Vista RC 2 gaming with Nvidia not there yet

WE FINALLY managed to get a copy of both Windows Vista RC2 32-bit and 64-bit computing. You can read what happened when we tried to get the 32-bit version, here.

The 64-bit code that I am running on another machine simply refuses to run most of the demos and benchmarks that we tried.

So, if you want to play games you'll have to play with the 32-bit edition first. Using this, we managed to install Steam and Counter Strike Source and Half Life 2 and it works well, including some other Steam games but, for example, Reality Mark won't work, Cell Factor demo won't work, Battlefield 2141 demo won't work.

Vista RC2 build 7244 32-bit didn't want to run 3Dmark05 as we simply could not install it and we find that even Sandra 2007 won't work on it either. You should read this part here.

We took our usual test bed, plugged an Nvidia Geforce 7950 GT card inside and installed Nvidia's latest RC1 drivers to to see what would happen. We tested the same game benchmarks under Windows XP and Windows Vista with the latest drivers and this is what we figured out.

Benchmarketing
We used :
Foxconn C51XE M2aa Nforce 590 SLI motherboard
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Athlon FX 62 2800 MHz 90 nanometre Windsor core
2x1024 MB DDR2 Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA II NCQ hard drive
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
OCZ GameXStream / 700W / SLI-Ready / Active PFC power supply

Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	20435	161.9	135.1	117.7
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	17929	151.2	124.6	95.5
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	4810.7	12694.9	55.4	259.2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	4762.1	12355.2	51.6	227.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	5386	?	?	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	5145	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	2181	17.517	18.836	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	2116	17.161	18.108
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	2150	19.174	23.822	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	2008	17.875	22.288
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	2094	0.669	1.048	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	2035	0.643	1.031
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	129.0	124.2	110.0	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	119.9	110.9	101.2	?
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	115.4	88.1	65.7	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	106.3	81.2	61.3	?
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	OK 1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz	171.5	163.6	152.0	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	144.5	125.9	121.0	?
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	145.5	138.8	111.4	?
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	124.6	114.3	71.8	?
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	76.13	57.40	41.51	28.10
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	65.80	64.07	5 9.06	43.13
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	64.93	48.00	34.00	22.67
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	63.50	57.71	49.62	34.11
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	123	95	68	46
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	113	86	61	40
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Win XP	81	59	40	27
Leadtek WinFast PX7950GT TDH 550/1400 MHz Vista	59	41	28	12

In 3Dmark03 XP duffs up Vista's DirectX 10. It runs almost 2500 marks faster. It is significantly faster in every single gaming scenario. Vista is fourteen percent slower in this test.

The difference drops to 250 marks only in 3Dmark06. This time Vista is only five percent slower. In both Shader model 3.0 / HDR and 2.0 test, Vista is just slightly slower but the CPU runs a bit faster under windows XP.

Doom 3 again works faster in Windows XP. At 10x7 we got nine frames difference, thirteen at 12x10 and nine at 16x12. We could not run 20x15 as Doom 3 or Nvidia's driver didn't allow us. At 16x12 Vista is eight point seven percent slower, or twelve percent at 12x10, or again seven and a half at 10x7.

The situation didn't change with the 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso. XP is still faster, almost nine percent, at 10x7, eight and a half at 12x10 and seven at 16x12.

Quake 4, another Open GL title was a shocker. Vista obviously has problems with running OpenGL games in its compatibility mode and results here in a massive twenty-seven frames lost. We are talking about almost nineteen percent performance drop at 10x7, thirty percent at 12x10 and twenty five point six at 16x12. That is a lot, thirty percent is unacceptable, but I guess you don't have much choice. THE FSAA and Aniso won't change the situation, as Vista again scores up to twenty-one frames slower. Vista is almost seventeen percent slower at 10x7, twenty one at 12x10 and massive fifty-six percent at 16x12.

We will get back to Serious Sam 2 but let's first talk about FEAR. At 10x7 it's ten frames slower or almost nine percent, at 12x10 it's nine frames or ten-and-a-half percent slower, at 16x12 it is seven frames, or eleven-and-a-half percent slower, and at 20x15 six frames or exactly fifteen percent slower.

FEAR with 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso shows even bigger performance gaps on Vista. It is twenty-two frames or a whole thirty-seven frames slower at 10x7, eighteen frames or a massive forty-four percent slower at 12x10, twelve frames or forty-three percent slower and finally at shocking twelve frames or hundred-and-twenty-five percent. Serious Sam 2 tells a totally different story. We actually got much better scores with Vista. We re-ran the tests a few times as we were a bit baffled by the scores, you could clearly see even with the naked eye that Vista, especially at higher resolutions, could render stuff faster. We don't know why, we contacted the developers and they are also happy and clueless.

At 10x7, Windows XP is nine frames faster or fifteen-point-seven percent faster. But at 12x10, Vista scores six-and-a-half frames faster or eleven-point-six percent faster. At 16x12, Vista is seventeen-and-a-half frames faster or forty-two percent faster. Finally, at 20x15, Vista is whole fifteen frames faster or fifty-three-and-a-half percent faster.

The trend continues with as 4X FSAA and 8X Aniso as vista is twenty two frames faster at 10x7. We are talking about thirty seven percent advantage. At 12x10 vista is eighteen frames or forty four percent faster. At 16x12 Vista scores fifteen frames faster or the whole forty six frames faster. Finally at 20x15 Vista is twelve and a half frames faster or fifty and a half percent faster.

In Short
On average, Vista means losing frames. Serious Sam 2 is the mystery and we will try to figure out why is this is the case but, apart from this example, upgrading to Vista at the current stage with current drivers means a certain loss of performance.

Nvidia will have its new driver in the next week or so and things might get better. In the meantime we will fiddle with ATI's cards to see what will happen with them. Maybe ATI has better chances but at this point Vista just means a loss of frames. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic

L'INQ
Windows Vista RC1 gives great gaming experience