Crysis Preview, Runs faster on Vista

[bapenguin]

Gamespot (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/crysis/news.html?page=1&sid=6154899) has an exclusive preview up of Crysis for the PC. A few interesting tidbits come out of the interview with Cevat Yerli, Crytek president and CEO. The first of note is that gamers with 64-bit processors should see a 10-15% increase in performance over the 32-bit version. The second interesting fact is that users with Windows Vista will have a performance advantage over Windows XP users.What's interesting is that Yerli told us that if you have Windows Vista and an older DirectX 9 card, you should still see better performance with Windows Vista than Windows XP, even if the hardware remains unchanged. "DirectX 9 on Vista will run faster throughout due to the better device driver model...which is a great thing because just upgrading the operating system on the same rig, you get a better gaming experience," he said.

That's the first I heard of that. I wonder what the actual numbers are though. Is it something minimal like a 2% increase in performance, or something major like 10-15%.

[Varsity]

It's an optimised driver model. It's only logical that legacy games will run faster too.

The real question is whether Vista's bloat and extra overhead will counteract the benefits.

[JediSanf]

The real question is whether Vista's bloat and extra overhead will counteract the benefits.

That's a good point. I seem to remember hearing that Vista would completely retreat when a game is loaded (give up all non-kernal resources, especially video resources). Was this ever true?

[Qoz]

It's been said before, but really? Do they know?
Do they have acces to the final DirectX code? And final hardware drivers from ATI and nVidia?

I think it's just Microsoft predictions, but they could turn out to be true.
If the Vista OS at launch is 10-15% faster than an optimized XP, we will see a significant difference when Vista/DX/hardware drivers get updated along the years.

[Borys]

Crysis runs better on Vista?

Uh-oh, here's the first crack on my Vista hate gem...

I have to install it later today, we got some SWEEEEEET looking beta DVDs straight from MS today. Package, instruction, key code and a DVD - everything is there.

[holysin]

Isn't DX9 going to be emulated on the vista? They actually managed it to be faster?

[Varsity]

Not emulated, ported.

[H.Bogard]

I posted this like a week ago... onto the front page. :\

[bapenguin]

I posted this like a week ago... onto the front page. :\

Doh. Totally missed that. Ah well the quotes I used make this a slightly different focus of discussion.

[SexualChoc]

Not that Vista needed a good marketing drive, but having them say Crysis will run faster on it should persuade a few people to pick a new OS.

[soco]

That's a good point. I seem to remember hearing that Vista would completely retreat when a game is loaded (give up all non-kernal resources, especially video resources). Was this ever true?

maybe there's a special case for games & full screen apps, but according to this page (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/winvistadisplaydrivermodel.asp):


When an application requiring the GPU is launched, control is wrested away from any other applications currently using the GPU. This happens because there is no ability to share the GPU across multiple applications simultaneously. In Windows Vista, the GPU is utilized for many common activities, like basic window management and video rendering. Additionally, with the Windows Presentation Foundation (part of the .NET Framework 3.0 development platform), there are new APIs that enable developers to easily use the GPU to provide non-gaming applications with rich user-friendly interfaces. Since all these applications and features are dependent on the GPU, GPU multitasking is critical.

it then talks about things implemented to have lots of apps GPU memory management and scheduling.

i've heard talks of improvements based on various improvements in DX10 and the vista driver model, but i've never seen any numbers, and frankly at this stage, it's still to early to make any guesses IMO. however, according to MS they've greatly reduced the bloat in a lot of areas and simplified a lot of other interfaces. this alone could account for some of the improvements in some drivers.

that link contains a tiny little section at the very bottom about "Console-like simplicity for gaming". according to that, for DX10 they've removed compatability bits, which means you may not get an error for trying to run really bleeding edge apps on an ancient card, it just may run at 5 frames per minute :D

[Shifteh]

The real question is whether Vista's bloat and extra overhead will counteract the benefits.
This was my concern right out of the gate. I just got XP Pro, and it took a lot to force me to move to it from 2K. From everyone I know in tech support, they all advised me to stick with 2K as long as possible.

That said, if, magically, Vista isn't a huge hog, and lets me play games, I might, might get it. We'll see though.

[Lord Dongkey]

Vista's a hog.

Go look up some review/preview articles of people that, from a clean install and cold boot, have a 900 Meg+ commit charge.

That's fucking *HOG*

**Edit - upon further reading, I think that was someone running the "Vista super ultimate mega giant XTREME" edition. Yeah, the one they suggest gamers get.

Regular vista beta 2 installs are showing a 400-500 meg baseline commit.

[RMan]

Well, if true then I definately hate Vista less, the previous statements were that DX9 apps would be considerably slower than XP. Knowing that they aren't actively slowing down DX9 is definately a good thing.

[Qoz]

Regular vista beta 2 installs are showing a 400-500 meg baseline commit.There is still alot of debug and bloat in the Vista betas.
They are working hard on optimizing and removing the bugs right now.
We should not judge the OS on beta impressions - XP was bloated too when in beta.

[Iron Maiden]

it has been said before that on the latest beta of vista all games run 10-15% better. level loading goes up as far as 50%

[51|RandoM]

It's an optimised driver model. It's only logical that legacy games will run faster too.

The real question is whether Vista's bloat and extra overhead will counteract the benefits.

Correct, the CEO is talking "in theory" at best.