Windows Vista: The Facts

[CH33T03S]

I just havent seen the value of the upgrade for the money it costs.

(Grudgnly holds onto his XP box with both hands)

[DeAtHWiSh]

I saw some inside stuff that microsoft was already in the process of a new operating system to replace vista by 2009. It's called vienna or microsoft windows 7. Supposed to be alot better than vista, well let's atleast hope right. Here is the link if you haven't heard about it:
http://www.windowsvienna.com/

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by DeAtHWiSh

I saw some inside stuff that microsoft was already in the process of a new operating system to replace vista by 2009. It's called vienna or microsoft windows 7. Supposed to be alot better than vista, well let's atleast hope right. Here is the link if you haven't heard about it:
http://www.windowsvienna.com/

I posted that link either in this thread or another one. I dont remember which.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

Actually the X-Fi isn't a sonofa...
Afaik, you can't use any sound card with Vista.
Vista programs your pc to process sound using the CPU.

I stand to be corrected - after all I never tried it myself.

I'm not anti-vista by any means, but I've seen that Vista uses much more memory to run its background processes than XP. I'd prefer to have the resources to be used by my game/s rather than the OS. Even the page file. If you run a dxdiag (or check the taskmanager) using XP you'll see your page file would be between 200-300MB. With a clean boot it can get below 200MB. On the other hand, running a dxdiag/ taskmanager using Vista you'll see your pagefile usage going above 800-1000MB...

I think Vista needs some serious patching/updates/SP before it can be a suitable OS for gamers.

As for sound cards, I have an X-Fi that runs in Vista just fine.

As for the RAM issue everyone complains about, I have used Vista on a single core with 1GB a single core/dual core with 2GB and a quad core with 2 and 4 gigs. Everything ran just fine. All of my games worked (including FEAR) I have never NEVER used all my RAM when using 1,2, or 4GB. NEVER. I have tweaked the crap out of Vista and I cant get the memory down but frankly I could care less as like I said, I never use it all. I dont mind that it uses a gig upon bootup.

I am a hardcore gamer as you can tell from my specs and games for me run just fine. I notice no slow downs compared to that of XP and I run all my games fully maxed out with Vsync off.

[BullGod]

I don't understand you guys. How can you be happy with an OS that makes your favorite game run 10fps slower or more? That's just utter bullshit. A new OS should make everything run faster not slower. And what do you get for it? DX 10 and some eye candy? I just hope they release XP SP3 soon and they will really work to make a better OS. Windows 7 seems promising. And btw it's not based on Vista. It's kernel has only got 28 MB, so it will probably be very fast and not a big resource hog like Vista is. Imo Vista is just another Milenium, a bullshit thrown together OS with a lot of eye candy for the masses... It will be obsolete soon enough, why do you think that news "leaked" of a new OS? Even Bill Gates admitted in his own way that Vista sucked.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by BullGod

I don't understand you guys. How can you be happy with an OS that makes your favorite game run 10fps slower or more? That's just utter bullshit. A new OS should make everything run faster not slower. And what do you get for it? DX 10 and some eye candy? I just hope they release XP SP3 soon and they will really work to make a better OS. Windows 7 seems promising. And btw it's not based on Vista. It's kernel has only got 28 MB, so it will probably be very fast and not a big resource hog like Vista is. Imo Vista is just another Milenium, a bullshit thrown together OS with a lot of eye candy for the masses... It will be obsolete soon enough, why do you think that news "leaked" of a new OS? Even Bill Gates admitted in his own way that Vista sucked.

because at 200 FPS, no one cares about losing 10 FPS.

its *not* a flat '10fps' lower, its like 1%.

How can you people on XP stand those long, slow 15s load times? with superfecth, the second time i load say, a map in a game it loads instantly since its already in ram.

[Kursah]

BullGod, everyone has their opinions, sure Vista has been dissapointing to many, including myself in some areas, that doesn't make it a bad OS. Sure you may lose some performance, but like many have stated, all too many forget that moving to a new OS needs time for support, drivers and technology. Every MS OS has taken more resources, lost some performance and had plenty of issues, how could we expect Vista to be any different? How about Windows 7? It'll be in the same boat with the same people pissing and moaning due to the modern "gotta have it now" society.

The trend won't change, and XP SP3 (at least the version I run) is nice, adds some pep, but it's not life changing. I agree MS should make a "performanced" OS that doesn't have all the junk in it, but in the end we can do it ourselves if we really want it like that.

[Solaris17]

Even Bill Gates admitted in his own way that Vista sucked.

got a link to that?

[pt]

Originally Posted by Mussels

because at 200 FPS, no one cares about losing 10 FPS.

its *not* a flat '10fps' lower, its like 1%.

How can you people on XP stand those long, slow 15s load times? with superfecth, the second time i load say, a map in a game it loads instantly since its already in ram.

i'm always the 1st or second on bf2 when loading maps
and some ppl there are on vista (they're my friends)

[Kursah]

I do gotta admit that Superfetch does a good job with it's tasks, I'm personally waiting to see what Vista SP1 has in store. XP SP3 w/ Zune Theme works just fine for me atm, but I've been swapping between OS's for a while. I still think everyone should try Vista and give it a shot instead of dogging it w/o liking it. PT tried it didn't like it, I have tried it a few times, and I like some parts and dislike others, but every time I try it out and get the newer updates, it gets a lot better. Just like XP did back in the day.

My HDD doesn't go over 55 MB/s avg speed in HDTach on either OS, so really as-far-as loading repetetive games and junk is a tad faster on Vista, there's just some arguements between me, my soundcard, my gaming headset (mic specifically) and Vista that I got tired of messing with for now. I will go back eventually though, no real reason not to when the focus is really on Vista for future support, drivers and technology use imo. But I will always have my Xp copy on standby just-in-case!

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by BullGod

I don't understand you guys. How can you be happy with an OS that makes your favorite game run 10fps slower or more? That's just utter bullshit. A new OS should make everything run faster not slower. And what do you get for it? DX 10 and some eye candy? I just hope they release XP SP3 soon and they will really work to make a better OS. Windows 7 seems promising. And btw it's not based on Vista. It's kernel has only got 28 MB, so it will probably be very fast and not a big resource hog like Vista is. Imo Vista is just another Milenium, a bullshit thrown together OS with a lot of eye candy for the masses... It will be obsolete soon enough, why do you think that news "leaked" of a new OS? Even Bill Gates admitted in his own way that Vista sucked.

If I get more than 40FPS in any game, I could care less if I lose 10FPS. Its still running smooth.

Again with the ME bull shit. It amazes me how many people think that because the ones who do, never put the time into Windows Vista to even have a comparable difference. Because if you had, you would realize that Vista is NOT no pile of goat shit like ME is/was. ME crashed every 11 seconds. I dont see Vista doing that.

Lemme guess, your one of the people whose computer cant run it decent so you bitch about how much the OS sucks. Or that this and that dont work with Vista. If that is the case, then it is the fault of the software manufactures not Microsoft. Microsoft gave everyone plenty of time to make their shit compatible with Vista and they didnt. Now they are behind and we get people complaining about how its Microsoft's fault when it really isnt.

Everyone gives Vista a shit poor rap when it is a helluva lot better right now than it was during its initial beta and final release. In fact, I will go as far to say its a LOT more stable right now than XP is. I have had far less crashes in Vista (and the crashes I did have were the result of to high of an overclock) than I did in XP.

[AddSub]

You know, identical threads like this appear regularly, every 4-6 weeks or so, with identical participants and identical arguments and/or responses. It's almost like there is a rip in time-space-continuum and we are stuck in some sort of shitty B-movie where time repeats itself and we have the same conversation over and over and over.... well, I like B-movies, so, let's get started:

Windows Vista: The Facts

"The Facts"? Is this anything like creating "facts on the ground", one of those "it's so because I/we/them say so" ?

Some personal Vista observations on my primary machine: 3DMark2006 is about 11% slower, 3DMark2003 is about 14% slower, and 3DMark2001 is 78% slower (19k vs. 34k). GLExcess runs @ 2-3FPS max, final score being less than 1k (vs. 26k on 2K/XP), this is due to shitty implementation of OpenGL. HD Tune benchmarks report much slower read/burst rates on my RAID0 (about 20% slower overall) and CPU usage is reported (in HD Tune) about 30% higher than 2k/XP (31% vs. 39% in Vista). WinRAR benchmark (3.71) also shows about 8% slower performance. Encoding with VirtualDub takes similar performance hits. Every game and/or applications either runs slower or it fails to run at all.

Another primary issue aside from obvious perfomance hits I listed: Overlocking issues. On three separate machines (one of mine and two of various family members) I have run into problems with Vista and overclocking. For example, my primary machine (<-- info on the left) does not boot unless I take the overclocks almost back to stock settings. My CPU is just fine @ 3.05Ghz with 2k/XP (18+ hours Prime95 stable), best I could get Vista to boot with was 2.6Ghz.

One of the machines had a multicore Athlon 64 X2 5200+ CPU. There were severe issues with Vista even before I got to overclocking that particular system. There were serious issues with RAM timings @ stock settings. No such issues were experienced with WinXP SP2, which booted just fine. Interestingly, 2Mhz oc on the RAM would cause Vista to go into convulsions, while a nearly 30Mhz OC was perfectly stable on XP. Issues with CPU overclocking were even greater than what I experienced with other single core systems.

---- Entering "Right back at ya!" section! ------

because at 200 FPS, no one cares about losing 10 FPS

Yeah, because in Crysis/Oblivion/S.T.A.L.K.E.R. we all get 200FPS, right? What if the game in question is barely running @ 20FPS, a 10FPS drop would mean going from almost unplayable to just unplayable.

. In terms of interface,security & overall performance Vista has the advantage in my view.

While I can both make amusing and serious comments on the "interface" and "overall performance" of Vista, the word "security" really caught my attention. I say this a lot, but if you want security, as in taking proper measures to keep your data integrity intact, you might want to skip Windows operating systems completely and go straight into Unix territory.

Funny, but what's the point of loads of memory when the OS doesn't utilize it? Look at top under Linux for example, memory gets used.

Well, while various Linux distros and general Linux architecture can be praised for many things, as of lately overall performance is not one of them. Poor example.

Well, if we go back a few years to the XP launch, every single comment made regarding Vista was made of XP. Big, slow, bloated, buggy drivers, resource demands, boot times, etc, etc.

Few service packs later, XP is still those things, "Big, slow, bloated, buggy drivers, resource demands, boot times, etc, etc." XP didn't get better, in fact, for the most part the bloat and architectural issues that existed in Windows XP are still there, 6 years and 2 service pack later. Vista bloat/overhead is here to stay and nothing can fix that, not one, not two, not even ten service packs. Anyways, XP is pretty much Win2k. XP just comes with a hallucinogenic lego color theme and fisher price interface and dialogs for the inept and let’s not forget, a draconian registration system that is completely absent in Win2k. Never having to call anybody after changing my hardware config 16 times over has its benefits, for sure.

Note #1: 3991vhtes? Didn't you have a Vista logo as your forum avatar until recently? Nuff said.

Note #2: Neowin? Neowin?! Bunch of neo-Win-zealots more like it, although I must admit their zealotry has dropped off in potency (as has the general activity on their forums) in the last 6 months or so. I'm guessing it's hard to keep the faith in check when adoption rates of Vista are nowhere near what almighty Klan grandmaster Billy McGates promised.

Note #3: XP-wise, I did an in depth performance review on DSLReports.com (aka BroadbandReports.com) back in February 2002. And even then, in its buggy and unpatched form, with severe driver shortage, my tests showed a 1 to 5 percent of difference in favor of Win98SE, mostly when it came to 2D/3D performance. (A difference that is measurable even today, with fresher drivers) As you probably noticed my own Vista benchmarks show massive differences in performance in XP/Win2k vs Vista, nowhere near the 1%-5% of what was seen when going from 98 to XP.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

Funny, but what's the point of loads of memory when the OS doesn't utilize it? Look at top under Linux for example, memory gets used. That's positive. Like topic says, superfetch loads things so you have to wait less. Besides, with memory prices as they are, just add some more GB's, 20 euros for 1GB, compared to the cost of the OS itself it's nothing.

And when saying "tweaked the shit out of it" you probably mean something like "I changed some settings but aren't listing them just so nobody knows what I'm talking about or what I actually did".


All I can agree on is game performance, benchmarks tend to prefer XP. However, how great was XP when it came out? I think Vista isn't as crappy as many people like to believe. Just because MS made it people shoot it down.

I agree with all of that 100%. Ive said that all along. Just because Microsoft made it, people dis it. They bitched they wanted a new OS and when Microsoft tried to make it better than XP and delayed it, they bitched. When they shoved it out the door because people wanted it, they bitched because it was "buggy". It's a lose lose for Microsoft.

[DeAtHWiSh]

hey just to bring something up, microsoft should start with a fresh os, with no registry and all those stupid processes that have to run in the back ground. Just taking out the registry would help a ton, and stop it from slowing down after time.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DeAtHWiSh

hey just to bring something up, microsoft should start with a fresh os, with no registry and all those stupid processes that have to run in the back ground. Just taking out the registry would help a ton, and stop it from slowing down after time.

i guess it would be possible to segregate it - actually have each app have its own registry files, with less of them being in the core registry. (stopping the useless files such as file locations/links being in the registry where more important data is needed).

Good idea deathwish, wont be surprised to see that in windows vienna

[Triprift]

they are going to be bringing out windows 7 wich will bring a strippedback kernal a simplified interface better compatibility with older software and touch screen technology. Expect to see it late 2009 or mid 2010 for my prediction.

[OrbitzXT]

Originally Posted by sladesurfer

"What will it help me do?"

The presence of Vista on my boss's Sony Vaio VGN-NR160E has taught me how to properly slipstream drivers into a Windows XP disc, since Sony refuses and makes it downright difficult to downgrade from Vista to XP, offering no drivers at all. Successfully removing Vista and getting XP up and running on that laptop gave me a confidence boost as well. Thanks Vista! Who needs Dr. Phil?

[Judas]

Originally Posted by Ketxxx

7 points why Vista is "good".. I can list about 1000 reasons why its not I have to say the boot time point is invalid though, my XP system boots in about 20 seconds and thats not even on a clean install.

List away

[Judas]

Originally Posted by Conti027

I <3 Vista!! it should be a club

I'd join think Vista is great..

[pt]

Originally Posted by OrbitzXT

The presence of Vista on my boss's Sony Vaio VGN-NR160E has taught me how to properly slipstream drivers into a Windows XP disc, since Sony refuses and makes it downright difficult to downgrade from Vista to XP, offering no drivers at all. Successfully removing Vista and getting XP up and running on that laptop gave me a confidence boost as well. Thanks Vista! Who needs Dr. Phil?

same with asus laptops
i need to check every manufacturer for drivers
atheros, realtek, ati, etc.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by pt

same with asus laptops
i need to check every manufacturer for drivers
atheros, realtek, ati, etc.

personally i think vista depends on the hardware somewhat.

If vista has default drivers for your hardware (such as intel chipsets) people seem to have more luck getting a stable, fast OS. i've personally noticed say, via chipsets - those systems seem slower and less reliable under vista. I dont mean ALL of them, but some of them have more problems than others (example: none of my intel chipsets crash in vista. One 650i chipset, sleep mode crashes the system. All the via systems, sleep mode doesnt work. On the via systems, one freezes while shutting down occasionally, and hte other refuses to boot sometimes (but always works on the 2nd try) )

If you have a modern, high end system ist all good.

Also lots of people love quoting antique benchmarks, such as 3dmark 2001 - currently, no one cares about anything over 100FPS except benchmarks. Vista does seem slower, if your FPS is above Vsync. i havent got any direct evidence since my last high refresh CRT died, but i've noticed if you compare vista to XP in an app that say, averages 30-60 FPS theres next to no difference. Compare an app where the FPS is over 100, and there is a large difference - go to 200FPS plus, and vista gets owned.

How do we know vista isnt dropping the FPS for some unkown reason past a certain point? Could it be capping it, to conserve power? i dunno, its only a theory atm.

[DeAtHWiSh]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i guess it would be possible to segregate it - actually have each app have its own registry files, with less of them being in the core registry. (stopping the useless files such as file locations/links being in the registry where more important data is needed).

Good idea deathwish, wont be surprised to see that in windows vienna

Yeah, I'm sure vienna won't have that just because microsoft has a bunch of lazy bastards that don't bother on starting a freshly new os. They rather continue using the same crap the've always been using. I think Vienna might have something like what you stated (all programs having their own registry), which would gradually speed up applications, but still the damn registry is there. Let's just hope that Windows 7 isn't the same crap as vista and is better than xp (maybe gain fps this time rather than lose them).

[EviLZeD]

vista 64 is running flawlessly for me i prefer it slightly over xp. all my games run fine on vista sometimes it feels like there even running better and its really stable

[pcgolfer85]

Originally Posted by Ketxxx

SP1 is crap, I got my hands on a very late beta SP1 (almost final) and Vista still sucked.

What sucks for you, may work well for others.

Can't we just leave it at that?!?!?

[Ehstii]

...or

you could just go with Mac OSX Leopard thats better than Vista OS