Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown

[bourgeoisdude]

DX10 software will be backwards compatible with DX9 the same way DX9 software is with DX8, etc., ensuring the widest possible market for the software

DirectX 10 hardware will be backwards compatible with DirectX 9/8.1, but DirectX 10 is NOT backwards compatible with DirectX 9 ...

I could nit-pick your entire post apart, but quite frankly I suspect you wouldn't listen to me regardless. Please prove me wrong.

Vista (DX10 software) runs on DX9 hardware. M$ would be cutting its own throat if it didn't, as would other software developers

nit pick away, if you haven't anything better to do in an anonymous forum

(sigh) Alright then...Vista is not DirectX 10 software--it has another version of DirectX (9.0n) that it uses INSTEAD OF DirectX 10 for backwards compatibility. And no, I have better things to do.

 

[Digitalfiends]

Vista (DX10 software) runs on DX9 hardware. M$ would be cutting its own throat if it didn't, as would other software developers

You do realize that Vista's Aero UI doesn't use DirectX 10, right? That's why Vista works on DX9 hardware. DirectX 9 is included in Vista for backwards compatibility and the UI. If a game is built against DX10, it will *not* run on DX9 unless provisions have been made in the driver for this type of support. Edit: (or if the game has been coded to support a DX9 rendering path.)

DX10 is a lot more than just a minor upgrade.

 

[darklife41]

I think this review supports what I've been saying all along for the most part. As much as I was looking forward to Vista, after running the Beta/RC1 versions and now the RTM version for a couple weeks I'm totally disappointed.

Vista is laggy and slow. I can't see how anyone thinks Vista is smoother or faster in any way. Its slow on my system, and a total dog with a single core 3.0GHz Intel or 3500+ Athlon. This equates to requiring a completely new system for anyone having to upgrade a 2 year old system, as both a C2D and an Athlon 64 dual core will require a new motherboard (and quite possibly RAM) for systems over 2 years old. This is not acceptable for the average computer user.

The new security features are bothersome and will be turned off my most users anyway.

DRM has definitely effected music playback of my MP3s. Good luck installing your favorite file sharing program and getting anything to work from them.

There's less driver support for existing software. I don't buy the arguement that it's always been an issue. With each new version of Windows in the past, driver support has gotten better and better. Not so with Vista. This is a giant step backwards. There's absolutely no good excuse for not having basic RAID, audio, media player, and anti-virus support on an OS that's taken 5 years and several delays to make it to market.

The comparison to ME is a good one from a marketing perspective. Both are lemons.

Stability wasn't an issue with XP, so is a non-issue for Vista.

I've read every review I can find lately on Vista. I'm at around 80% negative to 20% positive. However even the positive reviews point out problems. No biggy for those who have 1 system to worry about maybe, but as a system builder I've got to support every system that goes out the door. I'm thinking we'll need a disclaimer for anyone who wants Vista from us (buy at your own risk and have fun getting everything to work on it).

It takes a suped up computer to run Vista with all it's bells and whistles enabled. No biggy for the enthusiast who OCs their CPU. Huge deal for those who don't and own 2 year old technology or earlier.

About the only good thing I can find is that the prices in AU for OEM versions are comparable to XP. But retail full versions double the cost for the computer. They're simply not going to sell in Oz, as most people can only afford a system under $1200AUD.

And anyone who thinks the listed basic requirements will run Vista smoothly has no idea what they're talking about. Funny how most who argue the basic requirements are running much more on their own systems. Well we've tested Vista Ultimate and Business versions on the basic requirements. Forget about it. For that matter, I can't remember the last time I bought any software that performed well with the basic requirements. Basic hardware requirements will allow the OS to boot up. The 3d interface will work on a 128mb card until you start another program. That's fine if you want to stare at your desktop. If you want to actually do things on the system, you have to close down half the options.

I'm not anti-microsoft... yet. Another joke like Vista and I will be. People want the new OS as it comes out and is marketed to be ready for public use. Its crazy to think that you have to wait a year or 2 for them to work all the bugs out of it before you can equal your productivity with the older version.

 

[bydesign]

DRM has definitely effected music playback of my MP3s. Good luck installing your favorite file sharing program and getting anything to work from them.
.

A friend told me there is no issue what so ever

You should believe him as well...
I've even back up a few kids DVD's with no issues.

My work PC is a P4 3Ghz and it runs fine with 1Gig of ram. Yes it's faster on my home PC but it's in pretty high-end. The screansavers really blow at work though...

 

[russki]

and Netscape was better than IE, but was crushed because M$ gave IE away for free, killing Netscape's market.

Netscape was not crushed until MS updated its IE to a version that was, objectvely, better than Netscape. Netscape was slow to react.

Wow--did you google it? Notice all those results describing at as a Windows XP "hoax" near the bottom of the first page of results?

Touché

Speaking of time how long till those buying vista 32bit will have to buy the 64bit version? The funny thing is vista 32bit can only use the same amount of RAM as XP.

This is pretty much an idiotic comment. First of all, the 4 GB 32 bit limitation, if I remember correctly, is the limitation of 32 bit addressing so it would be impossible to write any code that would address more than that with 32 bit registers (somebody correct me if I'm wrong here). But even more importantly, both 32 bit and 64 bit versions come on the Vista DVD, you can install whichever.

@darklife: are you crying about driver support on the second day of the release? You must not remember the XP situation when it came out. And crying about upgrading a 2-year old system - you know, that's about the cycle of technology in this industry and has been for a long while. I'm not even talking about gfx, which has been going about 6 months between major updates / new releases in the recent past.

And to save the best for last, although nhobo's moronic point about DX10 has been beaten to death (rightfully so) already, I just can't resist. Yes, it is most likely that DX10 software released in the foreseeable future will also run on DX9, it will not have certain features in the compatibility mode. Let me try to explain, since you fail to grasp the idea. You can use SM3 if you have a DX9 card, say, in Far Cry. You can also play Far Cry on a DX8 card, but you are limited to SM2.0 (I think, but the idea holds). It's the same with DX10 and DX9. And let me make things clear. DX9 mode will not have some of the features reserved exclusively for DX10. As simple as that. Hope this clears things up.

 

[darklife41]

DRM has definitely effected music playback of my MP3s. Good luck installing your favorite file sharing program and getting anything to work from them.
.

A friend told me there is no issue what so ever

You should believe him as well...
I've even back up a few kids DVD's with no issues.

My work PC is a P4 3Ghz and it runs fine with 1Gig of ram. Yes it's faster on my home PC but it's in pretty high-end. The screansavers really blow at work though...

I don't need to rely on someone else's advice. I've been running Vista on my own systems and seen what DRM does. My experience differs to yours...er.. your friend's.

 

[HotFoot]

...But even more importantly, both 32 bit and 64 bit versions come on the Vista DVD, you can install whichever.

Just to note: this is true for retail versions of Vista, but not OEM. I'm uncertain about the upgrade disks. Anandtech link.

Along with the other limitations of the OEM versions we listed above, only the retail versions of Vista are shipping with x64 and x86 together; the OEM versions are only sold in an either/or fashion: you can either get the x64 or x86 version, but not both at once.

 

[russki]

the list of those challenging Vista's purpose and utility is wide and reknowned: John Dvorak on Vista

Fascinating little article Dvorak wrote. I really don't know how he gets off (apparently, MS bashing, whcih is good clean fun so carry on). But his article contains gross inaccuracies. Win 3.1 was nothing but a graphical shell on top of the DOS, while OS/2 was a real system. Actually, through Win98, it was just a well disguised shell over a DOS layer. And the complaint about DOS was that 1) it was a CPM rip-off, and a bad one at that; 2) FAT was a Horrible file system, through and through; 3) it provided no means of multi-tasking or the depth of unix; 4) it was not open platform, etc.. Windows complaints went farther - dumb cooperative multi-tasking, whcih is not true multi-tasking at all, continued use of the bad file system until NTFS came along (whcih still many people hated, IIRC). Oh and by the way Dvorak's want for open source software for everyone is a crazy dream. Sure, a nice concept, but you can't implement it in a manner that would satisfy any kind of corporate users that need 1) standartization; 2) support, two things that are extremely difficult to achieve with anything open source.

 

[slavetrader]

i have done the beta for over a year now. vista isnt lagging my 3200@ 2.6.
Drivers were a problem a year ago but not now.
drm isnt a problem either.
the only problem i had with vista is that games didnt run as smooth as xp

 

[darklife41]

I only did Beta testing for 4 months. Now I'm using RTM versions of Ultimate and Business. Apparently my testing is more thorough than yours.

No offence, but your system is slightly outdated which is why you can find drivers.

That's also why you wouldn't notice if it was slow or not. I about fell asleep waiting for a dual core 3800+ to install Vista. The time is cut in half by a x6400.

I timed the installation of 15 games and software titles on the same CPU's with Vista Business, Ultimate, and XP Pro. I've used the 3800+ dual core, an 805D@4.1GHz and the x6400@2.8GHz. The results were almost identical with both versions of Vista, and an average of 2 minutes longer per installation than XP. That may not seem like much to you, but it's forever to me. Especially since this OS is constantly referred to by MS as "faster". It's not.

There are no drivers available for HD audio, SATA and RAID drivers are still hit/miss.

Many software titles are not currently supported, such as most anti-virus (I prefer AVG), spyware (PestPatrol) and on and on. Power DVD is not supported. I had a list of 7 software programs not currently supported by Vista on the MS system check which I downloaded earlier this week.

You get the point.

I'm not going to argue the DRM issues. I know what issues I'm getting. People who don't share these problems are lucky, but there are those of us who do and will continue to have problems.

 

[Digitalfiends]

I only did Beta testing for 4 months. Now I'm using RTM versions of Ultimate and Business. Apparently my testing is more thorough than yours.

No offence, but your system is slightly outdated which is why you can find drivers.

That's also why you wouldn't notice if it was slow or not. I about fell asleep waiting for a dual core 3800+ to install Vista. The time is cut in half by a x6400.

That makes absolutely no sense. I have a dual core X2 4400 O/C to 2.5GHz with only 1 GB of RAM (2-2-2-5 timing). Vista Ultimate RTM installed unbelievably fast on my system. I didn't time it, but I would estimate it was about 15-20 minutes, tops, if that. I was extremely impressed.

I timed the installation of 15 games and software titles on the same CPU's with Vista Business, Ultimate, and XP Pro. I've used the 3800+ dual core, an 805D@4.1GHz and the x6400@2.8GHz. The results were almost identical with both versions of Vista, and an average of 2 minutes longer per installation than XP. That may not seem like much to you, but it's forever to me. Especially since this OS is constantly referred to by MS as "faster". It's not.

It seems you might have an I/O issue with your system(s) because, once again, on my old system everything installs exceptionally fast. I'm only using a single 320GB Seagate as well. Honestly, even if installing an application on Vista takes marginally longer, is that really grounds to ignore all the good features and condemn a brand new OS?

By the way, on my primary development machine (the X2 4400), applications start up much quicker in Vista than on XP.

There are no drivers available for HD audio, SATA and RAID drivers are still hit/miss.

Really...

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=24&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3&GetDown=false#High%20Definition%20Audio%20Codecs

You think a "systems integrator" would have been able to find that...

There was a driver for my Silicon RAID controller included in Vista RTM (dated 11/27/06.) The only thing that doesn't work right now on my system is my HP LaserJet 1012 printer.

I realize what you are trying to say though, but you make it sound like nothing works under Vista, which is utterly false. Yes there will be compatibility issues, just like Windows XP had (or Windows 95.)

Many software titles are not currently supported, such as most anti-virus (I prefer AVG), spyware (PestPatrol) and on and on. Power DVD is not supported. I had a list of 7 software programs not currently supported by Vista on the MS system check which I downloaded earlier this week.

Windows Defender is a top notch anti-spyware program built by the people that know the OS the best. I used to use Adaware and our corporate SpyRemover (which is horrible) but since trying out Windows Defender, I've been quite satisfied with its operation.

The new security features are bothersome and will be turned off my most users anyway.

Anyone who turns off enhanced security (UAC) is a moron. Period. If you can't take a second to click a simple button for the sake of enhanced security, you should go back to Windows 98. UAC is a huge leap forward for Windows (*nix variants have had this for a while), especially for developers like me that have to run as Administrators but want confirmation when something requires admin level privileges.

DRM has definitely effected music playback of my MP3s. Good luck installing your favorite file sharing program and getting anything to work from them.

Have you even been running Vista?! I've got Limeware and Azureus installed on Vista Ultimate RTM. Limeware complains but runs (and I haven't updated to the latest version...it is a known Java issue.) Azureus runs flawlessly.

I'm not going to argue the DRM issues. I know what issues I'm getting. People who don't share these problems are lucky, but there are those of us who do and will continue to have problems.

How am I lucky? I can burn all my CDs to MP3s using WM11, download and play episodes of Top Gear using Azureus, a Bit Torrent client which you claim doesn't work because of DRM, play DivX files using the codec right from divx.com, watch DVDs, and transfer MP3s to my iPod Shuffle. Where is this highly invasive and performance crushing DRM code that you are talking about? Yes DRM is built into the OS, but it doesn't impact the OS like you are claiming.

Furthermore, all my games work, granted some of them have degraded performance, but they all work and future driver updates from ATi will address that.

Lastly, for someone that sells computers for a living, you would think that you would be more open to change and not so concerned about people with two year old computers. Yes, Vista is probably the most resource intensive OS from MS to date, but most new systems will be more than capable of running Vista with all its features enabled. By the way, my system is over a year and a half old (with the exception of my X1900XT) and, with the exception of a few games, Vista runs as fast as my XP installation.

Vista is far from perfect but it is also a far cry from the mangled mess some are making it out to be. Microsoft will also be quick to rectify any serious issues that people have with their new OS. Afterall, this isn't WinME that we're talking about here...

 

[elbert]

This is pretty much an idiotic comment. First of all, the 4 GB 32 bit limitation, if I remember correctly, is the limitation of 32 bit addressing so it would be impossible to write any code that would address more than that with 32 bit registers (somebody correct me if I'm wrong here). But even more importantly, both 32 bit and 64 bit versions come on the Vista DVD, you can install whichever.

No it shows that Microsoft is using RAM to force buying later. As someone already points out the OEM versions dont come with 64bit vista and even so with the retail versions the 8GB's limited vista is a waste of money. I would use up the XP's 4GB RAM limit so Microsoft can fix their junk. Finally if you note that home version's of vista doesnt even cover 32GB motherboards you'll see microsoft has already decided the cut off date, kind of, for current home vista support. Did you note the 1GB limit on the EU version? LOL!!!

Did you note the 64 and 128GB in 32bit of Windows Server versions? I didnt think the 4GB limit in 32bit would be fixed but M$ shouldnt place the limit so low on the 64bit versions. OEM's should demand the 64bit versions and no one should buy the cheap vista versions.

This is M$ way of not having to compete against its older OS versions in the future. Lets face it XP is the best produced M$ has ever made and is ahead of its time due to media center versions couldnt replace it and vista has its work cut out until the 4GB limit kicks in.

 

[melmac]

Here, here Digitalfiends. I read through Darklife41's post and does he have a clue what He is tlaking about. Looking through his post I wonder did he do any installing or testing of Vista at all.

I am currently a member of the technet program. I have installed Vista on 3 different machines of various specs. From an athlon xp 2400 with 1 gb ram and a 9800pro to an opteron 170 dual core cpu with 2GB ram and a 1900XTX. I have been using Vista as my main operating system since september. I update to the final release in November. The only issues I had were with the beta versions and sata support for raid. Nvidia's drivers were very hard to get. But Since the November release these have been fixed.

Install times for the operating system have been fairly quick, I didn't time them, but there were no major delays.

Digitalfiends is also right about file sharing programs. They all work really well, in fact better than XP, as you don't have to run any reg hacks to open the max transfers. I have tried Shareeazza, Bit tornado, Limewire and Azerus. No problems.

Darklife41 has also reported no anti virus progams, and that his favorite AVG isn't available for Vista, well, I used AVG free on 3 systems here in my home, with only one problem the control panel wouldn't run on startup, I had to start it manually. But, again, since November AVG has released a Vista version and it works flawlessly.

Also, I use Power DVD to watch movies, DVD's and some HD content as well. In fact I cannot name a single program that hasn't worked on Vista yet. Programs like open office, VLC video player, adobe premier 2, Photoshop 6, illustrator cz and more. Games like football manger 2007, Oblivion, Half life 2, company of heros, CS:Source, FEAR. Also Software like UltraVNC, teamspeak, MIIRC, quicktime player.

I have serious doubts that Darklife41 did any sort of testing at all on Vista. As Digitalfiends pointed out, he couldn't even find sata and HD drivers that are readily available, and he also couldn't find his favorite antivirus program for Vista even though it's been vista ready sinve November of last year.

This is like when XP was first released. Lot of people said the same things that they are saying now about Vista. About how crap it is about the compabitility issues about programs not running, about drivers. Blah, blah bla, and it's all happening again.

Oh, and directx10 will never be ported into XP. Do you not all realise that part of the reason for Vista is the fact directx could not be upgraded any further on XP. DirectX 10 is built right into the operating system of Vista. To get DirectX 10 working on XP you would have to rebuild the XP operating system from Scratch. Which microsoft have done already. it#s called Vista.

Yes there are issues still with Vista. But I think Vista will be a much better operating system than XP ever was. Alos nobody is forcing you to change over to Vista. By the time people start to move over to Vista in the large scale things like Hardware requirements, Drivers issues etc etc. will not be as big a concern. Just like XP, in fact.

 

[nhobo]

Dvorak's want for open source software for everyone is a crazy dream. Sure, a nice concept, but you can't implement it in a manner that would satisfy any kind of corporate users that need 1) standartization; 2) support, two things that are extremely difficult to achieve with anything open source.

except of course for Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, Linux, OpenOffice, etc.

open source is the future despite the best effort of M$, which has invested everything in copyright protection, monopolistic practices and hypermarketed bloatware

as for the rest of Dvorak's article, very little of what you said even applies. Dvorak didn't mention 3.1, 98, the relative quality of DOS vs. CPM, etc. - that's all your (russki's) stuff

 

[russki]

I wonder if you read the article attentively. He said that people complained that DOS was "just a file loader." That was his way of making the point that integrating new services into a system makes it just bloated and just as useless. He used unix as an example. I disputed his claim that people were unhappy with DOS because it was a loader; I simply said that there were a lot more important issues people raised. He used Linux as a good example of the direction things should be going in, and I brought up 3.1 because the first Linux kernels (along with graphical shells) started showing up around the time 3.1 was maturng. He proceeded to call Windows a sysem from its early days, as a natural progression from DOS, which is why I said that it never actually was an OS until W95, but really XP (well, NT, really, which was way earlier, but I'm assuming we're talking about consumer segment).

And by the way, Firefox, for being a pioneering piece of software, still does not work with a bunch of websites that we, for example, use on a day to day basis for our business, and that's why it will never be a corporate standard. That's what I was talking about. Nor will Open Office.

Without a financial obligation between the user and the maker of the software, there is only limited obligation on the part of the software maker to support it, and no major corporation can accept tht state of affairs. When they need support, they need it now (if not yesterday). That's why open source, at least in its purest form, will never work for the corporate segment, and as a corollary, will not be the future despite your claims.

It's a cool thing to dabble with, though, don't get me wrong. I'm all for it.

 

[HotFoot]

The support service you desire, or project corporations desiring, is available as fee for service from companies like RedHat and Novel. As for adopting open-source software, this is happening here and there, but it's not taking off like a rocket. I am pleased to see municipal governments such as Munich and Chicago picking up linux and open-source software for their office operations. Europe as a whole is much more into Linux than the North American market, according to a couple of my friends who moved here from Germany. Then again, one of them is a RedHat instructor.

When I first used OpenOffice, it was version 1.something and I wasn't too impressed. It didn't do a lot of the things I wanted, especially in the spreadsheet. However, version 2.0 has made a significant gain. I truly think this software will do everything the common user wants in the next couple of years.

As for standards, I believe it is the open-source coders that are pushing standards development now. Consider that MS Office 2007 is picking up the open-document standard. This is a big step forward in interoperability. Now MS will have to sell their software based on it's features, rather than the idea that you have to use it just to be able to share documents.

Next thing I'd really like to see from MS is adoption of a few more open-standard file systems. Basically I will applaud any move by MS that increases their interoperability. Can MS learn to play well with others?

 

[zenmaster]

Dvorak's want for open source software for everyone is a crazy dream. Sure, a nice concept, but you can't implement it in a manner that would satisfy any kind of corporate users that need 1) standartization; 2) support, two things that are extremely difficult to achieve with anything open source.

except of course for Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird, Apache, Linux, OpenOffice, etc.

open source is the future despite the best effort of M$, which has invested everything in copyright protection, monopolistic practices and hypermarketed bloatware

as for the rest of Dvorak's article, very little of what you said even applies. Dvorak didn't mention 3.1, 98, the relative quality of DOS vs. CPM, etc. - that's all your (russki's) stuff

Even the Linux Operating Systems are very well supported for the enterprise. Both SUSE and REDHAT ship with both consumer and enterprise versions. The Enterprise versions tend to come out less often and have the most tried and true components. The consumer versions bring cutting edge technology. These companies make their money not on selling the open source code, but providing the expertise in supporting the product.

And guess what! If the OS does not act exactly as you need it, you can MOD it to match your needs. You are not stuck with what the vendor thinks is good for you.

 

[clue69less]

...seriously, do you intend to use Windows XP for another 7 years?

Sure! Why not? I still have a P3 running Windows 95! As long as the box runs, I wouldn't pay to update the OS unless there was a reason to do so. As much as I despise Win95, that old P3 does its intended tasks just fine so I just use it and hope to keep it a few more years.

 

[HotFoot]

Also notable for anyone wanting to go the linux route... Eye candy isn't exclusively a MS or Apple domain. I just started playing with the Beryl window manager, and it's pretty sweet. Totally customisable as well. Check it out at YouTube.

 

[bourgeoisdude]

...Many software titles are not currently supported, such as most anti-virus (I prefer AVG), spyware (PestPatrol) and on and on...

Just on that note, AVG 7.5 Free Edition runs fine on my x86 Vista RC2 Build (haven't used RTM yet)--you tried the 7.5 version not just the 7.1, right?

 

[Digitalfiends]

You know, I've wanted to try a flavour of Linux many, many times, but everytime I get around to trying I can never decide which one to get. Plus once you decide, then you have to figure out what variants to use and which various patches to apply.

I love the idea of Linux and really hope to see it do well and become more mainstream. Unfortunately, Linux requires a large investment of time and money, primarily to figure out what it is you actually need. If that is one thing MS does very well it is catering to ease of installs. Heck, our company even offers a flavour of Linux OS on its 32x ES7000 servers.

Someday I think I'll get around to installing Linux...

 

[HotFoot]

If you don't want to jump hole-hog into Linux, just set up a dual-boot. I have ubuntu taking up about 20GB and Windows on the rest of my drive. Ubuntu takes less time/knowledge to install than WinXP, and the Beryl window manager took me less than 5 minutes to install. It hasn't cost me a cent... wait, that's not true... it cost me about 25 cents since I burned the image to a DVD.

Anyway, you have to look at it from the perspective of learning. If you're interested, it can be fun. If you can't be bothered, then stick with what you like.

 

[tipoo]

You don't need a "heavy" cpu or cpu to run Vista. With a 128 mb video card and a athlon xp you'll run it fine.

yay i'm in buisness!

 

[enewmen]

The comparison isn´t quite fair, if you ask to RUN Vista ona system, they demand a heavy 3D video card, XP don´t.
Also a heavy proc. (duo) and a lot of mem (2G). is not a waste on a Vista.

I am telling this, do you think that offices will buy systems with a heavy video card? Don´t think so. Ofcourse this articel was written with a gamer in mind. But when you write this articel pure about office app, then you get a different result.

You don't need a "heavy" cpu or cpu to run Vista. With a 128 mb video card and a athlon xp you'll run it fine.


This is all really "heavy" man!

 

[Digitalfiends]

I completely agree and that is the reason I want to get into Linux. Unfortunately, I'm constantly having to keep up with new developments in the Microsoft-world for my job, so it's hard to find the time (or energy laterly ) and learn yet another OS.

What I do like about Linux though, is that pretty much everything is available in source code. That appeals to my developer side. I just wish I had time.