Microsoft is NOT planning to release Windows 7 in 2009

[Swift33]

Windows XP requires less but of course it does, it's 6+ years old and does much less behind the scenes.

Care to look at it in a different way? Vista in reality is only 2-2.5 years in development time newer than Server 2003 SP1 which is what it was based on because of the Reset. So no, Vista and XP/2003 are much closer in reality than the 5-6 years inbetween them. The difference is MS decided to make far too many core changes in a 2 year development period and had to compromise in some areas, one being Graphics 2D/GDI/GDI+ performance, which I hope I don't have to tell you is what the large majority of apps use.

[NEVER85]

I have no idea what you even mean, but that's not what he said anyway.

Yeah, I had a brain lapse, sorry. I meant to say that he thinks XP better utilizes RAM than Vista when that's completely bogus. XP utlilizes RAM no differently than any prior version of Windows. Whatever isn't used is wasted.

[The Rev]

@ BlackSun: Same here bro.

@ Majin: XP Utilizes mroe RAM then Vista. With my 4 gigs on XP 64 bit with my usual processes open they throughtout my computer usage total up to 40 MAX and ram is barely 1 gig.

Vista 64 bit, however, with all its bogus crap withOUT my processes equals 62 and with my processes(i.e. wireless keyboard and mouse, sound, games, steam, etc) it totals up to 78+ and takes 2 gigs and alittle more.

Now, remind you that with 62 processes im using up 1748 megs. For no god damn reason. I dont use Volume Shadow Copy or etc.

The point is, YES XP Utilizes more ram, Read about it. XP > Vista when comes to RAM. Vista looks great, sluggish as HELL.

Cheers.

P.S. This is not a falme or etc, do your research, ive done mine with actual experiments.

First of all, the reason vista appears to be a memory hog is because it utilizes ram in an entirely different way than xp..... basically, once ram has been divied out to programs that are running, vista preloads the rest of the ram with frequently used programs, so they'll start faster.... the only problem with that type of optimization is that if you load a program that's not already on the ram, it has to selectively dump enough preloaded programs from the ram to fit the program you want to run. So basically, it evens out- frequently used apps launch ffast, non-frequently used apps dont. Its not so much about vista being a memory hog.... honestly, i can't see vista's memory utilization being worse than xp's per se..... although i do think that the preloading of programs makes for an inconsistent computing experience (meaning all programs load in different amounts of time, which makes the overall performance choppy)

I know people don't like to hear this, but u just can't run vista on a 3 year old computer. It wasn't designed to do that. It may work, but it wont FLY like it does on new computers.

Anyway, there will be a lot less bitching about vista (i hope lol) when SP1 is released, which will carry many stability and performance enhancements. The latest build is the best yet, IMHO.

[Yochanan]

Correction, we have Windows Vista. Vista ftw. (Y)

"For the win"? I didn't realize this was a competition. Anyway, here we go with Vista vs. XP...again. :|

[Brandon Live Veteran]

They are not bogus simply because of the fact that Vista handles Graphics 2D/GDI/GDI+ by "internally remap"ping them which is not exactly a very speedy procedure compared to doing them directly in XP. That's not made up stuff, that's what MS said and is used as the basis in that article.

Actually, it is bogus. The only reason that benchmark appears "slower" is that it is counting the time for new animations to run, such as the window fade-ins and fade-outs, against Vista. If you disabled those animations, the result would be much closer.

It's true that GDI is not hardware accelerated in Vista with WDDM drivers (it is still accelerated if you use an XP driver), largely due to the fact that the display driver has been moved out of the kernel and back into userland where it belongs. This means that display drivers are far, far less likely to cause BSODs. Instead, you see the balloon that tells you the driver crashed and was restarted. Where Windows 2000/XP traded off reliability/security for performance, Vista swings back in the other direction.

But the effect of not having hardware-accelerated GDI is truly imperceptible to the user except in very, very rare circumstances. In fact in some cases it's actually faster.

[Elliot B.]

Actually, it is bogus. The only reason that benchmark appears "slower" is that it is counting the time for new animations to run, such as the window fade-ins and fade-outs, against Vista. If you disabled those animations, the result would be much closer.

It's true that GDI is not hardware accelerated in Vista with WDDM drivers (it is still accelerated if you use an XP driver), largely due to the fact that the display driver has been moved out of the kernel and back into userland where it belongs. This means that display drivers are far, far less likely to cause BSODs. Instead, you see the balloon that tells you the driver crashed and was restarted. Where Windows 2000/XP traded off reliability/security for performance, Vista swings back in the other direction.

But the effect of not having hardware-accelerated GDI is truly imperceptible to the user except in very, very rare circumstances. In fact in some cases it's actually faster.

At last, some sense (Y)

[Swift33]

Actually, it is bogus. The only reason that benchmark appears "slower" is that it is counting the time for new animations to run, such as the window fade-ins and fade-outs, against Vista. If you disabled those animations, the result would be much closer.

It's true that GDI is not hardware accelerated in Vista with WDDM drivers (it is still accelerated if you use an XP driver), largely due to the fact that the display driver has been moved out of the kernel and back into userland where it belongs. This means that display drivers are far, far less likely to cause BSODs. Instead, you see the balloon that tells you the driver crashed and was restarted. Where Windows 2000/XP traded off reliability/security for performance, Vista swings back in the other direction.

But the effect of not having hardware-accelerated GDI is truly imperceptible to the user except in very, very rare circumstances. In fact in some cases it's actually faster.

So you're implying that:

"A series of PassMark tests cover drawing lines, rectangles, shapes, font rendering, and common GUI operations like scrolling listboxes, moving windows or filling progress bars. On both dual-boot machines, the best Vista performance was an amazing 70 per cent slower than XP."

is mainly a result of "window fade-ins and fade-outs" when the majority of those tests don't even have fade-ins or fade-outs?

[Swift33]

Also, Brandon, I wasn't really questioning MS's decision of that change, but to be honest I have never ever had or seen a BSOD on someone's else systems because of the display drivers unless they had faulty hardware. Display drivers for XP, even though there is newer hardware out all the time and newer drivers out, have been mature for many years now in my opinion and those cases of BSODs etc. are very rare as far as I know. I was simply pointing out to King Mustard that his claims of Vista's "performance" are simply not true in some areas, animations enabled or disabled. I think I recall that Jim Allchin made that same point in a Channel 9 video when Vista was launched where he mentioned that MS worked a lot on Vista's security/reliability but performance... not so much.

[stezo2k]

No, we have Windows Vista. XP is an outdated operating system.

How so? theres nothing revolutionary about windows vista. heck in most cases it runs slower

[NEVER85]

How so? theres nothing revolutionary about windows vista. heck in most cases it runs slower

1. It's almost 7 years old.

2. I didn't say there was anything revolutionary about Vista. There was nothing revolutionary about XP either.

3. Vista runs faster than XP on modern machines. If you don't HAVE a modern machine, stick with XP until MS stops mainstream support for it next year.

4. The majority of people's complaints with Vista (slow file transfer speed, low performance, no drivers, etc) are also outdated. The file transfer issue has been fixed by Microsoft, and virtually all hardware that isn't 3-4 years old now has Vista drivers. My wireless network card is over 2 years old and has Vista support, and my 2 year old printer also has a Vista driver. Performance has also been much better for me in Vista than XP.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

So you're implying that:

"A series of PassMark tests cover drawing lines, rectangles, shapes, font rendering, and common GUI operations like scrolling listboxes, moving windows or filling progress bars. On both dual-boot machines, the best Vista performance was an amazing 70 per cent slower than XP."

is mainly a result of "window fade-ins and fade-outs" when the majority of those tests don't even have fade-ins or fade-outs?

Hmm, I thought it was pointing at a different benchmark. I'll have to look tomorrow into what, exactly, this one is claiming and whether it is relevant.

[PermaSt0ne]

How so? theres nothing revolutionary about windows vista. heck in most cases it runs slower

if vista is running slower people are either doing something wrong, using old hardware / old drivers / non-certified drivers or haven't updated their vista. and if any of that applies to you then your dumb for expecting it to "fly" on your machine

my 64-bit vista is using 1.15GB of ram with nod32, super anti, windows blinds, FDM and firefox (64-bit build). and i haven't edited the services.msc yet. it's a TON faster than 32 bit xp in everything except file copying. i can live with it taking 10 seconds longer to copy stuff in exchange for the improvements i get over xp

everyone hops on the bandwagon of saying vista sucks because they tried the RC for a couple of days. they've made major improvements to it since release

and now back on topic: 2009 is way too soon for windows 7 to come out. they just released vista and it's not a huge problem like ME was so they'll milk it for a while before releasing windows 7. it'd be nice if they waited untill it was top notch to release it but from past experiences they'll rush it out the door like usual

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Also, Brandon, I wasn't really questioning MS's decision of that change, but to be honest I have never ever had or seen a BSOD on someone's else systems because of the display drivers unless they had faulty hardware. Display drivers for XP, even though there is newer hardware out all the time and newer drivers out, have been mature for many years now in my opinion and those cases of BSODs etc. are very rare as far as I know. I was simply pointing out to King Mustard that his claims of Vista's "performance" are simply not true in some areas, animations enabled or disabled. I think I recall that Jim Allchin made that same point in a Channel 9 video when Vista was launched where he mentioned that MS worked a lot on Vista's security/reliability but performance... not so much.

I probably shouldn't mention specifics, but as I understand it, a ridiculous percentage of BSODs reported through Watson from Windows XP systems were all due to one specific video driver, from a manufacturer who insists on tuning for performance and neglecting reliability.

You really cannot begin to overestimate the positive effect of that change.

[1Frothy]

Correction, we have Windows Vista. Vista ftw. (Y)

+1 (Y)

So why would Microsoft reveal it's plans to Win*whatwasitagain*site.com?!

[Swift33]

I probably shouldn't mention specifics, but as I understand it, a ridiculous percentage of BSODs reported through Watson from Windows XP systems were all due to one specific video driver, from a manufacturer who insists on tuning for performance and neglecting reliability.

You really cannot begin to overestimate the positive effect of that change.

1 single poor display driver was shipped, which would be remedied with a driver update, and that resulted in MS moving the display driver from the kernel back into userland? I'd say that was more of a quality control issue, either WHQL or whatnot, more than anything else.

I'm not saying moving it was a terrible idea. I'm just simply trying to point out Vista != better performance over XP in some pretty significant areas because of some of the core changes made to Vista even if you have the latest and greatest hardware.

[1Frothy]

Instead of looking at numbers, look at actual performance. Vista handles memory differently (in a better way) to XP.

Some prefer to use a simpletons view of memory management. It's totally insane, but hey. Let them believe whatever they want to right. ;)

[Swift33]

The following is also mentioned in the article:

See also Greg Schechter’s notes here on GDI-rendered windows.

In a nutshell, Vista is optimized for DirectX rendering at the expense of GDI; yet, as Schecter notes:

Today and for the near future, most applications use and will continue to use GDI to render their content.

That just seems to be the simple reality to it.

Here's how I see it: If this wasn't so big of an issue and is "imperceptible to the user except in very, very rare circumstances", why then the lengthy articles by MS and outside benchmarks by many others trying to explain/show why Vista doesn't handle GDI, what most apps use, as well as XP if it really is a small issue?

Edited January 27, 2008 by Swift33

[WarStorm]

lol @ everyone. How come every topic ends up like this.

All the people crying 'I'll stick with my xp' will in the end be crying ' Ill stick with my vista', when Windows 7 is released.

If you used the same hardware that you use on your XP machine with Windows 98, then im sure that'll be faster. Come on guys think about what your saying.

Can we get back on topic?

[Swift33]

If you used the same hardware that you use on your XP machine with Windows 98, then im sure that'll be faster. Come on guys think about what your saying.

WarStorm, I'm actually talking about a core change that MS made that they knew would slow down GDI performance on any hardware and will never or almost never be faster than XP on the vast majority of apps that people use today.

[Swift33]

A better strategy in my opinion would have been to split it up into stages:

1. Introduce WDDM 1.0 in Vista but don't move the display driver from the kernel into userland so as not to have too many changes all at once for people to deal with.

2. Let ATI/Nvidia/Intel know that the plans for WDDM 2.0 for Windows 7 will be to move the display driver to the userland so that they have years to prepare for it and tell the same thing to software developers and the issues with GDI and WDDM 2.0 so that they can think about what they plan to do with their software many years in advance of the actual change.

But it's too late for that anyway. In my opinion, it all boils down to too much change in the core of Windows in too little time. These things need to be spread out and not be done all at once at the same time.

[UAC]

Any software vendor that builds graphics applications uses DirectX/OpenGL and NOT GDI.

GDI is just only used to render small UI parts and so the performance decrease is imperceptible in a real world application.

Edited January 27, 2008 by UAC

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Actually, it is bogus. The only reason that benchmark appears "slower" is that it is counting the time for new animations to run, such as the window fade-ins and fade-outs, against Vista. If you disabled those animations, the result would be much closer.

It's true that GDI is not hardware accelerated in Vista with WDDM drivers (it is still accelerated if you use an XP driver), largely due to the fact that the display driver has been moved out of the kernel and back into userland where it belongs. This means that display drivers are far, far less likely to cause BSODs. Instead, you see the balloon that tells you the driver crashed and was restarted. Where Windows 2000/XP traded off reliability/security for performance, Vista swings back in the other direction.

But the effect of not having hardware-accelerated GDI is truly imperceptible to the user except in very, very rare circumstances. In fact in some cases it's actually faster.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Vista, doesn't GDI draw to a texture (bitmap, whatever) which is then copied onto a DirectX surface, which is then composited? There's nothing wrong with doing that (and it shouldn't cause a 70% slowdown, that would probably be something else)

Also, Brandon, I wasn't really questioning MS's decision of that change, but to be honest I have never ever had or seen a BSOD on someone's else systems because of the display drivers unless they had faulty hardware. Display drivers for XP, even though there is newer hardware out all the time and newer drivers out, have been mature for many years now in my opinion and those cases of BSODs etc. are very rare as far as I know. I was simply pointing out to King Mustard that his claims of Vista's "performance" are simply not true in some areas, animations enabled or disabled. I think I recall that Jim Allchin made that same point in a Channel 9 video when Vista was launched where he mentioned that MS worked a lot on Vista's security/reliability but performance... not so much.

I've had a whole bunch of BSOD's caused by my graphics card drivers (Nvidia), so Vista (and such) being able to reboot the card/driver when it crashes is a godsend (I'm not actually using Vista, but if i was I'd be really happy about that).

And there's nothing wrong with having the driver run in userland compared to kernel level (from some of the statements I'm hearing, it seems some people don't actually know what it even means)

[Hurmoth]

No, we have Windows Vista. XP is an outdated operating system.

Vista offers no "extra" functionality for businesses IMO, therefore XP is not an outdated operating system. The major thing Vista offers is DirectX 10. Everything else isn't needed IMO, and something that most people won't ever take advantage of.

[Glowstick]

The following is also mentioned in the article:

That just seems to be the simple reality to it.

What Microsoft would need to introduce is an unmanaged version of WPF. That's mostly the only way you can get big applications being retrofitted to nice candy interfaces. There's quite a bunch of huge applications out there, of which the developers don't want to make a unmanaged and managed code mish-mash just to get WPF.

And there's nothing wrong with having the driver run in userland compared to kernel level (from some of the statements I'm hearing, it seems some people don't actually know what it even means)

Crossing the user-kernel level boundary is costly. If the user mode driver interacts a lot with the kernel, that's one point where performance losses are introduced.

[hotdog666al]

Who cares we have Windows XP. :)

YES!

No, we have Windows Vista. XP is an outdated operating system.

So outdated, that it does EVERYTHING I need it to!

XP -> Vista isn't a worthwhile jump for me.

Let's hope Windows 7 is :D