OS affecting GPU performance?

[Praesul]

I´m on a dual OS system (Windows ME & XP Pro). When using the latest WHQL drivers from nVidia for both OS, I get 400 points more when running ME in 3Dmark, and the general gaming performance is much better.

I´ve optimized XP for performance, removed indexing, restore, auto-update and tweaked the Services, what more can I do? Right now I´m using XP for surfing the net and Office, and ME for heavy online gaming.

What is wrong here, should ME really perform better in games than XP Pro??? I love XP and would like to use it for everything, but for now ME is much faster in games... I know XP is more future-proof, but for now ME is much faster in the games I´m running???

P.S. Using games like BF1942, Medal of Honor, Sub Command, ST Fleet Command 3, SeaDogs, POTC and Civ3 - Play the World.

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The difference between theory and practise in practise is greater than the difference between theory and practise in theory.<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Praesul on 08/13/03 07:25 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[sargeduck]

What's your video card, your cpu, your ram, your motherboard? some system specs could help. The reason I say this is that xp likes a lot of ram. If you're heavy into gaming and are using xp, I would wager a guess that you should have at least 512 megs of ram. If you only have say....256 or less, than this might be one problem.

 

[cleeve]

3dmark 2003 or 3dmark 2001 SE?

A 400 point difference in 3dMark 2001 SE is not noticable and not worth pointing out.

A 400 point difference in 3dMark 2003 is pretty substantial, though...

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Radeon 9500 w/256 bit memory bus @ 367/310
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3439

 

[davemar14]

Toms Hardware had an article showing gaming under different OS's. It said that ME was the best at gaming and XP was only a frame or two behind. I found this to be the total opposite on my system. I gained 500 points in 3D Mark 2001 when I changed from ME to XP Pro. Just make sure you have the newest drivers. For 3D Mark 2001 SE the best drivers for Nvidia are 40.72.