XP vs. Vista - A Tale of Framerates

[Monkey God]

People are going to read this article and make long-term difficult to change opinions "zomg vista sux for the gaming" because of basically crappy nvidia drivers and not a single ATI video card to test with it.

Huh.

 

[Numan]

All I know is with a 8800GTS I go from playable to unplayable at the same settings (1650x1050) just by switching which OS boots. I will have to double check what drivers I have for Vista (whatever is the latest on the nvidia homepage, at least it should be) and a 3800X2 CPU can't be that bad, can it? It would definently make me feel less guilty about getting a better CPU dispite that I just seem to only play WoW lately

 

[stabilep]

People are going to read this article and make long-term difficult to change opinions "zomg vista sux for the gaming" because of basically crappy nvidia drivers and not a single ATI video card to test with it.

Huh.

Honestly I came up with that conclusion after they totally ditched DirectX sound rendering my sound card useless.

 

[Redmud]

Thats my biggest concern. After reading all the crap about DirectSound being yanked from Directx10 and Creative drivers.

 

[RESTfulADI]

All I know is with a 8800GTS I go from playable to unplayable at the same settings (1650x1050) just by switching which OS boots. I will have to double check what drivers I have for Vista (whatever is the latest on the nvidia homepage, at least it should be) and a 3800X2 CPU can't be that bad, can it? It would definently make me feel less guilty about getting a better CPU dispite that I just seem to only play WoW lately

Unless you are overclocking the crap out of that 3800x2, you are cpu limited (especially in vista with all the services running in the background) in almost any resolution, including 1920x1200 in most games. get a new cpu.

 

[ICOM]

For me, an OS is nothing more than a launching platform for applications that I wish to run. Vista just had too much useless and annoying crap that got in my way. I'm just glad Vista came bundled with the computer. Now, I don't feel bad about dumping it in favor of XP.

For me, XP is superior to Vista in terms of ease of use, simplicity and gaming performance.

The "it's the drivers" excuse is getting old and no longer relevant.

 

[RESTfulADI]

Thats my biggest concern. After reading all the crap about DirectSound being yanked from Directx10 and Creative drivers.

Alchemy worked great with my X-FI, converts Direct sound calls to Open Al and allows for hardware acceleration of such games. I still went back to XP cause 158.18 had the Source engine bug as I described on page 1, but when my raptor gets here this week I'm gonna give it another shot with 158.24.

 

[markt435]

The "it's the drivers" excuse is getting old and no longer relevant.

riiiiiiight...

ask anyone who has an nv card that uses vista and they'll tell you performance is night and day between 100.65 drivers and lower and the 158's. whats getting old is the same bashing of the OS thats being "justified" with this article when the justification isn't there. they said themselves, they used old drivers.

 

[ICOM]

riiiiiiight...

ask anyone who has an nv card that uses vista and they'll tell you performance is night and day between 100.65 drivers and lower and the 158's. whats getting old is the same bashing of the OS thats being "justified" with this article when the justification isn't there. they said themselves, they used old drivers.

sigh...good grief

The truth is not bashing. I merely wished to accentuate the articles reference..."In the end, it looks like the the new, bulky, poorly supported operating system is at the root of it all. This is not to say that this is a final verdict."

I can't "justify" moving to a new, bulky and poorly supported OS when the one that I'm currently using (XP) is superior in every aspect. Sheesh!

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

I think all you complaining about the drivers and lack of other cards in the article have never written one yourself and are, therefor, not aware of the sheer amount of work and time involved

If I were a part-time evaluator (which most at [H] are) I certainly would not have "expensed" a video card for reviews that will probably just be irrelevant in a few months. Most of the cards review sites use are evaluation cards provided by manufacturers. I think the real reason behind not having any ATI cards is simply the amount of work required for the article would have been more than someone who doesn't do this full time could have handled.

I completely understand the amount of work that was required to write this review. I also NOW understand that maybe they couldn't just "expense" out an ATI card to use. But to draw the conclusion that the operating system is the problem when they don't have the competitors product to either prove their conclusion or prove otherwise isn't the right way to do things.
Even then, the drivers have matured for the Nvidia cards, even if the article was finalized before the latest release that improves things dramatically. Wasn't there a noticeable pattern of improvement in each driver revision he tested? Wouldn't that point out that the fault could have been with the drivers, and not the OS?

This article was great and well written, but a few things that could be added or need to be changed to make it feel a little more legitimate, and not receive several pages of complaints:
1. A re-written conclusion
-and/or-
2. A title change mentioning Nvidia (someone already mentioned this)
-and/or-
3. A paragraph in the introduction that explains why only Nvidia cards were used.
-and/or-
4. A paragraph mentioning that ATI may be used in a follow-up article. Kyle did mention a follow-up article on the Digg link, but not everyone reads Digg.

If this kind of article were done with cars, It would have read like this:
Brand X Car runs poorly on this type of fuel. Therefore brands Y and Z must not run well on this type of fuel either. Poor conclusion...especially if Brands Y and Z might have better/worse designed engines for this type of fuel. You wouldn't know until you tested them.

 

[Ulrick28]

My experience with Vista has been mixed. I am not going back to XP since I can handle the quirks that I've experiences with Vista (also, those quirks are being erradicated weekly).

XP has issues with too many windows open (it will refuse to open any other windows after I hit a certain limit). This is due to a 'user space' of some sort (I forget the proper name) that XP uses. Vista does not have this issue, I can open as many windows/explorer pages/directories/programs without issue.

Vista uses multicore processors much more efficiently than XP does. (I am using a quadcore cpu).

Vista64 works well with large amounts of memory (I am running 4 gigs). I never had a good experience with XP64 and gaming.

So far, I've been able to run every game but 1 (episode 1 of Sam & Max). The game runs but their authentification scheme breaks under Vista (as it should since the way they were authenticating was flawed).

I've been using Vista since it's release..at first it was VERY painful, but now I prefer it well over xp.

Vista's number one problem is nVidia drivers. They have gotten a lot better, but they still have a long ways to go. If the nVidia drivers were up to par we would not be having these discussions. (I have an 8800GTX) Driver support might be the Ace up ATI's sleeve.

 

[Monkey God]

The truth is not bashing. I merely wished to accentuate the articles reference..."In the end, it looks like the the new, bulky, poorly supported operating system is at the root of it all. This is not to say that this is a final verdict."

I can't "justify" moving to a new, bulky and poorly supported OS when the one that I'm currently using (XP) is superior in every aspect. Sheesh!

It isn't the final verdict, because the articles author was wrong. Before someone should slam an OS, they should make *damn* sure it IS the OS. He didn't have the latest Nvidia drivers, which is fine...but he made NO effort to test with an ATI product, which would have shown it WAS a driver issue as the cause of the performance issues.

Instead, you a have a lazy, half-written article based upon incomplete testing, making sweeping and unfair judgments on the OS.

Here are the facts:
An extremely popular hardware review site publishes an article that concludes that the huge disparity in XP versus Vista gaming frame rates in because of the OS. They could have easily come to another conclusion....IF they had bothered to test with an ATI product. Go to any forum on the net, and its obvious that Nvidia drivers in Vista have SUCKED, and only very recently gotten "decent". This fact shouldn't be news to anybody.

So, either do a complete test and get all the facts BEFORE you slam a product, or dont bother published half finished articles.

 

[Fraishus]

This article is worthless.
It's just taking up space on [H]'s front-page.
Because there's nothing to be learned from it.
As a reader, what could possibly be taken away from this article?
That old Nvidia drivers are slow?
Wow! Useful information.
Why would we care?

He didn't compare with ATI drivers.
He didn't use the latest NVidia drivers.
one-two punch, worthless article.
It says he put a bunch of work into this article, and then new drivers came out-- so what?
We're the customer. It doesn't matter what he did. We're the ones who are viewing the ads.
Don't come out with a bunch of obsolete information for your customers and then justify it with "well I spent time on it." -- that has no use for us. Why would we care?
You should have said "well, gosh, I spent some time on this, but the article isn't ready, so I'll need to spend some more." That's your job man.

 

[ikjadoon]

Great article. I loved it. My favorite, very simple and easy to read and understand.

Yes, 158's have had a rather big change for me, at least in benchmarks (1000+ in '06), but real-gaming is questionable.

~Ibrahim~

 

[LhasaCM]

It isn't the final verdict, because the articles author was wrong. Before someone should slam an OS, they should make *damn* sure it IS the OS. He didn't have the latest Nvidia drivers, which is fine...but he made NO effort to test with an ATI product, which would have shown it WAS a driver issue as the cause of the performance issues.

Instead, you a have a lazy, half-written article based upon incomplete testing, making sweeping and unfair judgments on the OS.

Here are the facts:
An extremely popular hardware review site publishes an article that concludes that the huge disparity in XP versus Vista gaming frame rates in because of the OS. They could have easily come to another conclusion....IF they had bothered to test with an ATI product. Go to any forum on the net, and its obvious that Nvidia drivers in Vista have SUCKED, and only very recently gotten "decent". This fact shouldn't be news to anybody.

So, either do a complete test and get all the facts BEFORE you slam a product, or dont bother published half finished articles.

Actually, I think the article's conclusion is quite measured. They do not say that it is[/I Vista's fault, but rather "it looks like" the OS is the root of it all. By saying "poorly supported" - that also includes the driver writers as responsible parties. Sure, you may read it the same as "Vista sucks", but there is a difference between the two statements. They also say that they expect things to improve with driver updates and patch revisions for game publishers, etc. Given the numbers their tests provided, I think their conclusion is a responsible one.

"Lazy" isn't appropriate either - it is 8 games on 2 cards in 2 operating systems. It might not have been the best use of limited resources, but that's the author's/publisher's judgment call to make. In any case, I don't think lack of effort is an issue. (3 cards would've been better but that would've taken more time/resources. Within the same time budget, they could've stuck with 2 cards - one DX9 ATi card and one DX9 nVidia card - and left DX10 comparisons for when there's public competition in that arena. Or maybe used fewer games to illustrate the point. Poor timing with driver releases, certainly, but that's bound to happen in this industry.)

 

[Monkey God]

Actually, I think the article's conclusion is quite measured. They do not say that it is[/I Vista's fault, but rather "it looks like" the OS is the root of it all.

Its not Vistas fault, but the OS is at the root of it all?
Sweet, what kinda logic is that?

By saying "poorly supported" - that also includes the driver writers as responsible parties. Sure, you may read it the same as "Vista sucks", but there is a difference between the two statements. They also say that they expect things to improve with driver updates and patch revisions for game publishers, etc. Given the numbers their tests provided, I think their conclusion is a responsible one.

instead of some vague comment like "poorly supported" it would have been nice to say that "the nvidia drivers we used sucked and caused the discrepancies". You know, since that is the actual truth of the matter. BUT, the article didn't do that, because its old, uses crappy older Nvidia drivers, and didn't have a single ATI card in there to see if the FPS discrepancy was still there.

"Lazy" isn't appropriate either - it is 8 games on 2 cards in 2 operating systems. It might not have been the best use of limited resources, but that's the author's/publisher's judgment call to make. In any case, I don't think lack of effort is an issue. (3 cards would've been better but that would've taken more time/resources. Within the same time budget, they could've stuck with 2 cards - one DX9 ATi card and one DX9 nVidia card - and left DX10 comparisons for when there's public competition in that arena. Or maybe used fewer games to illustrate the point. Poor timing with driver releases, certainly, but that's bound to happen in this industry.)

Your missing the point. Dont slam a product (OS, graphics card, whatever) without ENSURING thats the actual problem. Bottom line, the article makes it look the issues is predominately Vista's, when its just not true.

Thats lazy journalism, in my book!

 

[Mike Armstrong]

I'm definitely no expert on OS's but how can you compare XP and Vista for gaming without using the hardware and software thats best for both? Are any of those games tested DX10? Is'nt XP a DX9 OS best used for DX9 games using DX9 video cards? Is'nt Vista a whole different ballgame (architecture)?, a DX10 OS best used with DX10 games using DX10 video cards? If thats true, how can you compare them using a DX9 setup and not also a DX10 setup? A DX9 video card and a DX10 'capable' video card but only DX9 games. Seems one sided in favor of XP to me.

 

[ICOM]

I also agree the article only holds as much weight as the majority of similar reviews that come to a similar conclusions...

 

[Eastcoasthandle]

For me, an OS is nothing more than a launching platform for applications that I wish to run. Vista just had too much useless and annoying crap that got in my way. I'm just glad Vista came bundled with the computer. Now, I don't feel bad about dumping it in favor of XP.

For me, XP is superior to Vista in terms of ease of use, simplicity and gaming performance.

The "it's the drivers" excuse is getting old and no longer relevant.

sigh...good grief

The truth is not bashing. I merely wished to accentuate the articles reference..."In the end, it looks like the the new, bulky, poorly supported operating system is at the root of it all. This is not to say that this is a final verdict."

I can't "justify" moving to a new, bulky and poorly supported OS when the one that I'm currently using (XP) is superior in every aspect. Sheesh!

Good Points.

 

[stabilep]

Alchemy worked great with my X-FI, converts Direct sound calls to Open Al and allows for hardware acceleration of such games. I still went back to XP cause 158.18 had the Source engine bug as I described on page 1, but when my raptor gets here this week I'm gonna give it another shot with 158.24.

yeah but key word there is X-Fi

not everyone has an X-Fi card and I wasn't going to get one because it simply was not a big enough step to justify the cost. Now if you want Vista and 3D sound you need the X-Fi card or use your on board (which realtek recently proved it was unable to properly implement) thats like making vista ONLY work with DX10 cards and you need to get a DX10 card if you want to us Vista-yes a nice hardware upgrade but not entirely necessary at the moment.

 

[LhasaCM]

Its not Vistas fault, but the OS is at the root of it all?
Sweet, what kinda logic is that?

They said it "looks like" the OS is at the root of it all. Right there, that conveys a sense of uncertainty about the conclusion (all signs they see point to it, but it's not clear that it is definitely the case).

instead of some vague comment like "poorly supported" it would have been nice to say that "the nvidia drivers we used sucked and caused the discrepancies". You know, since that is the actual truth of the matter

Because that would be prejudging in the opposite direction - that the only difference between Vista and XP is driver support and nothing else, and you'd have the other portion of the community complaining about that. The "truth" in the testing is that there is a discrepancy in performance. Whether or not it is the driver's fault or the fault of the OS is undecipherable in their test, so you lump the two together.

Your missing the point. Dont slam a product (OS, graphics card, whatever) without ENSURING thats the actual problem. Bottom line, the article makes it look the issues is predominately Vista's, when its just not true.

Thats lazy journalism, in my book!

And don't read more into a conclusion than is there - that's poor "consumerism."

In the end - I think everyone agrees more or less on a few points. It would've been nice to use the newest drivers. It would've been nice to use ATi cards as well. The conclusion will probably change over time. It'd be nice to have a solid gold pony. (Okay, maybe not the last item...)

 

[LhasaCM]

I'm definitely no expert on OS's but how can you compare XP and Vista for gaming without using the hardware and software thats best for both? Are any of those games tested DX10? Is'nt XP a DX9 OS best used for DX9 games using DX9 video cards? Is'nt Vista a whole different ballgame (architecture)?, a DX10 OS best used with DX10 games using DX10 video cards? If thats true, how can you compare them using a DX9 setup and not also a DX10 setup? A DX9 video card and a DX10 'capable' video card but only DX9 games. Seems one sided in favor of XP to me.

Unfortunately, there aren't any DX10 games to try out, so that comparison can't be made yet. And of course, if a game is only DX10, XP's highest frame rate will be approximately zero.

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

Why no ATI? It's pretty useless to benchmark two Nvidia cards; it's pretty much a given they'll loose about the same performance. You can't really draw any conclusions on the state of Vista gaming by looking at only one company's driver implementation, especially when that company is know to have poor Vista driver support.

EDIT: Also, why on earth would the author think that a card being DX10 would help, if the games were all DX9, and how would this test this if the two cards he tested were of different speed?

I know some people always complain about HOCP articles, but this one was really below the usual standard. It's a shame seeing so much time going into such a sloppily thought out review.

 

[Dekoth]

I must admit, I am fairly disappointed in this review from HardOCP after all the preaching they have done about Game play experience vs Canned benchmarks.

It is starting to smack of a personal crusade against Vista.

I started using Vista in Beta RC1, and have maintained a Vista Box, an XP Pro box, and a Media Center. The two important machines are the Vista and XP, both have fairly high end specs.

E6300
2GB corsair XMS
8800GTS

As a very brief snapshot of the specs. Vista had problems in RC1, it had less problems in RC2. Release with exception of the Nvidia drivers has on the whole been a very pleasant experience. It handles media far better then my XPMCE box, and Gaming is smooth. Is the performance the same as XP if I run benches? No, but I see no appreciable difference between the two.

Games I run,
Vanguard SOH
BF2 Mods
Flight Sim X

I see Zero performance difference playing the games at the same resolutions and settings on either the XP or the Vista Box. I honestly like Vista, it is the first OS I have legally purchased from MS in nearly 8 years. I have no regrets, and I usually like to camp the anti MS bandwagon. The OS works wonderfully, and I am honestly getting sick of the blind hatred of it. Its got problems, thats a given but they hardly impact the experience overall.

 

[Sigma_Hyperion]

Worst. [H]ard. Review. Ever.

In this case, we used two different graphics drivers and got essentially the same results: worse performance in Vista. If we then say, “Okay, maybe it’s not the graphics drivers,” then at what else do we point the finger? Chipset drivers? Hard drive access? RAM? Though we’ve seen upgraded chipset drivers improve system stability, it’s rare that we see it improve gaming performance.

Oh... I dunno... maybe the friggin' graphics card?!.

So you consider the possiblity that the chipset or HD could cause discrepancies, but the idea of the card itself didn't enter your mind at all?

We waited what we thought was a reasonable amount of time for game publishers and NVIDIA to get their act together with regards to game patches and drivers, and went with the most current version of both. If a new driver was released, we’d install it and start all over. This happened more than once, which is why this article isn’t what we would call “timely.”

Alright, so you did good by restarting the test when new drivers came out. It's been reiterated that this caused a lot of additional work (though, frankly, I don't see how a test like this should take that long). So you started the test over when piddly driver updates came out or (presuambly) when game patches came out that didn't even effect graphics. Yet when, arguably, the most significant driver update for your video card was released you didn't decide to start over then?

Wha?

And the really weird thing is that, in my experience, your CoH results are WAY off what I've seen personally.

Your test system is almost exactly the same as my own. The exception is that I use a EVGA 680i SLI motherboard. Your test ran at 1280, with only Medium Settings, and you averaged only ~45fps. I run CoH at 1600 with Ultra-High Settings (except I think it's Textures which I run at High because there was a bug with the nVidia drivers that caused a crash at Ultra High, IIRC) and my minimum is 37fps. My average is a full 50% higher than your own -- in the mid-high 60fps range. My performance actually went UP in CoH with Vista (though it took 3 patches to get that far), though that's the only game I've seen that in so far.

Your own results don't even jive with your previous results. In your own previous test, you tested an 8800GTS in CoH under XP and achieved an average of 59fps at 1600 in Highest settings. You got 65fps at 1280 resolution under Medium settings this time in XP -- a lower resolution, significantly lower settings, and you only got a couple fps increase?

It just doesn't make sense.

 

[nekrosoft13]

Company of Heroes and Need for Speed, we saw dramatic framerate discrepancies. What’s more, both of these titles have recently released patches!

WHAT??

Carbon recent patch? last and only patch was in November 2006

 

[Axiomatic]

I'll be the first in line to say that the DRM and other anti-consumer ware in Vista are a big turn off for the new OS. But as far as the Vista video drivers go I think nvidia has done a good job recently. I realize they basically had to be coerced at gunpoint to create them, but now that we have them its looking upward.

This may sound like a desire to bolster my blogs hit rate, but in this case I did a small (very small) performance test of 64 bit Vista ultimate with the latest nvidia drivers and found that they were very good for DX9 games. In fact, the non-overclocked 64 bit Vista scores took second place to only an overclocked XP-SP2 install on my limited test. I was mildly impressed. If you are interested here is the link: http://www.gamingsignal.com/2007/04/64_bit_windows_vista_ultimate.html

edit - Please be nice on commentary about my blog. Its mainly for my work friends and I to have a place to talk about games. We aren't trying to be a "premier" blog so as I said, we are not trying to increase hits. I just thought my study on 64 bit Vista video performance might apply to this discussion. ;-)

 

[nekrosoft13]

Your own results don't even jive with your previous results. In your own previous test, you tested an 8800GTS in CoH under XP and achieved an average of 59fps at 1600 in Highest settings. You got 65fps at 1280 resolution under Medium settings this time in XP -- a lower resolution, significantly lower settings, and you only got a couple fps increase?

It just doesn't make sense.

i was also thinking the samething, i'm running vista for quite some time, i'm getting really good performance. this entire article is weird

 

[Obi_Kwiet]

I would love to see a good Vista vs. XP review. Something using say, an E6600, a 8800GTS and an X1950XT (The actual numbers the cards gets don't matter here, only the difference between XP and Vista. That's why it's not important that the cards be of equal power, only that they are high end enough to actually use all the game's features and that they represent both companies.) Latest drivers of course, and possibly look at doing the tests with both a Quad and Dual CPU to see if Vista benefits from more CPU to handle the background.

Then, most importantly, strip down Vista to the basics (No Aero, all extra services off ect.) and repeat the benchmarks to see what kind of change the optimization gives you. This would be enormously useful.


EDIT: Oh man, I'd also like to see Vista 64 and XP 64 thrown into the mix too. XP lost some performance in x64, and I'd like to see if this is also the case in Vista.

 

[Sigma_Hyperion]

And how did you manage to get the same framerate in CoH between a 7600GT and an 8800GTS under WinXP?

All you did was bump a couple settings up a bit. Nothing too drastic at all. You didn't change the resolution, didn't turn anything up more than a 1 bump increase. Nothing big.

With such slight increases in settings, the 8800 should have utterly wiped the floor with the 7600GT. CoH is one of those games that the 8800 is made for. It pushes the hell out of a card and the 8800 does it all in stride. Yet all it did this time was get the same FPS?

Again. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't jive with your own previous results. Not even close.

 

[Dekoth]

i was also thinking the samething, i'm running vista for quite some time, i'm getting really good performance. this entire article is weird

This is why I stated in my response This is starting to smack of a personal crusade against Vista. All the reviews HardOCP has done on Vista thus far have felt very negative and biased.

I have a high respect for the reviews these guys do, 90% of the time their reviews match my own results, or feelings on an issue.

 

[ICOM]

Hatred? That's a bit strong.

I don't really hate Vista. It's just that for my application, XP is a better OS than Vista.

I don't know how else to put it. I don't want the bloat, glitter and useless applications that come with Vista. It's just that simple.

I know that eventually I'll have to move to Vista once DX10 games become available but until then, there is no logical reason (for me) to spend my money on an OS that offers me nothing over the one I'm currently using.

Why are Vista users so sensitive to this issue.

 

[Dekoth]

Very possibly because all the press on it right now has been ripping it from every angle without hesitation. You read most of the articles out there you would think the OS is unstable, runs horribly, and is the worst OS to ever hit the market. Yet the actual user experience is far far different.

Now granted a minimalist is not going to care for most of what Vista offers, while I am a gamer myself I am not a minimalist. I Like the extras thrown in Vista, but then I also like OSX better then XP I just hate Macs. I enjoy all the features Vista offers and I enjoy having an Os that is visually pleasing. With XP I had to use third party programs to do that.

I want to see an Article that is unbiased and judges Vista off how it performs next to the XP experience without the use of canned benchmarks. Because there would be little to no difference, in gaming and most applications. The only difference would be how the OS flowed and looked, and in my opinion the Asthetics of Vista are Far better then XP ever way, and the Flow of the program is extremely nice.

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

I must admit, I am fairly disappointed in this review from HardOCP after all the preaching they have done about Game play experience vs Canned benchmarks.

It is starting to smack of a personal crusade against Vista.

And a personal crusade against ATI as well. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Jason's located in the Austin office - the video card testers are in a different office (Houston, I believe.)

So why wasn't this video card/gaming article written by the guys with the video cards?
For whatever reason he couldn't get an ATI card to test with (expenses, etc.) why didn't the guys in Houston with the proper tools to write this article write it? If they [Vid Card editors] could not write it (for whatever reason) and assigned it to this guy, then why didn't they provide him with the proper tools to write the article properly? Why not scrap the article till circumstances allowed it to be written properly?

It sounds like to me that the Video Card writers/editors were too busy to write this article themselves for whatever reason, assigned it to another guy who doesn't normally do these types of articles (at an entirely different office), then didn't give him all the necessary tools to write it. If this is the case, then the author's superiors let him down, and this guy is taking all the flak for this article, or the author wrote a horribly biased article at his or his superior's choosing.

Again...Why wasn't this article scrapped till it could be written properly?

 

[mikeblas]

Why are Vista users so sensitive to this issue.

Because most of the people who claim that Vista offers them nothing haven't tried it, or haven't tried it long enough, or haven't studied it enough to learn about the features and improvements that really would be interesting to them -- if they knew about it.

 

[Eastcoasthandle]

Very possibly because all the press on it right now has been ripping it from every angle without hesitation. You read most of the articles out there you would think the OS is unstable, runs horribly, and is the worst OS to ever hit the market. Yet the actual user experience is far far different.

Now granted a minimalist is not going to care for most of what Vista offers, while I am a gamer myself I am not a minimalist. I Like the extras thrown in Vista, but then I also like OSX better then XP I just hate Macs. I enjoy all the features Vista offers and I enjoy having an Os that is visually pleasing. With XP I had to use third party programs to do that.

I want to see an Article that is unbiased and judges Vista off how it performs next to the XP experience without the use of canned benchmarks. Because there would be little to no difference, in gaming and most applications. The only difference would be how the OS flowed and looked, and in my opinion the Asthetics of Vista are Far better then XP ever way, and the Flow of the program is extremely nice.

People are going to have an opinion on Vista. Trying to convince them they are wrong is not going to win them over. Are you saying that all the reviews that post anything negative about Vista is a flat out lie? Or are you one to just blame 3rd party driver support for "everything"? What I am getting at is very simple. When something doesn't work right most consumers don't blame a 3rd party part that may have contributed to the problem. The consumer will place all blame on the entire product. Some don't know and don't care about any 3rd party part that failed. And, most consumers don't differentiate one part from another, even if the name is different. They will consider that product as one "whole" product. Not bits of parts from different manufactures. Therefore, when that product doesn't deliver, they don't look at that part that failed they (in most cases) look at the actual product itself. That's my take on it, IMHO.

For example, if your MB starts acting up and not OC'ing the way it should (even though you CPU works just fine in another MB with the same PSU, ram, video card, etc) do you blame the makers of the capacitor or mosfets (that was the source of the problem)? Or do you formulate an opinion on the make/model of that MB? You can even consider it a "bad board" but it's not common to say the makers of capacitor/mosfet A is crappy. It's really that simple.

Hatred? That's a bit strong.

I don't really hate Vista. It's just that for my application, XP is a better OS than Vista.

I don't know how else to put it. I don't want the bloat, glitter and useless applications that come with Vista. It's just that simple.

I know that eventually I'll have to move to Vista once DX10 games become available but until then, there is no logical reason (for me) to spend my money on an OS that offers me nothing over the one I'm currently using.

Why are Vista users so sensitive to this issue.

Most people think this way and will not buy it for that reason alone.

 

[ChronoReverse]

What's the point of an article that tests using only a limited set of hardware and drivers (ESPECIALLY when it's WELL-KNOWN that nvidia's drivers are not as good) which then PROCLAIMS that the common denominator is Vista?


An unbelievably irresponsible conclusion in a haphazardly done article. I was hoping for a broad spectrum of tests too that would show something interesting. Is that too much to expect?

 

[Sigma_Hyperion]

People are going to have an opinion on Vista. Trying to convince them they are wrong is not going to win them over. Are you saying that all the reviews that post anything negative about Vista is a flat out lie? Or are you one to just blame 3rd party driver support for "everything"? What I am getting at is very simple. When something doesn't work right most consumers don't blame a 3rd party part that may have contributed to the problem. The consumer will place all blame on the entire product. Some don't know and don't care about any 3rd party part that failed. And, most consumers don't differentiate one part from another, even if the name is different. They will consider that product as one "whole" product. Not bits of parts from different manufactures. Therefore, when that product doesn't deliver, they don't look at that part that failed they (in most cases) look at the actual product itself. That's my take on it, IMHO.

For example, if your MB starts acting up and not OC'ing the way it should (even though you CPU works just fine in another MB) do you blame the makers of the capacitor or mosfets? Or do you formulate an opinion on the make/model of that MB?

It's really that simple.

I agree. But if ATi cards had been tested, perhaps the fault would have been clear (or maybe not).

If you look at a review that has the XP as a baseline, the ATi numbers are off 5%, and the nVidia numbers are off 30%, are you more inclined to believe it's the OS now or the video card?

And this isn't an [H]Consumer article, it's an [H]Enthusiast. What your average ignorant consumer feels is irrelevant; the Enthusiast should know better and the test should be configured to satisfy the demands and desires of the Enthusiast who is going to ask such obvious questions as "Well, what about ATi?" when you write an article about XP vs. Vista graphics performance using only 1 of the 2 major enthusiast card OEMs.

When it is widely known that ATi card/drivers perform better under Vista than nVidia ones, not using ATi as an additional variable makes it impossible to determine if the OS or the Card is responsible. When you're writing an article that tries to determine whether the OS really does yield lower graphics results, you kinda want to be able to determine if it is indeed responsible before proclaiming that it is.

It's really that simple.

 

[Dekoth]

People are going to have an opinion on Vista. Trying to convince them they are wrong is not going to win them over. Are you saying that all the reviews that post anything negative about Vista is a flat out lie? Or are you one to just blame 3rd party driver support for "everything"? What I am getting at is very simple. When something doesn't work right most consumers don't blame a 3rd party part that may have contributed to the problem. The consumer will place all blame on the entire product. Some don't know and don't care about any 3rd party part that failed. And, most consumers don't differentiate one part from another, even if the name is different. They will consider that product as one "whole" product. Not bits of parts from different manufactures. Therefore, when that product doesn't deliver, they don't look at that part that failed they (in most cases) look at the actual product itself. That's my take on it, IMHO.

I am not saying anything negative against Vista is a flat out lie, please reference my earlier post where I said Vista does have problems. I was pointing out that all the articles I have seen thus far from HardOCP have been extremely negative and unfair in their judgement, providing only partial information and failing utterly to look at the big picture.

Is Vista Perfect? No Far from it.
Is XP Perfect? No Far from it.

You are correct in most consumers will lay blame on a product as a whole instead of looking at the core of the issue. I am not one of those said persons. There are some third party problems with Vista, I had one with the 8800 Series debacle. However there are also problems with Vista itself. I simply want to point out that the Overall User Experience is very pleasant. For Gaming, The experience is the same for me as it is in XP. I can see no tangible game play difference between the two. Heck look at the Article, what kills me is it makes it sound like the Performance in Vista is horrible, yet the lowest framerates are still well within Acceptable game play FPS that the average user would never notice the slightest bit of difference.

This article from HardOCP, and all the other Vista Articles from this site, simply Wreak of a vendetta or some personal hate campaign against Vista. I fail to understand why, as I have followed this site for years and have a Ton of respect for the reviews. The thing that irritates me is there are tons of readers out there who will read this article and believe it word for word and not go buy Vista and try for themselves, or worse yet continue to spread the hate propaganda blindly to others. I cannot tell you how tired I am of arguing with people who claim Vista is crap who have never even used a computer running Vista.

 

[Eastcoasthandle]

I agree. But if ATi cards had been tested, perhaps the fault would have been clear (or maybe not).

If you look at a review that has the XP as a baseline, the ATi numbers are off 5%, and the nVidia numbers are off 30%, are you more inclined to believe it's the OS now or the video card?

And this isn't an [H]Consumer article, it's an [H]Enthusiast. What your average ignorant consumer feels is irrelevant; the Enthusiast should know better and the test should be configured to satisfy the demands and desires of the Enthusiast who is going to ask such obvious questions as "Well, what about ATi?" when you write an article about XP vs. Vista graphics performance using only 1 of the 2 major enthusiast card OEMs.

When it is widely known that ATi card/drivers perform better under Vista than nVidia ones, not using ATi as an additional variable makes it impossible to determine if the OS or the Card is responsible.

It's really that simple.

Actually when you post that I do hope you realize that the Enthusiast is the minority while the Consumer is the Majority when it comes to the PC market. Although I understand what you are saying, there simply isn't enough of Enthusiast to make premium cards a "top" priority.
And, other premium products found in a PC like sound cards, video cards, CPUs, ram, PSU's, etc are simply not common place in Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA and other brick/motor and online stores. There is a reason for that and no real explanation is needed.

Those consumers who have average computer setups will see that having Vista is not for them. How do you sell Vista to a XP user who only:
Reads email
Browse the net
Use MS Office
Let his kid or grand kid use the computer for a report for school
and maybe a shareware game here and there like pool or pinball?

I am not lumping all consumers in that category. There are many consumers out there with a wide variety of uses for their PC be it Home use or Office use, etc. This is were the article begins to shine when you review the benchmarks. Once you walk in the shoes of a consumer will you understand why they have their opinion of Vista.

Edit: need to correct an earlier statement.