Bits Windows Vista SP1 Core Performance

Yeah - while I know XP is much faster than Vista - I wish people publishing benchmarks for Vista would include XP - I want MS to have article after article, benchmark after benchmark, review after review in their face about performance. When I was beta testing Vista and reported how crappy the performance was - they said it must be me, my drivers, a firewall or third party app or something I was doing wrong as they hadn't gotten any reports of slow performance with Vista. 5 months later they quietly admitted Vista wasn't optimized for performance. Ballmer won't discuss it - he just says we sold a lot of copies whenever anyone asks anything regarding issues with Vista.

Unless by some miracle Ballmer gets replaced - the only way I think Windows 7 will be a real OS is if they keep posting benchmarks to remind the less geeky that XP is a better OS than XP. I'm stunned by those who say - it is a newer OS so it requires more horsepower - what kind of thinking is that - should my new car guzzle more gas or should it be optimized and more efficient so it can do more with the gas? 64 bit - dual cores are new to XP yet it runs great on them compared to Vista - Vista should BLOW the doors of XP but it is the other way around. Then there are those who say Vista is doing a lot in the background that is why it runs slow - what the hell is it doing in the background? I turn on my computer and want to run word or browse the web or play a game - I'm not asking it to calculate PI to the infinite digit in the background - what excuse is that?

We need more benchmarks for the idiots who say things like - it runs fine on my home PC - you need a faster processor or more memory - we need more benchmarks so they have no place to turn and stop posting bad advice for those who don't know better about what OS is good so they don't waste money on hardware or and OS if they already have XP.

I'm not anti MS - I really really really wanted Vista to be better than XP - unfortunately it isn't. Hopefully Windows 7 will be everything that Vista should have been. Some reports of poeple running Windows 2008 server as an OS for their PC give me hope that MS isn't completely incapable of making a faster OS - not sure why the F'd up so badly on Vista. With Windows ME - they knew enough to drop it like a bad penny and move on - no SP - no more development - no excuses - just move forward. Ballmer doesn't want to admit what a huge failure Vista is so he keeps it alive when Bill would have just pulled the plug and left a DNR sign on the body.

 

Yes and No, like all Service Packs, it contains updates already released, so that you have less update to perform. However, Vista SP1 contains a BIG chuck of new updates that never was out before and previously set as Beta (only available from Microsoft website) updates.

 

It's always set to high performance, this way not sleep states or screensavers interfere with benchmark results. This is unless we're specifically testing power saving features that are relevant.

boe_d - Unfortunatley MS doesn't give a **** - they want "perceived progression" and Windows 7 will be EXACTLY the same again mate

 

Enable Advance Performance reintroduces an old bug from Windows 3.11 and can cause data corruption and data loss if your drive loses power. See here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/magazine/cc162475.aspx

Screensavers are disabled and power management is set to 'high performance' in all cases.

 

I'd rather you spend some extra time running benchmarks that *may* be somewhat comparable than spending less time running benchmarks that cannot be comparable ever.

Readyboost is a crutch for systems without much RAM. But Superfetch is an integral part of Vista - disabling it is like tieing one of Vista's arms behind it's back.

You could even say it's somewhat unfair that you compare both OS's with the same hardware - to be truly fair, you should compare both OS's 'recommended hardware' configurations. But OK, we can let this one slip, but not the omission of SuperFetch...

[fair play - in an SP1 vs Pre-SP1 test, one would assume each system is equally crippled by the disabling of SuperFetch]

As for the effort involved in preparing the test environment, I don't see why GHOSTing can't be employed to good effect. It only takes a couple of hours to wipe a system. I realise that you have logistical and time constraints, but you can't jeopardize the integrity of BT to save a bit of time...

OK, I'm lecturing now so I'll stop.

 

How about Win95?! Linux and Mac OS in your way... Performance is not everything in life. I perfect slower car but that doesn't break than one that is a million times better in performance but I can't drive it in winter as it unable to and potentially get damaged (DOS), or a car that is significantly better but require maintenance every week (Win9x). You must also know that in Windows Vista, you have a lot of stuff to clean your computer and stop (unlike XP!!!!) reduce performance over time desipe your best in taking care on it. Just re-install WinXP every 3 months, and you will see that XP starts and respond WAAAAYYY better. This is not the case with Vista, it's performance is the same, all the time.

One, Ballmer has nothing to do with this... replacing him won't do anything different to Windows.
Well their you go.. you just said " crappy the performance"... for me it could mean just a slight slow down, as it could mean that it runs slower than a 386. You should have presented with benchmark results, and compare with several computers using different configurations.

XP better than XP!?!... However I know you what you mean. You guy REALLY think that Windows 7 would be a major performance increase... it will be Vista, with added features... that IS ALL! And as I stated before, it will get sower, as more you add stuff, the more slower it will be.

NOOO.. not more gass?! Vista a new core (mostly)... that would like comparing a gass engine with hydrogen powered car or electric cars. They are are both completely different technologies... doesn't mean it has 4 wheels that it is the same thing. For sure gass power is better then hydro and electric car AT THE MOMENT, however they will get optimized... electric cars will have better batteries, longer battery life, and shorter recharge time (optimized hardware drivers). And like you learned how to drive, I'll be surprised you drove perfectly well, and perform movie stunt with the are without destroying it, and drive at 200Km/h anywhere you go without an accident. No you were slow, and trying to get used to the car (drivers for Vista)

 

Did you guys not disable Readyboost when running boot time benchmarks? Readyboot - the boot optimisation service is inside of readyboost.

 

It's not jeopardising anyone's integrity - it's something that was being discussed long before we actually moved to Vista for benchmarking. It wasn't until May that we actually made the move and in the run up to that, we weren't just sitting there twiddling our thumbs. We spent a lot of time talking with the industry (AMD's, Intel's and Nvidia's benchmarking labs) about how to obtain accurate benchmarks under Vista because we had a lot of concerns with the way the OS does some things.

What you see is the result of that effort--consistency is what is paramount for us when it comes to testing hardware, otherwise you're making assumptions and conclusions about a product/architecture from the analysis you've done on the benchmarks... when the differences could actually just be a result of Vista doing its own thing. And that is when technical inaccuracies and false analysis creeps in... I'd say that is more likely to jeopardise our integrity than choosing to disable a feature in order to deliver accurate benchmarks.

WRT systems without enough memory - it's cheap as chips and we're testing everything with a minimum of 2GB... which costs all of £35 these days. Even 4GB costs just £80-90, depending on brand and whether or not you opt for faster timings than 5-5-5.

I tried Vista with 1GB and it was painful, so yes of course ReadyBoost will make a difference there.

 

/cry
The ONLY thing I wanted (nay, needed) was an improvement in copying medium sized (~700MB) from HDD to NAS.

 

Well, last time I checked I have lots of backups, and in here in Canada we have most of the time electricity... Maybe for you guys it cuts every 30min... not here, perhaps one of those backup batteries should be installed for your computers Also both ways, you can have data loss. Also, it is not a bug, it is an issue. A bug is fixable, and issue require a re-think of how to make the feature works. If MS re-integrated that feature, it is for a good reason, perhaps they integrated some protection system, maybe not full proof, however still there. Else I could just do benchmark test and set the hard drive to removable, and I can show you guys how Windows Vista is painfully slow.
And i am sure it is safer than a RAID setup.

 

Such results would just make Microsoft to force these technology in and turned on. What is Windows 7 forced these technology to be turned on... than what? Will you say that Win7 is superior in performance then Vista, even thus the results matched Vista with these features turned on.

Also, I don't see you guys disable Read and write cache in WinXP?! Disable those, and you WILL SEE how WinXP is soooooooo slllloooowwwwww.

What should have been done, is present BOTH results, and let the reader decide what best fit their needs. Instead of thinking for weeks how it could be done and show "false" results, you could have presented both results.

 

It probably is safer than RAID.... 0. But I have never once recommended anyone bothers running RAID 0 - in fact, I believe every system review we've done where there's a RAID 0 array has at the very least had the point that RAID 0 is not recommended for all but the e-peen seekers.

 

Well you should do the same... enable it, show the results, and go... "not recommend if you don't have backups of your data and battery as it could lead to data loss if you lose power. As it is suggested by Microsoft in the description bellow the options." Than the user will decide yes/no, but for now, many users don't see the benchmark of that feature, so they won't even bother trying it, and see a nice performance increase, OR people like me that thinks that their is a performance gain, but in fact it is insignificant and not worth the risk.

 

Let me also add, that it should also tested with laptops, as perhaps Microsoft main focus for SP1 was for laptop instead of desktop.

 

Is the Thecus N2100 the best way to test network transfers? Since most users will be transferring between PCs or a full blown server, this NAS system with it's slower processor and other bottlenecks could give a false impression of the usual transfer experience. Also, the release notes specifically mention improvements between two SP1 machines, which are not tested in this review.

I hope all these comments from readers don't give the impression that we're not happy to see a report from you guys, I guess it's just a touchy subject!

 

i whent from win98 to XP and i do prefer it, XP with SP2 was the best thing M$ ever did for XP, pre SP2 all you had to do is have an router or have an firewall turnd on and you be ok (MSblaster )

i used windows 2000 for my server or i did untill i could not find any drivers for it after i reloaded windows got 2003 64-bit on there now mosty works ok get long pauses when playing video on my pc when the server is moveing files around (600mb unpack snewsbin)

 

We've always said that all feedback is appreciated--whether good or bad--as long as it is constructive. Things haven't changed here and feedback is being taken on board - I'd rather have an interactive process where we make sure we're delivering the right information to you, the readers, and we explain why we've done things certain ways. I've always loved bit-tech for this reason, because you guys are so vocal and I don't ever want that to change!

I can't answer everything right now as I've got a lot to get done in the next 72 hours before I fly to the Far East for a couple of weeks of visiting various manufacturers out there, but rest assured that nobody is being ignored.

 

superfetch works wunders for opera browser when you got 20-30 tabs on it when you open opera way faster then XP as opera stores the last page that was on each tab (firefox is just an cheap addon that for recovery only if it crashed and it only links to the page)

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one thing thay Realy need to fix if i do not have my X-FI in my pc i can copy files from my server @ 125MB/s (1gb network)
thats Strate line NO dips 2xraid to 2xraid both PCs useing Nvidia based network cards so its HW cards
with the sound card in Soon as windows make any sound like an Ding speed drops way down to 20MB/s, the only fix is to reboot windows

i could just remove the card but on board sound is realy bad compeared to X-FI due to not been able to locate where the foot steps are comming from

 

You can do that without an add-on in Firefox. Look under "Main" tab in the options.

As for the rest, this is Creative fault, not Microsoft. I suffer the same thing as you. If I uninstall my Creative drivers and card, my computer runs faster, network speed increase, and boot up faster. This was the same under XP. I still don't understand how review sites did not discover these issues... I hope that now, review sites will look for such things.
At the begging I thought it was just me, but Creative forum is bombarded with these issues.

 

it does not work right in firefox as i lost all my tabs in firefox as i had an lame popup box that i closed last as it only remember the last firefox window thats open in opera Opera Never allows an second copy to be launched unless you right click and tell it so

i dono about the creative and network speeds should not affect each other really (COD4/netgear is bugging me i refresh me server list and me router locks up heh)

the Vista SP1 works well as i loaded it onto 2-3 computers and one in my VMware box to test if Bios patch work around still works and does not so cant use SP1 at this time (i own an vista ultimate 64 OEM disk and key but not going tho the hassle of activating windows all day)

one thing i was hoping thay fix was superfetch it needs to be i/o priority so if an program is accessing the hard disk superfetch should stop filling the cache until the program stops messing with the hard disk this is more important for laptop users as it can bog the pc down for up to 5-8 mins if 2gb of ram is used, with systems like mine 4gb using 4x hdds in raid 0 hides the fact windows is doing stuff (laptop users should use the sleep option in vista, never seems to work on desktops BSOD most likey me sound card)