100.54 Vista vs 97.92 XP - Comparisons

I decided to run some tests to compare the recently leaked Vista 100.54 drivers against the existing XP 97.92 drivers.

System: Core 2 Duo E6700 @ 3500mhz; 2GB RAM @ 1000mhz; EVGA 8800 GTX; EVGA 680i; 700W PSU; 1280x1024

Software: Windows Vista Ultimate OEM; Windows XP Media Center Edition OEM;

All games were run at 1280x1024. All games had most recent patches. FPS readings were eyeballed for most consistent average FPS. I attempted to run 3D Mark 2006, but it appears the FutureMark ORB servers are down, so I couldn't get scores.

SPLINTER CELL: DOUBLE AGENT

Test: Played first mission up to the point where the agents emerge through the hole in the ice.

Visual: Maximum settings. Excellent quality on both platforms, no problems, high-quality shaders and all effects enabled.

Vista: 75 FPS
XP: 85 FPS

FLIGHT SIMULATOR X

Test: Flew Cessna C172SP at Friday Harbor during daytime.

Vista: 28 FPS
XP: 30 FPS

Settings: Ultra High settings on Aircraft, Weather and Traffic. Graphics set to High + Anistropic + 1280x1024 + Target Framerate of 30 FPS. Scenery set to High.

Visual: Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled. Vista drops to Aero Basic in the FSX main menu.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT

Test: Walking around Honor Hold in Outland, and inside the inn.

Vista Inside: 150 FPS
Vista Outside: 85 FPS
XP Inside: 160 FPS
XP Outside: 90 FPS

Visual: Maximum settings. Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled. 8x AA enabled from within game.

OBLIVION

Test: Pass Tutorial and walk outside for first time.

Vista Inside: 130 FPS
Vista Outside: 65 FPS
XP Inside: 163 FPS
XP Outside: 75 FPS

Visual: Ultra High settings (HDR). Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled.

MEDIEVAL 2 TOTAL WAR

Test: Load Battle of Agincourt and watch cutscene, then in-battle.

Vista Cutscene: 40 FPS
Vista Battle: 40 FPS
XP Cutscene: 40 FPS
XP Battle: 40 FPS

Visual: Maximum settings. Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled.

NEVERWINTER NIGHTS 2

Test: Bypass Tutorial and play through invasion of town.

Vista Inside: 60 FPS
Vista Outside: 30 FPS
XP Inside: 60 FPS
XP Outside: 30 FPS

Notes: Cannot seem to disable VSync with this game. Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled.

RAINBOW SIX VEGAS

Test: First Mission

Vista: 75 FPS
XP: 80 FPS

Notes: Maximum settings. Excellent quality on both platforms, no artifacts, all effects enabled.

Final commentary: It seems Vista is ready for gaming with 100.54, at least for single-card systems. Overall, there was a 5% or so drop in performance across the board.

Aero runs fine, but there is a graphical glitch every time UAC comes up. On my old 7800 GTX with the default drivers, it used to blacken the screen to bring up UAC (which was annoying but tolerable). On the 8800 GTX with 100.54 it garbles the screen for a split-second every time UAC comes up which just looks horrible and annoying.

I'm not convinced these drivers are brand new code compared to XP because the image quality is identical to the last pixel on both systems. I would expect brand new drivers written specifically for a new OS driver model to exhibit new and different artifacts bugs. If someone has a game with a known XP visual artifact, try it out under Vista and see if the same artifact appears. If so, then it appears nVidia is probably just using the old driver and converting XP-style driver calls into Vista-style driver calls which would explain the slight but consistent drop in FPS.

Hope this is helpful, good gaming.

 

The difirence in Vista and XP is really reduced in my opinion :dave: Nice post respect :cheers:

 

Just one question regarding the single card you mention...Is 7950GX2 considered singe card or SLI??

 

I wonder if the advancement in drivers (and or an SP1) will advance Vista's gaming capability?

 

Thanks for the effort. Very enlightening.

However, most of your scores end in either 0 or 5. You seem to have done quite a bit of rounding. What were the real results?

BTW, some of the games you mention don't have internal benchmarks. Did you use FRAPS? FRAPS isn't very reliable.

My own Vista gaming experience wasn't as dreamy as yours. No game that I tried worked without problems. The ones that ran, ran 25-30% slower than XP. I'm too lazy to prepare a detailed report like you though.

 

Yes you would rather run around nvnews screaming that the sky is falling because the nvidia drivers are a little slower in Vista than XP. XP has been around for a long time and the drivers have gone through so many releases and optimisations i lost count years ago, yet Vista still remains to be released publically......what the hell are you expecting exactly????


@ the OP, thanks stgeorge, those figures match up fairly well with the performance i am seeing and Nividia deserve a good pat on the back for some incredible performance leaps in a very short time

 

I was expecting 5-10% at most. That's what stgeorge found, but my experience has been worse. I'm not against nvidia, because ati has the same problems too. That means there's something inherently problematic with Vista, most possibly due to DRM crap that Microsoft is shoving down our throats.

You're right that I'm hugely disappointed and my posts are showing it. I've been using XP for 6 years and I was finally ready to move on. I like using the newest of everything. My own experience with Vista so far shows me that I should probably wait at least one year. That's hugely disappointing and I have a right to express my anger.

stgeorge's results are much much better than mine and most others, I just want to find out how. I'm guessing it's due to Fraps, but I don't know.

 

about the performace....it's good, we cannot forget that this Os is a brend new one, and totally different than XP.

I'm curious about splinter cell DA and 8800GTX
first of all, after instalation of the game I was asked to install dx9, otherwise it won't launch.
second....i instaled 100.51 and i had the same problem like with XP, the textures went fuzzy and multiple collors. Sam looked like a bog ameba with 3 green eyes :frown:
i was unable to play that game under vista, utnil i foced XP compatibility...
have you done the same, or it should run fine under vista straight away ?

 

No you don't!

When Vista and it's drivers are as mature as XP's then and only then can you compare the two and express any anger at a shortfall in perfromance. Right now the the OS's are so far removed from each other you simply sound like someone who doesn't have a clue what he is talking about

Sorry but you need to understand just what you are whining about and clearly you don't. If you did you would appreciate that Vista performance is incredible thus far, given the time constraints.

Basically, give Nvidia time and they will match/surpass XP performance, however no amount of driver optimisation is going to fix an incorrectly configured system If you had seen XP performance pre-release you would be keeping quiet, believe me.

 

WiCz, I've been using XP since Beta1. Performance compared to 98 was around 5-10% slower at launch. Compared to Win2k it was 1-2% faster. Almost all 2K drivers worked on XP too. I'll google for early XP benchmarks and post the results here.

You have a point that I exaggerate. I like bashing around a bit too much. I never miss a chance to enter flame wars. It's my hobby. I know it's annoying to Vista fans like you, but you guys annoy me too so we're even.

 

WiCz, look at this comparison between XP and earlier systems: (not for the faint of heart Vista fan)

http://www.tomshardware.com/2002/09/30/os_comparison/page4.html

Here's a quote:
"The tests show that there's no reason today to use Windows 98/ME in a new system. In many of the benchmarks, XP and 2000 are ahead - albeit only by a small margin." :bolt:

Quite different from Vista today, let's accept that and move on. We are all extremists, some of us like Vista too much, some of us hate it too much. The truth is in the middle I guess.

 

Stgeorge should try to disable Aero through the shortcut and see if there is a difference.

 

I would call myself a reality fan not a Vista fan. Base your arguments on facts and you will have no problems from me. XP was a bugfest in it's pre-release form, no number of links is going to change my mind on that because it's reality

Use Vista or don't, it really is that simple.

 

Nice report WiCz! Thanks

 

Gothic 3 still not work on 100.54 :\

 

Nice test dude

But I believe that the recently released drivers are 100.51... am I wrong ?

 

Yes, I used FRAPS and eyeballed the FPS taking measurements about every minute or so during a 5 minute stretch (I kept the movements the same on each machine). Whenever FRAPS widely fluctuated between 70-80, for example, I gave it a 75. Most of the time it was a 2-3 FPS fluctuation.

Not entirely scientific, but it was quite evident that Vista was "slower", but all in all, the games were playable. The only game that was chuggy was Neverwinter Nights 2 and it felt the same on both XP and Vista.

 

It ran without a hitch (except for using the SplinterCell4.exe -ll trick). At first I had problems with the settings not sticking (losing the High Quality Shaders, etc...). Once I applied and saved all settings, then it worked like a charm. All effects and no texture corruptions without setting compatibility mode.

 

in XP nwn2 run more faster then on Vista

 

I can try that, but it appeared that Aero was disabled throughout all the tests. Most evident was in FSX, where the main menu is just a window, yet the OS dropped to Aero Basic.

Also, I should indicate that I minimized the sidebar. With it open, the area of the sidebar flashed through in some games. I think Vista should automatically minimize (or even unload, to save resources) the sidebar before starting a game.