Vista Vs XP 8800 (Vista's Quicker)

Fresh XP SP2 Install
ForceWware 97.92 WHQL
8800GTS

VS

Windows Ultimate
Forceware 100.30 (Obviously Beta)
8800GTS

Aquamark3
========
XP: 130,530
Vista: 138,912

3DMark03
========
XP: 25, 284
Vista: 27, 686

Haven't tried 3DMark05 and 06 yet, but I did run ShaderMark. XP is faster by about 15%, however in the High Dynamic range tests (ps3_0 HQ floating point with and without filtering) Vista is about 35% faster.
Eg
===
Vista
shader 22 (High Dynamic Range Shader - low quality version without filtering - ps_3_0) 312 fps -Vista
shader 22 ( High Dynamic Range Shader - low quality version without filtering - ps_3_0) 206 fps - XP

shader 23 (High Dynamic Range Shader - high quality with fp filtering - ps_3_0) 317 fps -Vista
shader 23 (High Dynamic Range Shader - high quality with fp filtering - ps_3_0) 206 fps - XP

shader 24 (High Dynamic Range Shader - high quality without fp filtering - ps_3_0) 316 fps -Vista
shader 24 (High Dynamic Range Shader - high quality without fp filtering - ps_3_0) 207 fps -XP

Would have put this in a graph but I'd rather do that when I have another R580 and G71 board to test as well.

Either way, nothing from anybody currently is a relevant test because this is not DX10 performance but DX9.0E with better context management and the like. :/

Will still have to wait for a benchable DX10 aware game to be able to test properly. As great as these results are (when they are) the performance numbers should be far better than this.

Grab the Drivers Here

Which version of XP and Vista? 32 or 64bit?

the vista he used is a 64bit os, i think the xp is only 32 bit, which also could explain the performance increase

Both are 32-bit

really, wow i thought the ultimate version was 64

All the versions come in 32 and 64-bit flavors.
Just don't feel like struggling with 64-bit drivers especially because I use a lesser known sound card which has no Vista drivers let alone 64-bit drivers for Vista. :/

Oblivion plays better in Vista for me than XP same goes for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Gothic.
I'm not sure if its the same for DX9 hardware though. Been reading that Vista is slower in the order of 10~15% in everything than XP. So if you have GF7 maybe wait for proper driver. If you have X19XX though go right ahead and use Vista

I wish I had access to the betas/RCs of Vista, yet to try it out for meself.

Sounds good, I think I'll give those new Beta drivers a try. The current RTM build drivers are fine, but I can notice it being a tiny bit slower in Oblivion, but it was always borderline under XP and I'm running Nvidia 7 series..

Windows Vista is by far better than XP, aswesome Operating System, it just needs work when it comes to gaming and the other 3rd party applications.

Give it about 5 months to be a perfect alternative to Windows XP

is it compatible with games like age of empires, generals and battlefield 2, counter-strike? etc, etc

Nokkie said:

is it compatible with games like age of empires, generals and battlefield 2, counter-strike? etc, etc

Click to expand...

I think it is compatible with pretty much all games. People are just worried about the slight performance decreases under DX9 hardware. This is mostly driver issues as the final version drivers aren't really done yet. I guess the beta's ShockG is talking about might be the official release.

I know CS:S and BF2 work fine under Vista, so does everything else I've tried.

The GF8 driver I use is not going to be official release driver. That driver will have a "C" compile tag (as in production/final) and will be WHQL.

Indeed with DX9 hardware there will be some performance loss, but with better and official drivers things should improve.
Unfortunately anything other than GF8 right now is in the API context of DX10, Legacy Hardware and you know once you get the legacy stamp things start looking well,,, sad :/ Add to which nVidia has this tenancy to forget about you if you don't' own their latest generation gfx card