Slashdot Mirror
Windows 7 Gaming Performance Tested
Timmus writes "Gamers holding onto Windows XP may not have to fear sluggish performance when Windows 7 debuts. While Windows Vista's gaming performance was pretty spotty at launch, the Windows 7 beta build seems to handle most games well. Firingsquad has tested the Windows 7 beta against Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1 on midrange and high-end gaming PCs across 7 different games. While the beta stumbles in a couple of cases, overall it performs within a few percentage points of Windows XP, actually outrunning XP in multiple benchmarks."
From the abstract: "overall it performs within a few percentage points of Windows XP, actually outrunning XP in multiple benchmarks". Windows XP was released in late 2001, and in the almost-8 years since, Microsoft has managed to improve performance for my games by "a few percentage points". Not, "alot of percentage points", but only a few. If XP is only marginally worse off then Windows 7 will be, then whats microsoft working on? The flashy looks that I dont see when I have a full screen of zombies being torn apart? While I know that this is only a beta test and should be taken lightly, I can see no major advantage to changing my current setup: linux for working, and xp for gaming. Its been 8 years since XP was released, and its -still- only marginally worse performing then 7. /rant
They don't show an improvement at all.
In most of the tests, even Vista is faster, and in the few where Windows 7 wins, it's by so little it could be within the margin of error of the tests. As the article says, the differences are most likely driver related rather than intrinsic to the OS.
And the reason they're so close is that Windows 7 IS Vista with a few tweaks and a hell of a lot better marketing.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
OK, FFS can we stop linking to the BULLSHIT 16 paragraph=16 page articles that are meant to maximize web traffic? PLEASE?
Jesus, please: just copy the damn printable link and get it all on one page.
Slashdot is a fairly heavy-traffic site. You have the throw weight discourage this HORRIBLE style of web page design.
If the print-summary page isn't available then link the CONCLUSIONS page...readers who are smart enough to parse what WinMark scores are can *probably* figure out how to get back to the detail pages.
Here's the damn link: http://www.firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_section=Hardware&fs_article_id=2404
-Styopa
What DRM are you concerned about? Be specific.
The only DRM that is a real concern to me is WGA, and that is in XP as well.
Was it informative? No.
Was it interesting? No.
Was it funny? No.
Was it an emotional remark, offering no information or reasoning? Yes. --> Troll
Now, a reasonable discussion of why you won't purchase anything with DRM might be informative, but that veers into off-topic - since the article is about performance of Windows 7, not whether or not you will buy it, or how you feel about DRM.
Operating systems are UIs; they are not intended to be performance boosters. Their task is to deliver the information that you need in a timely, neat and conclusive manner. As far as I hear, Windows 7 does this better than Vista as well as (at least when it comes to the neat part) XP.
Try thinking of it in terms of a human body: we're all pretty much the same, but with some differences in component performance. It all comes down to how the body is used and maintained.
Go ahead. Make a sex joke.
I agree totally; GGP is off topic and uninformative. It is, however, a valid question, and one which would be pivotal in my decision to buy this new OS. I don't care what FPS I'll get playing FarCry 2 if I have to install cripplewear to achieve it. No doubt many folk here agree. I don't need to specify which particular DRM I am concerned about; The very idea of it being required is enough to put me off. It's a matter of principle, like so many other areas of protest. I take personal offence at being treated like a crook at every opportunity, and I'll keep taking offence, and telling people why, as often as possible. After all, there's no better way to change policy than by cutting off the offending party's revenue stream, and telling them why you're doing it.
I stopped buying Big4 music for exactly the same reason. I know it's all "drops in the ocean", but drops start streams, which start rivers, which carve landscapes.
All we need is lots more drops who would carve the landscape they want to see.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Running Vista64 since day one, and Windows 7 for a while, I must say internally both systems look similiar. Some article TL to quote stated that Seven is to Vista like 98SE was to 98. It does not take a rocket scientist to guess MSFT would never release such a dud like XP64 again - it's been overdone (can you say that?) by now.
Plain old sigh.
Actually 64 bit applications are generally a bit faster than the same code compiled for 32 bit. The 64 bit applications can take avantage of the 64 bit registers so more data stays in the core.
The 64 bit programs do use up more memory which is normally the down side. (Which uses more bandwidth, etc...)
Your FSB is fast enough to deal. The pipeline in your CPU works on bigger chunks anyway. Heck, thats why vector processors were invented, MMX, SSE, etc - registers weren't wide enough. Executable size is insignificant, and instructions are varying length anyway (opcodes don't suddenly become 64bit on x64).
Theres almost a thousand threads on my current box. I'd say thats taking advantage of both cores. Apart from algorithms that flat out don't parellelize (eg MD5ing a bunch of data) it seems to be going pretty good here...
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
The whole article/title just reeks of wrongness and is too early to test.
Testing games on a beta for performance?
First off any real online PC Gamer who hasn't done it already has found out that Punkbuster doesn't exactly work online for Win7 without tricking the Services options. Not news since this was the story on Vista, only story is the customers demanding the developers to get some drivers and compatibility.
The drivers aren't exactly out or have not been polished, so you will still have some performance issues like you did with Vista when it came out. Not including the 10-20% hit you will take in frame performance. Either way the games will run smooth, I made the move from XP to Vista after they worked out all the bugs and compatibility issues in the first 3 months of release.
Game performance really depends heavily on good video card drivers and patches by the developers, I dunno if you can adjust for Win7 as it is basically Vista with the sugarcoated desktop performance. The kernel really will not affect game performance that much when you are talking FPS, really it is developers rushing out half finished games to meet the schedule.
Add to it, all the benchmarks look exactly the same Vista, XP and Win7. You want more performance? Than pay the developers for a couple months of optimization, as far as I can tell most companies are shorting their development teams and rushing them to get out the game.
Personally I am more amazed at all the ass kissing Win7 has got when anybody who spent more than 5 minutes using Vista can clearly see the issues that are on hand for PC gamers and the average desktop user. Only this time, Vista cleared up a lot of those problems and allow a more stream less transition from XP/Vista to Win7.
Let me preface this comment by stating that I am not a MS fanboy by any means. But I do have to say this about Windows 7: Yea so Windows 7 isn't as fast as XP. Did anyone ever really consider the fact that it is a newer OS that is doing MORE than XP? The fact that it looks better, and does more than XP but still runs comparably fast as XP is a feat. If you are really that concerned about performance, why don't I see you using some type of DOS port? Or linux at the command line? All I am saying is that MS is in a lose / lose battle when it comes to their OS. If they drop features to make it faster than XP then everyone will bitch that it doesn't have those features. But if they keep them in there, people will bitch because it isn't as fast as XP.
Actually, after looking at the benchmarks this is what I came away thinking about Vista, Win7, XP overall.
If you want DX10 performance, Vista.
If you want DX9 performance on iCore7, Win7.
If you want DX9 and have a midrange system, most do, WinXP.
The article's take on the results can be summarized in two words, "mixed bag."
Ironically, Slashdot comes away with a bright and sunny view on things.
Their analysis as usual does not coincide with the reality presented by the results.
Of course, it all depends on what games you most prefer to play, for example Far Cry plays poorly in XP in all cases versus Vista/Win7.
I find it interesting they have no benchmarks in DX10 for Fallout 3, CoD: Waw, and several more. I looked into it just now and these particular titles lack DX10 support.
What this all means is, if you haven't upgraded to an iCore7 and most interesting games still use DX9, stick with XP. If you only play DX10 games, stay with Vista regardless what architecture you're on. Win7 fails at DX10, except in FarCry where it only does one or two fps better than Vista.
There you go, an honest analysis of the results.
"because Windows 7 felt more ready to go once the desktop loaded up. Both XP and Vista took at least an extra minute after the desktop loaded to be ready to run applications, while Windows 7 ran Firefox without stuttering or hesitation. "
That's a bit weird. My PC with a 14-month-old XP SP2 install is running applications perfectly less than five seconds after I log in.
My old P4 with a six-year-old install took maybe 5-10 seconds at a high estimate, with a total boot time of less than 25 seconds. What have they got on this thing that it takes such an incredibly long time? A minute is something I might expect out on a crap laptop running Vista. For XP on a modern desktop it's crazy.