Installing XP on Vostro 1700 for gaming performance.

Summary of Specs:
CPU - Core 2 Duo at 2.2 GHz (T7500)
RAM - 3GB DDR2
HDD - 160 GB; 160GB in what appears to be a parition, I think.
Video - 17" display with a maximum resolution of 1400x900 powered by an nVidia GeForce Go 8600M GT (256MB DDR2 VRAM).
OS - Windows Vista Premium

The premise:
I've seen videos and read reviews where people have been able to run games like Crysis and BioShock on very similar machines at generally medium-to-high settings (Mostly medium for Crysis).

My problem:
While I get a score of 4300+ on 3dMark06, after new drivers and overclocking to 600/500 using RivaTuner, the games still run terribly. Crysis is pure slug - at lowest resolutions and settings. Even older games seem to be having issues. After reading many topics and debates with back and forth speculations on the powers and limitations of these 8-series cards, I have understood that Vista takes some of the blame. Also to note: Most of the decent-performance videos of games like Crysis and BioShock running on 8600M GT laptops seem to be running on windows XP SP2.

My question:
Would installing Windows XP improve the situation with regards to gaming? Would there be a significant performance boost with XP?

Help, input, and constructive criticisms of overclocking would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

Well...

Give me an hour and I'll install the demo and let you know, I'm running XP Pro.

 

If you want to try it yourself, then it's quite easy (Provided you have a copy of XP).

Make a new partition of about 20GB.
Slipstream the SATA drivers into XP with nLite (And if you want to tweak the install, this is a good time to do it too - nLite is a damn fine tool).
Print a copy of one of the numerous "Dual booting Vista & XP" tutorials.
Install XP on the new partition.
Play around.

Have you tried tweaking Vista though? Cleaning out any unrequired rubbish, halting non-required services, giving it dirty looks, disabling resource wasting processes? It's something else to try, and might not help games all that much, but could help other things.

 

That score is about right. Crysis is GPU dependant, not CPU Dependant.

With my Laptop in my sig, I can play Crysis 800x600 Low settings for 60fps or 1024x768 Low for 25-30fps.

Use that as your comparison.

I'm not sure what reviews you were reading but there is no way an 8600GT desktop, or laptop variant will be running Medium settings at anything above 1024x768 smoothly. You will be needing a 8800GS or better to run on High settings.

 

Well, of course I'd expect any current gen game's performance index to be highly contingent on the GPU. Although my question still stands: Isn't it true that Vista's infamous for having terrible GPU utility and drivers?

Thing is that there's videos on youtube, as we speak, that show the game running at moderate levels. You make a good point that Crysis wouldn't run at anything above 1024x768. That is exactly what most of those videos show: Crysis running at medium and a resolution of 1024-1200. Now is this the case for mine? Not quite. My machine's performance is actually a poetic metaphor for a dying slug at 800x600 with most of the settings on low - it's utterly rubbish. I'd easily--for the time being--settle for 60 FPS on low at 800x600- tell me how you've accomplished this using Vista, or are you an XP user?

LordBug,
You seem to have a machine with the exact same specs as my own; is XP an improvement over Vista in terms of gaming experience?

 

I must confess, I haven't gotten around to testing out the Crysis demo under XP yet. I might give it a go a bit later on tonight though, as it's been something that I've been curious about for a while too.

 

Crysis Demo runs on my XP Pro machine (15" version of your Vostro, otherwise identical) all medium, 1280x800, at around 20-21 FPS. It's low, but not un-doable. At 1024x768, also medium, I ran around 25-27.

 

the crysis demo works fine on my system with no problems running vista.. settings are mid-high.. are u using 169.09 from laptopvideos2go?

 

LordBug,
Do let me know how things go on your machine. Information on your OS setup would also be appreciated.

Jlbrightbill,
Many thanks for the help, dude. Yeah, I wanted to get similar results as that of your machine's, but even the occassional performance boosts on my machine are exactly that - occassional. I'd rather have some level of stable performance.

IcEmAn911.
Thanks for the info. I see that you've got a similar system as well. Yes, it took me a while, but I am running the 169.09 drivers from laptopvideos2go. I coupled that with Riva Tuner, and even took the clocks up to 650 and 550 for core and memory, respectively. It would be killer if I could get the game to run fine on medium with a few highs. Got any tips?

 

At 650/550 there's no way you shouldn't be able to run it on all medium at 1024x768. What are your peak temps at that OC? I'm running 600/500 on mine and haven't hit any higher than 67 C. I'd be careful with that kind of OC, I'm assuming you're properly checking for artifacts? Then again you do have the 17" which will by very nature of size have more case space and probably lower temps. I can't get higher than around 610/510 on mine without ATITool picking up artifacts.

 

Jlbrightbill,
I will fully agree to 650/550 being too high for the good of the machine, and I have scanned for artifacts - my stability limit is around 630/510, honestly. As for the temperatures, mine never seems to go above 50; usually peaks at 45 when I am gaming with 630/510 - no errors in ATITool.

 

ATITool reads the temperature wrong, very wrong too. Get HWMonitor for an accurate reading. ATITool is usually off by 8-9 C.

 

Jlbrightbill,
For some odd reason, ATITool just won't read temps on this machine - hear it's something to do with Vista security settings. I'm using--and have used--I8kfan and HWMonitor for the aforementioned figures.

 

I8kfangui also reads the temperatures wrong from my experience. When it shows peaks of 61, with HWMonitor it shows a peak of 67.

 

Like I said, my HWmonitor readings are the same. I always confirm with HWmonitor.