Gaming performance in Vista versus XP

[MrEgo]

A couple things before I ask.

1. I searched the forums for a topic that is worded similar to mine, but I didn't have any luck.
2. I wasn't sure which category to post this question.

With that being said,

When Vista originally came out, people were complaining about the performance hit that they were taking in games, and the benchmarks that I saw showed it. However, I'm sure Vista and the companies that write drivers compatible for Vista have matured quite a bit.

Has the performance gap between the two operating systems narrowed significantly since Vista's release? That might be a generic question.. because I'm assuming that a lot of the answer depends on the hardware that I'm using. So maybe this would be a better question:

If I'm running a Q6600 with 2GB (or more) of memory, with a video card equal to or better than a 512MB GeForce 8800GT, will I notice a performance difference between the two operating systems?



Moved from video forum.

Video Mod BFG10K.

 

[error8]

Well I guess Vista is a bit more "sluggish" in games then XP. It has been like this since the beginning and I think that even though the gap narrowed , it's still there.

It's not like the games you play on XP will become unplayable on Vista, it's just that they will run a bit slower, but not by much. I don't think you'll ever notice the difference with the system you've listed there. Just add another 2 gb of ram and everything will work just fine. Before switching to Vista I had the same dilemma, but I honestly didn't see any difference in games. Some say it is noticeable, but I can't say it is.

 

[daveybrat]

Shouldn't be much of a difference anymore. But vista also uses more ram than xp does, so you may get more hard drive activity in newer games on vista that you wouldn't get on xp. A simple fix for that is just adding another 2GB kit to your machine and vista should run great.

 

[MrEgo]

So basically as the hardware keeps improving, the performance gap gets less and less? That's kind of what I figured..

Thanks guys.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

fwiw, vista as an OS over XP won't make or break any games. if the game is playable in XP, it will likely be playable in Vista, all else being equal

 

[Avalon]

Vista graphics performance has been almost on par with XP for quite some time now, even pre SP1. It's nothing like when Vista launched anymore, now that ATI and Nvidia have caught up with drivers.

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Avalon
now that ATI and Nvidia have caught up with drivers.

:thumbsup: Monthly Catalyst updates FTW.

 

[iBPJohn]

While running some benchmarks like 3dmark 06, I've noticed that XP will still get a decent amount more points on the same hardware. Unfortunately I don't have exact numbers on hand.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: iBPJohn
While running some benchmarks like 3dmark 06, I've noticed that XP will still get a decent amount more points on the same hardware. Unfortunately I don't have exact numbers on hand.

Canned benchmarks are not the best way to determine if performance has caught up since these benchmarks are fine tuned to get specific results.

 

[taltamir]

there is also 64bit to take into account.

Most games are faster in 64bit mode. Some are, oddly enough, slower then the 32bit mode due to horrible programming (at which case they shouldn't even include a 64bit exe for the game... but then again, if they were COMPETENT to begin with then it would have outperformed the 32bit one).

 

[skace]

I'd say Vista performance is a neglible difference from XP. The largest issue with Vista was simply stability and SP1 resolved a lot of stability issues. However, I still have games that crash when closed on Vista64. It's not really a killer problem but it is odd as hell that it happens.

 

[Mem]

Yes Vista is now up there with XP.

Link.

Game Results
It's clear that driver issues in Windows Vista have been largely ironed out, as the five to 10 percent performance drop compared to Windows XP is virtually gone. In fact, the only test out of these three in which Vista didn't match its predecessor was in the pre-SP1 World in Conflict result.

.

Final Thoughts
If you were expecting a huge drop in performance as your eyes scanned from the XP to the Vista results, well, surprise! As many a tech analyst predicted, Windows Vista's gaming performance conundrum has largely been solved, and it was mainly due to early graphics drivers.

In fact, I'd been planning to run a few other gaming tests, but the results from these were so uninteresting that further work didn't seem merited. Love it or hate it, Vista is performing far better than it used to.

Game performance, it seems, has been exorcised from your concern when choosing a Microsoft operating system. That leaves a few other factors, of course: stability, responsiveness, eye candy, price, DirectX version, and a few other odds and ends.

It took about a year and a half, but the performance gap between Vista and its forerunner has finally evaporated.

Note: date of these benchies was May 2008.

 

[Drift3r]

I'd say if you have more then 4+ gigs of ram and want to do 64 bit computing then Vista x64 is the way to go. Support for 64 bit XP is basically dead from what I have read. If you have less then 4 gigs of ram and don't care about running 64 bit apps well then stick with XP. Frankly XP for 90% of the population is a perfect OS to run.

 

[Mem]

Frankly XP for 90% of the population is a perfect OS to run.

You can say that about 2K ,even more so.

Bottomline XP is dead far as DX development goes,so Vista is the only real alternative if you want to game ,especially where DX10 gaming and future DX development is concerned.

We all know DX10 is not the end,DX11 down the road,more games are being made to take advantage of DX10 etc..video cards are getting more powerful with each new generation.

If I'm running a Q6600 with 2GB (or more) of memory, with a video card equal to or better than a 512MB GeForce 8800GT, will I notice a performance difference between the two operating systems?

I think you can afford to buy another 2GB with that rig ,Vista runs fine with 2GB but ram is very cheap nowadays so any serious gamer should be on 4GB,thats my opinion anyway.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: skace
I'd say Vista performance is a neglible difference from XP. The largest issue with Vista was simply stability and SP1 resolved a lot of stability issues. However, I still have games that crash when closed on Vista64. It's not really a killer problem but it is odd as hell that it happens.

I found that the Windows Search Indexing Service was causing Age of Conan and EVE Online to give errors on shut down.

You might wanna turn that off. It was also making my hard drive thrash like a mofo. Worthless feature is worthless.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: hooflung

Originally posted by: skace
I'd say Vista performance is a neglible difference from XP. The largest issue with Vista was simply stability and SP1 resolved a lot of stability issues. However, I still have games that crash when closed on Vista64. It's not really a killer problem but it is odd as hell that it happens.

I found that the Windows Search Indexing Service was causing Age of Conan and EVE Online to give errors on shut down.

You might wanna turn that off. It was also making my hard drive thrash like a mofo. Worthless feature is worthless.

Try Windows Search 4.0,link.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: hooflung

I found that the Windows Search Indexing Service was causing Age of Conan and EVE Online to give errors on shut down.

You might wanna turn that off. It was also making my hard drive thrash like a mofo. Worthless feature is worthless.

Try Windows Search 4.0,link.

Thanks guys, I plan to try both of these suggestions. It's not a big deal but it is a slight annoyance.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: LOUISSSSS
fwiw, vista as an OS over XP won't make or break any games. if the game is playable in XP, it will likely be playable in Vista, all else being equal

This has been my assumption (I've been running Vista x64 as my main OS since it was in beta - well over a year and a half), but now that I have a "fast" video card (8800GT) I'm not so sure.

I've noticed that UT3 specifically runs quite a bit faster in XP than Vista. The differences are very significant in some cases...for example, I've run into places on maps that get ~32fps on Vista, ~55 on XP...45 Vista vs. 75 on XP...60 Vista vs. 82 XP...and quite a few more. Same settings and resolution, of course.

I'm not sure if I'm missing some blindingly obvious problem with my Vista installation, but it's enough of a difference that I installed XP again for the first time in almost two years, so I can boot to it whenever I want to play a game. A huge hassle, but I'm also not one to turn down "free" performance gains of 50%+ in some cases...

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: MrEgo

If I'm running a Q6600 with 2GB (or more) of memory, with a video card equal to or better than a 512MB GeForce 8800GT, will I notice a performance difference between the two operating systems?

Nope, you won't notice a difference in performance. However, you'd notice an increase of stability, among other improvements in Vista.

 

[Captante]

XP is still a bit faster then Vista in just about all games based on comparasions using my personal PC which dual-boots XP Pro & Vista Ultimate 32-bit, however Vista performance has improved quite a bit recently.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Captante
XP is still a bit faster then Vista in just about all games based on comparasions using my personal PC which dual-boots XP Pro & Vista Ultimate 32-bit, however Vista performance has improved quite a bit recently.

My personal experience is Vista x64 is up there with my XP in gaming,infact no issues,stability is just awesome,it'll be interesting to see how well AMD/ATI drivers are on Vista x64 compared to Nvidia drivers in a week or so when I get my 4850 card.

 

[Ozlaw]

I puchased Vista Ultimate the day it came out (I am one of those early adopters of technology) and installed in on my desktop, which had the fastest CPU going at the time and the fast GPU, the AMD FX-60 and the Nvidia 7950 GX2 1gb, and since then I have never had a bad moment with Vista with one major exception.

I would highly suggest that you change the default rules with alllows windows to upgrade your computer at will with all upgrades that come out whenever they come out and change it the the option that Vista should not download anything but simply alert you that updates, security patches and the like are available and give you the opportunity to review and study them decide which you really need. As the old adage goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I have only had major probelms with Vista twice and both involved my own negligence were I forgot to change the setting discussed above on one of my son's computers and their dedicated "Flight Similulator" computer. In both cases downloads from Micorsoft got stuck in Stage 3, Installing, and would stay at 0% for five mintutes, restart the machine and do it all over again. I tried everything but simply made matters wrose and in the long run I had to reinstall Vista on both machines. The problem you will find is that while many of the updates are necessary security patches a whole lot of them, when minimal ivestigation is undertaken, are solely designed for work enviroments with networked computers and IT guys using various tools provided to get into users machines to diagnose problems etc.

Antoher annoyance is that Vista will continue to want you to download laguage packs in languages most of will never even hear, much less use, unless we visit the Congo of restricted areas of red China regularly. I mean gigabytes of this trash.

My lastest mishap occured just a few weeks ago as it turns out my son who is home from college and has built high end desktops with me as a hobby for a long time, accidently turned automatic updating back on on his laptop; one of those things that happen at 3am. The next day the computer was trying its level best to install three updates it had downladed from Microsoft but my guess is that they likely could not be installed due to the lack of some prior update. Catch 22, however, was that the problem completely kept out of the system and all restore points disappeared when Restore was accessed from the original Vista Disk. somehow would not show up when I tried a repair with the original VIsta Ultimate Disk. To mske a long story short, which obviously I have trouble doing, this has happened twice and both times I have had to re-install Vista which also leads me to suggest you look into the My Book Home Edition from Western Digital if you do not have a backup drive running backup software. I have them installed all over the house, literally on laptops and desktops; actually I should install a server. Back to the subject, do some reading on the My Book and you will find that its software, available in the home edition but beware the Essential edition, acutally saves to the backup as you save to your hard drive. At least this is how I read the box and reviews. I am not suggesting this due to Vista as I had more BSOD with XP Pro then I have ever had with Vista. While Vista has gotten a bad rap is is in some ways unfair as with the correct hardware it it tremendous. Unfortunatly no one told most of the country looking at changing OS's that htey would likely have to double their hardware investment if they wanted to utilize Vista in the same easy, non-opbstusive way they were used to using XP. Luckily your system has more then enough hardware to make using Vista an enjoyable experience actually allowing you to accomplish more instead of being a burden keeping you from getting needed work accomplished. As for speed, with Vista I consistantly, depending on how I have tweaked my system, get 3dMark06 socres of 17,000 plus. A last tip, keep your graphics dirvers current as this makes a big differnce sometimes under Vista. Best of luck to you and I apologize for rambling. I will work on my brevity. I write briefs mostly for a living and actually have a hard time keeping things short, so I apologize to everyone in advance and will work on my problem. Either way I know I will get some rude comments but such is life.

Computer
Home Built

Thermaltake Tusami Case
Gigabyte GA-EX38-DQ6
Quad Core Extreme QX6850 Overclocked (waste of money as no program I use or that even comes to minds can recognize four cores)
Asus Radeon HD 3870 X2 1gb (currently looking for a second to crossfire with)
Coolit Freezone Refrigerated Water Cooling with 6 Thermal-Electric Coolers (TEC) or Peltiers to chill the water prior to recirculation / CPU kept at constant 30c, case interior 33c.
Patriot Viper 4GB 1066 (PC2 8500) Memory
1,000 watt modular PSU
Latest 3dMark06 17,274, with simple multiplier overclocking

 

[BladeVenom]

File transfer speed is still much slower with Vista.

 

[lupi]

I've gone back to some COH playing under vista/dx1o with an e6600 8800gt and 4gb, runs smooth and there is a slight graphic improvement with dx10.

 

[Juddog]

Originally posted by: Ozlaw
I puchased Vista Ultimate the day it came out (I am one of those early adopters of technology) and installed in on my desktop, which had the fastest CPU going at the time and the fast GPU, the AMD FX-60 and the Nvidia 7950 GX2 1gb, and since then I have never had a bad moment with Vista with one major exception.

I would highly suggest that you change the default rules with alllows windows to upgrade your computer at will with all upgrades that come out whenever they come out and change it the the option that Vista should not download anything but simply alert you that updates, security patches and the like are available and give you the opportunity to review and study them decide which you really need. As the old adage goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I have only had major probelms with Vista twice and both involved my own negligence were I forgot to change the setting discussed above on one of my son's computers and their dedicated "Flight Similulator" computer. In both cases downloads from Micorsoft got stuck in Stage 3, Installing, and would stay at 0% for five mintutes, restart the machine and do it all over again. I tried everything but simply made matters wrose and in the long run I had to reinstall Vista on both machines. The problem you will find is that while many of the updates are necessary security patches a whole lot of them, when minimal ivestigation is undertaken, are solely designed for work enviroments with networked computers and IT guys using various tools provided to get into users machines to diagnose problems etc.

Antoher annoyance is that Vista will continue to want you to download laguage packs in languages most of will never even hear, much less use, unless we visit the Congo of restricted areas of red China regularly. I mean gigabytes of this trash.

My lastest mishap occured just a few weeks ago as it turns out my son who is home from college and has built high end desktops with me as a hobby for a long time, accidently turned automatic updating back on on his laptop; one of those things that happen at 3am. The next day the computer was trying its level best to install three updates it had downladed from Microsoft but my guess is that they likely could not be installed due to the lack of some prior update. Catch 22, however, was that the problem completely kept out of the system and all restore points disappeared when Restore was accessed from the original Vista Disk. somehow would not show up when I tried a repair with the original VIsta Ultimate Disk. To mske a long story short, which obviously I have trouble doing, this has happened twice and both times I have had to re-install Vista which also leads me to suggest you look into the My Book Home Edition from Western Digital if you do not have a backup drive running backup software. I have them installed all over the house, literally on laptops and desktops; actually I should install a server. Back to the subject, do some reading on the My Book and you will find that its software, available in the home edition but beware the Essential edition, acutally saves to the backup as you save to your hard drive. At least this is how I read the box and reviews. I am not suggesting this due to Vista as I had more BSOD with XP Pro then I have ever had with Vista. While Vista has gotten a bad rap is is in some ways unfair as with the correct hardware it it tremendous. Unfortunatly no one told most of the country looking at changing OS's that htey would likely have to double their hardware investment if they wanted to utilize Vista in the same easy, non-opbstusive way they were used to using XP. Luckily your system has more then enough hardware to make using Vista an enjoyable experience actually allowing you to accomplish more instead of being a burden keeping you from getting needed work accomplished. As for speed, with Vista I consistantly, depending on how I have tweaked my system, get 3dMark06 socres of 17,000 plus. A last tip, keep your graphics dirvers current as this makes a big differnce sometimes under Vista. Best of luck to you and I apologize for rambling. I will work on my brevity. I write briefs mostly for a living and actually have a hard time keeping things short, so I apologize to everyone in advance and will work on my problem. Either way I know I will get some rude comments but such is life.

Computer
Home Built

Thermaltake Tusami Case
Gigabyte GA-EX38-DQ6
Quad Core Extreme QX6850 Overclocked (waste of money as no program I use or that even comes to minds can recognize four cores)
Asus Radeon HD 3870 X2 1gb (currently looking for a second to crossfire with)
Coolit Freezone Refrigerated Water Cooling with 6 Thermal-Electric Coolers (TEC) or Peltiers to chill the water prior to recirculation / CPU kept at constant 30c, case interior 33c.
Patriot Viper 4GB 1066 (PC2 8500) Memory
1,000 watt modular PSU
Latest 3dMark06 17,274, with simple multiplier overclocking

^^ Co-signed on turning off auto updates. After installing the video drivers myself for my card, Vista continues to keep prompting me to download the drivers it thinks is best for my card, which when I choose to install, fails. It does the same thing for my SATA drivers for my motherboard even though I have downloaded and installed the latest set directly from the manufacturers website and the driver date is newer than that listed on the Vista auto-update.