Comparative Analysis of XP vs Vista for Gaming - Including SP1 RC1 and SP3 RC1

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Ap0stl3

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This is my first time posting any benchmarks but I felt the results would help others and shine some light on the current state of Vista Gaming - including the Vista SP1 vs XP SP3 performance claims being made around the web. I hope you all enjoy it :D

A Comparative Analysis of XP vs Vista for Gaming
1-12-08

Hypothesis
------------

I expect to see XP beating Vista performance-wise by about 15% in all benchmarks just by being more lean and having a 7 year game and driver devlopment advantage over Vista. However, I also believe that Vista will be more than playable, albeit not boasting the raw power XP will have. I also believe that the games that have Direct X 10 extras will look noticable bette than their dx9 counter-parts. Enough so to warrant using Vista from a purely gaming perspective since you will be getting better looking games at a small performance cost.

*Update* Forgot the computer specs these benchmarks were done on! Sorry!

System Configuration
Abit IP35 Pro
Intel Q6600 @ 3Ghz
4GB G.SKILL PC2-6400
XFX 8800GT Alpha Dog Edition (PVT88PYDD4)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 610


Benchmark Software List:
All run 3 times with Avg taken from the Results.
------------
-3Dmark06
-Cinebench Release 10
-Company of Heroes Patch v2.201
-Crysis Patch v1.1
-F.E.A.R. Patch v1.08


XP Pro SP2 32bit Setup
------------

-Only 3GB of the 4GB of RAM visible

-Installed all updates available via Windows Update website

-Installed Newest Available drivers as of 1-10-08 (Nvidia 169.21)

-Installed updated DirectX Components (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en)

-Installed Benchmarking Apps

Results

3Dmark06 13782 13708 13667 Avg. 13719

Cinebench Release 10

OpenGL 5571 5482 5550 Avg. 5534
Single CPU 3072 3066 3066 Avg. 3068
Multi CPU 10752 10585 10808 Avg. 10715

Company of Heroes Patch v2.201

Avg FPS 58.1 58.4 58.3 Avg. 58
Max FPS 61 61 61 Avg. 61
Min FPS 12 29.5 29.5 Avg. 23.6

Crysis Patch v1.1

GPU @9am Avg 55.095
CPU @9am Avg 54.91
Assault Harbour @5pm Avg 46.67

F.E.A.R. Patch v1.08

Min FPS 42 43 41 Avg. 42
Avg FPS 83 82 83 Avg. 82.6
Max FPS 201 203 204 Avg. 202.6
FPS % below 25 0 0 0
FPS % between 25 and 40 0 0 0
FPS % above 40 100 100 100

XP SP3 RC1 v.3244
------------

After running the above benchmarks I installed the SP3 RC and rebooted - then ran the benchmarks again to see if any difference was noticable.

Results

3Dmark06 13791 13708 13667 Avg. 13728

Cinebench Release 10

OpenGL 5840 5773 5810 Avg. 5807
Single CPU 3075 3082 3066 Avg. 3074.3
Multi CPU 10753 10794 10736 Avg. 10761

Company of Heroes Patch v2.201

Avg FPS 58.1 58.3 58.3 Avg. 58.23
Max FPS 61 61 61 Avg. 61
Min FPS 11 29.5 30 Avg. 23.5

Crysis Patch v1.1

GPU @9am 55.645
CPU @9am 55.015
Assault Harbour @5pm 46.86

F.E.A.R. Patch v1.08

Min FPS 42 41 43 Avg. 42
Avg FPS 83 82 82 Avg. 82.3
Max FPS 201 204 205 Avg. 203.3
FPS % below 25 0 0 0
FPS % between 25 and 40 0 0 0
FPS % above 40 100 100 100


Vista Enterprise 32bit Setup
------------

-Only 3GB of the 4GB of RAM visible

-Disabled UAC

-Installed all updates available via Windows Update website

-Installed Newest Available drivers as of 1-10-08 (Nvidia 169.25)

-Installed Hotfix 940105 which is not available via Windows Updates
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105

-Installed updated DirectX Components(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en)

-Installed Benchmarking Apps

-Company of Heroes and Crysis both offer DirectX 10 graphics options not available that were used in these tests.

Results

3Dmark06 12959 12973 12995 Avg. 12975.6

Cinebench Release 10

OpenGL 4131 4158 4110 Avg. 4133
Single CPU 3051 3052 3040 Avg. 3047.6
Multi CPU 10753 10794 10736 Avg. 10761

Company of Heroes Patch v2.201
Avg FPS 29.7 30 29.1 Avg. 29.6
Max FPS 59.9 59.9 61 Avg. 60.2
Min FPS 14.6 15.9 16.5 Avg. 15.6

Crysis Patch v1.1
GPU @9am Avg 24.85
CPU @9am Avg 25.73
Assault Harbour @5pm Avg 23.895

F.E.A.R. Patch v1.08

Min FPS 40 24 23 Avg. 29
Avg FPS 68 39 27 Avg. 44.6
Max FPS 96 64 30 Avg. 63.3
FPS % below 25 0 11 12 Avg. 7.6
FPS % between 25 and 40 2 52 88 Avg. 47.3
FPS % above 40 98 37 0 Avg. 45

Vista 32bit SP1 RC1
------------

After running the above benchmarks I installed the SP1 RC1 and rebooted - then ran the benchmarks again to see if any difference was noticable.

Results

3Dmark06 13160 13012 13029 Avg. 13067

Cinebench Release 10

OpenGL 4355 4408 4386 Avg. 4383
Single CPU 3061 3058 3040 Avg. 3053
Multi CPU 10611 10681 10675 Avg. 10655.6

Company of Heroes Patch v2.201

Avg FPS 30.2 30 30.1 Avg. 30.1
Max FPS 59.9 60 59.9 Avg. 59.9
Min FPS 15.9 16.9 17.1 Avg. 16.6

Crysis Patch v1.1

GPU @9am Avg 24.765
CPU @9am Avg 25.435
Assault Harbour @5pm Avg 23.715

F.E.A.R. Patch v1.08

Min FPS 41 41 40 Avg. 40.6
Avg FPS 80 70 62 Avg. 70.6
Max FPS 161 104 84 Avg. 116.3
FPS % below 25 0 0 0 Avg. 0
FPS % between 25 and 40 0 0 2 Avg. .6
FPS % above 40 100 100 98 Avg. 99.3


Crysis Test all in Vista 64-bit DX9 Vs DX10

For this test I decided to try running crysis in Vista with all options the same in both dx9 mode and dx10 mode. All the settings remained the same - i did not turn on the extra options Direct X 10 mode unlocks for crysis. All settings were set to High @ 1024 x 768. I ran the Assault Harbor timedemo made available in the Crysis Benchmark Tool for this test since it is the most intensive benchmark for crysis that I used.


Vista 64bit High Quality DX9 Avg FPS 40.82

Vista 64bit High Quality DX10Avg FPS 30.3


Wow! Big difference there. Lets compare this to XP SP2 & SP3 RC1 scores:


XP SP2 High Quality DX9 Avg FPS 46.67

XP SP3 High Quality DX9 Avg FPS 46.86


So - DX9 mode in Vista gets pretty darn close to XP.


I ran this same kind of test with Company of Heroes (I got lazy and didn't record the exact scores) but I found that running Company of Heroes with that same exact settings as I was running it in XP yielded exactly the same scores. It was only when I enabled the Direct X 10 mode only "extras" that the frame rate dropped substantially.

Conclusion


First off - SP3 for XP and SP1 for Vista show almost no effect positive or negative speed boosts. This contradicts that already skeptical claim posted by CNET that SP3 boosted XP performance 15%.


The one strange thing is that SP3 did seem to boost the OpenGL benchmark for Cinebench by a good 5%. Other than that - nothing amaizing. SP1 seemed to help F.E.A.R by increasing its Avg FPS a huge 37% versus Vista without SP1. Obviously one game cannot dictate the future but F.E.A.R. is the oldest game being bechmarked here so maybe we will see older games running smoother with SP1


XP vs Vista scores showed a large performance gap and XP is faster than Vista on every front. Althought, Company of Heroes and Crysishad higher graphics options enabled in Vista and before the Vista fanboys shout "Apples to Oranges" testing let me defend myself in saying that if you are mainly a gamer and you don't care anything about Vista's features over XP's features then Direct X 10 eye candy is the only reason to consider switching to Vista - that is why I enabled it. And the difference was staggering to say the least. And personally, in Company of Heroes I could barely tell the difference while playing the game.


Company of heroes XP vs Vista showed nearly a 50% difference in Average FPS.
Heyzus Christo!


Crysis wasn't much better. The GPU benchmark showed a 55% difference in performance, the CPU benchmark showed a 54% difference, Assault Harbour showed 50% difference. I got two words for those results, TEH SUCK! The game does look noticeable better running it dx10 vs dx9 but sacrificing that much performance is a very, very tough pill to swallow. Espicially when it brings you below that golden 30FPS mark (which every dx10 Crysis run ran under).


Cinebench differences were a mixed bag. OpenGL favored XP AP3 vs Vista SP1 by being 25% faster. However the CPU benchmarks were nearly identical - showing no real distingushible difference between the two.


F.E.A.R just confused the hell out of me in Vista. For one, thanks to the huge changes made in Vista with DirectSound mixed with Creative lazyness for creating drivers you cannot enable EAX sound support for FEAR (or any other pre-vista game) in Vista. This shouldn't however create as big a difference as we see in the benchmark scores. Vista's 3 benchmark runs were so dissimilar you would think that I was running each one on a different box. It was really bizarre to see the wide range in scores from the three seperate runs in Vista. XP on the other hand, smooth as butta, all three benchmark runs matching each other extremely closely. The difference between running FEAR in XP and Vista? An average framerate boost of 37% in XP.


What I find to be the most interesting results are the Crysis running in Vista 64bit (no benchmarks listed above for 64-bit because they were pretty darn close to the 32bit benchmarks - so much so it's hard for me to find reason why I should go with a 64-bit OS and give up peer guardian). I ran the most intensive Crysis benchmark (assault harbour) using the same settings I ran the game at under XP (High vs the Vista only Very High) and then forced the game to run in dx9 and then dx10 with those settings to see the difference. A whopping 24% increase between dx9 and dx10 while still under Vista. The only difference being the version of Direct X being used. Running in dx9 mode cut the performance difference between Vista and XPto 13% and pulls it up above the 30 FPS marker. XP was still faster but only by about 6 FPS.


I wondered about what this meant for awhile and came to the conclusion that the reason why games are slow in Vista is not Vistas fault entirely. It is directx 10s fault too.


So, from a purely gaming perspective.....XP wins hands down. The only game that looks marginally better when running in Vista is Crysis but is nearly but the performance hits hurt it alot. I for one would rather have smooth gameplay at the expensive of some relativly minor graphics enhancements. Sure you can run Crysis in dx9 mode in Vista but then why shell out the money for a new operatiing system?


But from a non-gamer perspective, I like Vista. I like its interface, it's super fast and accurate indexing searches, the usefull sidebar & gadgets, it's high res icons, and even some of the new programs like Windows Calendar and the Snipping Tool. And unlike others, I have had no problems running any of my programs with it. These are the things that drew me in to Vista. I don't play games 24/7 on my computer. I browse the web, watch movies, multi-task, and write poignent benchmark comparissons. But alas, I do play alot of games.


So where does this leave me?


Basically, the gamer in me is ready to go back to XP without reservation. The average-joe in me appeals to Vista for its looks and (in my apparently minority opinion) better interface. As of now I'm undecided to be honest. I am currently leaning towards running Vista and playing games in dx9 mode so that I can enjoy the best of both worlds and be ready for a day (if it ever comes) where game performance in Vista will match XP's. I think that if game developers embrace Vista like they did XP we will see that day. However, right now that trend seems not to be the case. The word on the street is that Vista sucks - and while XP is the leads the OS market in terms of number of users I think that developers are going to make sure their OS works better on XP first and worry about Vista second. At least, thats how i think it's been going this past year - things will probably change when XP is no longer available for purchase starting later this year.

If you liked this - Digg it!
 
In my personal experiences, with vista and xp.

I would have many lock-ups and reboots, had to reformat and re-install fairly regularly to keep things running in tip top shape using XP.

I've had vista ultimate 32 since it was released and I have not had a single issue at all (except for printers etc not having drivers for vista when it was first launched) *knocks on wood*

As far as game performance goes, I had SLI'd 7950gt's in xp, when I switched to vista, there were no SLI vista drivers for a few months and in that time span I got rid of the second card, so I can't comment.
 
N3mi5is said:
In my personal experiences, with vista and xp.

I would have many lock-ups and reboots, had to reformat and re-install fairly regularly to keep things running in tip top shape using XP.

I've had vista ultimate 32 since it was released and I have not had a single issue at all (except for printers etc not having drivers for vista when it was first launched) *knocks on wood*

As far as game performance goes, I had SLI'd 7950gt's in xp, when I switched to vista, there were no SLI vista drivers for a few months and in that time span I got rid of the second card, so I can't comment.
Click to expand...

I think video card drivers in particular have had a large roll in the crappy reception that Vista received. Certainly they aren't 100% responsible but had they made more of an effort early-on I can't help but wonder how that would have changed Vista's current reputation.

Then again - alot of people seem to forget so easily that XP was just as unpopular when it first came out. Many people saw no reason to switch from 98 or 2000 to XP for a long time - somewhere around XP SP1 if I recall correctly (at least, thats when i switched from 2000 to XP).
 
N3mi5is said:
In my personal experiences, with vista and xp.

I would have many lock-ups and reboots, had to reformat and re-install fairly regularly to keep things running in tip top shape using XP.

I've had vista ultimate 32 since it was released and I have not had a single issue at all (except for printers etc not having drivers for vista when it was first launched) *knocks on wood*

As far as game performance goes, I had SLI'd 7950gt's in xp, when I switched to vista, there were no SLI vista drivers for a few months and in that time span I got rid of the second card, so I can't comment.
Click to expand...

It is a pain sometimes. I prefer Vista due to some cool gfx effects I can enjoy in LOTRO. take that aside..... BSOD's do stil happen, lower fpS, xfire is really screwy at times... that is just a beginning.
 
On modern computers (those with multicore processors) these service packs wont show much difference, neither will there be much difference between the different operating systems.

These things are stressful on the CPU and the RAM, and RAM is dirt cheap so getting plenty isn't expensive, and lots of people are running dual core and some quad core which again makes performance differences pretty small since the OS code is simply running on another core and not really effecting the game. Most games still run on 1 core and those which are multicore enabled are done in such a simplistic way that they never use more than 2 cores anyhow.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, nice work.
 
Frosteh said:
On modern computers (those with multicore processors) these service packs wont show much difference, neither will there be much difference between the different operating systems.

These things are stressful on the CPU and the RAM, and RAM is dirt cheap so getting plenty isn't expensive, and lots of people are running dual core and some quad core which again makes performance differences pretty small since the OS code is simply running on another core and not really effecting the game. Most games still run on 1 core and those which are multicore enabled are done in such a simplistic way that they never use more than 2 cores anyhow.

Thanks for taking the time to do this, nice work.
Click to expand...

I had somewhat expected SP3 to have somewhat of a positive performance impact on XP because I had heard rumors of improved multi-core code being added to XP that was already present in Vista (even though I could find no evidence of this in the whitepapers for SP3). Obviously this is not the case.

And you are absolutly right about multi-core and gaming. Which is sad :( I can only hope that next-gen games will introduce true multi-core code advantages since single-core computers are on the decline (at least thats what this article is showing from YouGamers http://www.yougamers.com/articles/16000_2007_in_pc_hardware-page2/).

Maybe Alan Wake will be the chosen one of multi-core advtantages, maybe it won't. I've been burned by claims of multi-core advantages before *cough* Crysis *cough*:rolleyes:

IMO - Game devs have had more than enough time to give us multi-core optimizations. It is long overdue.
 
Tell me about it, I believe however, that the issue lays with writing an engine that can cope with single core CPU's and also cope with multicore CPU's

Valve were on about making their engine capable of running multicore or "n cores" but it turns out that it's hardly even well coded for dual core use right now, which is a total waste, especially on an engine which is so CPU heavy (they still heavily rely on BSP geometry)
 
Ap0stl3 said:
Many people saw no reason to switch from 98 or 2000 to XP for a long time - somewhere around XP SP1 if I recall correctly (at least, thats when i switched from 2000 to XP).
Click to expand...

Switching from 2000 to XP was not really interesting. I did because some software was not working for 2000 and some drivers problem. When I switched to XP, it took me a while to like the new look(the only thing that changed) and I finally preferred it over the old classic one.

Switching from 98 to XP was very interesting for everybody I know. 98 or ME was very unstable. The major reason of NT5 success is the stability. It's why everybody switched, because NT5 almost never crash. Compare to 98 that crash one time a day.

I bet vista is better in many aspect versus xp, but games are more important than anything else in my situation. I also dislike to use stuff that just got released, I leave the problems to others. Maybe I could run 2 os and play games with xp but I don't think it's worth the troubles.


Nice test btw, thanks for the information.
 
There are very few issues with games under Vista, there was for the first 3-6 months of bad drivers from Nvidia and AMD but thats long gone now, anything that works on XP should work on Vista, there are a few rare exceptions.
 
AfterAnn said:
Switching from 2000 to XP was not really interesting. I did because some software was not working for 2000 and some drivers problem. When I switched to XP, it took me a while to like the new look(the only thing that changed) and I finally preferred it over the old classic one.

...

Nice test btw, thanks for the information.
Click to expand...

Very true, There weren't nearly the amount of changes from 2000 to XP, even from 98 to XP as far as gaming was concerned. DX10 really changed the playing field around.

From the tests above I show that DX9 under Vista preforms nearly as well if not equally on Vista as compared to XP. Had Microsoft decided not ship Vista with DX10 I don't think the great Vista vs XP debate would have ever occurred, at least not for as long.

Thanks for the kind words as well- This is actually my first time posting anywhere (and to everyone else who appreciated the info). I've never been an active participant in any forum community. So this has been a rather risky coming out, espicially since I wasn't sure how my test data would be interpreted/accepted on such a hot topic. A part of me expected flame wars to ensue but the post is still young :p
 
BTW, at the time I wrote the main article I was undecided about what to go with. I have since decided upon running Vista 64-bit.

Mostly because RAM was cheap and I wanted the entire 4GB to be available to the system, the performance differences between 32-bit and 64-bit Vista is nill from what I've personally tested, and all of my software/hardware works just fine with it.

I would follow this up extremely quickly with the fact that had I not had 4GB of RAM for my system. There is pretty much no major reason to run 64-bit mode for anyone running less than 4GB of ram - there is just no real reason to.

Now some may say that my 32-bit programs (nearly all the programs I use) can't take advantage of more than 2GB of ram at anytime just like in 32-bit OS's. That is true, however I tend to have multiple programs open and 4GB of ram is a large pool for the OS to share out to all those individual programs. I no longer feel very bad about leaving "unnecessary" applications open while gaming because of this.
 
Great test, I have been recently thinking about this exact issue, I'm really glad you put the effort into putting it all together. :)

My only thought would be, while I noticed you mentioned the vista 'apples to oranges' graphics comparison complaints, I have to say I kind of prefer when the comparisons are made using the exact same settings. This is mainly as the dx10 effects tend to reduce frame rate and make the game look a bit better. In my mind this feels like comparing a game running on medium settings on one OS and high on another, then wondering why they aren't at the same framerates;). Thanks for putting those equal tests in. /my silly rant hehe
 
Thanks for doing these tests. It opens up my eyes quite a bit.

But are saying that DX9 XP is almost the same in performance as DX9 Vista?
 
silenteye said:
Thanks for doing these tests. It opens up my eyes quite a bit.

But are saying that DX9 XP is almost the same in performance as DX9 Vista?
Click to expand...

Thats exactly what I'm saying. Running with DX9 in XP and running DX9 in Vista yielded extremely similar results.

3dmark06 (which only tests using DX9) showed that Vista's score was only 5.5% less than it running on XP.

Company of Heroes running in DX9 mode on Vista ran exactly the same speed as running it in XP with the same settings. (And to tell the truth, the differences in image quality in this game are next to nill - there are some great youtube vids showing them. Like this one.)

Crysis was still a bit slower running DX9 mode on Vista vs XP. It was 4 FPS slower on average than XP was - a 13% difference but still extremely playable on Vista.


Thanks for the feedback :cool:
 
jkr266 said:
Nice work, that's way more work than i would care to put into the issue. Although your results seem at odds with most of the recent articles i've seen on the subject. Like this http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/default.asp firing squad article, that shows Vista being virtually identical to Xp until sli/crossfire is turned on. Supposedly those issues have been remedied as well in the 4 months since the article was written.
Click to expand...

I'm curious like a cat. Thats why my friends call me "Whiskers". :p

As for the firingsquad article - I actually read that before doing my tests along with several hardocp benchmarks and articles. It was these articles that lead me to doing my own benchmark as there were several unanswered questions (such as performance when running dx9 in Vista).

Im not to sure why their results look so much more favorable than my own - but I wonder if they trained SuperFetch in Vista before doing each different test. I didn't bother training Superfetch at all before running my benchmarks but I would guess that the benchmarks would have been marginally better had I done so but meh - that seemed like too much work. ;)
 
Why is it not a good idea to run ultimate 64 with 2GB of RAM? Should I install Ultimate 32 instead of 64 when i get the dvd from microsoft? I am a gamer and will be purchasing a directX 10 card as soon as the dvd arrives.
 
I have a question about that last line, is it a fact that XP will cease to be sold this year?!
 
Gabriel said:
Why is it not a good idea to run ultimate 64 with 2GB of RAM? Should I install Ultimate 32 instead of 64 when i get the dvd from microsoft? I am a gamer and will be purchasing a directX 10 card as soon as the dvd arrives.
Click to expand...

Basically, the only advantage today of running a 64-bit OS is its ability to correctly address more than 4GB of RAM. Other than that there are really no discernible advantages. Benchmarks show it's not faster that Vista 32-bit (even when using 64-bit optimized code), and you could have compatibility problems depending on the hardware that you use (because 64-bit has a silly requirement that all of your drivers must be signed by Microsoft or else they will not install.) You could also run into software problems if you run any particularly older software/games) (think 98 era software) Vista 64-bit does not support 16-bit applications - period. They will not run.

Hope this helps.
 
Gabriel said:
Why is it not a good idea to run ultimate 64 with 2GB of RAM? Should I install Ultimate 32 instead of 64 when i get the dvd from microsoft? I am a gamer and will be purchasing a directX 10 card as soon as the dvd arrives.
Click to expand...

Any program that installs some sort of device driver requires specific 64bit support or it wont run. For instance, if you owned an Iphone, you COULD NOT sync it to Vista 64bit for a very long time (they only just enabled it in January!). Most programs are now fully compatible though. I would actually recommend 64bit OVER 32bit as if you decide to upgrade your ram in the future the the 64bit version will use all of it, whereas the 32bit version can only see about 3gigs total (assuming a higher class video card and all).
 
Dugg! Very nice guide, but right now is only the early stage of vista, it will be better as the devs get use to the OS. And soon M$ will stop support for xp, so all windows users will be forced to use Vista sooner or later.
 
exe163 said:
Dugg! Very nice guide, but right now is only the early stage of vista, it will be better as the devs get use to the OS. And soon M$ will stop support for xp, so all windows users will be forced to use Vista sooner or later.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you, especially about devs getting used to programming for OS.
 
I have heard many rumours that Windows doesnt plan to have vista the their current supported operating system for very long, maybe about 2 years, not nearly as long as XP was and they are working already on a successor, rather than just fixing Vista

Vista was just that, a "View"

The real thing supposedly is comming soon

I dont have any hard evidence, but ive heard it talked about a lot and from diffrent groups of people.

(nice review btw)
 
Dethman said:
I have heard many rumours that Windows doesnt plan to have vista the their current supported operating system for very long, maybe about 2 years, not nearly as long as XP was and they are working already on a successor, rather than just fixing Vista

Vista was just that, a "View"

The real thing supposedly is comming soon

I dont have any hard evidence, but ive heard it talked about a lot and from diffrent groups of people.

(nice review btw)
Click to expand...

Windows 7 ?? I think is the working title. Was a rumor about it coming out 2009 but quashed quickly with 2011 being the earliest. To me that means 2013. Vista gonna be here a while my friends. Good point about 98 vs. XP. I think I used 98 for at least 2 years after XP came out and I only got it cause it came with a barebones I ordered and SP1 was out.

I use V64 and love it. Never looked back.
 
solideliquid said:
Waaaaa! I thought SP1 was going to be released today for Vista!!!
Click to expand...

Mid-March or April until most people get it. (Source)

"
[FONT=verdana,geneva]Here's the timing for SP1 availability for current Windows Vista users:[/FONT]
  • [FONT=verdana,geneva]In mid-March, we will release Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Update (in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese) and to the download center on microsoft.com. Customers who visit Windows Update can choose to install Service Pack 1. If Windows Update determines that the system has one of the drivers we know to be problematic, then Windows Update will not offer SP1. Since we know that some customers may want to update to SP1 anyhow, the download center will allow anyone who wants to install SP1 to do so.[/FONT]
  • [FONT=verdana,geneva]In mid-April, we will begin delivering Windows Vista SP1 to Windows Vista customers who have chosen to have updates downloaded automatically. That said, any system that Windows Update determines has a driver known to not update successfully will not get SP1 automatically. As updates for these drivers become available, they will be installed automatically by Windows Update, which will unblock these systems from getting Service Pack 1. The result is that more and more systems will automatically get SP1, but only when we are confident they will have a good experience.[/FONT]
  • [FONT=verdana,geneva]The remaining languages will RTM in April.[/FONT]
"
 
wrangler said:
Windows 7 ?? I think is the working title. Was a rumor about it coming out 2009 but quashed quickly with 2011 being the earliest. To me that means 2013. Vista gonna be here a while my friends. Good point about 98 vs. XP. I think I used 98 for at least 2 years after XP came out and I only got it cause it came with a barebones I ordered and SP1 was out.

I use V64 and love it. Never looked back.
Click to expand...

Here is the source if anyone is curious as to what Microsoft actually stated - Source.
 
To everybody saying Windows XP is more unstable than vista, or crashy, or needs to be reinstalled regularly...wtf are you doing to the operating system guys?

My current install of Windows XP is 5 years old, it has never been reinstalled once in that time. It has been through 4 motherboard upgrades and moved from an IDE to SATA hard disk just recently. Windows XP is still stable as a rock and clean as a whistle to this day.

If you know what you're doing, then you'll realize that you should NEVER need to reinstall your OS under just about any circumstance. Anybody here who reinstalls windows regularly needs to take a long hard look at how they're managing their OS, because repeated slowdown on install-after-install of Windows points to USER ERROR, not a problem with the OS.
 
Unknown-One said:
To everybody saying Windows XP is more unstable than vista, or crashy, or needs to be reinstalled regularly...wtf are you doing to the operating system guys?

My current install of Windows XP is 5 years old, it has never been reinstalled once in that time. It has been through 4 motherboard upgrades and moved from an IDE to SATA hard disk just recently. Windows XP is still stable as a rock and clean as a whistle to this day.

If you know what you're doing, then you'll realize that you should NEVER need to reinstall your OS under just about any circumstance. Anybody here who reinstalls windows regularly needs to take a long hard look at how they're managing their OS, because repeated slowdown on install-after-install of Windows points to USER ERROR, not a problem with the OS.
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I disagree. Re-installing Windows yearly or sometimes once every two years is a normal maintenance procedure I do regardless if I'm having problems or not. I do it as a maintenance procedure, just like changing the oil in a car.

I personally find most computers operate more efficiently if this is done to them on a regular basis (hell I even do it to my Mac laptop). I have no scientific facts to base this claim on, no fancy benchmarks, just the feeling that things work better and faster after doing this. I even condone that it could be a placebo effect. But I, and others I know personally do this. I am quite good at managing my OS,do not download junk/malware/viruses, and re-installing Windows simply gives me a clean slate once in awhile.

And out of curiosity - how do you know that there is no benefit to re-installing Windows when you say you haven't done so in 5 years? Perhaps if you tried it you would see a difference...
 
It is probably better to re-install an os like it would be better to re-install a new motor in your car two times a year. And according to your logic, it is also better to re-install vista two times a year or so. The argument was : XP need more reinstall than vista and vista is more stable because of this.

XP does not need re-install two time a year to work fine. The only reason in my situation to re-install xp is because I want to get rid of the viruses and spyware, which is a plague these day. But since this year, I have take the decision to not install any software that require admin account beside games and very trusted source. Even Adobe install spyware these day lol.


Most people do not need to reinstall xp, and they didn't for years. Now for vista, time will tell us if they need, because it's only been out for a year. So I don't understand how can people say : vista is more stable because you don't need to reinstall, it's not even been out long enough to know this. And anyway, it's not true xp need re-install.
 
Ap0stl3 said:
Then again - alot of people seem to forget so easily that XP was just as unpopular when it first came out. Many people saw no reason to switch from 98 or 2000 to XP for a long time - somewhere around XP SP1 if I recall correctly (at least, thats when i switched from 2000 to XP).
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I keep hearing this BS from Microsoft employees and fanboys, and it's just not true.

The truth you are omitting is that Millennium Edition was the previous home desktop edition before XP, not 98 or 2000. And XP at it's worst was still a lot better than ME.

"Upgrading" to Vista is more like upgrading to ME from 98.
 
AfterAnn said:
It is probably better to re-install an os like it would be better to re-install a new motor in your car two times a year. And according to your logic, it is also better to re-install vista two times a year or so. The argument was : XP need more reinstall than vista and vista is more stable because of this.

XP does not need re-install two time a year to work fine. The only reason in my situation to re-install xp is because I want to get rid of the viruses and spyware, which is a plague these day. But since this year, I have take the decision to not install any software that require admin account beside games and very trusted source. Even Adobe install spyware these day lol.


Most people do not need to reinstall xp, and they didn't for years. Now for vista, time will tell us if they need, because it's only been out for a year. So I don't understand how can people say : vista is more stable because you don't need to reinstall, it's not even been out long enough to know this. And anyway, it's not true xp need re-install.
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Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Let me attempt to explain myself a bit better.

You are correct in following my logic - I will be re-installing vista once a year or once every two years. Just like I did for XP, just like I did for 2000 before that, and just like I did for 98 before that.

I was at no time trying to argue that XP is any more stable than Vista. I don't believe this at all.

I also agree with you that XP will work fine after multiple years with no reinstall as long as you don't do anything to stupid. But there is a difference between running fine and running at peak efficiency. I simply find that my computer feels more responsive and seems to run faster when I wipe it once a year - regardless of my choice of OS.
 
ghostchamber said:
Thank you for taking the time to do this. It is very informative.
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As someone considering switching to Vista for the interface benefits (I admit I'm a sucker for a nice slick interface) but concerned about the gaming performance hit, I echo these sentimonies :)

Looks like it's going to be dual-boot at most for me until they clean up the gaming performance.
 
Im in the same place as you, im using Vista x64 cause i have 4gb of ram, but i would like to ask if the performance in Windows XP 32bits is the same as Windows XP 64Bits, if that so i would likely "upgrade" to Windows XP again.
 
Ap0stl3 said:
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Let me attempt to explain myself a bit better.

You are correct in following my logic - I will be re-installing vista once a year or once every two years. Just like I did for XP, just like I did for 2000 before that, and just like I did for 98 before that.

I was at no time trying to argue that XP is any more stable than Vista. I don't believe this at all.

I also agree with you that XP will work fine after multiple years with no reinstall as long as you don't do anything to stupid. But there is a difference between running fine and running at peak efficiency. I simply find that my computer feels more responsive and seems to run faster when I wipe it once a year - regardless of my choice of OS.
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Ok than I agree with you. Re-installing a Microsoft OS will for sure give a performance boost in the case you got infected by viruses or any bugged software. And I think it is inevitable to be infected even if you are an advanced user. Even if it's not a malware, I think a lot of software can cause slow down because of badly coded software or because they run too many service for "supposed update".
 
BladeVenom said:
"Upgrading" to Vista is more like upgrading to ME from 98.
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That is such an incredibly dumb statement, I used ME for a long time and it was horrible. Needed constant fixing and re-formating.

Vista is nothing like ME ever was and if XP "Fan Boys" like you refuse to believe this then thats your problem.
 
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