32bit windows can not address more then 4 gigs of memory total. That include the video memory and swap space so the max memory that is still use full is right around 3 gigs.

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You’re right — the graphics card should have been of a much better quality for a comparison test like this. What if higher end cards perform better on one of the operating systems?

Every time we see these performance comparisons, they end up using high-end stuff. That’s great and all… so now we know how well the high-end rig works under X conditions. It’s probably a good deal for the reviewer because now he’s got an excuse to expense the high-end kit. Honestly, though, what percentage of the readership actually buys the highest end stuff? I’m betting: most don’t. Most people have budgets. The conclusion that newer, faster hardware will make up for Vista’s shortcomings is stupid. Most people are going to buy the newer, faster stuff when they really feel the hurt. It’s going to be more like a $200 video card, not a $600 or $800 one. It’s probably not going to be a quad-core system. It *might* have more than 2GB of ram. Under these conditions, Vista makes little sense. Vista offers _no_ compelling new features and too many drawbacks. Did you have to spend $2000 on a new system to demonstrate that?

Rob

Well said labrador, well said.

I can’t read this or any of your articles, the type is dark gray over black, and it’s way effin small…

do you want people to read it or not!?

Your conclusions about the networking stack and unfounded and unsupported. You provide absolutely no evidence that the networking stack has anything to do with the performance issues, nor do you substantiate your claim that the networking stack is more “fat” than XP’s.

Yeah, what a dumb comment. I’m glad they used a more reasonable card, it’s called real world conditions. If Vista blows with the video card and RAM that 90% of people are going to have then that’s the story, not, hey, I’m going to get NASA to design a computer cooled with liquid propane, powered by up quarcks and using quantum entagelment with an infinite-bit processor. Look it runs OK,.. what a great operating system.

labrador stated exactly what I was about to comment on. It’s all fine and dandy to create an orgy of behemoth system specs and raging hardware, but ZDnet did an excellent job of hitting the main market: the average user. I’ts good to have some relevant results from a reliable source for once.

Chris

I wonder, since the release of DirectX 10, if the gaming performance of Vista has improved.

Rather than complain about the hardware used to test the gaming performance between XP and Vista, ZDNet’s main overview of the test was very simple: “To differentiate general gaming performance between Windows XP and Windows Vista.” It’s all about how much stress both operating systems can take while executing a game with every possibly settings jacked up. This ain’t no freakin’ high-end graphics card showdown just to show that XP kicks Vista’s butt a mile wide.

I agree with Rob, budget is the key factor that must be satisfied under ideal conditions for many PC consumer. I doubt the testers in ZDNet wanted to fork out $5,000+ worth of high-end hardware just to prove that Windows XP performs better than Windows Vista.

I have vista 32 bit. it runs all games better than xp. i am a stickler on performance. VISTA IS BETTER. I dual boot and have some of the same games on bot xp and vista. you guys are morons…. vista is better, i’m sick of all you people complaining. get the fuck over it. vista wins… it will always win. a few years ago you were the same assholes complaining about XP and saying “98 is better!” dumb fucks.

Saying they needed to use a higher-end card INSTEAD is foolish…

They should have tested it AS WELL. Most people don’t have a card in the 8800GTX range, so you really need to do tests like this on a low-end, mid-range, and high-end graphics card to get a good picture.

It’s not like you need to do anything OTHER than swap out video card and re-run the tests, after all.

Same with “expecting better than 2GB of RAM.” I mean, seriously… 1GB is commonplace now, but having more than 2GB? Very few. Testing at the 3GB level would be mainly to find out if Vista can manage RAM timing issues that can crop up if you install more than two DIMMs better than XP. (…and what kind of gains you’d could be looking at, if so.)

To joe,

Do you have proof that vista runs games at a higher frame rate? When tests run by multiple groups comparing frame rates show that xp is better, its a fact. And cursing at people does nothing but prove that you have nothing to add to the conversation.

Win XP is better if you plan on living in 2006 for the rest of your life. Besides… “Windows 3.1 is waaaaay better!”

Missing the point here.

The name of the game should not be “what hardware can you buy that can make Vista go as fast as XP used to”.

Any individual user installing Vista might see this drop in performance. If Vista gets less performance out of existing hardware than XP does, that’s a perfectly fair criticism to make of Vista – perhaps one that could change with SP1.

If you want to benchmark OS against OS you should always do it on the same hardware.

This benchmark is meaningless. You’d have to be twice a retard not to understand that XP is going to run existing games more efficiently than Vista using the same set of hardware. Vista takes more system resources to run than XP and most existing game titles were developed for the current dominate Windows platform, which is and has been XP for over four years.

The only test I’m interested in seeing will take place after a handful of DirectX10 titles hit the market. Then, we’ll get to see comparisons using games developed to run on Vista. Only then will Vista’s support for DirectX10 hardware come into play and only then will there be reason to expect Vista to deliver a superior gaming experience over XP. Even so, the DirectX10 advantage is geared more towards delivering superior image quality not framerates, so drawing a direct comparison without considering what’s what is pretty pointless.

I fifth the sentiment that the ragging about the video card was silly. It costs over $1500 a year to stay in the upper tier of the system hierarchy. Not many people are willing to spend and/or have that type of cash for higher quality and an extra 10FPS. Just like any other transition between operating systems you have to weigh the benefits of the os in exchange for worse performance. I remember XP actually ran some games faster than 98 and the margin was small for any others, that decision for me was easy to upgrade to XP as soon as it came out. This performance gap is still looking unacceptable to me. Here’s to hoping SP1 improves this some and I don’t have to wait until quad cores, 4gb of ram, and an 8800GTX is mainstream to go to Vista.

To joe,
Couldn’t agree more, most of these people (idiots) have never even tried vista for longer than best buy will let them drool over their systems. These people I’m sure where the same people saying 98 and 2000 were better than XP when it came out. I run vista on my laptop with Steam and the fps are equal to what I got in XP.

This review in general was a good look at a more real world system comparison though. I have to say that this is the way reviews should be done with regard to real world specs.

using a 2600XT is a good choice, it shows that if you don’t want to pay for a high end card then stick with XP until the next generation of mid range cards come out.

[...] read more | digg story   [...]

[...] UnderDark » Vista still lacks the gaming performance of XP Why you really chould choose XP if you’re a diehard gamer. [...]

And on top of that, some games won’t work in Windows Vista.

Articles like this are proof that with each generation of Windows, PC users just get dumber and dumber. Perhaps most of you don’t remember what it was like to run XP on a PII, or Windows 95 on a 486, but in case you’ve forgotten let me remind you: it sucked. The facts are simple: the sky is blue, water is wet, new operating systems require much more powerful hardware, and often have compatibility issues with older software. Get used to it. It’s nothing new. And as a matter of fact, Vista runs much better on today’s mainstream hardware than XP did on the mainstream hardware of its time.

Nice one Cadavra. What planet were you living on? XP used almost exactly the same drivers at NT 2000, so there were almost no compatibility issues when it came out. I rolled out 100 new workstations with all kinds of printers, peripherals, etc on a Novell network no less with no problem less than two months after XP’s release. Vista, with its security requirements and other overhauled areas of the OS require significant driver updates. Before you call someone dumb, make sure you have some clue what you are talking about.

Cadavra has the right of it.

Erik is either completely full of shit or has a very short memory.

Would you care to back that up with some sort of fact or web site Zakule? If I say you are a complete dumbass, that’s great, but unless I have a picture of you parachuting into a forest fire, or posting a comment without any any link to objective data or even anecdotal evidence, it means nothing.

Just to put a nail in your dumbass coffin, here is a link to one of MANY windows technical sites saying the difference between 2000 and XP is next to nothing:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sg_2kupgrade.asp

AT LEAST 3 gigs of ram should be used. And a 256mb graphics card for a ‘high end’ gaming system?! Is that a joke?! A Nvidia 8800 GTX should have been used as said previously. Also vista will be good for gaming once crysis and other dx10 games come out. It is a viscious circle. Should Microsoft help users but make the system slower for gamers or should they make the os less bloated but with a smaller amount of features. In my opinion there should be vista business, vista gaming (cheaper) vista home and vista professional.

Hey,

Instead of you “high-spec” people going on one about not using the top spec equipment of the time for this comparison, why aren’t you looking for the high-spec comparison? Please use your heads and put a link up like mine next time to back up why a high-spec setup should be used in the test.

BTW, the nay-sayers of XP gaming, this test is recent and shows only one close-comparison from XP-Vista.

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/SLI_Under_The_Microscope_Vista_vs_XP1/

Oh, @ compa, check out the DX10 results for Bioshock at the end, DX10 does not solve speed issues, it only improves the speed and graphics, you still need pretty good tech and as others have said, if you need higher tech to play under Vista, how does that make it mainstream? Good point on Vista versions, but you’d still sacrifice functionality, most people want access to the full features, Microsoft didn’t need to bloat Vista with features but they could have released Vista basic and put for sale add-on packs that can be removed or added at leisure, THAT would have produced better performance.

*********
@Joe and Graham:
I think you two are the idiots. When i got vista on my new computer because it was the only option, i got 3x more ram and DDR2 compared to 1, and a core Duo compared to a pentium 4, and a much better graphics card. HOWEVER, when i played the same games, vista STILL played them slower than my old XP. >_> >_> Thats enough proof to me.

But hopefully Zakule is right and that will change with the new Direct X. Cause it really bothers me than vista is doing this