Gaming in Vista, watch out XP!

im no expert on the subject, but thats certainly what it seemed like.

there might have been a 32 bit executable in the hl2 folder somewhere.

 

I thought that x64 capable games had x64 and x86 copies of libraries and executables... so the question is, does HL2 sell with both builds, or are they sold separately?

 

Honestly, I think you are only halfway through the development.

Its a cycle...

Most experienced users:
1) begin by hating Vista's changes without noticeable improvement
2) start noticing little things (auto smart network config, security features, things working and others not)
3) begin liking the little things and learn to work with the annoyances
4) decide Vista isn't bad at all
5) have to work without Vista for awhile
6) won't use XP by choice on newer hardware ever again


Experienced users also come in many flavors...
The most experienced learn to use UAC or turn it off and install their favorite security programs.
However, once they do find just how convenient UAC can be.


The oddest circle?
Security.
1) beginners are more secure than most of the rest due to being nervous about "breaking it" so they are ultra careful
2) those with a little computer experience are still careful but a little curious and things get a little dangerous
3) those with moderate experience generally start getting really dangerous as they know just enough to get them in trouble and not enough to get out.
4) those just starting the "expert" path are the worst of all as they have probably mastered one or two aspects of computing and get over-confident. These people are "too smart" for security features and not smart enough to actually catch the real threats. They lose their paranoia to personal pride and thus are THE biggest security hole in any network.
5) those that have made a few mistakes and have seen the real world then start gaining their paranoia back and get more secure.
6) The most secure person is the one who doesn't think they are secure until the computer is unplugged... no matter how good they think they are they know someone else is better and they need to prep for that circumstance.

 

This is about gaming, not about security. Nobody is debating whethere Vista is the better OS, IT IS !
But for gaming, it`s still behind XP. STILL.

 

I have a few problems with their methodology.
First, how come their vanilla Vista system suddenly performs almost as well? It seems it's not quite vanilla.

I'd have liked to see them reproduce the old "crappy" scores for Vista, so that we can actually isolate what it is that's improving the picture so much. It doesn't seem to be SP1. Is it GPU drivers? Then show us benchmarks with new and old drivers.

What they seem to be doing is taking two "more or less up to date" Vista machines, which both perform well. Which leaves the question of "ok, so what was wrong with the "old" Vista" unanswered. For that matter, they don't even prove that the "old" Vista problems have been solved, because they haven't reproduced them. Perhaps those games just always performed well on Vista on their systems. Perhaps it's not Vista performing well, but problems with their XP setup holding that back.

Next up, the tests seem rather minimal. Not that many games, and not that many different resolutions and detail levels (GPU vs CPU load)

The figures are interesting, certainly, but until I see some better quality benchmarking (and results that are verified by other sites), I'll take it with a grain of salt

Not because I think they're corrupt or paid by Microsoft or anything like that, but because the above seems amateurish. I don't usually read ET, but if this is their normal standard, I'm certainly not going to start now.

See above. Most importantly, of course, I'd like to see the same results from other sites.

I'd like to dispute that claim...

 

i dont know about you guys but at least for me as a SLI user (SLI 7950GTX) under vista i get 30FPS in gears of war, but under XP 62FPS all the time, same goes for Stranglehold and UT3, i had all hotfixes installed but it was still a pain to play in such FPS on a capable system, so i upgraded to XP and i'm enjoying it

 

Ya, I may not personally "own" Vista, I have used it alot. I have lots of friends that have it, and I use their computers frequently, and am pretty much all of their personal tech support guy. So, I know all about Vista, and have my opinion based on experience. I do not base anything on what others say. I have my own opinion, and everyone is entitled to their own. Ya Vista is very pretty, but you can make XP just as nice, but use half of the resources. I guess I should put all of the machines I use on a daily basis in my sig, well nah It couldn't fit in the 345 or so character limit.

Thanks

 

I agree they need to show a truely vanilla Vista with older drivers versus SP1 Vista with new drivers. That is where you see an improvement. It seems they used new drivers and probably installed a few Windows Updates on the "vanilla model". This was a fairly random article for ExtremeTech, and I jumped on it because I've been waiting for a reputable tech site to compare Vista SP1 vs XP SP3. AnandTech hasn't, Tom's Hardware hasnt, Maximum PC might have, but I don't subscribe anymore.

So for now, take the results with a grain of salt until we see some more benchmarks backing up the data. Odds are, though, no other site is going to take the time to do this sort of testing because they just don't care or are monoOS exclusive anyway. I very much appreciate the reasoned response, Jalf.

 

Indeed, we do have more power.

Or at least XP makes my machine feel... more powerful XD;

I don't hate Vista. Trust me, I almost regretted getting XP on my laptop because when I got my laptop, I thought to myself, "Hey, I'm looking at the same old XP I've been looking at for God knows how long?! Doesn't feel like a new computer at all!" But when I installed games and even got to play Oblivion on almost MAX [Shadow sliders somewhere in the middle], I reminded myself of why I got XP in the 1st place. Gaming performance ROCKS!

Anyway, personal experiences aside, I'd like to see more articles and results on this topic. M$ already ought to give its consumers what they deserve, not some half baked OS, as Ballmer admitted.