Windows 7 Graphics Performance Preview

[MR.B]

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).

 

[MR.B]

i think it "feels" faster because its a new os..

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

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.

 

[MR.B]

It won't be using 12GB of RAM as it is 32-bit. Simple unless MS have done something weird.

- Pea0n

I know it wont use 12GB, and i mentioned that it uses 3GB but is still as responsive....

 

[MR.B]

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

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]

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.

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.

 

[MR.B]

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? 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.

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.

 

[MR.B]

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.

 

[MR.B]

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

 

[MR.B]

what score did you get for the Windows ratings?

i heard they've been raised to 7.9 now

Yeah it has... and guess what my 4.15GHz i7 gets? 7.6! still not full marks! Pretty crazy.

My tripple channel DDR3 RAM only gets 5.5 even though it completely crushes my Q9450 DDR2 system in bandwidth.

GTX 280 gets 7.9 for Aero performance, and 6.0 for gaming performance. Which is the same as above 8800GTX... go figure. Maybe it's testing it in 2D clocks and not 3D.

WD VelociRaptor gets 5.9.

I'd like to see what my SSD gets as SSD performance is meant to have improved a lot, but i've got my Vista install on it.

 

[MR.B]

You should

I almost feel like using Win7 Beta 1 as my main OS when the 64-Bit version is out because of the speed. It's very good and stable for Beta, theres just some tiny problems i've found like WMP12 randomly pausing, the closing/opening windows animation not being quite as smooth as it should be, and some Source engine based games not working.

 

[MR.B]

how do you get in on this windows 7 malarkey, im on Microsoft Connect but see no options there on my dashboard for Windows 7?

Beta 1 is not officially released until Jan 5th. But you can download it on torrent sites, and i dont think it's illigal to do that as it's just a 30 day trial (unless you get a key). Theres been reports that MS leaked it themselfs...

 

[MR.B]

Are you joking Perfect_Chaos?

 

[MR.B]

Which version of w7 are you running? I'm on build 6801, dunno if they've changed the WEI formula between this and the newer versions.
Funny about the RAM, with my 8GB DDR2 @ 1000MHz I get a 6.1
Also, I dunno which SSD you have but I get a 6.6 with my OCZ Core V1 64GB. I'm not sure what it goes by for that: if it's just disk transfer rate or if they factor in your additional drives/amount of free space etc.

And as for the idea that Aero needs lower graphics power so you get higher scores with that thon gaming graphics, well I installed 7 on my old laptop with integrated graphics (DirectX 9). I've since sold it on, and can't remember the precise scores, but I know I got a 2.2 for Aero but something higher for gaming, which confused me somewhat. Don't know if it's to do with the DX version.

Oh, and it specifically says on the WEI page "3D business and gaming graphics performance" - 3D, not 2D, so I don't know about the weird gaming graphics scores.

How comes you haven't updated to buld 7000? I cant understand the RAM score either, i used to get 5.9 on Vista with 8GB DDR2 1066MHz. And this tripple channel DDR3 1600MHz has about 3x as much bandwidth! I know it's working properly from benching it.

I have a OCZ 60GB Core V2, so not much difference to you, should get around 7.0 i'd expect then.
As for graphics, being as cards run on 2D clocks when on the desktop to save power/heat, Win7 might be testing it on the 2D clocks, which are a lot lower than the 3D clocks - less than half the speed on a 280. Cards switch to 3D clocks when running a game full screen. If you was to run a game in Windowed mode it would use the 2D clocks.

 

[MR.B]

The only legitimate concern from my point of view is the lack of hardware accelerated audio, which was a stupid and terrible decision for gamers. Besides that i'm very very happy with Vista.

Vista does have hardware audio acceleration. MS removed the DirectSound 3D Hardware extension API in Vista. It was for a good reason overall if you read into it. But Creative and Asus have had there soundcards working in Vista with hardware acceleration for ages, it just needed some drastic changes to the drivers.

 

[MR.B]

Oh great nice one leakers and i was really hoping to download it tomorrow and have a play looks like that won't be happening now .

Just get the build 7000/Beta 1 ISO from a torrent site! theres no difference than downloading from MS.

@ Gerard, there was reports MS leaked it themselfs. The timing was perfect and everything, and aswell as with the points you make, it makes sense if they did.

 

[MR.B]

@ PCZ, you shouldn't use drivers from CD's, they're always old and buggy. New drivers are on Creatives site for X-Fi. This is what i'm using on Win7, along with NV 185 Beta drivers for my 280.

I wouldn't say gaming performance is equal to XP though, i've got round to playing about 20 games now, all popular ones, and it's almost exactly equal to Vista. But loading times and random stutters are deffinately better on Win7 than on Vista when both are only using 3GB RAM. I cant get some Source engine based games to run though.

To be honest i'd be happy with that performance, there has never been a Windows release that has had better gaming performance that the last OS (in terms of max frame rates anyway), so if MS manage to match there previous OS Vista for gaming it would be a first.

 

[MR.B]

Theres loads of tests done here with Win7, comparing it to Vista and XP.
A 1 is given to the OS that completed the task quickest. As you can see Win7 beats Vista and XP in almost all the tests. The systems tested on are pretty average too, nothing high-end.

I've also just noticed that Win7 does not disabled Aero, like Vista does, when a game is running. But theres no performance hit with it still enabled.

And if you're using Win7... you see the default background pic, with a Male Siamese Fighter fish, i have one exactly the same, called Jimbob

 

[MR.B]

It's quite ironic how long this thread has lasted considering the topic

It's not illegal to download and use the 30 trial of Win7 if thats what you mean...

 

[MR.B]

So did anyone get Win7 from MS yet? It was down for a while because of too many downloads, but it's back up now.

Only available for the first 2.5 million downloads.

 

[MR.B]

How are people finding it? Any compatibility options? Any noticeable performance change between Vista 64 and Windows 7 64?

Just read the original thread post of mine it's way faster than Vista x64 at many things, and i was using 32-bit then. The x64 just improves performance even more now it uses all my RAM.

Everything has worked too, no problems. You could actually use the OS right now as a main OS, it really dont feel like a beta. The only thing i cant get to work is GTA4, says the OS is not Vista. Normally what works when that happens is running the .exe in Vista compatibility mode to trick it into thinkings it's Vista, but dont work with that game.