Every benchmark i've runned gives xp pro x64 2-3% to as much as 50% faster then vista x64.
Ran every thing from 3dmark to performance test. Ran Crysis tests, Mass Effect, Quake games and so forth.
Especially 2d Performance, as well as memory latency test is faster for me in x64 xp.

However, FORGET benchmarks, they will tell you absolutely nada about how in-game responsiveness, movement, the feeling over all. Just simple desktop tasks feels slower.
Vista not only feels sluggish to me, it also performs that few milliseconds slower, enough to make me go crazy.
Some people can tell if there is things as input lag, others couldn't even if their lives depended on it.
Goto humanbenchmark.com, i constantly press below 100ms, which doesnt count, as that's humanily so-called impossible so it gets counted as cheating.

I didnt stand a chance at doing that on vista. There was just no way in hell.

Vista is good for lazy days, where needs are tv-media centers, and office programs. In my book, not even that.

That's interesting, since 3DMark06 gave me virtually identical numbers on my XP64 SP2 and Vista x64 SP1 benchmarks, as well as everything I've tried. I do not own Crysis. How do XP64's DX10 benchmarks rank against Vista x64's? As far as 2D, My Aero desktop feels smooth and moves fluidly. Everything I do runs very fast.


I played a few rounds in Vista x64, then I fired up a virtual machine in Virtualbox.. I fired up Ubuntu, which is running a flat, plain ol' VESA driver with no acceleration. My time went up slightly, about 10%. From reading the FAQ comments it's no surprise that the type of mouse can play a big role in the score. Mine's a cheap Logitech optical which isn't made for this sort of exercise, the throw of the buttons is long and it's not made for twitch reactions. There's also at least one comment that PS/2 mice may do better, which can be true. My VM gets the worst of both worlds, as it's taking incoming USB mouse input and translating it into PS/2 mouse commands (my VM does not have USB activated). I blame the time increase more on this than anything else.

I love XP64, I use it on my gaming rig. I tried it on my laptop, but there are simply no XP64 drivers for the webcam nor the infrared. My laptop also has a very capable DX10 video card (GeForce 8800M GTX) and I wanted to take advantage of that. I've got new parts for my gaming rig on order, including an 8800GT. When it all gets here it's being re-built with Vista x64. XP64 had a place, but I think I can safely say I've outgrown it.

Most people who quote benchmarks to support their "evidence" Vista is slow, resort to gaming benchmarks. But that hardly means anything. Vista has a new driver architecture (brand new, non-mature drivers which weren't exactly the most optimized nor the best, period), on top of a new architecture with things like aero glass and desktop composition (which by itself changes how stuff is drawn in the first place i.e. memory buffer), with a new version of DirectX that's brand new and all. WAY too many factors changed, it's an apples to oranges comparison here, if you want real-life speed comparisons. And most such benchmarks were pre-SP1 too.

I'd say overall performance is within 5% or so of XP's on 99% of everyday tasks. Actually, check some non-graphics related benchmarks (sisoft sandras's , everest's, etc) and you'll see most are pretty much within 1%. Plenty of other benchmarks show that even the RTM as about as fast as XP. And if you look around, you'll even find benchmarks that puts Vista as faster than XP on some things, like file copy operations. I for one noticed deleting thousands of small files with Vista is several times faster than XP. With XP, you select the files, hit delete, then you wait.... wait... keep waiting... wait some more, and when you wake up, it asks to delete them, and does it. With vista, it done deleting files WAY before XP even gets around to ask. Granted, you might not delete tons of tiny files everyday, but it goes to show how the performance isn't exactly as bad as most people put it.

And like some articles quoting actual experts on the subject (Mark Russinovich in this case) say "Vista's file copy dialog box goes away when the cache is committed, while under XP the copy dialog goes away while the committal is still pending. In other words XP is coded to appear fast." For full facts and explanations, visit his most excellent blog -- article here.


I can only disagree here. I wouldn't know the first thing about in-game responsiveness, but when it comes to general system responsiveness/speed, Vista performs no worse than XP does on this box. Definitely not sluggish at all.

I do a LOT of very intensive task everyday (lots of encoding, heavy usage of vmware server and workstation, playing high def movies in H.264, a fair bit of photoshop use, etc) and heavy multitasking, and I've noticed no difference at all between Vista SP1 and XP (any SP) when it comes to speed/responsiveness.

Herein is the problem. People ARE different. I've already stated *my* opinion on that..Having said that, so are computers - different.
However, if it's true you are running system with 12 harddrives, you are bound to have several impacts on your system simply because of that.
On vista ultimate group policies are updated every bloody 30 seconds, then all drives are read, and sorry to be blunt here, but either your computer is fantastic much better then anyone else's (which it aint, you have 8500gt etc), or you are simply way to tolerant and patient human being that can be quite happy with vista the way it is.

And as you say you do a lot of encoding, which can take much time, im inclined to believe you are the kind of user who can be happy with vista.
I am not thinking of xp 32bit, or doing comparisons to that, i am thinking of xp x64 vs my experiences with vista x64.

All of this tho, i am confident that nuhi will make vlite much more like nlite in the near future, so we can perhaps give it another go.
But if you can't both see and feel that vista is sluggish, then that kind of sensitivity simply does not apply to you.
With over at least 40, probably between 50-60 processes running on a default vista, vs about 20-30 on xp x64, it is mathematically and logically total both within reason and result absolutely without a shadow of a doubt
crystal clear that there is no chance in hell that vista would ever get down to the response time that xp then runs with.

Then the argument come down to how everyone can adjust their vista or xp as they see fit, tweak things, remove things from startup and so on.
I did this, to some great length, proving services and things can be disabled on vista. But i have on the other hand done so for years with various systems.
To me, it is the simple truth that it will as it is today, be impossible to get vista to be as responsive as xp. It's just not possible. I tried literally every tweak known to man and some crazy stuff of my own.
Even with vista running at same amount of services as xp at bare minimum, that is 4 (xp can work without any actually, but it aint recommendable), i just couldnt be satisfied.

But remember, we are all different.

No. Hard drives aren't "read" every 30 seconds, they manage to stay spinned down most of the time actually. I've never seen (or heard of) having multiple hard disk slow down windows (any version) before. Actually, quite the opposite (OS is on 2x Seagate 7200.11 RAID0). Dunno why you bring my vid card into this, but it's actually quite seriously overkill for anything else than gaming. And no, I'm not patient at all when it comes to waiting after slow computers.

As for the x64 versions -- no idea. I don't run XP x64 or Vista x64. I have devices I can't live without that don't have 64 bit drivers, and for which there are no real replacements. Besides, I'm not in a big rush to switch to x64 just yet. Yes, I'd see about 512MB of RAM extra, but then again x64 apps need ~15% more RAM in the first place (due to double sized pointers, double sized structues and such -- even your CPU cache is affected), negating all of your gains unless you have more than 4GB (and what "normal" everyday task, or what kind of desktop usage needs MORE than 4GB right now?) Yes, the extra CPU registers do speed up some things a bit, but then I'd have a performance penalty running pretty much all of my apps under WOW64 (it's known that apps like excel 2007 uses TWICE as much CPU to do the same math under WOW64 -- I'd call that serious overhead, and no, there's no x64 version of even that!), so no real gain there either. So no real significant benefits yet, just the drivers/codecs/security app compatibility issues and such, even though it's slowly getting better. No real advantages yet (on the desktop), no compelling reasons to switch, so I'll wait some more -- Likely until I decide I have a need for 8GB of RAM o a desktop, and have ~250$ to spare for it (not anytime soon).


I don't really think it's that... Besides, I've never seen anyone mention that this box was even remotely slow or anything (actually, if I turn Aero Glass on, it feels FASTER than XP does)


Actually, I have 38 processes running currently, including firefox, indexing, the sidebar, 2 for the intel RAID, the realtek mixer, so 32 if you don't count remove these.
Besides, total number of processes have very little to do with raw system speed. It very much depends what processes they are, and how much resources they each consume. Lots of these processes aren't really doing anything, and they're even paged to disk.

Anyhow. I see no real difference between this box booting Vista or XP, or any of my other boxes running XP. Everything is instantaneous on all of them... Anything faster, and it would happen before I clicked basically. Encoding speeds, file copy speeds and virtually everything else I do, the speeds are basically identical.

This post has been edited by crahak: Jun 24 2008, 04:53 PM

Well kind of problem here is i am comparing against x64 versions, while you are defending the x86-32bit point of view on matters which are not equal nor can be because of their nature.
So it's funny =)

Seeing that you have 38 processes on 32bit is way more then i had anticipated for 32bit, all tho u have some apps running. It's a good estimate for x64 still, but then again you wouldnt know seemingly. So this was like
talking to the wall.

FYI vista does read drives every 30 second as i stated there. I dont just say things for fun, i only write what i have seen and experienced. I'm still putting my money on that you're a much more patient and tolerant man not too keen on responses, so vista is what would suit you just fine. This is no offence, but it's a pretty clear line of who can thrive with vista and who can not.



It's like coffee, sugar or milk. Everyone's taste is ultimately different. I would however like to point out that if you indeed do a lot of encoding, you should seriously look into what benefits x64 can give you.
Using huge memory ram disks as temporary storage, for encoding temp space, for vmware test installs, for instant disk load gaming (always first on servers, as long as gfx/cpu can keep up), Huge system cache at your disposal (again taking strain of drives(increasing i/o performance), x64 browsing/security measures in clean x64 enviroments, advanced write features with x64 xp, not to mention all the specs of running with a x64 cpu system.

Care to back up that claim?


Like I said, I have plenty of reasons NOT to... I'm already well aware of those things, but it's not practical/possible to run it on my system for various reasons.

Besides, RAM disks wouldn't help very much for encoding AV, the total disk I/O speed is quite low: under 1MB/sec for xvid (which already flies, about 150fps), and MUCH lower for x264. It's really a CPU bound process -- that's by FAR the biggest bottleneck (both cores pegged at 100%). The one thing that would speed it up a lot, is a faster/quad core processor. vmware's already plenty fast, no worries there. Security stuff... non-issue. It's been years since the last virus or spyware, on any of our boxes.

Lack of 64 bit drivers, lack of crucial apps for that platform (that wouldn't run or run well under WOW64) and such is however a big show stopper.

Just look into group policy editor on vista, it says so there. Im not in vista so cant do a copy & paste.
All i'm saying is that there's no valid reason to not choose x64 over x86 today. If one already has a 32bit os, sure that's fine, but i wouldnt advise anyone to buy a 32bit os for a new computer, given how cheap memory is alone.

IF a program doesnt work under x64, it's most likely because it's outdated or the creators don't care or don't have access to a 64bit os, imho. I'm yet to have a single program that doesnt work under x64 which works under 32bit.

I looked everywhere at least twice, and it doesn't say so anywhere.


And again, I very strongly disagree over that one. There are NO compelling reasons to use x64 on your average desktop right now, much the inverse.

Memory gains on systems with 4GB are pretty much negated by the extra memory usage of processes (due to double sized pointers & such things -- it even makes your cpu cache hold less instructions)
Gains made from the handful of extra CPU registers are pretty much negated when you're pretty much running everything under WOW64 (again, the excel 2007 example, twice the CPU usage under WOW64)

And then, you get all the quirks from not so mature drivers like seen here... Add to that the many devices without any drivers, the lack of crucial codecs for AV playback on x64 (e.g. CoreAVC, Haali splitter, etc) resulting in much higher resource usage or lack of functionality, and the overall lack of x64 apps in the first place (no point running everything under WOW64)...

I can't think of a single reason to move to x64, there's just no advantages yet (any potential advantage is outweighed), unless you have like 8GB of RAM, which is definitely NOT cheap yet (~$250 for quality fast DDR2), and most people wouldn't have a use for that much in desktop in the first place.

This post has been edited by crahak: Jul 4 2008, 05:14 PM

Actually, 8GB for 250$ is friggin cheap considering people pay up to 800$ for video cards or worst, people that buy lolExtremeCPU.

The advantage? 100% removal of swap file. It makes the system holy snappy it's mind boggling. I haven't ran into a single problem yet, and I do casual AV encoding, Photoshop, burning and a massive amount of gaming on MMOs, FPSs, etc...

There is virtually NO difference between my Enterprise Vista64 with Classic Theme (all the fluff turned off) & XP64 Classic Theme (again, all the fluff turned off). I don't even get 2 FPS difference in any games, my PCMarks are identical, 3DMarks fluctuate every **** time I run them, on either system, I need to get Vantage, a more up to date product... I too can somehow feel when I'm waiting a few milleseconds more, and I can't tell the difference between the 2.

8GB with no swap is like god mode for x64 Vista or XP... for what I do anyways. Obviously, your mileage will vary.

Everything's cheap if you put it that way. Back in 1995, 8MB of EDO RAM was 800$. Or back in 1980, a 18MB hard drive was 5G's. That still doesn't make it cheap (not everyone has nearly that much $ to spend on RAM nowadays -- at least I don't).


Paging already isn't an issue at 4GB with fairly intensive use. With Vista only stuff that really isn't necessary to keep in RAM gets paged to disk. Actually, it even pre-caches stuff you might need later on in the free memory. It's not like XP, it doesn't just dump it all to the page file to have it all free (i.e. unused). Page file usage, looking at any perf counter is already quite low. There's just not much gain to make from having 8GB there for the vast majority of people.

I can already have dozens of apps open at once (including firefox, photoshop, etc) and not have paging problems, even on a system with only 2GB RAM. And encoding isn't memory intensive at all, it's 100% a CPU-bound process (try encoding high def stuff with x264, you'll see VERY easily... Low mem usage overall, very low disk I/O, but all cores pegged to 100% solid, and it still crawls)

It might be different when it comes to games, no idea there, I don't play any.

This post has been edited by crahak: Jul 3 2008, 07:48 PM

Uh... Low page file usage? Answer this.



It uses 1.3GB RAM with nothing but Opera, the task manager and IrfanView (to make the screenshot). And it uses 1.5GB page file!!! That's with the page file "disabled"... System is lightly tweaked, just UAC, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall and Security Center disabled, no AV is running, and any extra processes are from the ATi drivers, nothing more.

On XP i was used to the feeling of "instantaneous computing" even with only 2GB RAM. Now i have 6GB, so WHY THE HECK does Vista have to churn my hard drive like crazy after i close Opera? For the love of God, it only takes about 100MB RAM with 15 tabs open.

It's NOT about the benchmarks. It's NOT about resource demanding games. It's about the system's general "feeling", and its responsiveness in doing everyday tasks. And it's about minor issues that drive people like me crazy.

For example, they screwed up the ADPCM codec so bad that older games that worked in XP will not work in Vista even if i install the codec from XP. Then the Explorer bugs like the "doubling filesize". Then still chewing up a whole CPU core for smooth scrolling (i always keep it off for that reason) and still not supporting the mouse wheel during setup. The new navigation system is confusing, the old one was good enough and there since Win95. The control panel has been scrambled. The display properties applet has been broken into tabbed windows with only one tab, which look like s***. It's all these little things that make people hate Vista. Oh, and i want a XP style start menu, just with that search box added. We're not running 800x600, you know? Also, the sidebar is useless if you don't have your system locale set to English.

My point is that they fixed what wasn't broken and didn't fix what was. And if you turn all the GUI eye candy off, you'll end up with Windows 2000 with DX10 and a whole lotta more bugs.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: Jul 3 2008, 09:42 PM