Vista Gaming Performance

[bapenguin]

TechGage (http://techgage.com/article/windows_vista_gaming_performance_reports) took a few popular gaming titles through the benchmarks on Windows Vista. How does Microsoft's new operating system affect gaming performance? In some cases quite a bit, in other cases not much at all.Now looking at the graph, 1680x1050 specifically, we can see HL2 proved ~13 FPS slower than XP. Since the game in general was not as smooth as it was on XP, I'm surprised that the results were that high. The thing was, it ran fine for the most part, but the gameplay experience was dampened with these random stalls. That 3 FPS minimum you see was the result of the biggest halt during that benching run.

Sounds like it's very dependant on what game you are running. I'm sure in the next few months we'll see more mature drivers (which is the biggest factor here really) and performance will increase and stablize.

[pheriannath]

I'm holding off of Vista for at least a few months while the driver situation sorts out. I'm hearing the 64-bit version is really gonna screw some people.

[Jack Random]

Calling the current Forceware Vista drivers horrid would be an insult to everything previously referred to by that term.

I mean really, the driver situation for Vista is bad, I haven't seen anything like this since win 2000.

[CaptStu]

I am not a PC gamer, but I was at a local GameStop yesterday placing an order for Crackdown and noticed a Games for Windows (I'm guessing Vista) kiosk alongside the others from the 360, Wii and PS3. I've never seen one before. Just thought it was interesting. It looked similar to that of the 360 kiosk but had a keyboard/mouse combo and a 360 controller.

[TempestBlayze]

I don't think there are Vista GeForce or Catalyst drivers yet. That is what I read. Probably in the coming weeks. Maybe then the FPS' will even out or get better.

[J3DI]

I'm not sure how HL2 would look on my machine... Vista gives it a score of 2 :( Well, at least I can run Aero

[Grifter]

Damn Double posts!!

This seems to be happening to me alot lately.

[Grifter]

The driver issue isn't that bad for newer systems, but even if your rigs a bit older(like mine) Vista seems to Run very, very well without a single driver installed.

I don't know about ATI but Nvidia has had Vista drivers out for about a month now, they suck but they are out and the new ones should be out Today.

So far I really like Vista, of course I haven't played many games on it yet but I am sure most games will run the same if not better after a month or so of updates and tweaks.

[TrackZero]

Strange, I've heard WoW runs at a higher framerate in Vista due to better harddrive caching.

[Jack Random]

Strange, I've heard WoW runs at a higher framerate in Vista due to better harddrive caching.
WoW runs well in Vista, but the frame rates are more consistent in XP (personal experience)

NWN2 on the other hand, is pretty much unplayable using my XP settings.

[bryan]

Well WOW is very kind on the graphics card for the most part. Key thing for good performance in it was memory, and lots of it, due to the number of objects the game world had to handle.

[Hap0]

In my experience with using Vista RTM I get around a 10% increase FPS in gaming, compared to XP.

[Varsity]

In my experience with using Vista RTM I get around a 10% increase FPS in gaming, compared to XP.
I got those sorts of number in RC2. RTM ought to be better still. :)

[bryan]

Do you have any benchmarks to back that up, or is that just feel?

[Mason]

So they posted the results of a single benchmark run, in which they had random stalling that didn't appear in other tests? Vista might have problems, but that isn't a statistically sound methodology.

[Grifter]

So they posted the results of a single benchmark run, in which they had random stalling that didn't appear in other tests? Vista might have problems, but that isn't a statistically sound methodology.

I seem to remember HL2 "randomly stalling" quite often when I played it on XP, the stuttering sucked pretty bad as well.

[Nite_Moogle]

Considering there are very few "finished" drivers for Vista this is sort of a bunk test right now.

[Scull]

I had horrible results under beta 2. Everything I tried from NOLF2 to HL2 ran poorly. I had no luck getting anything running smoothly. nVidia had their beta drivers out, so I attributed it to having unproven drivers. I haven't tried running anything else under Vista in about 5 months, but I would hope that they'd gotten better.

[Xenkylm]

I had horrible results under beta 2. Everything I tried from NOLF2 to HL2 ran poorly. I had no luck getting anything running smoothly. nVidia had their beta drivers out, so I attributed it to having unproven drivers. I haven't tried running anything else under Vista in about 5 months, but I would hope that they'd gotten better.

I had bad luck with beta 2 as well, but the release candidates were MUCH better. It was odd, really... the beta was just choppy in general, and I essentially gave up on Vista once I tried it for a while. After installing and giving the release candidates a shot, it seemed like they patched things up really well, performance-wise. It's worth looking at again if the last time you saw it was during the beta.

[Hap0]

I had bad luck with beta 2 as well, but the release candidates were MUCH better. It was odd, really... the beta was just choppy in general, and I essentially gave up on Vista once I tried it for a while. After installing and giving the release candidates a shot, it seemed like they patched things up really well, performance-wise. It's worth looking at again if the last time you saw it was during the beta.
The Beta's were meant for developers not to test run games. Obviously it's not going to be smooth. No insult.

[jadkins555]

Speaking of Vista drivers, I hate Creative. Could they be any worse at creating drivers? It makes me want to go out and buy a sound card from another company.

[BleedTheFreak]

I'm pretty excited about Vista, and I'm picking it up tomorrow. The only games I'm into right now are Company of Heroes, Civ IV Warlords, and Oblivion, all of which I'm sure will run just fine (they all run at maxxed settings now in the 50-60FPS range anyway). Outside of those games, I'm more into my Wii and 360 right now anyway. Plus, I'll probablly pick up a DirectX10 card at some point towards the end of the year/early 2008.

[51|RandoM]

XP is at the point where for me, "it just works." That is my high water mark for a Windows operating system, when you get right down to it. I used to love to tinker around with this stuff all day, tweaking out the last bit of performance but nowadays I just want the stuff to work without crashing and without weekly driver upgrades.

[Draconis]

Some truths about Vista that some of you, if you have the time and inclination due to it being a long article, may want to read.

It may help explain to some why the Benchmarks in Vista were so low, driver issues aside.

The article was written by Peter Gutmann.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#cpu

[Grifter]

I just found out that a friend of mine who works for MS will be picking up a copy of Ultimate for me. She is not really into computers So I am getting her copy, I am fucking ecstatic!

ATI also just released their Catalyst 7.1 drivers for Vista, I am still waiting on usable drivers from Nvidia.

[Hap0]

I just found out that a friend of mine who works for MS will be picking up a copy of Ultimate for me. She is not really into computers So I am getting her copy, I am fucking ecstatic!

ATI also just released their Catalyst 7.1 drivers for Vista, I am still waiting on usable drivers from Nvidia.
You actually only really need Vista Business. It's what I got and the only thing Ultimate will be good for is for xBox360 stuff. But cool for you. My copy of Vista came a week ago. loving the performance boost.

[Varsity]

The Beta's were meant for developers not to test run games. Obviously it's not going to be smooth. No insult.
Yeah, the betas were full of debug code and stuff. They were always going to be horrible performance-wise.

Some truths about Vista that some of you, if you have the time and inclination due to it being a long article, may want to read.

It may help explain to some why the Benchmarks in Vista were so low, driver issues aside.

The article was written by Peter Gutmann.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#cpu
Relevance to gaming = 0. That stuff is for Windows Media DRM, not the OS in general.

[Grifter]

the only thing Ultimate will be good for is for xBox360 stuff.

Which is why I am getting it, and Dream Scene desktop looks really fucking cool. If I had to pay full price I would probably have to wait 6 month and go with home professional but at this price I might as well go with Ultimate.

[Hap0]

Which is why I am getting it, and Dream Scene desktop looks really fucking cool. If I had to pay full price I would probably have to wait 6 month and go with home professional but at this price I might as well go with Ultimate.
Ah cool cool. Hope you enjoy the OS as much as I do :)

[Draconis]

It has plenty of Relevance to Gaming in general. Don't skim the article, actually read it. Here's a few examples of quotes from the article.

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware every 30ms for digital outputs and every 150 ms for analog ones to ensure that everything appears kosher. This means that even with nothing else happening in the system, a mass of assorted drivers has to wake up thirty times a second just to ensure that... nothing continues to happen (Leo Laporte in his Security Now podcast with Steve Gibson calls Vista “an operating system that is insanely paranoid”). In addition to this polling, further device-specific polling is also done, for example Vista polls video devices on each video frame displayed in order to check that all of the grenade pins (tilt bits) are still as they should be. We already have multiple reports from Vista reviewers of playback problems with video and audio content, with video frames dropped and audio stuttering even on high-end systems [Note I]. Time will tell whether this problem is due to immature drivers or has been caused by the overhead imposed by Vista's content protection mechanisms interfering with playback.


And, further more.

The high-end graphics and audio market are dominated entirely by gamers, who will do anything to gain the tiniest bit of extra performance, like buying Bigfoot Networks' $250 “Killer NIC” ethernet card in the hope that it'll help reduce their network latency by a few milliseconds. These are people buying $500-$1000 graphics and sound cards for which one single sale brings the device vendors more than the few cents they get from the video/audio portion of an entire roomful of integrated-graphics-and-sound PCs. I wonder how this market segment will react to knowing that their top-of-the- line hardware is being hamstrung by all of the content-protection “features” that Vista hogties it with?


Still think it's just about DRM and whatnot? It's about everything. Vista is a Very paranoid OS, so locked down with DRM that it basically bogs down everything else in the process just to make sure that you, the individual, are 'playing fair'.

The article has alot of relevance about the entire picture of the OS, especially when it comes to gaming. Anyone who is a serious hardcore PC gamer has got to realize that more resources eaten up by the OS on various other things within it's core operating parameters WILL affect your gameplay. That's just common sense.


I'm in IT, it's my career and I choose to know what the heck is up with the OS and what all it entails. Basically everything I've read and played with about Vista thus far, besides the fact that it's a resource hog of ungodly proportions, is that the OS you purchase is in a way, another version of Big Brother. Making sure you don't do anything certain folks don't want you doing.

*Shrugs*

Take it how you will. I am just posting mostly fact, and a small bit of opinion.

[Varsity]

device drivers are required to poll the underlying hardware every 30ms for digital outputs and every 150 ms for analog ones to ensure that everything appears kosher
Whoop-de-do. An ouput card is going to have to drop a cycle every 30 or 150 ms (150ms for most of us) to ping its cable. That wouldn't make the slightest amount of difference even if you dumped it on XP, let alone a much faster OS. Sounds like it was going wrong in the beta drivers, but frankly, you'd have to be mad (or, hey!, paranoid) to get worried about performance from beta drivers running in a beta OS.

Your second quote is just a conclusion. If there is other stuff, please pull it out for me...I have better things to do with my time than read this sensationalised guff.

Edit: I retract that last sentence slightly. The article doesn't seem too sensationalist; just the fact that it's turned up here.

[Draconis]

It's an overall picture of things Varsity. You are still not reading it, or maybe you are, just not understanding what I do.

“Compliance rules require [content] to be encrypted. This requires additional encryption/decryption logic thus adding to VPU costs. This cost is passed on to all consumers” — ATI.

As part of the bus-protection scheme, devices are required to implement AES-128 encryption in order to receive content from Vista. This has to be done via a hardware decryption engine on the graphics chip, which would typically be implemented by throwing away a GPU rendering pipeline or two to make room for the AES engine.

Establishing the AES key with the device hardware requires further cryptographic overhead, in this case a 2048-bit Diffie-Hellman key exchange whose 2K-bit output is converted to a 128-bit AES key via a Davies-Meyer hash with AES as its block transformation component. In programmable devices this can be done (with considerable effort) in the device (for example in programmable shader hardware), or more simply by throwing out a few more rendering pipelines and implementing a public-key-cryptography engine in the freed-up space.

Needless to say, the need to develop, test, and integrate encryption engines into audio/video devices will only add to their cost, as covered in Increased Hardware Costs above, and the fact that they're losing precious performance in order to accommodate Vista's content protection will make gamers less than happy.

The burden that the content-protection overhead places on resources is even more severe for portable, battery-powered devices. As a CNET review of portable devices found, “DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them”, with the extra overhead of processing DRM'd content shortening the battery life by about 25% across a whole range of products. This burden extends beyond DRM'd music into games as well. For example the content-protected version of the game Flatout 2 runs 15% slower than the same game without content protection.


That's the last example I am going to throw out there since I am at work right now. You can choose to at least read and try to understand, or decide to ignore it and make your own choice about the matter. I am merely trying to inform, not be sensationalist. The article brings into light some very real problems with the OS. Alot of it is Fact, not yellow journalism.


The article is so true in fact, it prompted a response from MS themselves in the matter to try and refute this one. Which personally, I did not buy once I read past their spin.

I am at work so I cannot sit here and debate this point by point, as I would love to do since discussing technical matters is something I love. Plainly, you are going to come to your own conclusions on the matter. And that's fine.

Draconis

Addendum: Meh, it's okay man. It's a good read overall if someone has the time. As I said, information never hurts. Others can come to their own conclusions afterwards that. Personally, on my end, after researching as much as I have, I'll stick with XP for my gaming rig and see how Vista turns out over the year before I decide to make my move.

[jpublic]

Quick note from another IT guy: At my work, we have the "One Service Pack" rule when it comes to any MS Product. We don't run it, we don't buy it, we're even reluctant to TEST it until a SP1 version is released.

I'm seriously considering that plan for Vista.

[PacerDawn]

I can't wait for a piece of software to hiccup and that tilt bit to get set and lock down people's PCs. I also can't wait to see how much fun people have who try to use VOIP and listen to protected music content at the same time. Or the first people who's graphics cards have their license revoked (due to world-wide recall) and become unusable.

Also, if you run Vista, say goodbye to the Omega drivers, or any other non-official drivers for that matter. No non-official drivers allowed anymore. Ever.

It's all just fun and games until someone loses an eye.

[BlackPete]

I used to be the "goto" guy among my circle of family and friends when it comes to resolving computer glitches. Lately though, I've told everyone that if they buy/upgrade to Vista over the next year, I won't even so much as glance at their computer.

Every time a new Windows OS launches, there's an inevitable mess of security fixes, patches, etc. so it's simply not worth the time and aggravation trying to troubleshoot issues that MS will address anyway.

Bottom line is... I'm waiting for SP2 before it's worth considering. By then, computers and video cards will have improved to the point where framerate issues with current games are moot.

[Varsity]

That's the last example I am going to throw out there since I am at work right now. You can choose to at least read and try to understand, or decide to ignore it and make your own choice about the matter.
OK, there's something in that last one, even if using Vista or not doesn't make any difference (the issue being hardware design decisions).

But what proportion of video cards are going to support WMDRM under Vista by sacrificing pipelines or other components? The manufacturers aren't stupid. I'd expect there to be cards maxed out for gaming and cards supporting the DRM (i.e. the All-In-Wonder range). It'll mess up protected content before it's even hit the ground, that's something we can agree on, but gaming? I'm still not convinced even after three choice quotes.

[The Continental]

Also, if you run Vista, say goodbye to the Omega drivers, or any other non-official drivers for that matter. No non-official drivers allowed anymore. Ever.

It's all just fun and games until someone loses an eye.

It's quite easty to disable the signed driver requirement. Hell, just Google it and you'll see a multitude of ways to do it.

[GrinR]

Speaking of Vista drivers, I hate Creative. Could they be any worse at creating drivers? It makes me want to go out and buy a sound card from another company.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/index.php

Go ahead - thrill yourself by looking up the reviews for their cards. I got the Mystique and never looked back. Works fine with Vista right away.

[ElectricMonk]

I'm going to hold out on vista until the 64-bit driver support is stable.

[ÜberJumper]

I just put a GeForce 8800 GTS into a Vista RC1 box. Grabbed the 10.xx forcewares from Guru3d.com and the thing runs like a pretty good dream.

I'm actually quite annoyed that I'd have to purchase 64 Bit Ultimate seperately from 32 bit. It'd be Nice if they had both versions in the box.

Maybe I'll get 32 bit ultimate for my box for now, then upgrade to 64 bit when drivers are better and pass the 32 bit ultimate onto my wife's box.

[Draconis]

OK, there's something in that last one, even if using Vista or not doesn't make any difference (the issue being hardware design decisions).

But what proportion of video cards are going to support WMDRM under Vista by sacrificing pipelines or other components? The manufacturers aren't stupid. I'd expect there to be cards maxed out for gaming and cards supporting the DRM (i.e. the All-In-Wonder range). It'll mess up protected content before it's even hit the ground, that's something we can agree on, but gaming? I'm still not convinced even after three choice quotes.


The truth is, we don't know what the manufacturers will do, but I can bet it probably won't be pretty. All throughout that Article is direct quotes from ATI continuing to espouse the fact that due to the DRM content restrictions for any and all premium content (any Media signal whatsoever, when you boil it down) is REQUIRED by Microsoft to be directly in compliance with their rules in order to function on Vista. The Vendors have no choice, if they want to sell hardware, they have to follow the law of Microsoft. In order to offset such costs, the cost is passed on to us, the Consumer.

Again, ALOT of quotes from ATI in there constantly hammering that fact home. The costs of such is passed directly onto us. That's the first step in how it affects us directly.

That may mean, as an example, GPU usage and memory consumed by the Encryption, or in lamens terms, more expensive video cards then what we are already seeing. They may try and circumvent VPU usage, so they can put another CPU for Encryption on the card to possibly offset it. You still then, may most likley run into the issue of the card having it's onboard memory being consumed for the Encryption algorithms, even though the GPU is freed up. This still results in the bandwidth of the PCI-Express lanes being checked again and again to make sure you are playing fair so to speak.

It's inane. It really is. But my personal conspiracy theorist inside my head(which may be right or wrong mind you) is sitting thinking of vendors, rubbing their hands together and cackling like mad over your Triple SLI setup for your gaming rig.

A good example of how they may try and offset it might be:

2 SLI'ed cards for Graphics, the Physics card for DRM functionality and Premium Content protection, as well as Physics in the 3rd slot.


Again, it's just an example, but can anyone NOT see this happening as a possiblity? Will it? Who the heck knows. It's an example. A crazy one, but still a somewhat valid one.

Really, the only way we will be able to truly tell down the road, is to keep ourselves informed and to stop drinking the Kool-Aid that *** feeds us about how awesome their new OS is for gaming.

As any sane person looking for a new car would do, look under the hood and see if it works for you.

[BleedTheFreak]

I just put a GeForce 8800 GTS into a Vista RC1 box. Grabbed the 10.xx forcewares from Guru3d.com and the thing runs like a pretty good dream.

I'm actually quite annoyed that I'd have to purchase 64 Bit Ultimate seperately from 32 bit. It'd be Nice if they had both versions in the box.

Maybe I'll get 32 bit ultimate for my box for now, then upgrade to 64 bit when drivers are better and pass the 32 bit ultimate onto my wife's box.

I believe I've read on several different sites that the 32bit and 64bit are on the same disc, and since every edition of Vista is identical (you install the version (home premium, business, etc.) based on the CD Key) then when you buy the Ultimate edition, you are getting EVERYTHING on one DVD, including the 64 bit version.

[ÜberJumper]

I hope so, but so far, NCIX is showing they're different SKUs.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?majorcatid=108&minorcatid=1055

Different price as well. 64 bit's cheaper by a few bucks.

Also, it wouldn't be on one DVD most likely, as even for the Release Candidates, 32 bit and 64 bit were seperated IIRC.

[cp#]

Gaming right now is shit because the drivers are well... shitty. Tomorrow nVidia is releasing 100.xx WHQL so hopefully that will solve some of my issues

[51|RandoM]

It's an overall picture of things Varsity. You are still not reading it, or maybe you are, just not understanding what I do.


That article is about 95% bullshit at this point in time. It has been brought up---and debunked---on this forum before. The man who wrote it a) has an axe to grind and b) doesn't appear to be working with current software or data when grinding said axe.

Vista isn't the best thing since sliced bread but it isn't the antichrist of DRM either.

[Hipphouse]

my experience with vista has been pretty mediocre. After installing new updates for almost everything some stuff still doesnt work right. The catalyst drivers are still beta and i am not getting good textures out of any games atm. ATI says they will have full support for vista when it comes out. I sure hope so.

[cp#]

my experience with vista has been pretty mediocre. After installing new updates for almost everything some stuff still doesnt work right. The catalyst drivers are still beta and i am not getting good textures out of any games atm. ATI says they will have full support for vista when it comes out. I sure hope so.

Considering Vista "comes out" tomorrow expect a finalized driver by then. I know for a fact nVidia is releasing one. If they fail to do so I'll be pissed cause these 97.xx suck ass

[Grifter]

my experience with vista has been pretty mediocre. After installing new updates for almost everything some stuff still doesnt work right. The catalyst drivers are still beta and i am not getting good textures out of any games atm. ATI says they will have full support for vista when it comes out. I sure hope so.

Like I said just a few posts behind this one ATI released their Catalyst 7.1 Vista drivers this morning.

[Draconis]

Where is the link to the debunk thread so that I may read it Random? I am curious to see what it says. Any information and thoughts on the debate intrigue me.

[MasterKwan]

I installed RTM Ultimate (MSDN), ran it for about a week and then re-installed Win64. It ran fine, games were just fine but, the GUI just has quirks that drove me crazy. No "up folder" button for instance. It's got nothing I really want and as a developer, it was no faster than Win64 (compiling projects for instance). It's pretty much killed off EAX support in games.

I'm not compelled. It's not bad but, it's not a huge improvement either.

[hund_]

think i'll wait on this awhile ;)
this comes from someone that ran win95 till way after winme came out though.

[51|RandoM]

Where is the link to the debunk thread so that I may read it Random? I am curious to see what it says. Any information and thoughts on the debate intrigue me.

Beats me, seems like it was three to four weeks ago. it was a story specifically referencing that article, so you shouldn't have too much trouble finding it.

[Draconis]

Meh, found the thread. I really didn't see much of anything at all that debunked it to be honest, just the usual type of thread where some post rationally, and others post rant irrationally until flaming drool dribbles out of the corners of their mouths. You know, the usual. :)

*Shrugs* Whilst some of the guys article may come off as an axe to grind, Peter Gutmann is a security researcher with alot of clout in the industry. I'd tend to believe him, but I'll disseminate the article on my own and choose what to throw out, and what to believe, as will everyone else on their own time.

As much as I have personally worked with the Final Release of Vista, I have to say thus far I am not impressed. I'll stick with XP for now until Vista becomes something better than it is in it's current form.

From an IT standpoint, no way am I touching this thing with a ten foot pole. At least not for a while.

Early Adopters always get burned when it comes to MS products, especially since some people are now finding out EAX is killed in Vista amongst other things. (Disclaimer: Glanced at the article in question, getting ready for work)

Anyways, I'll lay this to rest. Other stuff is going on and this horse is almost dead. *Pulls out a shotgun and puts it out of it's misery, walks away*

[51|RandoM]

Just read what he says and compare it to the shipping version of Vista. You can find obvious discrepancies.

Case in point, he says that Vista will downgrade all non-DRM'd content over a protected interface... when it is only protected content, and that content that is specifically flagged by the content provider to be downgraded.

I really don't care how much clout he may have once had, when he writes something that is obviously wrong, I'm not going to believe it just because of something he did in the past. It isn't a matter of giving him the benefit of the doubt, it is a matter of comparing what he says to reality and noticing how they don't match up...

I'm no fan of Microsoft or Vista, but I'm also not somebody who thinks DRM is the antichrist and will automatically jump on the bandwagon of somebody waving that particular flag.

[Draconis]

Do you happen to have the full technical specs on the Release version of Vista compared to the version used for said article then? Because I'd love to see what they have changed, which, honestly, I doubt is much. But then again, until I see full Technical Documentation, and not Spin, I cannot really say as to either.

*Shrugs* Either way, we could debate this until we're blue in the face. The only thing will truly tell whether or not Vista is viable is using it ourselves and time. We'll just have to see what the future holds.

[J3DI]

Full Specs no... I only got a paper disc cover with my copy of Business... this link had some interesting facts though... http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/footnotes.mspx
I'm thinking about doing the upgrade to Ultimate... I hate not having it all