Explain huge performance difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32bit)

[bono_lv 10]

I use Windows Vista 32bit with latest ATI drivers. Performance is quite bad. I'm forced to use smaller resolution on my 24" 1920x1200 LCD screen. I'm using 1600x1200 and getting about 15-30 fps. V-sync forced off and Adaptive AA also off.

I have Windows 7 32bit also and yesterday I tried to run Arma2 on it. Disabled V-sync and Adaptive AA and WOW!!! What a performance boost. At last Arma2 is enjoyable for me with better fps and better settings.

I just hate to restart system to play one game.

So... Can anyone explain why on Windows 7 performance gets so big boost? Same system, same video drivers.

[Mudkip 0]

ArmA 2 runs best on XP then 7 then Vista, I think this is because since Bohemia Interactive is a small company with limited resources they couldn't afford Vista and developed the game for XP and 7 because they're cheap or free.

[bigduksixx 15]

ArmA 2 runs best on XP then 7 then Vista, I think this is because since Bohemia Interactive is a small company with limited resources they couldn't afford Vista and developed the game for XP and 7 because they're cheap or free.

Rubbish.

[BobbyDylan 10]

Rubbish.

Good argument. You might have me convinced...:raisebrow:

[LondonLad 13]

ArmA 2 runs best on XP then 7 then Vista, I think this is because since Bohemia Interactive is a small company with limited resources they couldn't afford Vista and developed the game for XP and 7 because they're cheap or free.

I would suspect the developers have access to Microsoft MSDN which would give them access across all the MS Operating Systems (including Windows 7).

[TechnoTerrorist303 10]

The answer to your question is :

Vista sucks balls

Xp and 7 do not

No matter how patched and stable Vista has become since release it is still full of inexplicable performance issues and needless crap which will impact on the performance of any software you are trying to run under it.

[BobbyDylan 10]

The answer to your question is :

Vista sucks balls

Xp and 7 do not

No matter how patched and stable Vista has become since release it is still full of inexplicable performance issues and needless crap which will impact on the performance of any software you are trying to run under it.

Hear-hear!

[BLKSmoke 10]

I currently have vista (32) installed but previously tried Windows 7 (64) and found absolutely no difference in performance... :confused:

[bhaz 0]

The answer to your question is :

Vista sucks balls

Xp and 7 do not

After almost 2 years of using Vista, I switched back to XP for the lols.

Quoted for truth is all need be said.

But seriously... turn a few things off, disable a ton of services and a tweak here and there and Vista can be a great OS. Compared straight out of the box, I don't know why i brought it, maybe DX10 looked shiny at the time.

[Bulldogs 10]

It's a number of things. The top two being that vista is fundamentally flawed (even Microsoft admitted as much), preventing enough optimization, the second being general junk build up. With any operating system (vista and 7 included) when you fresh install it runs great but over time junk builds up and no matter how much you tweak it up it will never run as well as it did when you freshly installed it.

[BobbyDylan 10]

It's a number of things. The top two being that vista is fundamentally flawed (even Microsoft admitted as much), preventing enough optimization, the second being general junk build up. With any operating system (vista and 7 included) when you fresh install it runs great but over time junk builds up and no matter how much you tweak it up it will never run as well as it did when you freshly installed it.

That's true. I make a habit of clean formatting once a year. I keep all my pics/music/vids on a seperate Ext:HDD.

But back on topic, XP rules, Win7 rocks and Vista blows.

[ICE-Raver 10]

Vista is the new Windows ME

I can't wait for Microsoft to send me my Windows 7 upgrade.

Back when I was running XP Crysis Wars came out and I was playing it with awesome results on my old system.

I did an "upgrade" to vista and I couldn't even hardly play the game anymore. I had so many issues, mainly with framerate/performance/lag that I quit playing the game and gave up.

I would have reverted back to XP but I couldn't find my software.

Now here I am again, 6 months later running vista 64 on a new build. It is actually running really well, but I still feel like it is holding my system back.

Did I mention I can't wait for my copy of Windows 7? It comes free with vista bought after July 1st ya know?;)

[blackettle 10]

It's a number of things. The top two being that vista is fundamentally flawed (even Microsoft admitted as much), preventing enough optimization, the second being general junk build up. With any operating system (vista and 7 included) when you fresh install it runs great but over time junk builds up and no matter how much you tweak it up it will never run as well as it did when you freshly installed it.

Do you have any sources to backup the claim that MS said that vista is "fundamentally flawed"?

[ICE-Raver 10]

Do you have any sources to backup the claim that MS said that vista is "fundamentally flawed"?

It is "FUND"-amentally flawed.

Meaning customers won't drop enough "FUNDS" on it for MS to continue to try and sell it.

Vista got a bad rap quick and it killed their sales.

So here comes windows 7 to save the day.

Funny thing is, Microsoft had a commercial out a while back where they repackaged vista with a new name and got unsuspecting customers to say they loved it. Hopefully that's not windows 7.:D

[kklownboy 43]

I use Windows Vista 32bit with latest ATI drivers. Performance is quite bad. I'm forced to use smaller resolution on my 24" 1920x1200 LCD screen. I'm using 1600x1200 and getting about 15-30 fps. V-sync forced off and Adaptive AA also off.

Make sure all your CCC settings are set to App pref. And you cant turn Vsync off in the vista Cat driver, you still have it on, hence your bad "performance.

I have Windows 7 32bit also and yesterday I tried to run Arma2 on it. Disabled V-sync and Adaptive AA and WOW!!! What a performance boost. At last Arma2 is enjoyable for me with better fps and better settings.

you still have Vsync on.... a ATI "feature". Do you exceed your LCDs refresh rate? i would think is 60hz, so if you turn it all down to low, and start up armory,utes, and look up in the sky do you get over 60fps, and not 61,62 ect but like 80 or 100?

I just hate to restart system to play one game.

So... Can anyone explain why on Windows 7 performance gets so big boost? Same system, same video drivers.

Are your Arma2.cfg's the same? As a new rc7 install is clean and not many apps?, were as your everyday comp Vist32 is fully setup..? Edited July 31, 2009 by kklownboy

[nyran125 10]

To the post above me, what an irritating procedure to have to go through just to play one game on a crap Operating system, its easier to just re-install xp. Secondly there doesn tneed to be any claims that Vista is flawed, its not the fact that its flawed, its the fact that it kills performance and it doesnt give you enough performance for the quality, it gives you (WHICH IS VERY MINIMAL).

Screw Claims, the reality is alot worse than any claim could be. I couldnt even run my brand new sound card when i installed that DREADFUL Vista Operating System. Vista was just a big waste of my time. AND...........................

To this day i still never saw the MASSIVE difference between DX10 and DX9 we were all ripped off. Xp if your a gamer unless windows 7 has the same kind of performance that xp has, period. And even more so if your running 3 year old hardware like the 8800 series and intel core 2's and 2 gb ram systems etc. I wouldnt even bother trying games like this on Vista unless you have QUADRUPLE the recommended hardware,lol. Which is very silly that you need that type of hardware to run it well on Vista. Xp you just need recommended and game will run ok on medium to high settings. In the next year or 2 like always they'll bring out the big gun hardware to run the game on high and bla bla bla bla bla bla. Same old, same old way of doing it. Even back in the day when Ghost Recon came out and EVERYONE could only just run that game on the latest GForce 4 , WOAH, GFORCE 4 and like 2.8 Pentiums and 512 mb ram!!!!!! That was a hardcore system and expensive in that era.

Do you know what i reckon would be more helpful for us? , is if developers didnt put recommended hardware on thier games and instead put what system specs they ACTUALLY USED to make the game. That would clear alot of stuff up.

Edited August 1, 2009 by nyran125

[Bulldogs 10]

Search around. There's a few interviews, posts, and vids around the net. This was around 2007/2008 when they were working on a alpha of Windows 7. They admitted it along with the relesase information of the pending Windows 7 which was to quell an uproar when information about Windows 7 was leaked and many people were upset that they were working on a new OS without fixing Vista first. Microsoft were forced to admit that they couldn't fix Vista's central problems due to the design which required them to create a new OS. They then told everyone that if they bought Vista then there would be some compensative way of upgrade to Windows 7.

I'm not going to personally hunt down articles because I'm lazy, and a little hungry.

For that matter, why am I even talking about it. This is a troubleshooting forum for Arma 2, what use is it to talk about Microsoft's public relations.

[--DST-- Anth 10]

Ive been running vista 64bit ultimate for a while now and made the switch to windows 7 64bit apart from a few nice features and slightly better memory usage I dont really notice any peformance increase within any of my games including arma 2.

Btw never had any problems with vista 64 bit a few driver issues at the start tbh i had more difficulty getting windows 7 drivers working properly then vista sorted it now though.

[mcvittees 0]

It is amazing how peoples experiences can differ so wildly. I've had Vista since it came out and aside from disabling that UAC crap I've had narry a problem. In fact, it cured a few issues with regards to burning CDs that I had in XP. I can't say if my system would be quicker with XP because I can't remember how fast it was when it had XP, but I can say though that, for me, Vista is a non-issue and I wouldn't want to go back to XP.

As for Windows 7, if you buy it thinking "hah, Vista sucks, this will do me" you've bought the marketing strategy - it is just Vista by another name. They did a blind test where they gave some vista haters the 'new' windows operating system. They loved it - and then told them they had in fact been using Vista and not the 'new' OS. People just love to moan.

[Bulldogs 10]

You're right partially there. About it being a mix reaction, very much so. I've used Vista from day 1 and I can tell you that performance isn't nearly as good as it is in XP but at the same time I've never really had any issues with it (except for some problems with Windows Mobile compatibility due to an archaic system), so I've always dual-booted XP and Vista, well, technically XP, Vista and Linux, but that's another story altogether.

Although, about Windows 7 being a reskinned Vista, it really isn't anything close to that. At first glance it looks very similar but if you go through it you'll notice that it dwarfs Vista in all areas (especially performance, and not just gaming performance)

[43st 10]

No performance difference here between Vista and 7.. in fact I was surprised how similar it was, almost seemed like a Vista theme or re-skin, but certainly not the night and day difference being reported on the net.

[kklownboy 43]

To the post above me, ?

what are you going on about? Vista is fine. rc7 is fine xp32 with less than 4gb is fine XP64 with over 4gb is fine. There are some quirks, with vsync and Vista/rc7 which was the point of my post.And being a 'PC" OS there are 3rd party drivers for devices that will bork any OS (looking at you ATi/NVDA) If you turn UAC off in Vista and rc7 and make sure you are admin...(duh). V64 is a good OS, SP1 was great and SP2 is even better, if people have issue with vista then they have issue with getiing out the door of there car...

[Bulldogs 10]

The issues with Vista are mainly the issues on release (complete lack of compatibility with older hardware), but that was a vendor issue. There were, and are, other issues with Vista but they're mainly not centralized around every day usage, more to the tweaker/hardcore gamer side.

For me (tweaker/hardcore gamer) I get better performance out of Windows 7 Vs Tweaked Vista, but it's not just that, the new features in Windows 7 are great, and the change to many of the old stuff (like the new UAC), not to mention the compatibility, try to install anything that's not compatibile with Vista 64 bit and it'll fail then tell you it can install it in compatibility mode which works perfectly, even with the things that wouldn't work in Vista 64 bit when running compatibility mode, and so many more things just make it a much better operating system... but who knows what the future brings, maybe some major flaws will begin to emerge.

[randir14 10]

After going from Vista 64 to Windows 7 64 the only major thing I noticed is enabling AA doesn't make the game unplayable for me. It's still slow but from what I've read on the ATI forums Nvidia cards can enable AA with only like a -5 fps loss so I guess it's an ATI driver problem.

Edited August 1, 2009 by randir14

[pj[cz] 2]

Hi, even tho i needed to ease up on my overclock 200Mhz while going from vista to 7 (which is actually strange as my computer withstood everest and sandra burn ins in vista @3.6Ghz but in win7 it refuses to boot on that frequency), i got 30% better performance in ARMAII, 8.5% in 3DMark and CS:Source now never drops from 100FPS as it used to in vista. So yea, im a in the win7 bandwagon