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Windows 7 Graphics Performance Preview

MR.B

MR.B

MR.B

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Joined
11 Aug 2004
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London
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 atleast as fast even with only 3GB RAM in use.
- Installation is very easy and fast, with less restarts. 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). EDIT: Got X-Fi drivers working perfectly, for anything that has this just run the installer in Vista compatibility mode.
- EDIT: Driver/Software installs are definitely qucker! - Nvidia drivers installed about 5x faster than on Vista. X-Fi drivers intalled this much faster too, same with Logitech keyboard/mouse drivers.
- The new taskbar, or "SuperBar" 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.
- New Windows Media Player (Version 12).
- Display Colour Calibration Wizard in Control Panel.
- Other small things like Gadgets can be placed anywhere, one click shutdown button, more customisable in general...
- And stuff worth mentioning that i haven't been able to try: 48-Bit colour support (no GFX cards support this yet), Improved SSD performance, MultiTouch Screen features.


Benchmarks:
3D Mark Vantage (with GTX280 @ 700MHz core / 1400MHz Shaders / 1280MHz memory)

Vista Score:
15,082

Windows 7:
15,101


Lightmark @ 2560x1600 res:
Vista:
271 FPS average

Windows 7:
356 FPS average (this is the biggest improvement i see out of anything)


Unigine Tropics DX10 Benchmark:

Vista:
64.9 FPS

Windows 7:
62.4 FPS


As for Crysis, it's basically the same performance as Vista. Same with other games i've tried (Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Dead Space, Tomb Raider Underworld, Doom 3).
It's important to know that Windows 7 is meant to ship with DirectX 11, but i'm reasonably sure DX11 is not in Beta 1. I even downloaded the lastest DX update for Vista, which installed fine. So basically the game benches above might be quite pointless! lol, not to mention that with Windows versions, from Beta to final release theres often a lot of tweaking, performance enhancements, features added and stuff changed.

Update: Theres loads of tests done here with Win7 Beta 1, comparing it to Vista and XP.
A 1 is given to the OS that completed the task quickest. Win7 beats Vista and XP in almost all the tests.


BTW it's NOT illegal to download Windows 7, as it's a 30 day trial (unless a key is used).
 
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MR.B said:
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 can be 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.
- Very stable, no crashes yet.
- 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 taskbar is very nice and customisable. But the default setting is just stupid (no text only icons are displayed).
- Slightly less processes running.
- Other small things like Gadgets can placed anywhere, one click shutdown button, more customisable in general...
Click to expand...
i think it "feels" faster because its a new os.. :D

Gadgets can placed anywhere on vista too and have one click shutdown button.
 
gareth170 said:
i think it "feels" faster because its a new os.. :D

Gadgets can placed anywhere on vista too and have one click shutdown button.
Click to expand...

Nah it's definitely faster/more responsive. And start up/shut down times are obviously faster. Shut down was about 3x as fast as Vista.

The gadgets in Win7 stick to the sides of the screen and stay where you put them. Where as in Vista, if you want them at the edge of the screen you have to put them in the gadgets area, and you cant change the spacing then.
 
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MR.B said:
:confused: I know it wont use 12GB, and i mentioned that it uses 3GB but is still as responsive....
Click to expand...

I was just about to try and edit my post, apologies it is early and I totally mis-read what you put :) What you mention about the responsiveness, I hear people mentioning that. Seems it has a lower memory footprint than Vista as standard?

- Pea0n
 
Pea0n said:
I was just about to try and edit my post, apologies it is early and I totally mis-read what you put :) What you mention about the responsiveness, I hear people mentioning that. Seems it has a lower memory footprint than Vista as standard?

- Pea0n
Click to expand...

Ah i see :) Yeah memory usage is lower, but somehow it's still more responsive... which is weird, because normally using more memory makes things faster...
 
MR.B said:
Ah i see :) Yeah memory usage is lower, but somehow it's still more responsive... which is weird, because normally using more memory makes things faster...
Click to expand...
I understand what you're saying from a technical standpoint, but isnt it obvious why its faster? Windows 7 is quite obviously designed to be what Vista "should" have been. At least thats how I see it. Keeping the same overall look as Vista suggests this. Vista has had such a short life, compared to XP, for a reason you know.
 
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Loque said:
I understand what you're saying from a technical standpoint, but isnt it obvious why its faster? Windows 7 is quite obviously designed to be what Vista "should" have been. At least thats how I see it. Keeping the same overall look as Vista suggests this. Vista has had such a short life, compared to XP, for a reason you know.
Click to expand...

I disagree. And i take it you're young? Because otherwise you would remember that before XP, Windows releases were a lot more common, a 2 year gap was normal. XP was around for a stupidly long time, partly because of all the constant Vista delays. No other OS has ever been around as long as XP without a update - XP is a dinosour in OS terms.

I think MS always planned to base Win 7 on Vista, same as XP is basically Win2K underneath.
 
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I'm quite surprised that all this talk about 7000 is allowed considering that it's not possible (AFAIK) to obtain it legally...
 
MR.B said:
I disagree. And i take it you're young? Because otherwise you would remember that before XP, Windows releases were a lot more common, a 2 year gap was normal. XP was around for a stupidly long time, partly because of all the constant Vista delays. No other OS has ever been around as long as XP without a update - XP is a dinosour in OS terms.

I think MS always planned to base Win 7 on Vista, same as XP is basically Win2K underneath.
Click to expand...

No i am not young, thank you very much. Yes you are right, Windows releases were a lot more common back then, but only because Windows had so many flaws and bugs back then, that it was nesseccary. When Windows 2000 came along, everything became much much more stable, and then when Windows XP came, it was pretty much rock solid, and has proven to be rock solid by lasting 8 years. It's even had its life span extended to 2014. It's long life span has nothing to do with Vista delays, because Vista wasn't even announced untill July 2005, in which XP already had been going strong for 4 years, which was longer than any previous Windows. It's life span is due to the fact that it just works how people want it to work, and is superior to every Windows before it.

Vista is being replaced after only 2 years of shelf life, and i believe its partly due to the success of XP, and what people expect in terms of a "better" OS. Vista in my opinion, is not a better OS than XP, not by a long shot. I'm a gamer personally, and gaming in Vista has been shown to be noticably inferior to gaming on XP.

I am personally overjoyed to see Vista's life span cut so short. I hope Windows 7 greatly improves on everything that made XP so successful.

Remember Windows 98 Second Edition? :P Well I basically consider Windows 7 to be "Windows Vista Second Edition" which is pretty much what it is. Same pretty much applies to Windows 2000 and XP.
 
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Loque said:
No i am not young, thank you very much. Yes you are right, Windows releases were a lot more common back then, but only because Windows had so many flaws and bugs back then, that it was nesseccary. When Windows 2000 came along, everything became much much more stable, and then when Windows XP came, it was pretty much rock solid, and has proven to be rock solid by lasting 8 years. It's even had its life span extended to 2014. It's long life span has nothing to do with Vista delays, because Vista wasn't even announced untill July 2005, in which XP already had been going strong for 4 years, which was longer than any previous Windows. It's life span is due to the fact that it just works how people want it to work, and is superior to every Windows before it.

Vista is being replaced after only 2 years of shelf life, and i believe its partly due to the success of XP, and what people expect in terms of a "better" OS. Vista in my opinion, is not a better OS than XP, not by a long shot. I'm a gamer personally, and gaming in Vista has been shown to be noticably inferior to gaming on XP.

I am personally overjoyed to see Vista's life span cut so short. I hope Windows 7 greatly improves on everything that made XP so successful.

Remember Windows 98 Second Edition? :P Well I basically consider Windows 7 to be "Windows Vista Second Edition" which is pretty much what it is. Same pretty much applies to Windows 2000 and XP.
Click to expand...

I see your points. But work began on Vista soon after XP, i dont know if MS officially annouced it, but there was stuff on Vista way before 2005.
And i was never happy with XP, even on release it seemed a bit dated. Security was appaling on it too and still is bad even on the 3rd service pack, and while a big improvement over something like Win98 it's still not as stable as Vista. I always had to restart after a day or two to get good gaming performance as the system would slow down. XP memory handling is very poor.
Vista greatly improved many things, but with Vista if you have a slow system with little RAM, it's going to run like turd. However if you have a fast system then it's generally faster and software starts up quicker.
Most of the negative stuff about Vista is from release and not relevant anymore. But you also have to remember that XP did not do well until SP2, it was critised for a lot of the same reasons Vista was on release, a lot of people would not switch from 98/2K until XP SP2.

I hope MS start updating there OS's more from now on. Having a OS around for so long slows down progression greatly, and compared to other OS's that are updated regularly it quickly starts to look dated and primitive.
 
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The only reason Vista has been ditched so quickly is because it has a bad reputation for some reason (some reason being people trying to run it on Pentium II's with 1GB of RAM)
 
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