XP vs. Vista gaming. Its official Vista sucks bigtime.

From anatech's review showing Vista's bloatware impact:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2850&p=3

Gaming/Graphics Performance same hardware different OS:

Vista 5728 XP SP2

3DMark06 5615 5798
Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (No AA) 94.4 103.6
Half-Life 2: Episode 1 (4x AA) 84.49 86.4
Battlefield 2 (No AA) 55.1 77.96
Battlefield 2 (4x AA) 52 77.11
FEAR (No AA) 52 70
FEAR (4x AA) 32 52

52Fps going down to 32Fps when you upgrade to vista? Wow. thats a hell of a hit. Guess thats ANOTHER reason I'll stay with XP or Linux then.

Its still too early to be running game tests on the OS. They're working on security and functionality first, the fine tune tweaks will come out towards the end for game performance.

This is common with anything. Take Nvidia for example. When they released drivers early for testing, they had huge performance issues. When the official release came, it was a different story.

Wait until Vista is released, you'll see improvements. If a SP1 comes out, you'll see bigger improvements with performance.

I must explain something to anyone else who would like to chime in here.

There are two major phases to testing a product:

Alpha and Beta testing.

Alpha testing is a small closed group. Select individuals get this and do a hardcore test again it on practical, everyday use.

Then comes Beta.
Beta is open, normally to the public or very large groups of people. This is designed to allow everyone testing and report bugs they find. This is where a lot of the fine tuning comes from before the final release.

Thus, the BETA will suck, as do most Betas for computer games. The final product will not be like the Beta.

IT IS CALLED A BETA FOR A REASON. IT IS OPEN FOR TESTING.

Anyhow, time will tell but Vista will be a refined product when its released for public use. Still, I don't plan on switching to it until SP1 comes out.

Sounds an awful lot like stuff I heard when XP was about to be released...

You guys, riser it right. This is a BETA. Let me repeat that: THIS IS A BETA. Beta's ARE buggy and slow and unstable. To be honest, Vista RC1 is very stable for a beta build; I'm using it as my primary OS.

Its not fair to run a direct comparison between XP and Vista right now anyways. Its a Beta OS running BETA drivers. If you want a comparison thats even close to being fair, dig up a copy of XP RC1 or RC2, install BETA drivers on it, THEN run benchmarks. I think you'll find another story altogether.

Moreover, YES, Vista takes lots of resources and requires decent hardware. Its a no-brainer that Vista will run slow on crappy hardware while XP won't. You really dont expect them to come out with a new OS that has the same requirements as the old one, do you. Besides, when Vista is finally released and has decent drivers, it WILL outperform XP on decent computers.

So keep your impulsive trap shut adn prepare to be proved wrong in a few months time (like so many of you were with XP).

I recall the exact same things being said about XP just prior to it's release. Yes, at first everyone is going to declare "It sucks!"... but eventually they'll be won over.

Vista runs fine on my A64 3700+ with 1 GB of RAM. I noticed very little (if any) difference in World of Warcraft.

who says XP doesn't suck???

You know, it gets a little tiring after a while. Until Linux can do all the things Windows can do as easily as Windows, then it will never be a mainstream OS. People that simply declare "Windows SUXXORS!" without an excellent explanation of why it sucks or why people should consider alternatives don't do anything for the "Linux cause".

Yes, Linux has some advatages... there is no doubt about it. Windows also has advantages that most people tend to overlook... ease of use not being the least of them. When the day comes that I don't need an online tutorial to install a video driver; then Linux may win me over. As it is, it will never be more than a secondary OS on my comp. I install it to learn how to use it... not because I prefer it over Windows.

noobs indeed for saying Windows sucks. You are probably one of those people who uses Win 98 or 2k because XP "sucks". People like you make Windows slower because MS has to keep on coding for backward compatibility and reduce OS performance as a result. XP has many security flaws but it is 100x more secure than 98 or 2k.

to the person who said MS is a evil monopoly, every company dreams of becoming a monopoly and MS did it. Why? They have good products. It's the way the market works.

No, they're not evil... like all businesses they are out to make money. If that is "evil" then let me ask you something... do you work for free? Do you not expect a paycheck every two weeks (or however often) for doing what you do? Then by your own definition, you are "evil" as well.

If you're not in business to make money, then you won't be in business for very long. That's the nature of the beast.

If you're going to live off the interest that the banks pay you... then you must have one hell of a large account. You would need at least what, one hundred thousand dollars to make that feasible?

But I digress. Microsoft or Google isn't any more "evil" than any other corporation... they are simply larger and have more resources to throw around. Let me guess, you only buy AMD because Intel is "evil" as well? Even if Intel has a better-performing product?

somebody doesn't live in our present day time period.

Based on your explanation, I have a question: When do you think WindowsXP will be out of beta?

i think you guys all need to realize that MS does not care what your opinion is and if you will be supporting their products

they make their money from volumized sales to large corporations and licensing costs, a home user has very little impact on the company, specially since most of them just pirate the copy anyway

ummm... no
I'm sure I can find lots of where the OS for the computer was a lot crappier...but in the meantime no, that isn't always true. I didnt say all the time, I said it wasn't ALWAYS true.

Have your pick of OS whether it be Linux, Windows, or OSX. Windows has the largest support of games because they are the largest percentage of the market. You can buy a mac and get some titles written for OSX or use Linux with Cedega and play most Windows titles or you can have a native Windows install just for games. Hopefully virtualization will get to the point that you can just have all your OS's running virtually and pick and choose what you use each for. I am running RC2 Vista and Company of Heroes is the only game I have installed so far and it seems to run just as well as in XP. Remember, there were alot of games that didnt work with 2000 that did with 98 and you had to either dual boot or go buy some new games that were compatible. No one is ever completely satisfied with new software.

that wasn't a proper edition imo. i didn't know it existed unitl i saw someone using it.

as for other os, i've used dos, os, windows 95-vista, and unix

Ha, like Windows ME?
That was more like Windows 1884 since it was so unstable and so bad.

Windows ME stood for Many Errors

Gotta love this





P.S I think MS OS's are generally good. I'm not a basher

They deserve it. Most of the people bashing Microsoft here appear to be Windows users (myself included, although I've started dual booting Suse). I think Microsoft is getting bashed because Vista underdelivers, has taken forever, costs much, and has a ridiculous EULA. Someone over on an Ars Technica forum (I think) wrote something about the offer to upgrade to Vista being like being asked to bend over and pick up a bar of soap in a prison shower. No kidding. I really don't think they give a damn about their customers.

http://mccd.udc.es/orihuela/epic/ols-master.html

Actually, it stood for Windows: Mistake Edition.

The bashing of Vista is pretty much on par with the bashing of XP back when it was in beta. I used XP Pro as my primary OS since RC 2, and I used it when it went gold.

Right now, I have Vista RC 2 installed on another hard drive and I will dual-boot for now... until I can get the wife used to Vista. I don't believe in the "I'll wait until SP1"... I used a new OS as soon as I possibly can. If there's problems, I want to know how to fix them BEFORE customers start bothering me with new computers that have Vista already installed.

If they bitch about having to do small things like this, I don't see how they say they can "just switch to Linux".
Use Gentoo or Devil as your first Linux and see how long you complain about Vista.

Wrong the Mac is far easier to learn. They are the kings of market share.

I'm laughing my a** off! Yea right. NewOS

Windows 98>Windows Millinium. It WAS a new OS right???
So, it must therefore be 'better'....uhhh, I don't think so...
Windows Vista is a Joke. Its ridiculous bloatware. It offers NOTHING that XP doesn't. The MAC graphics make me ill.....

You think wrong: I have installed and used almost every single build since longhorn. I have installed and uninstalled it over 100 bloody times. I know this OS. I do not like it. From the onset Microsoft has developers bit off more than they could chew. They tried incorporating new features that simply would not work. Windows Vista was going to include a completely rewritten file system, based on SQL Server and once called Storage+. Later renamed to WinFS, this file system was downgraded to a "storage engine," meaning that it would, in fact, run on top of the decades-old NTFS file system. Then WinFS was stripped out of Windows Vista because the performance was so horrible.

Thats cool. My first PC was a blazing 33 MHz with 4 MB Ram. It had IBM's OS2. The graphics were pre Windows 95. And of course, this was before Win 95 actually debuted. Remeber the Rolling Stones TV commercial? Start me up? <<< {Fondly recalls}