Windows vs. Vista 7 Graphics Performance

[Final8y]

Vista had a lot of promise, but it over-reached in all the wrong areas. It changed a whole lot of the underlying structure and driver models of the OS at once, while not being nearly as aggressive on interface improvements. The result was an OS that, even when it worked, often didn't work. Bad drivers caused stability and performance problems for more than a year.

Through lots of Windows OS updates and many driver revisions, most of the kinks have been worked out, and Vista is now quite stable and a good performer. But the damage has been done, and the OS will forever have a reputation for being a big, bloated, slow performance hog that crashes all the time.

In no area was this more apparent than with 3D graphics. The new WDDM 1.0 driver model was a fairly radical departure from the model used in XP. It was meant to improve stability and performance, but had the opposite effect for a long time. Graphics drivers, especially those for Nvidia products, were responsible for a very large percentage of OS crashes in the early Vista days. Gamers weren't happy with giving up 10% or more of their graphics performance, either.

Windows 7 is like the anti-Vista. There are lots of under-the-hood changes, but no completely new and drastically different driver models. WDDM 1.1 is a minor change to the display driver model, so ATI and Nvidia should have an easier time making sure their products are at least as stable and as fast as they are in Vista.

Recently, ATI announced that its monthly driver updates will include Windows 7 drivers, well ahead of Win7's release. Nvidia just released new, better Win7 drivers this month, and promises more improvements to come. So where exactly are we at today, and how far do these two graphics giants have to go to make Windows 7 a better choice than Vista for gamers? Continued...

Extremetech

The Graphs
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2343318,00.asp

 

[bledd]

also the newest build of W7 performs better than 7000

 

[linktoinsanity]

also the newest build of W7 performs better than 7000

Really? Nice Though I heard that it'll be the end of May before MS "officially" release it.

On a slightly different note do you guys reckon there is a chance that Microsoft leaked 7057 on purpose to see how well it would do?

 

[bledd]

more than likely

for ms it's free publicity and they don't have to offer any support for it

win/win!

 

[Aono]

I think the game performance differences between XP, vista and win7 are overrated.

What difference does 5-10% extra really matter? It sounds more than it really is.

If you game at 50fps on one OS then an extra 5-10% is 2.5fps to 5fps. Negligible. You'd have to be gaming at 100fps+ to get a 10fps boost. Why bother if you're already getting 100fps+.

The only place I see it making a difference is if game runs at 15fps on one OS and 25fps on another. At least then it goes from unplayable to just about playable.

Most of the time the difference is going to be zero to negligible.

 

[Sankari]

When Windows 98 was due, we were told it would be a faster, smoother OS offering improved performance, reliability and ease of use, with all the bells and whistles but without any of the old problems.

When Windows XP was due, we were told it would be a faster, smoother OS offering improved performance, reliability and ease of use, with all the bells and whistles but without any of the old problems.

When Windows Vista was due, we were told it would be a faster, smoother OS offering improved performance, reliability and ease of use, with all the bells and whistles but without any of the old problems.

Now we're hearing exactly the same thing about Windows 7.

Are we surprised? No.

 

[LoadsaMoney]

That said, it's clear that ATI is well ahead of Nvidia at this moment in time.

Thats not what Nvidia are saying