Is XP still better than Vista for gaming ?

jigger · 25 Jul 2009 at 13:22

Had quite a big drop in performance last time.

AtreuS · 25 Jul 2009 at 13:35

Would depend a lot on your hardware i suppose.

I run vista 64 and i installed xp last week on a spare drive to test something out, i ran wow and noticed a definate drop in performance on xp compared to vista.

gurusan · 25 Jul 2009 at 13:40

if you have an old and crippled system like an AMD 939 setup with 2gb DDR then I would say yes. Otherwise no not at all.

TAC4U · 25 Jul 2009 at 13:45

Vista64 has been better than XP for gaming for a long while now, since several months after launch (and obviously essential if DX10 is a concern) - that's providing you have a dual-core processor and more than 1GB of RAM. You'll always find the occasional game that runs slightly slower but it's not worth holding back. It's the same with Windows 7 - I've already found it to be as fast or slightly faster in most games but the occasional game runs slightly slower, and drivers are improving all the time. Basically you need to move to Win7 as soon as possible, as it is without a doubt a better OS than XP or Vista.

Dark_Angel · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:02

gurusan said:
if you have an old and crippled system like an AMD 939 setup with 2gb DDR then I would say yes. Otherwise no not at all.

This.

64 bit vista = win.

Though W7 is the better option if you can. (64 bit again). There is no need to keep to Xp, unless you have some strange reason like some games don't work in vista 64 even with compat mode. Even then I would just dual boot.

Rroff · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:24

XP is still better than vista for gaming performance, win7 seems to be getting better and would be the better options as many driver and game developers have stated that they will be concentrating on win7 for performance opptimisation and theres no guarantee backports to vista and XP will run as well.

Diakatarnis · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:29

Have to agree, my vista 64 setup does run faster than when i had xp 64 on it, but after trying windows 7 rc.... oh man.... so much faster doing things and doesnt take ages to turn on either :O

reflux · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:30

XP might be faster, but we're taking no more than 3fps iirc, which really isn't a lot.

Fire Wizard · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:31

Rroff said:
XP is still better than vista for gaming performance

May I ask if you have any solid evidence to back your claim up? Or are you simply saying that because that's your personal opinion on the subject? Also, how much of a performance difference are you referring too between Windows XP and Windows Vista?

Rroff · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:39

Theres not much in it - in a lot of cases performance is as close as identical - but I have a set of saved games and noted down the framerate in the menu of games that use a 3D background - which I use mainly for testing overclocking gains and driver updates - but as a sweeping generalisation from these vista is about 7-10% slower overall. Tho you really only notice the difference in scenes were your getting 200fps - where it drops to say 185 - in other cases its the difference between 31 and 33fps, etc.

MikeHunt79 · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:46

XP is better in my experience

johny dolan · 25 Jul 2009 at 14:55

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_7_gaming_performance/page4.asp

mod1fied · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:00

johny dolan said:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_7_gaming_performance/page4.asp

This is the beta and not RC1 which has IMO greatly improved performance in gaming

Rroff · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:00

Very mixed bag of results in those tests...

I still say on balance XP is 7-10% faster in the majority of cases with win7 rapidly closing the gap.

johny dolan · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:02

Its clost if you just play dx9 games but if you want dx10 then xp has had its time.So as vista for that matter. http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1390&page=2

jigger · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:11

DX10 is a bit of a moot point, XP can run it and its been dropped like a hot stone by developers.

Anyone dual booting Vista - XP ?

johny dolan · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:20

Since when can xp run dx10 ?

Rroff · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:21

XP can't run DX10 properly - theres been a few hacked up files to get specific games running* with varied results but a lot of features simply aren't supported and it takes a lot of tweaking at an application specific level just to get anything working at all.

* I'm not talking like with crysis to enable enhanced effects but actual DX10 functionality.

johny dolan · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:27

I got vista the day it came out and never used xp since.For me vista is as fast and more stable than xp ever was.I have win7 on pre-order so very soon vista will be a thing of the past.Ive enjoyed dx10 gaming for 2 years and cant understand what guys with xp dont like about vista.

Rroff · 25 Jul 2009 at 15:29

Horses for courses I guess...

What takes 3-4 steps in vista/win7 I can often do on XP in 1-2 steps, I don't have any general performance issues and not seen a BSOD or other major crash (other than from overclocking too far) in over 3 years.