Vista x64 Very Slow

[Crucial]

Here's the situation...

Previous Setup:
Window Vista 32bit
4x1024MB Crucial Balistix DDR2-800mhz (4gig total)
Asus M2N32-SLI Mobo
AMD Phenom 9600 (BE) Quad core
Nvidia 8800 GTS 640mb Video card
2x Raptor 150gb HD (1 drive OS, 1 drive for 5xWOW with only the data/interface directories shared)
1920x1200 for main on 24", 1280x1024 split 4 ways on second lcd 19" for other characters (all in windowed mode)
FPS: 25-30 on main, 20 on the 4 others.

This was "OK" but not the greatest, so I upgraded a few parts...

Current Setup:
Windows Vista x64 (Completely clean install from scratch using all 64bit drivers for all components) w/Service Pack 1
4x2048MB Corsair Dominator DDR-1066Mhz (8 gig total)
Asus M3N-HT Deluxe Mobo
AMD Phenom 9600 (BE) Quad core
Nvidia 8800 GTS 640mb Video card
2x Raptor 150gb HD (same setup, but drives are now setup as RAID 0 striped)
FPS: 16-20 on main (windowed mode)... not even running any other toons.
FPS: 30-40 in full screen mode.

Conclusion
WTF? Faster memory, faster hard drive setup, better motherboard and extremely lower FPS due to Vista x64?

[Naysayer]

I doubt it's vista64, but I'll remind you to make sure you updated it to service pack 1, as sp1 fixed a ton of problems with vista. Are you sure you're running the correct driver for your graphics card? Have you tried finding some recent stable drivers for your card? Try running Direct x9. I'm semi-tech savvy, but I'm probably not on par with most people on this board so don't take my answer as final. Keep bumping for more help. I've always built my own pc's after the first one. I'm using vist64 sp1 and have no probs.

[Otlecs]

I went through a Vista64 upgrade recently on my monster system, and it made no difference whatsoever to frame rates. It did, however, give me more memory to play with (2GB more since I have 2GB video memory!).

"Gee, so what... that's not very helpful, is it?!". Well, no, but it does mean there's nothing inherently wrong with Vista64, for whatever that's worth

The one oddity for me was the drivers. Vista64 completely failed to recognise my pair of 3870 X2 graphics cards. Completely.

Instead, it installed a generic driver and THAT obviously gave me unplayable frame rates.

So... and please don't take offence at me perhaps Stating the Bloody Obvious(tm)... have you downloaded and installed the latest 64bit drivers for your 8800 GTS? Have you tried an older driver? Checked Google for any anecdotal evidence of problems with various drivers?

My money is firmly on the video driver being the problem.

[Crucial]

I doubt it's vista64, but I'll remind you to make sure you updated it to service pack 1, as sp1 fixed a ton of problems with vista. Are you sure you're running the correct driver for your graphics card? Have you tried finding some recent stable drivers for your card? Try running Direct x9. I'm semi-tech savvy, but I'm probably not on par with most people on this board so don't take my answer as final. Keep bumping for more help. I've always built my own pc's after the first one. I'm using vist64 sp1 and have no probs.

Yep - SP1 is included as part of the original DVD installs. I also ran windows update and downloaded all the latest updates just to make sure. Other than some application compatibility updates (which I installed) there was nothing else relevant.

[Crucial]

I went through a Vista64 upgrade recently on my monster system, and it made no difference whatsoever to frame rates. It did, however, give me more memory to play with (2GB more since I have 2GB video memory!).

"Gee, so what... that's not very helpful, is it?!". Well, no, but it does mean there's nothing inherently wrong with Vista64, for whatever that's worth

The one oddity for me was the drivers. Vista64 completely failed to recognise my pair of 3870 X2 graphics cards. Completely.

Instead, it installed a generic driver and THAT obviously gave me unplayable frame rates.

So... and please don't take offence at me perhaps Stating the Bloody Obvious(tm)... have you downloaded and installed the latest 64bit drivers for your 8800 GTS? Have you tried an older driver? Checked Google for any anecdotal evidence of problems with various drivers?

My money is firmly on the video driver being the problem.

- Downloaded and installed the latest Nvidia 64 bit drivers directly from their website after Vista was installed, no other video drivers were present on the system prior to installing (other than the Vista standard VGA driver being used). Driver: GeForce Release 175 WHQL Version: 175.19 Release Date: June 23, 2008 Operating System: Windows Vista 64-bit. I've searched Nvidia forums and googled this regarding the low fps and nothing useful has come up yet. I haven't tried using older drivers however.

- Made sure that I had the latest motherboard chipset drivers, raid drivers, etc - they are all 64bit version too. The only thing I haven't updated yet was the BIOS.

[d0z3rr]

Weird....did you get the amd x64 cpu driver? I'm serious, there's a driver for quad core cpu's.

Did you try other games? Perhaps ones that are more gfx intensive? This will rule out alot of stuff. Try playing cod4, crysis, doom3, etc. Also try playing a cpu intensive game like gtr or supreme commander.

Flash the BIOS.

[Crucial]

Weird....did you get the amd x64 cpu driver? I'm serious, there's a driver for quad core cpu's.

Did you try other games? Perhaps ones that are more gfx intensive? This will rule out alot of stuff. Try playing cod4, crysis, doom3, etc. Also try playing a cpu intensive game like gtr or supreme commander.

Flash the BIOS.

If you mean the AMD processor driver it's only for XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Haven't tried or have any other games available atm, since wow is the only one I play.
Also I tried playing around with all combination of the processor affinity settings, and it made very little difference since at this point all I'm able to do is singlebox. I'll be flashing the BIOS tonight for sure.

[Crucial]

Unforunately being at work I can't try this right now but this might be the problem (I was not running SP1 before).

"The crux of the issue is this - Windows Vista Service Pack 1 always enables the Phenom TLB fix on relevant CPUs by default, which can impact performance quite severely in some cases in the name of guaranteed system stability. Regardless of whether you disable this fix at BIOS level, or using AMD's OverDrive tool, it will always be over-ridden by the OS. Thankfully, a member of the Xtreme Systems forum has created a way to ensure that the TLB fix is disabled with a little extra effort - If you're running Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and an affected processor, be sure to check it out."

[Wilbur]

INTEL > AMD

/propoganda

[Crucial]

INTEL > AMD

/propoganda

These days that seems to be true. My next system will be intel... that's for sure.