Tuesday, January 2nd 2007
Microsoft claims Aero doesn't slow computers
Microsoft has sponsored a study into its latest operating system and the new Aero theme, which has come to the conclusion that it doesn't slow PCs. Apparently the new interface "had little or no negative impact on Vista's performance". Matt Ayers, a program manager at Microsoft, wrote "We put quite a bit of effort into making sure that the new visuals were as efficient as possible, and it really paid off," continuing "You can run Aero without guilt!" Many people have criticised the resource-hungry Windows Vista which has put some gamers off using it, and this report may make people sceptical as to why Microsoft recommends a noticeably more powerful system when running the Aero interface. Although the report comes to this conclusion, it does not appear to contain any benchmarks related to gaming or 3D applications.
Source:
Neowin.net
76 Comments on Microsoft claims Aero doesn't slow computers
as for ram, the cpu/mem meter sidebar prog shows 70% ram (of 1gb) used after boot (untouched , no tweaks or additions) so i refuse to belive anyone can use vista confortably on 256meg unless all thats done is staring at the desktop picture ;). xp just barely gets by on 256, but wont be playing any games with it.
enough said!!!
Lets be real Aero is best suited in operating some sort of multi tasking business. It's only a novelty at best for home use. Blah, Blah, Blah you can "invent" some uses for Aero but we are thinking masses of users. A few fanboys with a creative flair for novelty don't count in this aspect.
With that said, the amount of raw power you need simply won't reach target business groups IMO. I mean business buy computer not video cards, ram and CPU with Vista ready chipsets. You cannot treat this segment of consumers as though they are enthusiastic that will nick pick system requirements. They want a ready made complete package in bulk that won't break the bank just to use Aero.
Aero will not sell Vista and will fail IMO but we will see.
And, it is COOL to know that "wild looking" tilted tile that ALT+TAB gives you for 2d apps does the SAME for 3d based games too... I didn't know that!
(Again - I have STILL yet to try VISTA, period! So, there is a great deal I do NOT know about it) I'd again wager, that a Windows 2000 capable rig could probably push VISTA w/ out AEROGLASS interface in use as well... & just fine. Why? Do the native WHQL audio drivers in VISTA behave badly?? Just curious... Aha! No doubt... this is another "good thing to know", especially on the RAM amount required...
APK
P.S.=> The ONLY things I didn't like that I have heard about VISTA was that Ms was "phasing out" OpenGL being implemented natively, & that instead chose to "emulate its API calls over to DirectX" & from the looks of it, it was NOT as good looking as native OpenGL display is on Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & also slower... overheads of translation of OpenGL API calls to DirectX ones most likely... so far @ least, but I also heard here that this is NOT going to be the case & MS is going to put OpenGL back in for 'native support', but the user has to install it back into the OS after install (or, something along those lines)... apk
Wile E: No it doesnt use over 700MB as i just showed. I can even take screenies of it when i'm on that rig next.
Mad-Matt: Yes, HD usage was up. I'm running a single Samsung SP2504C (samsung SATA-II 250GB) and it works fine with everything, but defragging weekly seems to make it all happy.
Alec: the cool trippy alt-tab only works for games in windows (not fullscreen), i've only really tried company of heroes on there since it isnt my personal rig, and it sadly didnt work there.
The reason for audio sucky is that vista doesnt support hardware accelerated audio, therefore anything usign 3D audio will be slower. Also, that rig has shitty onboard AC97 audio :D
I dont know about openGL, i've avoided gaming on there until proper stable drivers are released (X1800XL atm on the vista rig, but the drivers are still beta so i dont want to make any wild claims until its stable)
EDIT: I wouldn't mind seeing screenies anyway. I'd like to get a better idea of what kind of resources Vista uses. You think you could throw a shot of the processes that are running after a boot, also?
On the other hand my freshly installed XP machine uses just over 200MB on first boot, and stays under 300MB with roughly the same windows open(an internet browser, IE, and a few config/explorer windows).
However, XP is actually noticeably more repsonsive when there is less RAM in a system, which is the main concern to me. To me More sluggish=More bloated. Even with 2GB of RAM OSX still seems sluggish sometimes.
That's on a 1GHz iMac G4, and the only time OS X feels sluggish for me is when the CPU is maxed out. Before I got my G5, I ran a rogue OS X installation on my PC, and OS X was far more responsive and used less ram than XP. You might want to check your start up items on OS X, you could have an app or two eating that ram.
EDIT: I was just looking at Activity Monitor and there are some possible confusing values there. You might be going by the Used ram value, which is wrong. That value also adds in the Inactive ram. You need to add Wired and Active together to get your ram usage in OS X. If you don't believe that, just compare it to your Free ram value. Wired+Active+Free=Total ram installed. I have never figured out why they add Inactive into the Used ram total. As a side note, my total page file size is 128MB with only 25MB of data written into it. Much, much smaller values than my XP pagefile values.
EDIT: EDIT:I just got OS X down to 121MB on a fresh boot, by disabling my start up apps and helpers.
sorry for the quality, but it only allows 200KB images here...
We can argue RAM usage till we are blue in the face. The fact still stands that I consider OSX bloated because even doing things on a fresh install with 2GB of RAM the OS is sluggish at times. And I am talking OS functions, not other things that involve 3rd party apps. Like openning the Wireless configuration, for instnace. This is usually the very first thing I do on a fresh install so I can have internet access. It never fails, click on icon, wait 4-5 seconds, configuration finally comes up. Waits like that make the OS seem bloated, even if it isn't using a lot of RAM, hell it seems to do that no matter how much RAM is installed. There are a lot of parts of the OS that are inefficient.
On a completely bare fresh install of either OS, they will use roughly the same amount of RAM, however to get a comfortable experience in OSX I can't stand using less than 1GB of RAM, however with XP and Vista I work perfectly fine with 512MB. OSX is, in my eyes, far more bloated than Windows at this point. Now I am done with this topic.
Perhaps you didn't read his original post. I qoute it for you to make it easier. It isn't just Windows thinking there Slick.
And I will argue this till I'm blue in the face because you are wrong on this subject. OS X is far less "bloated" than windows. It uses less resources all the way around.
The fact still remains that I can comfortably run XP on 256MB of RAM(with themes disabled) or 512MB(with themes on), while I need at least 1GB to comfortably run OSX(regardless of what it enabled or disabled). I don't care what RAM figures you want to throw out and what processor you want to say you use, I can't stand to use an OSX machine with less than 1GB of RAM, that makes the OS bloated in my eyes. Period, end of discussion, OSX is bloated.
To Wile E, my eMcc was a 1GHz before I overclocked it (not for the faint-hearted) but the 1/3 increase in speed has given it a new lease of life esp. in WoW, delayed getting a new iMac by a good 6 mths or more.
Unoptomized, on a system with 2GB of ram.
Bloated my ass.
Gonna be hard to backup your FUD when I have a brand spanking new macbook pro.
Note: This is processes for ALL users. Root included. (Obviously)
Ofcourse theres a huge performance difference, as there is in windows too. Pagefile out the ass.
Difference is, you can have the same UI no matter the ram and GPU. Its the same UI experience. If you wanna compare os x and XP with 64mb ram, OS X is still VERY VERY USABLE. Even on a 300mhz G3. Normally, the bottleneck actually lies in the hard drive. STick a 7200rpm drive in, and its a hell of a lot faster. Faster swapping ftw.
This was shown verymuch so with hackintosh x86- No GPU acceleration, and all people lost was the waves of adding widgets to the dashboard.. everything else ran flawlessly.
Whereas vista craps out.
OS X with 64mb ram sucks, but atleast its usable. Windows XP is too, but damn, it sucks. However, OS X doesnt spam your screen with ZOMFG YOU'RE OUT OF RAM YOU FOOL bubbles every 2 minutes. :banghead:
And this is not a slimmed down system, not at all... I use it daily, and often. I have never went in and tweaked processes (you can see a few that need kicked out as it is right now anyways)..
I'm not gonna say its bad to buy the extra ram, as I saw huge performance increases from going to 2Gb up from 1, but I also run Photoshop, Parallels, Visual studio, Dreamweaver, and various other apps at the same time... When windows eats 512mb alone, it makes a big difference :/
well done microsoft, you created the biggest piece of shit to date.
ed- for the record im running vista transformation pack 6 done by mr. windows x, making xp look like vista, but wthout all the negatives (well most anyway) and without a clean restart an just FF closed, RAM usage is 166MB. beat that vista.