Windows XP vs Windows Vista (THG Review & Benchmarks)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html

Just an interesting comparison of winXP to Vista by Toms Hardware. Pay close attention to 3D Games...looks like Vista is slower across the board. Anyway, just thought I'd share it!

cheers.
t.

I don't think their pick of GPU was good.
Yes, there is only 1 GPU out there that is DX10 compatible, and most people wont be able to buy 1 right away(so they used a DX9 card, which most people have), but to test Vista properly, you need a DX10 card, so their choice of Graphics card should have been an Nvidia 8800 based card.

On another side note, there are no DX10 games to test either, so I may just be blowing smoke, but the card they used cant work properly under Vista.

I only skimmed the report so they may have explained themselves in there somewhere.

I think the drivers supplied by nVidia/ATI aren't the most efficient yet, so this really isn't a good thing to test as of now. I'm building a new PC in a few months, and I'm still debating whether to buy Vista or XP. UT2007/3 will support DX10, so if I get a geforce 8800 (which is probable and will lower in price) I'll most likely get Vista. And hopefully by then the drivers will be worth the purchase.

I'd highly advise against getting vista. For information regarding that, read up on vista's protections of so called "premium content" and the way the DRM system locks out devices and degrades quality to protect the content. I'll try and find the link I had that went into detail regarding Vista's DRM.

That is one of my biggest gripes about Vista...it's completely infested with DRM. Probably why I wont jump on the Blue Ray / HD-DVD bandwagon anytime soon, either.

It's bad enough that you must have all the "proper" equipment to view HD content on your PC/Home theater, but to have the DRM embeded hardware in your PC just to view it is really getting to me.

I guess I'd better plan to buy an Xbox 360 for Halo 2 and 3 after seeing the benchmarks.

I believe the DRM was required to be in there in order for the blu-ray and HD-DVD capabilities to be available. After listening to a few tech podcasts, I've heard that the DRM doesn't really cripple anything. There's definately a difference between having required DRM stuff in Vista and all the DRM/RIAA trash they've got in the Zune.

I guess it depends on what you'll be doing with Vista. I've got a bunch of .mp3 files, no DRM, so I don't think I'd see anything stopping me from using my music. Plus, DX10, I mean, come on

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

There is the article. That article discusses not only the way Vista's DRM is implemented, but also the cost to the computer industry as a whole.

The whole thing isn't as long as it seems either, half of it is Q&A of some sort or another

good read, debunked some of my thoughts

while there are no games that are DX10 "ready" or programed to spacificly use DX10 one of the major changes between DX10 and 9 is the ability to use HDR lighting and antialiesing at the same time. Even if you do not have a DX10 "ready" program. programs that had both of these options should be able to have both on at the same time even if they are DX 9 programs once you have both a 8800 and vista.

I hope that was intelegible....

Pretty much. Think the term you are getting at is, unified shader technology.
The ability to run both types of shader schemes at once utilizing unused GPU cycles, instead of running one then another.

Plus, DX10 is not backwards compatible. DX9 is backwards bloated to the original spec. So I dont know how you are able to run a DX9 card under Vista with DX10 with any real success. Obviously you can, but as we can see, there was a cost in performance. Yes, Vista will be more demanding on our systems. It has to be to give you all the Bling!

I'm sure as the months progress, more tests and benchmarks will be emerge in the geek scene and from there we can make a better decision for what is better for each of us. As of now...I don't have the need, until I get ahold of my first DX10 ONLY game, whatever, whenever that may be.

Im hearing all sorts of mixed things on Vista's DRM. Some people have said stuff like it does not allow you to listen to mp3s downloaded off P2P programs like Limewire while others have said that it is not at all intrusive.

I dont really know what to believe except that i will be sticking with XP until DX10 becomes mainstream. I wont lie when i say that gaming is my main purpose when it comes to my PC.

The OS will have no idea whether the mp3 was traded through limewire or such, it's just an .mp3 file. I wouldn't be surprised if it hid some kind of Vista DRM on it so that the file would only work under that OS, I think that's what the Zune does when you sent files to another Zune (even if it's a song you got for free, a Zune DRM is put on it)

I didn't have the time to read the report...so I just have to go from what I read in my Magz...

The Zune, of all things, doesn't have much/any support for MS's own PlayForSure music network. How lame is that? Talk about departments not talking to each other. Plus, any music files transfered between Zunes will be deleted after 3 days( I think) on the recipiants end. Talk about lame X2.

As far as I'm concerned, the best MP3 player is my/your PC.

Flak Monkey wrote:

The Zune, of all things, doesn't have much/any support for MS's own PlayForSure music network. How lame is that? Talk about departments not talking to each other. Plus, any music files transfered between Zunes will be deleted after 3 days( I think) on the recipiants end. Talk about lame X2.

It's kind of sad because the sharing feature is the big draw of a Zune. They essentially killed it because of those restrictions. I'm sure the music industry would have wanted even tougher restrictions, if not wipe out wireless sharing all together.