Vista hurts gaming performance?

It doesnt seem to hurt my game performance.. but I dont have SLI. The only thing that seems to slow my games down a bit is relatively bad drivers for my video card in Vista. Even with that, its very close to the same performance as in XP on the same system.
 
False, and FUD. The DRM stuff doesn't come in until you try to play one of those useless next-gen DVD formats.
 
seems like ATI been spreading around bunch of dumb rumors about vista.

maybe because they are not making a good enough video card to combat nvidia's dx10 one?
 
Geezus, another one... when will you people (meaning those that read stuff on that thar Intarweb and attach any significance to it) learn? :)

It's F.U.D., just as Soujiro said (and I would have said and I'm now saying), and nothing more. Anyone that spends that kind of time to write such a ridiculously wordy document as that "factual report" obviously has a bug up his ass about Microsoft and Windows - and somehow I bet he/she/it isn't even a Windows user.

There are no valid comparisons to Vista as related to gaming performance yet because Vista ain't out yet (Vista Business doesn't count, period) and because neither ATI nor Nvidia have released working production final drivers for any of their hardware for Vista yet.

I wonder how many times I (and others as well) will have to keep rebutting such silly things till the point gets across...
 
It at least makes sense to say Aero hurts gaming performance. While just as false, that argument at least (usually) comes from good faith.

This, on the other hand, seems to be the work of zealots who are afraid the anti-DRM demographic is too small. Fear mongering is something you don't see too often in this industry. Truly sad.
 
Vista crippled by content protection

By Chris Mellor,

PC users around the globe may find driver software is stopped from working by Vista if it detects unauthorised content access. Peter Guttman, a security engineering researcher at New Zealand's university of Auckland, has written A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection. He reckons Vista is trying to achieve the impossible by protecting access to premium content. Users will find their PCs' compromised by the persistent and continuous content access checks carried out by Vista.

Gutman thinks these checks and the associated increased in multimedia card hardware costs make Vista's content protection specification 'the longest suicide note in history.'

The core elements in Vista have been designed to protect access to premium content. The design requires changes in multimedia cards before Microsoft will support them for Vista use.

Content that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) must be sent across protected interfaces. This means cards using non-protected interfaces can't be used by Vista PCs.
Disabling and degrading

Vista is disadvantaging high-end audio and video systems by openly disabling devices. The most common high-end audio output interface is S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format) which doesn't have any content protection. It must be disabled in a Vista system when DRM-protected content is being played. Equally a high-end component video interface (YPbPr) also has no content protection and must be disabled when protected video is being played.

- Vista covertly degrades playback quality. PC voice communications rely on automatic echo cancellation (AEC) in order to provide acceptable voice quality. This requires feeding back a sample of the audio mix into the echo cancellation subsystem, which isn't permitted by Vista's content protection scheme. This lowers PC voice communication quality because echo affects will still be present.

- This overt and covert degrading of quality is dynamic, not consistent. Whenever any audio derived from premium content is played on a Vista PC, the disabling of output devices and downgrading of signal quality takes place. If the premium content then fades away the outputs are re-enabled and signal quality climbs back up. Such system behaviour today indicates a driver error. With Vista it will be normal behaviour.

- Vista has another playback quality reduction measure. It requires that 'any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality.' If this happens with a medical imaging application then artifacts introduced by the constrictor can 'cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening.'
CPU cycle guzzling

The O/S will use much more of a PC's CPU resource because 'Vista's content protection requires that devices (hardware and software drivers) set so-called "tilt bits" if they detect anything unusual ... 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.'

Also 'In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content sent to video devices has to be encrypted with AES-128.' Encryption/decryption is known to be CPU-intensive

Device drivers in Vista are required to poll their underlying hardware every 30ms - thirty times a second - to ensure that everything appears correct.

It is apparent that Vista is going to use very much more of a PC's resources than previous versions of Windows and degrade multi-media playback quality unless the user has purchased premium content from a Microsoft-approved resource.

Such over-reaching by Microsoft could prove to be the catalyst needed to spur increased takeup of Linux desktop operating software, or of Apple's Mac OS.

Techworld
 
darkangel74 said:
Vista has another playback quality reduction measure. It requires that 'any interface that provides high-quality output degrade the signal quality that passes through it if premium content is present. This is done through a "constrictor" that downgrades the signal to a much lower-quality one, then up-scales it again back to the original spec, but with a significant loss in quality.' If this happens with a medical imaging application then artifacts introduced by the constrictor can 'cause mis-diagnoses and in extreme cases even become life-threatening.'
At what hospital do the doctors watch HD-DVDs as they're making a diagnosis?
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
At what hospital do the doctors watch HD-DVDs as they're making a diagnosis?


I didn't write it I just quoted it. I think they are talking about using Vista in the hospital as a HD imaging device like a digital X ray.
 
Yes, but the most important part of that paragraph was the "when premium content is playing" part. Premium content being an HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, or some other form of media which takes advantage of Vista's copy protection schemes. Medical imaging devices do not fall under this category, so the only way there would be quality degredation is if you were playing a copy-protected file along with it.

I mean, now that HD-DVD is supposedly cracked, there is nothing preventing you from outputting a ripped HD-DVD at full resolution. Only if you watched a protected HD-DVD would there be a chance of quality degredation. But at this point it's not going to happen, because the flag to degrade quality on non-HDCP compliant systems is not set on current HD-DVDs or Blu-Rays and is not likely to be set for several years to come.

My point is, if DRM is going to fail, it will do so on its own merits. Either way, Vista is covered. You can use it with DRM and with the restrictions that the MPAA, not Microsoft, is imposing, or you can use it without DRM. If you don't use it, it won't affect you!
 
If you have issue then take it up with the author. Sounds to me you a bit blind and sided things one way. I'm just posting the link.

And oh they are now saying HDDVD was not cracked
 
bbz_Ghost said:
<snip>I wonder how many times I (and others as well) will have to keep rebutting such silly things till the point gets across...

Until "Windows Codenamed Venice" launches.

I've played games on just fine on Vista RC2 (don't have access to RTM) with exception of a few driver problems (artifacts in WoW, screen corruption in Doom3, Q4 demo immediately crashed to desktop, other games were fine) When final drivers are released all will be fine and fast.
 
darkangel74 said:
If you have issue then take it up with the author. Sounds to me you a bit blind and sided things one way. I'm just posting the link.

And oh they are now saying HDDVD was not cracked
What hospital is going to copyright the HDDVD? Do you know what "premium content" is?
 
Again, I'm not the one that wrote the article. If you have questions follow the link I provided and ask the guy that wrote it.
 
darkangel74 said:
Again, I'm not the one that wrote the article. If you have questions follow the link I provided and ask the guy that wrote it.
You might want to edit your first message as saying such, since it seems people here keep bashing you as if you wrote it.
 
darkangel74 said:
Again, I'm not the one that wrote the article. If you have questions follow the link I provided and ask the guy that wrote it.
Yeah, but you posted it. Why? So you could start a discussion.

My question isn't to the author, he's an idiot. My question is to the forum, and it's rather valid.

Again, what hospitals are going to copyright their work?

If you agree with the forum goers that it's incorrect, why did you post another supporting article? That shows you are supporting the authors. If not, why don't you just address the questions people are asking? They are valid and seem to make the author's point moot.

In short, FUD.

edit: Also this has been hashed out many months ago. Here's an excellent summary of WHY it's in Vista.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1027958020&postcount=60
 
I'm never said I agreed or disagreed with the article. And excuse the heck out of me if I don't follow every single thread on here. I could careless what YOU happen to think of the article. your opinion is just like the article writers, opinion until proven though testing and it seems that his conclusions are based on some merit. I seen this theroy pop up around several tech web sites. I saw the article I posted it. And what the heck does FUD mean. I'm not up on my geek forum acronyms.

Vista crippled by content protection

By Chris Mellor,

See that? Did I say i wrote it? Even provided a link to the article. Seems to me your on the bandwagon for MS . I said interesting if true.
 
Hmm, not much changed around here, eh?

Hey, BTW, did you write that article? :rolleyes:

Yeah, I think you have established MULTIPLE times you are NOT the author. Wanna try one more time? For fun, maybe?

Excuse me for responding to your post. I thought we were supposed to have discussion in a *forum*. Would you rather I agree with everything instead?

I'll tell you what FUD means when you answer my question to you. It's only polite, since I asked first. What hospitals are going to copyright their works? It's kinda an important question given the discussion.

Bandwagon, lol. Grow up. Just because I doubt the author doesn't mean I'm a MS leg-humper.

This post was written by: Phoenix86 (I swear)
 
Phoenix86 said:
Hmm, not much changed around here, eh?

Hey, BTW, did you write that article? :rolleyes:

Yeah, I think you have established MULTIPLE times you are NOT the author. Wanna try one more time? For fun, maybe?

Excuse me for responding to your post. I thought we were supposed to have discussion in a *forum*. Would you rather I agree with everything instead?

I'll tell you what FUD means when you answer my question to you. It's only polite, since I asked first. What hospitals are going to copyright their works? It's kinda an important question given the discussion.

Bandwagon, lol. Grow up. Just because I doubt the author doesn't mean I'm a MS leg-humper.

This post was written by: Phoenix86 (I swear)

Erm the hospital workers are known to relax listening to mp3 music while operating, for example. The world is so black and white when it comes to !!!!!!esm.
 
Phoenix86 said:
Hmm, not much changed around here, eh?

Hey, BTW, did you write that article? :rolleyes:

Yeah, I think you have established MULTIPLE times you are NOT the author. Wanna try one more time? For fun, maybe?

Excuse me for responding to your post. I thought we were supposed to have discussion in a *forum*. Would you rather I agree with everything instead?

I'll tell you what FUD means when you answer my question to you. It's only polite, since I asked first. What hospitals are going to copyright their works? It's kinda an important question given the discussion.

Bandwagon, lol. Grow up. Just because I doubt the author doesn't mean I'm a MS leg-humper.

This post was written by: Phoenix86 (I swear)

Grow up? You're the one coming off like the self righteous little prick not me, Unlike you, I don't know it all. So I can't answer the question. If you want to know ask the author. Just because I posted a news story I saw on digg and you don't agree with it, you jump down my throat and you're telling me to grow up. There are several other points the guy makes but yet you attack one. !!!!!!
 
Can we keep the personal attacks out of this one?
Thank you.
 
As well there is no end to the amount of strawman arguments from posters and the author of the "article".

Finn said:
Erm the hospital workers are known to relax listening to mp3 music while operating, for example. The world is so black and white when it comes to !!!!!!esm.

While surgeons and staff do listen to music while operating, I have yet to see any hospital allowing MP3s to be played on a hospital owned computer in an operating room let alone a medical imaging computer.

In additionl, most operating rooms typically do not have medical imaging devices in the same room. Even if they did, medical imaging devices running any form of Windows have intensely strict policies from the manufacturer about what can or cannot be loaded on those devices because of FDA regulations.

The author is apparently very unaware the fact that medical imaging devices are required to go through extensive testing and FDA approval prior to being placed in mainstream use.
 
It's pretty plausible that the new DRM (among many other new features) will incur some performance penalty to games (among other applications). The author makes several unreasonable points, but refusing to believe that a service running in the background will adversely affect program performance, however minimal, is similarly unreasonable.
 
Finn said:
Erm the hospital workers are known to relax listening to mp3 music while operating, for example. The world is so black and white when it comes to !!!!!!esm.

If you want to be honest, then you should point out the fact that, from a legal standpoint, playing mp3 files or even audio CDs in a public place - and believe it or not by definition a public place would include an operating room - is against the law.

So is having a TV in a doctor's office, or playing a movie to people in a blood plasma donation center, etc. It's a public rebroadcast of copyrighted material in all those situations, and against the law, period.

But no one goes after such trivial things... just wanted to point it out. :D
 
darkangel74 said:
Grow up? You're the one coming off like the self righteous little prick not me, Unlike you, I don't know it all. So I can't answer the question. If you want to know ask the author. Just because I posted a news story I saw on digg and you don't agree with it, you jump down my throat and you're telling me to grow up. There are several other points the guy makes but yet you attack one. !!!!!!
You posted an article (that you didn't write!) in a discussion forum. I started to discuss the article you posted (but didn't write!). The text of my post (which you quoted and got all defensive about) was a general rebuttal of something in the article (which you didn't write!), and in no way directed at you.

If you wanted the article discussed, you did well to post it here. If you didn't, get a blog.
 
Anyone want to place their bets on how long it will take for someone to "patch" this feature?

:cool:
 
I've read some vague and short articles about Vista and its DX10, but I just don't understand how/why would this new software API dramatically improve performance. Most of the intensive work is done in the GPU so how could software (excluding drivers and/or overclocking utilities) have such a dramatic affect?
 
They've fundamentally changed the way in which the OS interacts with the GPU. This is why you can neither have DX10 nor Vista's version of DX9 on XP. Also, GPUs supporting DX10 will most likely be built using a more efficient unified architecture.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
If you want to be honest, then you should point out the fact that, from a legal standpoint, playing mp3 files or even audio CDs in a public place - and believe it or not by definition a public place would include an operating room - is against the law.

So is having a TV in a doctor's office, or playing a movie to people in a blood plasma donation center, etc. It's a public rebroadcast of copyrighted material in all those situations, and against the law, period.

But no one goes after such trivial things... just wanted to point it out. :D


Then every single doctors office is breaking the law by your "law." But yet they still do it?

I talked to a nurse friend of mine and she told me that they use HD digital "xrays" that are protected for the protection and privacy of the patient. As to the idea that no one by the doctor and the patient should be able to see them. She said that right now their digital equipment doesn't force any type of digital rights management on the digital files as of right now. But it seems by that article that once DRM is activated by whatever means the scheme polls. Once the procees starts it polls its self every so often to find content if it finds something that isn't kosar it shuts it down. I have heard of the Zune doing pretty much the same thing. Leo laporte Has gone record of saying this about the Zune in a podcast of InDigital.
 
darkangel74 said:
Then every single doctors office is breaking the law by your "law." But yet they still do it?

He's right. It is against the law. And it's US copyright law, not his. However,, the law provides an exception that they can do it if they have permission to do so from the copyright owners. But like he said most of the time it's a non-issue since copyright owner's usually don't care about it if there's no money being made off of it.
 
Back on topic...from the study that the article I posted quoted from.



"In order to prevent tampering with in-system communications, all communication
flows have to be encrypted and/or authenticated. For example content sent to
video devices has to be encrypted with AES-128. This requirement for
cryptography extends beyond basic content encryption to encompass not just
data flowing over various buses but also command and control data flowing
between software components. For example communications between user-mode and
kernel-mode components are authenticated with OMAC message authentication-code
tags, at considerable cost to both ends of the connection.

In order to prevent active attacks, device drivers are required to poll the
underlying hardware every 30ms 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. 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. 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.
An indication of the level of complexity added to the software can be seen by
looking at a block diagram of Vista's Media Interoperability Gateway (MIG). Of
the eleven components that make up the MIG, only two (the audio and video
decoders) are actually used to render content. The remaining nine are used to
apply content-protection measures.

On-board graphics create an additional problem in that blocks of precious
content will end up stored in system memory, from where they could be paged to
disk. In order to avoid this, Vista tags such pages with a special protection
bit indicating that they need to be encrypted before being paged out and
decrypted again after being paged in. Vista doesn't provide any other
pagefile encryption, and will quite happily page banking PINs, credit card
details, private, personal data, and other sensitive information, in
plaintext. The content-protection requirements make it fairly clear that in
Microsoft's eyes a frame of premium content is worth more than (say) a user's
medical records or their banking PIN [Note K].

In addition to the CPU costs, the desire to render data inaccessible at any
level means that video decompression can't be done in the CPU any more, since
there isn't sufficient CPU power available to both decompress the video and
encrypt the resulting uncompressed data stream to the video card. As a
result, much of the decompression has to be integrated into the graphics chip.
At a minimum this includes IDCT, MPEG motion compensation, and the Windows
Media VC-1 codec (which is also DCT-based, so support via an IDCT core is
fairly easy). As a corollary to the "Increased Hardware Costs" problem above,
this means that you can't ship a low-end graphics chip without video codec
support any more."
Vista Cost.txt
 
It's F.U.D., plain and simple. I've read it three times now and I still don't see any really useful content in it to speak of or spend time debating.

Oh, and to the guy that said those HD "digital xrays" were told they were safe and protected, might wanna tell that nurse and the people she works for that anything can be beaten these days. Probably with a black magic marker...

"Looks like this patient has something left in his chest cavity after that last procedure, Dr. Smith, as noted by this black 'stripe' on the HD digital xray." "Oh my God, that's not something in his chest cavity, that's... they've... curses, HD digital xray encryption, foiled again by a Sharpie!!!"

Going out on a limb there, but the point holds. I do believe HD DVD content was just broken, iirc...

"If there's a will, there's a black magic marker... or something equally as effective..."
 
bbz_Ghost said:
It's F.U.D., plain and simple. I've read it three times now and I still don't see any really useful content in it to speak of or spend time debating.

Oh, and to the guy that said those HD "digital xrays" were told they were safe and protected, might wanna tell that nurse and the people she works for that anything can be beaten these days. Probably with a black magic marker...

"Looks like this patient has something left in his chest cavity after that last procedure, Dr. Smith, as noted by this black 'stripe' on the HD digital xray." "Oh my God, that's not something in his chest cavity, that's... they've... curses, HD digital xray encryption, foiled again by a Sharpie!!!"

Going out on a limb there, but the point holds. I do believe HD DVD content was just broken, iirc...

"If there's a will, there's a black magic marker... or something equally as effective..."


But but thats ILLEGAL!

And you are? An expert in the field? Its gaining ground about all this. Sure you don't think it to be valid after all your blinded but this FUD thing you keep talking about.


FUD FUD FUD FUD FUD man (in tune of the batman theme
 
You don't get it. You're acting as though Microsoft actually cares if people pirate protected HD content. They don't. All they cared about was being able to play HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, so that Vista's MCE wasn't rendered obsolete by these new formats. The MPAA are the ones mandating these protection measures. Microsoft wanted to be able to play HD-DVDs, so they went along with what the movie industry demanded.

You would think from reading this article that Vista is extremely slow because of all the DRM built into it. The truth is, Vista does everything XP does for me, but faster. Yes, you heard me correctly, faster. So, if Vista really was polling my hardware every 30ms back when I had it installed, I really don't care, because it was still faster despite it.

I actually don't believe it was doing that, however. I think one of the major things this article tries to mislead the reader about is that all of these content-protection measures are running even when protected content isn't being played. From everything I've read about Vista, they're only activated when asked for by some form of premium content. Thus, most of the horrible side effects of Vista's DRM which are highlighted by this article cannot possibly be encountered unless you're playing premium content.

Darkangel74 said:
And you are? An expert in the field? Its gaining ground about all this. Sure you don't think it to be valid after all your blinded but this FUD thing you keep talking about.
When you come here spreading the contents of that article as though they were gospel, why are you so surprised that people who have actually used Vista and know better are daring to disagree with you? Rather than becoming informed about the issue yourself, why do you flame those that disagree with you?
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
You don't get it. You're acting as though Microsoft actually cares if people pirate protected HD content. They don't. All they cared about was being able to play HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays, so that Vista's MCE wasn't rendered obsolete by these new formats. The MPAA are the ones mandating these protection measures. Microsoft wanted to be able to play HD-DVDs, so they went along with what the movie industry demanded.

You would think from reading this article that Vista is extremely slow because of all the DRM built into it. The truth is, Vista does everything XP does for me, but faster. Yes, you heard me correctly, faster. So, if Vista really was polling my hardware every 30ms back when I had it installed, I really don't care, because it was still faster despite it.

I actually don't believe it was doing that, however. I think one of the major things this article tries to mislead the reader about is that all of these content-protection measures are running even when protected content isn't being played. From everything I've read about Vista, they're only activated when asked for by some form of premium content. Thus, most of the horrible side effects of Vista's DRM which are highlighted by this article cannot possibly be encountered unless you're playing premium content.

When you come here spreading the contents of that article as though they were gospel, why are you so surprised that people who have actually used Vista and know better are daring to disagree with you? Rather than becoming informed about the issue yourself, why do you flame those that disagree with you?

"This revocation can have unforeseen carry-on costs. Windows' anti-piracy
component, WGA, is tied to system hardware components. Windows allows you to
make a small number of system hardware changes after which you need to renew
your Windows license (the exact details of what you can and can't get away
with changing has been the subject of much debate). If a particular piece of
hardware is deactivated (even just temporarily while waiting for an updated
driver to work around a content leak) and you swap in a different video card
or sound card to avoid the problem, you risk triggering Windows' anti-piracy
measures, landing you in even more hot water. If you're forced to swap out a
major system component like a motherboard, you've instantly failed WGA
validation. Revocation of any kind of motherboard-integrated device
(practically every motherboard has some form of onboard audio, and all of the
cheaper ones have integrated video) would appear to have a serious negative
interaction with Windows' anti-piracy measures."

Remember this is a discussion about what I posted. I'm presenting counter points from the article. Seems like good ole MS does care about pirates. So your saying all what that article is saying is lies? If the guy that wrote that article hasn't used Vista then wow he waisted a great deal of time fabacating all the info. And you are a expert in all things vista? Who said I haven't used Vista? Did I?
 
Back
Top