Gaming Reported 15% Slower on Vista

[Chad Harris]

From Neowin:

"Microsoft is reportedly telling it's gaming industry associates that games
will run 10-15% slower on their new operating system due to the new GUI
implemented.

Vista's new 3D desktop will constantly be draining the PC of video memory
that games could make use of, so in actual fact many of your favourite games
will probably run faster on Windows XP. Of course after Vista arrives new
PCs and hardware will be built especially for Vista which will increase
performance anyway.

Still, looks like that pretty desktop has a price after all."

Neowin Discussion:
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=35459#add


Will Vista Run Your Games?
May 30, 2006
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=179450,00.asp

Windows Vista and PC Games
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=174131,00.asp


CH

 

[JCO]

Something tells me that it will be slower than 15%.
Everything in Vista is slow. All though I have not gone up to 2Gigs of RAM
yet.

 

[Travis King]

How much RAM do you have? I'd start with a gig for Vista for good
performance, but if you're doing gaming, I'd recommend 2GB. I think most of
everything is slower on Vista, although not by much. In theory, gaming
shouldn't be slower on Vista because it shuts off the Aero Glass (which
utilizes your video card) when you are gaming. I think the 15% drop is
going to come more for physical RAM usage since Vista eats a lot more RAM
than XP and a hair more CPU resources as well. I don't like the fact that
you have to have 512MB of RAM just to run an operating system. I still am
disappointed with WMP11's slow performance - due to mfpmp.exe gobbling 10%
of my CPU constantly and 20MB of RAM and DWM that eats 10-20% of my CPU for
some reason when WMP11 runs.

 

[Chad Harris]

I hope that the hardware afficiandos here with the awesome machines will
weigh in--and some serious gamers. I am interested to hear about the
gaming/graphics experiences of people on Vista RC2 since it's pretty close
what will RTM/ship in a 2-3 weeks, and what hardware they're using.

As I collect articles that review the popular games on Vista, many of them
are requiring 2GB or so of RAM to go from choppy to smooth and responsive.
One of the Extreme Tech articles I linked reviewed games along those lines.

It is a problem in Vista to overcome Vista's gui eye candy and running
demanding apps and games fast, and I imagine the answer is significantly
more RAM and faster processorsfor the people that need them. I'm not sure
how the new Direct X 10 will impact this-- I noticed that MSFT has dropped
the name Windows Graphic Foundation for its new nexgen API. It'll include
faster DLLs.

Build It: $800 Gaming PC
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=177753,00.asp

Building your Own Vista System
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2015439,00.asp

Core 2 Extreme Quad Performance
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2021888,00.asp

Do We Really Need Quad Core
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2021981,00.asp

Windows Vista and the Future of Hardware
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2000438,00.asp

Precomputed Radiance Transfer, DirectX 10, and other awesomeness
Robert Burke's Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/robburke/archive/2005/09/16/468151.aspx

CH

 

[Freqq]

So much of game performance is due to video drivers- so I'm thinking it's
too early to make a blanket statement.

 

[JCO]

I'm still running 1-gig Ram.

How much RAM do you have? I'd start with a gig for Vista for good
performance, but if you're doing gaming, I'd recommend 2GB. I think most of
everything is slower on Vista, although not by much. In theory, gaming
shouldn't be slower on Vista because it shuts off the Aero Glass (which
utilizes your video card) when you are gaming. I think the 15% drop is
going to come more for physical RAM usage since Vista eats a lot more RAM
than XP and a hair more CPU resources as well. I don't like the fact that
you have to have 512MB of RAM just to run an operating system. I still am
disappointed with WMP11's slow performance - due to mfpmp.exe gobbling 10%
of my CPU constantly and 20MB of RAM and DWM that eats 10-20% of my CPU for
some reason when WMP11 runs.