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."
Their benchmarks hardly show a conclusive improvement for Windows 7. Vista mostly beats it in DX10, and XP still beats it about half the other benchmarks. It *does* manage to beat Vista in DX9... hardly exciting, but something.
Their mid-range also seems a bit ambitious - more like mid-range of new hardware for serious gamers, which means high-end for the rest of us.
The most interesting paragraph for me:
"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. "
Now thats something worthwhile. The 2 seconds of "boot time" is irrelevant, being able to use the desktop immediately is a real improvement.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
http://www.firingsquad.com/print_article.asp?current_section=Hardware&fs_article_id=2404
One page, no adds.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
the story doesn't mention, but this is key.
first, they compare a 32bit xp to a 64bit vista; oranges to grapefruits.
next, they add windows 7 and don't mention if it's 32 or 64.
they did a decent job of being objective... but still fell short of offering us the information that we need. does 7 implement 32 and 64bit functionalities as smoothly as vista64? is it the kind of angry child that 64bit xp is?
bad grammar aside, this review is lacking some fundamental information that should have been disclosed on the first page.
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
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
8 years. 8 bloody years. 8 YEARS. EIGHT... YEARS. Say it to yourself.
What the bloody hell has MS been doing for the last EIGHT YEARS? XP *still* outperforms their only other two Microsoft offerings in the market since its release. In the eight years BEFORE XP, we start with MS DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 (remember those days?), go through Windows 95, 98, most decent versions of NT and then Windows 2000. From them to XP... spot the difference. Now jump forward eight years instead and look at the difference, eight years on from XP and what have we got? Next to nothing. Oh, a couple of XP Service Packs that made more difference than every *OS* they've released since.
I looked at every graph on the page and they are all within a reasonable margin of error, especially in the absence of certain details (i.e. are the drivers all optimised for XP, Vista and Windows 7 equally? Was Windows 7 running 32- or 64-bit? etc.). There's nothing there that'll make gamer's go "OOHhh... gotta have that". It's more like "Well, if I do get lumped with Windows 7, hopefully it won't be much worse than my existing, well-configured, XP install".
What the hell have they been doing? I've argued before that there are no significant, new features in Vista and/or Windows 7, a myriad of problems still exist with both (and with XP for that matter), the minimum hardware is increasing all the time just to do the same tasks and there's no performance improvement at all (in fact, with Vista, it's quite likely to be the opposite depending on your uses/hardware). They haven't even bothered to comply with most of the legal demands on them in that time. They sort-of-but-not-quite started documenting SMB/CIFS, which hardly kills your current development teams. Is the code for Windows *really* that bad that this is all they could manage?
Alpha, beta, fine - I expect it to be flaky. In fact, I expect all sorts of debugging code and slagging the disk to death while it churns through buckets of debugging data so they can actually fix real-world problems. However, it builds on Vista drivers which, despite much fuss, are pretty well established now. It performs *identically* to Vista in a lot of tests (which suggests that not much at all has changed under the hood, as does the fact that Vista drivers are still compatible). The new features are basically plug-ins to the existing systems, not massive rewrites of critical code. This all leads me to believe that Windows 7 is a Vista Service Pack, to all intents and purposes. So what the hell were they working on for those 8 years of development with one of the largest software development teams in the world?
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.
Disappointing that they did not test performance on Linux with Wine or Crossover Games. Not every game will run on that but for those that do, the performance comparison could be very interesting. They could also test the performance of the games under ReactOS. Comparing several releases all from the same company, always from the same one company, gets boring after a while.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
The general sentiment and tone of your comment is exactly the same of when XP was getting ready to come out. Everyone at Slashdot swore left and right that XP was bloated to hell, that it'd run too slow, and nobody would buy it, and it would signal the downfall of Microsoft. The interface so horrible that Joe Sixpack was finally going to wake up and switch to Linux. If not the interface, then product activation would. No, Win2k was their last great OS, and it can't possibly get any better than that.
And, here we are, someone arguing that Windows 7 is just Vista relaunched. I should remind you that XP is essentially just 2000 with a few interface tweaks. The driver model stayed the same, the kernel version was bumped up by .1, and it was a little more polished. If it took Microsoft 5 years to go from XP to Vista, what makes you think they could implement severe changes in only 2 years time?
Anyway, I should get going, facts are never welcome in these parts.
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.
This post deserves more coverage here. The "additional" DRM in Vista (And 7) does not in any way affeact anything you could do on XP, OTHER than being able to play HD content from a Blu-ray or HD-DVD (if you still have one lying around) device.
It doesn't monitor your MP3s, it doesn't scan your XviDs or anything like that, it's just HDCP crap. If you have a problem with this, go complain to the likes of the MPAA who forced this crap on us, not Microsoft who just wanted to make sure future content would play on future OSs.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
No, don't.
Google "Protected Media Path" instead.
Vista provides process isolation and continually monitors what kernel-mode software is loaded. If an unverified component is detected, then Vista will stop playing DRM content, rather than risk having the content copied.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
Presumably that is talking about while the content is playing.
Plus, it's only checking the kernel for tampering (pretty sensible with the threat of viruses forever hanging over Windows's head), not scanning your mp3 collection.
Although it is the minority API used for gaming, it still does exist. As long as John Carmack is still pumping out gaming engines, there will be games based on OpenGL. Does anyone here have any first-hand experience on OpenGL performance in Windows7?
No, you can choose between custom kernel mode software, and watching blu-ray / HD-DVD.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to take some random bloke's word for it that their kernel mode software isn't going to trash my Windows kernel or use kernel hooks to keylog or spy on me etc. I'd much rather trust the people who made the kernel itself to say what's safe. On Linux that would mean only installing kernel stuff from distro repros, on Windows it means driver signing.
Not that I'm expecting to watch blu-ray or HD-DVD on my pc for quite some time.
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.
Correction. It's only a practical concern if you steal Windows. I choose not to allow a company to accuse me of theft and run a mini-investigation every time I start my computer or want to install more of their software. If a company (or the police, or whatever) wanted to come in to my home looking for some sort of criminal evidence, they'd get either "hell no!" or a request for their warrant. I don't see why I should allow an electronic invasion of my privacy any more than I would a physical one.
Note: My laptop is running the Windows license it came with. My desktop is using the student Windows license that I got in college, and which the EULA states that I can continue using for personal use after graduation.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Very rare, unsubstantiated reports.
Most pirates were bamboozled when WGA hit. The internet was awash with "My pc wont do updaets nemore, it says sumthing about wga. I have a copy of windows I got from a friend, how do I fix it?" Then came the lol-worthy "paste this javascripty junk into your address bar, then search for updates" fix, then came the version wars with the dlls.
The average pirate (people who got it from their friend, your parents, etc) will but dumbstruck when they encounter WGA blocking them.
And if you're concerned about how a corporation regards and treats you, I've got news for you buddy.