NZFF

Before now, I had Vista on my computer dual booting with XP. I never really did much with Vista cause its so slow, and doesnt play many games etc...

Well, I started playing around with it last night, and I found its not actually that bad. Its much like a big mean dog. At the start you are scared of it, and think its stupid and you avoid it, but once you get to know it, you see its not that bad (kind of ). So, I started playing around with it, shutting down unnecesary programes running, disabling un needed services, and installing Nvidias latest 100.54 Forceware drivers. Mannnnnn does it fly. I tested it on the following games:
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Corel Paintshop Pro
GTR2
Flatout 2
Sim City 4
FS9 (not tested yet, but will do in a few minutes)

In all the games, I noticed slightly better and slightly worse performance than XP. I think that is not bad at all considering a few things...

1. Windows XP is over 4 years old. I was running it fully up to date with service packs, updates, and modded video card drivers.
2. Windows Vista is still in its very early stages. There have been hardly any updates, and even video drivers are now only starting to leave the beta stage.
3. I still had all the eye candy tunred on. Aero glass, sidebar, etc.


Heres two shots taken from Seattle, from FS9. Same weather, time of day, graphics settings, addons, etc.

XP screenshot. Ive always had bad FPS in this area. Not sure why :


Here is the screenshot from Vista. As you can see there is a dramatic improvement :



I noticed a general increase in performance throughout the sim world, and a massive improvement at busy airports where the computer usually slows right down.

are the new nivida drivers just for vista or can you use them with xp as well ???
also you look like you are getting low frames rates for the spec of your pc ?
are those set to unlimited flp?
i manage 60 solid in that same area in fs9 with addons and i dont even have dual core and also half of your ram spec ,really weird ??
apart from the above im looking into upgrading to vista when the testing by you and many others is all over
cheers 4 the info

no, the drivers arent made for XP, only Vista. They are however, the first Vista drivers to support SLI on 8 series cards. Shows how behind Nvidia are with their stuff

Hey brownbox, your sim actually looks better in vista, did you change the settings at all or would this be an effect of the drivers?

Ive always had bad FPS in this area. Not sure why :

17.9, thats about the best I ever get!! I think the perforamce around ksea would be to do with all the 3d objects over in the harbour area, its very dense, also the airport is got alot of detail.


So its almost doubled the fps... That could just be cos its a fresh fs9 install? Is it completly defualt , your fs9 screenshot looks like you have installed extra water textures and what about the ai? How about you copy ov er your fs9 cfg, and also things like texture folder and all your addons then save a flight somewere in fs9 that you get bad fps then load that same flight on vista. But anyway, 17.9 compared to 33

Does vista make more use of your dual core and other hardware or something like that

also, the buildings in the background would cause a slowdown too i think... maybe

Hey brownbox, your sim actually looks better in vista, did you change the settings at all or would this be an effect of the drivers?

Nope, all the same settings Im sure. I just used the general setting in the new control panel to Quality in both XP and Vista. This made 4x AA and 16x AF

Very interesting and encouraging results. I'm holding off the upgrade for awhile, wait and see how things go. I saw Vista for the first time in action today, looks nice is about all I can say really.

brownbox wrote: also, the buildings in the background would cause a slowdown too i think... maybe 

yeah there's more autogen visable in the XP shot than the Vista shot
I'm sceptical, but I'll definitely be upgrading to Vista on my next PC. Out of interest, is it the Vista you're using the release version or a pre-release version?

it is the full Ultimate version from the shop. Fancy packaging and all

Zöltuger wrote: yeah there's more autogen visable in the XP shot than the Vista shot

I think thats more about aircraft position in both screenshots. In the XP shot hes further forward, lower and more to the right, so most of the autogen we see simply isn't visible in vista because its out of frame.

JonARNZ wrote:

Zöltuger wrote: yeah there's more autogen visable in the XP shot than the Vista shot

I think thats more about aircraft position in both screenshots. In the XP shot hes further forward, lower and more to the right, so most of the autogen we see simply isn't visible in vista because its out of frame.

that's what i meant to say...

Brownbox, if you played around with your FS9.cfg file you might yield some better results for your sim in XP.

You may wish to read these theads to help you out:
http://z11.invisionfree.com/nzff/index.php?showtopic=15
http://z11.invisionfree.com/nzff/index.php?showtopic=73

by the way, if you haven't seen them, apple has some cool ads criticising Vista at http://www.apple.com/getamac
check out 'security'- hilarious!

I really wanted a mac for my next comp, but I got given a compaq laptop for xmas, so i guess i must wait till I get a new computer.

Attention XP users with multiple core processors:
download this patch from Microsoft, it helps performance (even on my P4 HT)

Nice find Zoltuger, although I beat you to it a few weeks ago
http://z11.invisionfree.com/nzff/index. ... topic=2127

"Microsoft Dual Core Hotfix"

hmm, then that doesn't explain your vista/XP performance difference. i was watching the performance meter while playing FSX, and it definitely used the second core more than usual- so it's really worth the download.