Windows 7 RTM Gaming Performance

[resident56]

Ive done some searching but I cant find any good benchmarks or comments on Window 7s (RTM) gaming performance. I ran the RC back when it first came out; had no issues except for a slight performance hit in some games. More than likely the result of immature video card drivers. What are your experiences with Windows 7 and Gaming performance?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: resident56
Ive done some searching but I cant find any good benchmarks or comments on Window 7s (RTM) gaming performance. I ran the RC back when it first came out; had no issues except for a slight performance hit in some games. More than likely the result of immature video card drivers. What are your experiences with Windows 7 and Gaming performance?

I posted this awhile back,no replys but members keep asking about Win7 performance .


Link.

 

[j0j081]

I forget what site did some detailed benchmarks comparing Vista to Windows 7 but the gaming performance was just about identical. This was using drivers from a few months ago to.

 

[KeypoX]

i think more benchmarks will come after the os is actually released!!!! This thing is not released yet lol. Even though im running my rtm pro

 

[us3rnotfound]

yeah i got my pro on

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: KeypoX
i think more benchmarks will come after the os is actually released!!!! This thing is not released yet lol. Even though im running my rtm pro

That's true, however new drivers can be released for XP/Vista and Win7,you could argue XP has 6- 8 years head start on Vista/Win7 in the driver area ,however Win7 is based on Vista and as we have seen from the FiringSquad benchmarks in my first post link above its very close which each one trading blows with XP.

How much more driver performance can they squeesh out in XP,Vista and Win7,I don't think with XP they can squeesh much more speed after eight years,that leaves Vista SP2 and Win7.

Vista SP2 /Win7 driver performance on the other hand will be interesting down the road and worth watching ,at least until Win8 arrives and opens up another competitor .

 

[soccerballtux]

Basically it's just as slow as Vista. The main slowdown from XP->Vista/7 is the DirectX10 rendering path. Also the WDDM with switching between kernel and user mode for talking to the game, evaluating the commands (checking to make sure they won't crash), and then finally giving them to the graphics card.

It's a necessary setback for games though-- DX11 and all that.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Basically it's just as slow as Vista. The main slowdown from XP->Vista/7 is the DirectX10 rendering path. Also the WDDM with switching between kernel and user mode for talking to the game, evaluating the commands (checking to make sure they won't crash), and then finally giving them to the graphics card.

It's a necessary setback for games though-- DX11 and all that.

I would not say "just as slow".

Far Cry 2 ? DX9

Once again we see performance benefits for multi-GPU setups in Windows Vista and Windows 7 when compared to WinXP. Windows 7 ran up to 11% faster than Windows XP (at 1920x1200) with a pair of Radeon 4890 cards running CrossFire. Vista also outperformed WinXP, although here the margin was much slimmer, generally 2-3%.

Moving to GeForce GTX 275, we witnessed performance speedups for SLI and single-card configs, with Windows 7 64-bit running up to 7% faster than WinXP 32-bit. That margin is trimmed to 4% at 1920x1200. Windows XP x64 continues to suffer though. If it were a more viable OS, we?d suggest that driver optimizations are needed on NVIDIA?s part.

The performance speedups are even more dramatic when you scale from one to two cards running SLI. Windows 7 64-bit ran a whopping 21% faster than Windows XP x86 at 1600x1200 at 19% faster at 1920x1200. Windows 7 was faster than Vista too. SLI performance was 9% greater with Windows 7 when comparing the 64-bit operating systems at 1600x1200 and 5% at 1920x1200.

Dawn of War II ? DX9

Radeon performance is pretty similar across all six operating systems in Relic?s RTS, Dawn of War II. Even with the CrossFire rigs we didn?t see any major differences in performance.

That?s not the case for SLI though. Once again we see Windows 7 and Vista pull ahead of WinXP. At just 2% though, the margins separating the OS?s aren?t as great as the other games we tested.


Stalker
Add STALKER to the list of titles that scales better with multi-GPUs under Windows 7 and Vista in comparison to WinXP. Both the CrossFire and SLI setups ran considerably faster than XP.

Windows 7 64-bit ran 8% faster than WinXP with Radeon 4890 CrossFire at 1600x1200, and 7% faster at 1920x1200. GeForce GTX 275 SLI ran 7% faster in Windows 7.

Single card performance was pretty similar regardless of OS tested though. In fact the Radeon cards were slightly slower under Vista and Windows 7 at 1920x1200.


Resident Evil 5 ? DX9
While GeForce GTX 275 performance is pretty similar across all operating systems when one card is used, the Radeon 4890 clearly ran faster in Vista and Windows 7 with Resident Evil 5. Vista 64-bit ran 12% faster than Windows XP at 1600x1200 with the Radeon board. At 1920x1200 Windows 7 64-bit ran 11% faster than XP 32-bit.

CrossFire was faster too, with Windows 7 running faster than Vista. Windows 7 64-bit was 7% faster than 32-bit WinXP at 1920x1200.

Performance was pretty similar across OS?s with GeForce GTX 275. Only at 1920x1200 with GeForce GTX 275 did we spot any performance differences.

Left 4 Dead ? DX9

GeForce GTX 275 performance in Windows XP x64 continues to suffer in Left 4 Dead. The card ran 2-5% slower under x64 depending on the resolution. Vista performance was also down in comparison to XP at 1600x1200. Once again SLI performance was actually better under Vista and Windows 7; the SLI setup was up to 2% faster under Windows 7 when compared to WinXP.

The Radeon 4890 performed pretty evenly regardless of OS tested, although again, CrossFire scaling benefited ever so slightly under Windows 7 compared to WinXP at 1600x1200. The CrossFire config ran 2% faster in Windows 7 when compared to XP.

XP wins some but so does Vista and Win7,they are far from slow ,remember in a few cases beating XP as we can see,anyway when you consider Win7 is not even officially released yet and driver performance in theory should improve down the road then it looks promising.


DX10 is really designed for Vista and Win7 so XP(which is not DX10) is really not an option,DX11 is not even out yet for gaming so we just have to wait and see on that one.

 

[Scotteq]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Basically it's just as slow as Vista. The main slowdown from XP->Vista/7 is the DirectX10 rendering path. Also the WDDM with switching between kernel and user mode for talking to the game, evaluating the commands (checking to make sure they won't crash), and then finally giving them to the graphics card.

It's a necessary setback for games though-- DX11 and all that.

Oh really?

http://www.firingsquad.com/har...ws_7_gaming/page12.asp

While there were a couple of cases where WinXP outran Windows 7 and Vista, for the most part Windows 7 wins more than it loses, especially when you factor in multi-GPU technologies like SLI and CrossFire. In fact, if you?re a Windows XP gamer with SLI or CrossFire, I?d definitely urge you to upgrade to Windows 7 as soon as possible.

Windows XP?s origins date back to Windows 2000, an OS that was never designed for multi-GPU.

On the other hand NVIDIA and ATI worked closely with Microsoft to get Vista?s DX9.0L and DX10 APIs to scale more efficiently with SLI and CrossFire. Memory management tweaks found only in Windows 7 increases this even further, allowing SLI and CrossFire to scale even better under Windows 7 in comparison to Vista in many games.

Going into this article I didn?t expect the gains to be as great as they were, but the benchmarks don?t lie. Windows 7 is a huge improvement over XP in this regard.

The 3-Way battle between Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 is much closer when you exclude the second GPU benchmarks; other than ARMA II, the Radeon and GeForce GPUs performed remarkably similar regardless of OS (as long as you exclude the GeForce Windows XP x64 numbers). No one OS really pulls away from the other, they just trade wins and more often than not, they?re tied in performance. For this reason I?d have to give the overall nod to Windows Vista and Windows 7, as they generally run just as fast as XP, with the obvious addition of DirectX 10 and DX11 support.

So is Windows 7 the best OS for gaming? Based on the results we?ve just looked at, I?d have to say ?yes?. Windows 7 delivers the best combination of features and game performance of any OS tested today. From what I?ve seen so far, it?s also just as stable as Windows XP and Vista and seems more responsive. The addition of gestures and the new taskbar really push Windows 7 over the top.

I?m not a huge fan of the new system tray but I can understand Microsoft?s reasoning behind the changes and it?s an easy adjustment to make. Compatibility could be the one issue where Windows 7 takes a backseat to Vista and Windows XP, as I did have to manually install a third-party driver to get STALKER to run properly (I don?t recall the manufacturer, but I believe it was related to the game?s copy protection scheme). Even though it?s less aggravating, I also continue to disable UAC.

Comparing the issues Vista faced on its launch day to Windows 7 though, all signs point to Windows 7 being a huge success. Windows 7 builds on the foundation Microsoft laid with Windows Vista and takes it to another level. Based on everything seen so far, I see no reason why Windows 7 won?t be a homerun for Microsoft.

Gamers reluctant to upgrade from Windows XP fear not. You finally have a reason to upgrade. If I was running Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 though, I wouldn?t be in a rush to pick up Windows 7. It?s definitely an improvement over Vista, but unless you plan on running SLI or CrossFire, it?s probably not worth Microsoft?s asking price. After all, it is fundamentally just a highly polished extension of Vista. Instead I?d spend that money on a better graphics card or CPU.

Windows 7 is the genuine article though. This time the final product does live up to the hype. By taking the features of Vista, improving the interface, and combining the best attributes of Windows XP, namely its performance and stability, Microsoft has put together a solid OS that should please the most discriminating hardware enthusiast or gamer. In some ways, this may just be Microsoft's best OS yet.

First page of the article: http://www.firingsquad.com/har...s_7_gaming/default.asp

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux
Basically it's just as slow as Vista. The main slowdown from XP->Vista/7 is the DirectX10 rendering path. Also the WDDM with switching between kernel and user mode for talking to the game, evaluating the commands (checking to make sure they won't crash), and then finally giving them to the graphics card.

It's a necessary setback for games though-- DX11 and all that.

What in the world are you talking about.

The DX10 rendering path is intended to be a speed increase over the DX9 path.

Additionally, switching from kernel mode to user mode should have no impact on performance in and of itself. Certainly immature drivers would have an effect on that; however, the drivers have been around for quite some time.

Furthermore switching from user mode to kernel mode has nothing to do with checking to make sure they wont crash and what not. All that does is switch the memory space that the display driver runs in.

In Kernel Mode, the driver is run as an essential process within the virtual addresses that are reserved for the OS. There are advantages and disadvantages to this (ie: A crash would result in the entire OS crashing).

In User Space, the driver is merely not in OS protected virtual pages; as such, one of the advantages that if it crashes, the Kernel can merely stop and restart the service - it isn't tied to the kernel.

I honestly don't know, perhaps Mem or Nothinman or someone with more experience than myself can correct me; however, I believe there may be some additional translation in user mode as the driver then has to request access to protected virtual pages when necessary for I/O.

When deciding between versions of Windows, gaming should not be the deciding factor. Even if gaming is all that you do, the OS (at least in Window's case) is very rarely the source of major performance differences in gaming.

-Kevin

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Thank you for this article.. great read. I'm looking forward to getting a new PC for home with 7 and 8 GB ram at some point!!

 

[drum]

I've never had an issue with "slowness" gaming with Vista or 7 in the past 3 years

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: drum
I've never had an issue with "slowness" gaming with Vista or 7 in the past 3 years

Same here.