.

Heck, right now it's at 3.35 GB usage just for a few basic things i have running.

Point is, if you give it RAM, it will use it, & it will run very well!
 
I have a:
E4400 C2D 2.0 GHz
4GB Ram
X1950XT
WD640 HDD
Dell 3007WFP HC
Dual boot Vista Ultimate 64 and XP Home for about 1 month
Basic programs, IE7, Older games

I was really looking forward to using Vista for the reported benefits.....


In my experience, Vista integrates function better than XP (ie. The contacts list with the contacts Gadget is great). The Hibernate function is great! However both 32bit and 64bit IE7 hang much more frequently when opening multiple tabs compared to XP. Also, FarCry and C&C generals ZH have to run with lower settings to be playable. It takes longer to open Word, Excel, Movies, Picture Viewer and others.

Although Vista has many features that I find make me more productive, I find that XP feels much lighter and more nible. I have not noticed any major improvements from Superfetch.

I wish there was a Win XP with just a few of the features from Vista. I would gladly pay for that.
 
Originally posted by: n7
Vista does NOT run well on 1 GB.

Don't get me wrong, it can run.
I have it running happily with 1 GB on my notebook.

But for serious use, you want 2 GB minimum, 4 GB ideally IMO.

If you actually have the extra RAM, Vista utilizes more, just for itself even.

As an example, on my system here with 8 GB, it will idle at far higher than 1 GB usage just for the OS, just to put things in perspective.

Heck, right now it's at 3.35 GB usage just for a few basic things i have running.

Point is, if you give it RAM, it will use it, & it will run very well!

I dont have any memory issues with Vista and 1GB of ram on my laptop, its just as fast as XP, although its really just a web/office/email box. For gaming or other intensive use, youll probably want more.
 
At 1GB, readyboost is still a way of seeing substantial increase in performance. But give the system 2-8GB and it will really start to leave XP behind as programs you frequently use will pop up instantly when you need them.
 
1GB is not enough for Vista, 2GB is better, but still not fast.

4GB is nice, almost everything is instant. 6GB and everything IS instant.

I haven't opened outlook in probably 4-5 days, Superfetch should still have it cached though, lets see how long it takes to open... 3seconds.🙂

RAM is cheap, put 4GB in your PC, then wait a couple days for Superfetch to learn your patterns and see how fast it is.
 
Running Vista here with 4GB of RAM, an OC'ed Core 2 Duo and a 8800GTS.

Overall, it feels snappier than XP (it does take longer for Vista to be usable after booting up, probably because it has to load the Superfetch cache; this is not really an issue since I only reboot when an update so requires).

Gaming is also as fast, if not faster, in Vista since nVidia finally managed to release decent drivers for their GPUs last month.
 
My Vista Ultimate 64x runs like a dream after bumping from 2GB to 6GB with page file off.

Spec:
Q6600 quad core @ 2.4
6gigs ram @ 667; 2x1024 667, 2x2048 800
8600 GT 512
stripping raid for game and large apps and single for OS.

I disagree with 2GB ram sweet spot post, as I noticed significant response increase from 2GB to 6 GB upgrade.

I would say the sweet spot for Vista, 64x vista that is, is 4+ GB.

If you have a 64bit OS and given the prices on memory, get 4GB or more ram. with 6+GB ram you can safety turn off page file for most users.

Oh Vista 64bit with same spec above will be faster than XP64bit. Superfetch has something to do with it.
added vid card and HD spec.

 
Originally posted by: Noema
since nVidia finally managed to release decent drivers for their GPUs last month.

I could be happier, I've occasionally had the 175.16 driver crash on me a few times for my 8800GT, giving me a display driver has stopped working error. It restarts but that crashes the game and I have to restart it. Not that big of a deal because it doesn't happen that often, but there's obviously still some work to be done.
 
Actually, as you know, Vista is the next gen OS from MS. People are asking for trouble running Vista without the next gen hardware.
 
Originally posted by: inhotep
Actually, as you know, Vista is the next gen OS from MS. People are asking for trouble running Vista without the next gen hardware.

bingo!
 
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