[bassgoonist]

So I've tried both vista 64 and server 2008 64, neither one gives video performance resembling xp x64 or 2003 x64. Same version of the drivers, same hardware, same everything. Why is the vista kernel so much worse video performance wise? I have an AMD phenom 9500, and dual ati 3870 and 8gb of ram.

This post has been edited by bassgoonist: 25 June 2008 - 10:08 AM

[CoffeeFiend]

bassgoonist, on Jun 25 2008, 12:07 PM, said:

So I've tried both vista 64 and server 2008 64, neither one gives video performance resembling xp x64 or 2003 x64.

Win 2008 isn't designed for gaming and 3D performance, so I'm hardly surprised by that.
Vista x64 drivers aren't very mature IMO. x64 drivers already seem to have some issues, now combine that with a brand new driver model (WDDM), and a brand new version of DirectX (10.1), it's not really surprising the performance isn't the best yet (especially if you also have Aero Glass + desktop composing enabled on top of that). Having 2 cards in SLI might affect things too... Chances are, the card, and drivers are still mostly optimized for DirectX 9 and XP's driver model. Or maybe it is optimized for DirectX 10, as in, it would get better performance than XP would (if it had DX10) while running DX 10 games/tests. And, I've seen people report having almost twice the FPS in Vista x86 than Vista x64... SP1 might fix some issues related to that too. But I'm merely guessing here, I'm NOT a gamer at all (my 8500GT is beyond overkill for me) and I don't follow the fancy vid card stuff at all.

bassgoonist, on Jun 25 2008, 12:07 PM, said:

Same version of the drivers

They're not the same drivers, even if it says the same number. the XP ones are WDM, the Vista ones are WDDM (Windows Vista Display Driver Model).

[bassgoonist]

Well, I get better FPS in 2003 than XP...go figure...
And it seems like after more than a year they would've figured the whole vista thing out... :-/ And after 3 years the x64 thing...

[CoffeeFiend]

bassgoonist, on Jun 25 2008, 10:05 PM, said:

Well, I get better FPS in 2003 than XP...go figure...

XP x64 and 2003 x64 have the same kernel even.

bassgoonist, on Jun 25 2008, 10:05 PM, said:

And it seems like after more than a year they would've figured the whole vista thing out... :-/ And after 3 years the x64 thing...

Crappy drivers have been around for quite a while.

x64 isn't new, but there hasn't been too much interest by most users yet, nor from most software developers seemingly. There are still loads of devices without any drivers, and even most of the common ones still have some odd problems. It's slowly getting there though.

2 brand new cards in SLI, on the newest OS -- the x64 version no less, with a new driver model, a new DirectX version and all that, is pretty cutting edge. Unfortunately, cutting edge often means the bugs and various issues haven't quite all been resolved yet.

[bassgoonist]

Quote

XP x64 and 2003 x64 have the same kernel even.

So do 2008 and vista, same minor revision even.