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Researchers Sour on Vista Service Pack 1 Performance
Stony Stevenson passed us a link indicating that a group of researchers has described Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista Service Pack 1 as basically a performance dud. Researchers from the Devil Mountain Software group is claiming that a series of in-house benchmark tests showed that users hoping to receive a speed boost from the update will be disappointed. "Devil Mountain ran its DMS Clarity Studio framework on a laptop Barth described as a "barn burner" -- dual-core processor, dedicated graphics, and either 1GB or 2GB of memory -- to compare performance of the SP1 release candidate that Microsoft released last week with the RTM version that hit general distribution last January. The Vista RTM was not updated with any of the bug fixes, patches or performance packs that Microsoft has pushed through Windows Update since the operating system's debut. 'One gigabyte, 2GB [of memory], it didn't make a difference,' said [CTO Craig] Barth. 'SP1 was never more than 1% or 2% faster.'"
Did Microsoft say it would improve overall system performance?
50 million lines of code and they couldn't find anything that needed optimization?? Or were their priorities elsewhere? These days, optimization always seems to be relegated to "low man on the totem pole."
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
"This is a BETA, it is not finished yet. Everything will be alright when it is released."
Last one out of Redmond, please turn off that god damn useless big ass table...
Without wishing to troll, when has a Window service pack ever improved the speed of a Windows OS?
In fact, and I'm sure someone on Slashdot has raw data on this (that perhaps even shows I'm wrong), Apple are the only company who has ever achieved this on a regular basis.
I've found in my rather short development career is something scarily similar to the first law of thermodynamics: "Bad code once created can never be destroyed." In most commercial situations, the risk of breaking a routine far outweighs the benefit the change brings.
We've built an entire area of study, refactoring, on trying to sell the importance of keeping code clean. I'm still not 100% convinced that the case for refactoring has been made. If you spend three months refactoring, is the simpler overall structure really going to speed up development sufficiently to justify the capital outlay? In all but the very worst code-bases, the answer is unclear.Bear in mind, refactoring my cause you to notice bugs that you can't fix because it would break an interface. Now your code has to be badly structured to support this bad business logic. This can be enough to render the effort useless.
This is why service packs rarely improve functionality or performance. Windows XP SP2 is a notable exception. The risk is simply too great.
Simon
Vista has one great selling point as far as I'm concerned: DX10. It's inevitable that games will eventually require it, though so far it's not exactly a big deal.
So I notice Crysis has a "Very High" setting that's disabled for me in XP. Ok, I think, the first half or so of the game runs ok with High settings, so maybe it might just barely be playable on Very High. Just to be able to see what it looks like.
I boot into Vista and install the game there. Lo and behold, it runs at almost exactly half the FPS on High compared to in XP. Had to drop it to Medium to be even remotely playable. Needless to say, Very High is what I'd need to be to enjoy it with everything at max.
Is the culprit crap drivers for my hardware, general performance drain by Vista, or DRM using everything it can to make sure I'm actually allowed to use the computer today? I don't know, but I do know Vista has made me seriously try a Linux on a desktop for the first time (only used it for servers until now). If only more games supported it, or ran under Wine, I'd be happy as can be.
Do some research and you'll find you don't need a service pack to tune Vista:
Turn off: Volume Shadow Copy (files won't be versioned automatically any more), indexing service (rapid searching won't work any more), and SuperFetch (apps wont be pre-loaded and so will start slower, but you'll have more "free memory" on average - a debatable benefit anyway).
You'll notice XP levels of disc activity (barely any) and lot's more free memory. That's because Vista's not doing anything. Personally, I like to be able to search instantly, have apps load instantly, and have my critical files backed up transparently; so I don't mind the "bloat".
Anyway, if you actually know how Windows works, you'll know what you don't want running and what you do. Turn off the stuff you don't want, but most people are fine with the defaults even if it means using more resources.
throw new NoSignatureException();
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Researchers Sour on Vista SP1 RC1 Performance
A release candidate should be identical to the actual release; that's why it's called a "release candidate" and not a beta version. The only things that would be changed between the RC and the release are any major bugs such as crashes, exploits, etc. Any performance tweaks would have already been done by the time it hit release candidate status. Similarly any debugging code that would slow things down would have also been removed.
Tell that to the KDE team.
Won't happen - they wouldn't give users the ability to reanimate the dead without the permission of the copyright holder (presumably FSM or Odin or someone). I suppose they could get official backing by releasing something (Holy Windows?) which makes you pray for half an hour before booting but, now that I think about it, that's pretty much the current position... ...oh, shit.
Can someone lend me a cricket bat, please?
I'm sure the only thing tying you to Windows these days is your own aging skill-set. Let's face it, Windows has always been your bread-and-butter as a programmer right? Well one could see why you would feel slighted when others bash what you've spent a large amount of your life learning and suffering with. The cold truth is: The Windows skill-set is in danger if MS keeps dropping the ball. Every time MS drops a steaming pile of OS on the market, more people make the switch to Apple, or Linux, and your skill-set degrades just a notch. The thought of mass defections from Windows probably makes you wake up in a cold sweat at night. Well, I'm not going to sugar-coat it: Vista is turning many people elsewhere, and Apple is making all the right moves in the market right now to swiftly pick those disenfranchised folks up. It's only a matter of time before the market tips and non-windows machines are the minority in many areas. It may not be tomorrow, or even ten years from now, but I've lost all hope in MS pulling up from the tailspin they are in.
In closing, I think that there is no better time then RIGHT NOW to expand your skill-set to include Windows agnostic developing. Because I'm of the opinion that there is a huge shift happening in the market right now, just very slowly...
God is real unless declared integer.
...Vista is NOT about performance. It's about security. The market demanded a 'more secure' Windows, and Microsoft delivered. The market once demanded speed, and MS delivered Windows 98.
So what you're saying is that you don't care because it's not your primary OS. Those that do care may be thinking of it running as their primary OS. Heck they may be forced to do so at work in a couple of years. Their LIVING may depend on it.
I do use XP as my primary OS at home and at work and you bet I care. It ain't my spare car. It's my primary ride.
How is the parent modded as insightful? He's saying he doesn't give a shit because he hardly uses it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The RAM usage at startup for a newly-installed system is simply absurd. 600-700MB is not an exaggeration. The graphics card needs for the new environment (without which it's mostly XP right? It's not like there's a new object-oriented file system in there right?) are quite hgh for most business needs.
The slow file copy isn't a joke. We're talking 1hr+ to copy 2.5GB to a FW hard drive from internal SATA. That's about 25MB/min, 120 times slower than the peak speed of FW. I think you can get more out of a parallel port.
There are some nice additions. But it's not worth the trouble, as some of the flaws totally override those.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Bad permissions cause Vista to copy files VERY slowly because it has to reset them on all files.
On the Lame Excuses List, this falls somewhere above "You can't take bottled water on an airplane or the terrorists might win" but still doesn't beat out "He only hits me because he loves me."
If the equivalents of "cp -r" and "cp -pr" take noticeably different amounts of time to complete on your operating system, something is broken, because a multi-gigahertz processor can finish fiddling with even complicated permission bits long before a 50MB/s disk needs to have them ready to write.