Does Windows 7 really give a performance boost over Windows Vista?

[Tonuss]

Yeah, that's something to remember. Windows 7 has lower recommended requirements than Vista, but it's still more similar to Vista than XP. Its system requirements are higher than XP, particularly where RAM is concerned. "Faster than Vista" is like being faster than a slug... it doesn't mean you're fast.

[d0z3rr]

"Faster than Vista" is like being faster than a slug... it doesn't mean you're fast.

I ran Vista x64 for over a year, played copious amounts of games on it, and never remember it running like a slug. Just my experience.

[Tonuss]

I ran Vista x64 for over a year, played copious amounts of games on it, and never remember it running like a slug. Just my experience.

I was thinking about hardware more in line for XP. I run Vista32 on a pretty powerful laptop and Vista64 on a very powerful desktop and they run fine. But when it was released, we got some laptops at work and it runs horrible on them, though XP runs just fine.

[Ualaa]

Windows 7 is a better operating system then Vista, for low end systems.
I'm not claiming either is as good as XP for low end systems.

[BobGnarly]

2x nVidia Geforce 8800GTS (684Mb video ram) in SLi mode

2 X 684 is about 1.5 G ..... what else do you expect?'



have found somewhere on the net that windows and/or the bios will assign a big chunk of your main ram to cover as interface between the video ram and the rest of the computer.

This is correct.

It is correct for 32-bit OSs, it is NOT correct for 64-bit OSs (or at least it doesn't have to be).

The problem is that, in a 32-bit OS, it can only address 4G of memory (2^32) total. That means for things like video cards, the MMIO for these devices must lie withing that 4G range. Since you have 4G of RAM, there is nowhere left for the MMIO to exist except over the top of your RAM, meaning you lose the memory.

On a a 64-bit OS, it can map the video card memory above your RAM address range - it will not conflict with your RAM.

Short story: if you are running a 64-bit OS, you shouldn't have any peripheral I/O memory subtracted from your usable RAM total. If you do, something is misconfigured (probably your m/b).

[Tasty]

This is all very off topic, who cares about WoW. The point is Windows 7 Media Center KICKS ASS

:P

[Fizzler]

This is all very off topic, who cares about WoW. The point is Windows 7 Media Center KICKS ASS

:P

-Start Hijack-

Heck yeah it does. Combine with Media Center Browser and MediaCenterMaster for tagging it is outstanding. I have ripped almost 4TB of movies and TV series (yes all mine) to my media vault. I had to buy 4 copies of Pixar Cars in the last year alone the 4 yr old always manages to get a hold of the DvD. Not a problem anymore.

My wife likes streaming netflix (quality ugh) they just added support for it last week so all is good now.

-end Hijack-

After Vista I have nothing but good things to say about Win7. Performance wise as it relates to WoW the FPS is about the same for me.

[Los]

Yeah, that's something to remember. Windows 7 has lower recommended requirements than Vista, but it's still more similar to Vista than XP. Its system requirements are higher than XP, particularly where RAM is concerned. "Faster than Vista" is like being faster than a slug... it doesn't mean you're fast.

Ofc w7 has different requirements then windows xp, the latter is like what, 9 years old?

[Oswyn]

One of my raptor drives tanked, so I took this opportunity to do a clean install of Win7. Installed video drivers and found that I couldn't get anything above 40fps in Stormwind (settings maxed out). I should be seeing well above 130fps. After some tinkering I found that the shadow quality setting was the culprit. If I move the slider more than halfway, the fps just sinks. So I'm assuming this is a driver issue. I'm using 4870 X2.

[mebben]

Windows 7 is the best thing that happened since Win 3.11