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Windows 7 Graphics Performance Preview

I think on top of everything thats wrong with Vista, what irritates me way more, is the way its been forced down our throats, all the marketing, DirectX 10 being vista only, Vista be preinstalled on literally EVERY notebook or laptop released these days. It's just Vista everything, and it bugs me immensly because I really don't think its THAT much of an improvement over XP.
Sure, its more stable, sure it manages memory better (and uses like 1000% more memory than XP, just to run Aero alone) and sure it LOOKS better, but for me, I could care less what my OS looks like.... I don't sit and stare at how pretty my desktop is all day. All I care about is having my system run at fast as it possibly can, and play my games as smooth as it possibly can.

You just don't get that with Vista.
 
I think on top of everything thats wrong with Vista, what irritates me way more, is the way its been forced down our throats, all the marketing, DirectX 10 being vista only, Vista be preinstalled on literally EVERY notebook or laptop released these days. It's just Vista everything, and it bugs me immensly because I really don't think its THAT much of an improvement over XP.
Sure, its more stable, sure it manages memory better (and uses like 1000% more memory than XP, just to run Aero alone) and sure it LOOKS better, but for me, I could care less what my OS looks like.... I don't sit and stare at how pretty my desktop is all day. All I care about is having my system run at fast as it possibly can, and play my games as smooth as it possibly can.

You just don't get that with Vista.

Aero doesn't use much more system RAM, it uses graphics RAM. And you can always turn it off. But the good thing about Aero (apart from being good on the eyes) is that with the desktop being handled by the GPU it saves CPU performance and can actually speed things up, another benefit of a GPU enhanced desktop is you also dont get any of that nasty window tearing you sometimes get in XP. And on super slow systems where you could see XP redrawing the desktop/windows.
I remember dragging certain windows about in XP and getting 100% CPU usage, you wont even get 2% with Aero enabled.
 
I think on top of everything thats wrong with Vista, what irritates me way more, is the way its been forced down our throats, all the marketing, DirectX 10 being vista only, Vista be preinstalled on literally EVERY notebook or laptop released these days. It's just Vista everything, and it bugs me immensly because I really don't think its THAT much of an improvement over XP.

Everything you said there was the same when XP came out with the preinstalled on literally EVERY notebook or laptop released these days .
If you understand DX10 you would see why its not in XP & yet you ask for a bigger improvement than XP that means not everything can be compatible if its vastly different & DX10 is built on a vastly different base to what's available in XP & even if they could bolt on every improvement from a newer version to an older one then there would be no incentive to really buy a new version we would all be using windows95 -64bit with DX10.01, Aero ect... which would be a huge bloated mess because it would have all the old stuff as well as the new & MS would have to charge for service packs to make money or even subscription as no one buys a new OS.
 
Aero doesn't use much more system RAM, it uses graphics RAM. And you can always turn it off. But the good thing about Aero (apart from being good on the eyes) is that with the desktop being handled by the GPU it saves CPU performance and can actually speed things up, another benefit of a GPU enhanced desktop is you also dont get any of that nasty window tearing you sometimes get in XP. And on super slow systems where you could see XP redrawing the desktop/windows.
I remember dragging certain windows about in XP and getting 100% CPU usage, you wont even get 2% with Aero enabled.

+1 & like you i near liked XP & i forked out for the Pro
 
I've done more testing with install times of drivers/software on Win7... with some things theres little difference. But i noticed the Nvidia Vista 32Bit drivers installed about 5x faster than on Vista. Under 1 minute.
After doing a bit of reading about this, it seems these faster install times are a feature of Win7 :)
 
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Main reason vista was done before it was released was because so many had the betas of it bashed it relentlessly on the net by people that used it for a couple of days and made their mind up never to be changed by facts or reason and suddenly xp became the pinnacle of os's :rolleyes:. Vista is an improvement over xp and if you have a decent system as Mr.B said it's performance is perfectly good having used vista for a long time now i have a more stable system that doesn't bsod half as much or crash like it used to on xp even taking out the bugged driver aspect xp was perfectly able to screw up all on it's own much more then vista does. I like a lot of what i am hearing about windows 7 and thank you for the review Mr.B seems good but will wait for a 64 bit version before i dabble.
 
thats funny cause iv'e never had a bsod on XP for something like a year now, maybe im just lucky.... or maybe certin Vista users just make XP sound a lot worse than it actually is, who knows....
 
Why would i make it sound worse then it was and if it ran so perfectly for me would i go for another os. What it is with these forums lately so many people out to simply rubbish others because they don't all have the same experiences it's stupid. I used xp for over 5 years and while most of the time it was fine lets not pretend it was the greatest thing ever and i am constantly amazed at the rose tinted specs that seem to be worn when talking about xp now.

I can remember when it first came out and how much of a slating it got and continued to get upto mainly sp2 yet now vista is out all of a sudden xp is this great os that doesn't need anything else. Windows 7 will get slated as well and probably from the same people that took great pleasure in slating vista and it won't have anything to do with facts it will simply be because they don't like anything that isn't xp and simply won't give a newer os a chance or judge it fairly as happened with vista.

End of the day people will use what they are happier with whether that is xp, vista or windows 7 when it is out and people will also have good and bad experiences of all of them that they factor in when choosing an os so having a go at someone because they choose whatever is stupid as everyone is different and everyone wants different things.
 
I've had 32-Bit Windows 7 build 7000 for a couple of days (which i think is meant to be Beta 1 being released on Jan 5th) and i've been doing a little benchmarking, nothing much though, but thought i'd post my findings....


But first! some improvements worth mentioning:
- Even though i have the 32-Bit version so only 3GB RAM of my 12GB of installed RAM is used, it's atleast as responsive as Vista x64 with the full 12GB in use.
Games also load just as fast even with only 3GB RAM in use.
- Installation is very easy and fast, with less restarts. Even more simple than Vista's install which was already a big improvement over XP.
- Boots up faster and shuts down faster than Vista or XP. Even with my Vista install on a vastly quicker SSD drive and Win7 on a normal HDD, Win7 is still faster at this.
- Very stable, no crashes yet - Impressive for a first Beta.
- HDD performance seems faster even though in synthetic benchmarks i'm getting the same results.
- UAC is still there but less annoying and does not bother you as much (obviously you can easily turn it off, so i've never understood why people moan about it anyway).
- Drivers, Games and Software that work on Vista, work on Windows 7. Drivers/Games with OS detection will sometimes not install though, displaying a message that Vista is not the OS (like X-Fi drivers). However if OS detection was removed i'm sure they would work fine.
- Installing software and drivers seemed a little quicker than on Vista.
- The new taskbar is very nice and customisable with some clever features. But the default setting is just stupid (no text only icons are displayed).
- Slightly less processes running.
- Less memory usage.
- ClearType tuning (comes in handy if you think ClearType blurs fonts too much).
- MS Paint has finally been updated since... XP? Win2K?
- New Media Center.
- Display Colour Calibration Wizard in Control Panel.
- Other small things like Gadgets can be placed anywhere, one click shutdown button, more customisable in general...

I havent tested any games myself but the above points you made are all valid here except installation, took an age, but this could be down to borked DVD/CD Rom drive.

Going to order a new one now infact.
 
Why would i make it sound worse then it was and if it ran so perfectly for me would i go for another os. What it is with these forums lately so many people out to simply rubbish others because they don't all have the same experiences it's stupid. I used xp for over 5 years and while most of the time it was fine lets not pretend it was the greatest thing ever and i am constantly amazed at the rose tinted specs that seem to be worn when talking about xp now.
ooooh i can see i hit a nerve there. appologies :)

Windows 7 will get slated as well and probably from the same people that took great pleasure in slating vista and it won't have anything to do with facts it will simply be because they don't like anything that isn't xp and simply won't give a newer os a chance or judge it fairly as happened with vista.
completely untrue. At least for me anyway. I am certinly not one of those stereotypical critics that tries something for 10 mins and then makes his mind up that it sucks, and never changes his mind every again.
I believe Windows 7 will not go down the same route, and will not be slated (as much) as Vista, simply because its obvious what Windows 7 is going to be (i hope at least): It'll be what Vista SHOULD have been in the first place. Which will explain why they're replacing Vista after only 2 years of shelf life.
End of the day people will use what they are happier with whether that is xp, vista or windows 7 when it is out and people will also have good and bad experiences of all of them that they factor in when choosing an os so having a go at someone because they choose whatever is stupid as everyone is different and everyone wants different things.
That is true indeed. Except that when Windows 7 arrives, I doubt many people will use Vista anymore since Windows 7 should be superior in every way. I think the only people that will remain with Vista, will be the average notebook user, that is clueless as to how to use a computer, other than using Office, and browsing the internet.

Just for the record, I wasn't having a go at you.
 
Why would i make it sound worse then it was and if it ran so perfectly for me would i go for another os. What it is with these forums lately so many people out to simply rubbish others because they don't all have the same experiences it's stupid. I used xp for over 5 years and while most of the time it was fine lets not pretend it was the greatest thing ever and i am constantly amazed at the rose tinted specs that seem to be worn when talking about xp now.
ooooh i can see i hit a nerve there. appologies :)

Windows 7 will get slated as well and probably from the same people that took great pleasure in slating vista and it won't have anything to do with facts it will simply be because they don't like anything that isn't xp and simply won't give a newer os a chance or judge it fairly as happened with vista.
completely untrue. At least for me anyway. I am certinly not one of those stereotypical critics that tries something for 10 mins and then makes his mind up that it sucks, and never changes his mind ever again.
I believe Windows 7 will not go down the same route, and will not be slated (as much) as Vista, simply because its obvious what Windows 7 is going to be (i hope at least): It'll be what Vista SHOULD have been in the first place. Which will explain why they're replacing Vista after only 2 years of shelf life.
End of the day people will use what they are happier with whether that is xp, vista or windows 7 when it is out and people will also have good and bad experiences of all of them that they factor in when choosing an os so having a go at someone because they choose whatever is stupid as everyone is different and everyone wants different things.
That is true indeed. Except that when Windows 7 arrives, I doubt many people will use Vista anymore since Windows 7 should be superior in every way. I think the only people that will remain with Vista, will be the average notebook user, that is clueless as to how to use a computer, other than using Office, and browsing the internet.

Just for the record, I wasn't having a go at you.
 
I'm quite surprised that all this talk about 7000 is allowed considering that it's not possible (AFAIK) to obtain it legally...

Actually, I don't think it's actually 'illegal'. In the EULA it says something along the lines of:

If you don't have a valid license, you may be required to reinstall windows after the 30 days for activation is up.
 
I am a little defensive on the whole vista thing from personal experience of the 25ish friends i bother with mostly, 4 of us were what you'd call early adopters of vista and have been happy with it around 19 completely slated it although most of them now using it have said it is better then xp and have forgotten about how much they slated it and a few still insist vista is rubbish but when we ask them why all we get is a web address with some article written while vista was in rc1 state.

If i had a quid for everyone that has slagged off vista and then told me about how they have read it was rubbish rather then knowing from personal experience i would have another X2 to xfire lol. I apologise if i came across as attacking you personally i didn't mean that i was attacking the general thing that is percieved about vista hence not mentioning you by name but having read it back i can see it does look like i am having a direct go at you so again apologies. Only part where i did have you specifically in mind was the "certain Vista users just make XP sound a lot worse than it actually is" and i should have been more specific in that regard.
 
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As long as the drivers are in place and the software/hardware companies adopt the Windows 7 coding quickly, I could have a new favourite OS.

Unfortunately I had a bugged copy of vista on my previous laptop.

This was an OEM copy which was installed onto it and I didnt get a recovery disk (I hate Acer laptops...) first off the webcam which came with the laptop gave the BSOD everytime I used it on msn. Skype didnt work and Vista thought it was a cool thing to totally wipe a 160gb hard drive full of music, movies and photos.

Now I have an actual desktop running x64 with all the bells and whistles I couldnt be happier.

Cant wait to test Windows 7 out now :D
 
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