BentUser has Part II of an in depth preview of Windows Vista, which includes a look at some more Vista features as well as some analysis of overall performance, including a numerical comparison with Windows XP. Also takes a look at the new error reporting/self healing features and the cross-computer syncing features.
Windows Vista In-depth Preview – Part II, Performance
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Vista is teh suxx0rz.
3DMark is really unfair test now, since the graphics board drivers aren’t even completed. At least ATI once stated that their drivers are far from completion, performancewise.
How is 3dmark a good test anyways?
I like to play games not benchmarks. He should have seen if STEAM would work and play some HL2 and a mod. OR any of the other shooters that most people play on Windows, and are windows only.
Where’s the depth?Where’s the stuff that will assure the hart of the average power-user will tick a little harder.
The automatic software aid tool is nothing new.I remember
Symantec and some other obscure online subscription aid service.Lol they seem to first repetitive causing the same problem and than brag about solving it.
http://www.bentuser.com/FileRepository/1222dd22-ff9c-47e0-ae8e-78c2…
That single image represents everything that is wrong with what PowerPoint and its ilk have wrought. God save us!
Edited 2005-10-30 09:11
Hey, it could be worse – at least it starts from zero. Unlike the massively misleading graphs printed by zillions of tech sites (where product X scores 10,000 and product Y scores 11,000, they start the graph at 9,000 and make it looks like Y is twice as good…)
hehe those graphs can be missleading, i prefere a table whith tha actual numbers, mouch more precice and no room for scaling triks.
While I strongly believe MS will have something impressive up there sleeves before Vista is launched, I can’t help but think they’ve taken the wrong approach to an otherwise impressive featurelist.
There is also a lot of marketing, and reworking. Take for example the “Solutions to problems”. The author of the article takes to it like a new feature. The questions-response-“is it fixed yet?” approach is already in the Windows XP Help & Support Center, though it is obviously too well hidden to be useful for “the average user”.
I will sit patiently to see what MS actually delivers, and then decide which “version” of Vista (out of the plethora) I’ll actually install and use!
Edited 2005-10-30 09:33
I will sit patiently to see what MS actually delivers, and then decide which “version” of Vista (out of the plethora) I’ll actually install and use!
Fair enough,maybe the ultimate edition is interesting and fair prized.
The only thing I’ve found really interesting and useful is the hardware accelerated composited desktop. Though it’ll surely require good hardware it will be worth it.
Besides that, there is nothing interesting at all in all these reviews. New games? New skin for Windows Media Player? Come on, who cares…
The other thing worth mentioning is that Vista will take Microsoft’s grip on the user a step further. If XP was already quite intrusive and unfriendly, this “solutions to problems center” and the like promises to make things worse. That’s why I miss Windows 2000, it had almost of the good things XP has, but it actually shows respect for its users.
Last, performance and stability issues should not worry anyone since we’re not talking about a final product here.
Edited 2005-10-30 10:54
Its not like they’ve gone from PPC to i86 or whatever, it’s just Windows NT with nobs on, may be GOOD nobs, but why does it need such huge amounts of memory?
I just can’t see anything that justifies the time it’s taken, or the hardware requirments. In fact I can’t see any reason to spend good money to update.
There must be some, isn’t there?
because I put my taskbar on the top of my screen, the window behavior with the old taskbar from 2000 or the classic mode in XP is unacceptable. But I do change the color scheme to silver which eliminates the blue cartooniness of the default color, tho I am left with a green start button.
I also have used a fairly current build of Vista and the UI is definitely more polished. I like that there is a calander now, and I like the how the address bar and the menu bar have been combined.
jbauer said, “The only thing I’ve found really interesting and useful is the hardware accelerated composited desktop.” and I have to totally agree. However, this computer was a decent machine in 2001 and really can’t run Vista with all the eyecandy turned on. But this machine already runs the software I want to run now, so I find it very hard to justify buying a whole new rig just to see Vista’s eyecandy with the futher knowledge of DRM and ‘trusted computing’ are coming along for the ride as well.
As it is, Vista isn’t. There’s too much of a trade off for too little in return. 2000 was good, XP was a step down in many respects, but for the bullseye, Vista misseda!
SO what you’re saying is a hardware accelerated desktop needs a more powerful computer that a software run one?
Maybe I’m dim, but I’m sorta missing the point again.
SO what you’re saying is a hardware accelerated desktop needs a more powerful computer that a software run one?
I think the real question is, why?
Texture and geometry storage and the use of shaders are a few good reasons. Accelerated drawing/compositing itself is not what is driving the minimum requirement of a DX 9 GPU for Glass. The feature can be done on lesser hardware but at the cost of quality, performance, and flexibility. With that said, the cost of a Glass-capable GPU is currently $40-50. When Vista ships, those GPUs will cost even less and have even better GPUs in their place at the same $40-50 price point.
I could spend x-number of dollars to have a computer that runs Vista’s eyecandy and the software I use already or I could spend nothing and use this computer to run the software I use. Why spend a lot of $’s just so I can have eyecandy on the desktop? I suppose that’s the point.
I could spend x-number of dollars to have a computer that runs Vista’s eyecandy and the software I use already or I could spend nothing and use this computer to run the software I use. Why spend a lot of $’s just so I can have eyecandy on the desktop? I suppose that’s the point.
The point is you don’t have to. Just as w/ any upgrade or purchase in general, you weigh the benefits. If you want to stay with what you have, do so. Vista is about a lot more than eye candy though, and the extra hardware isn’t a requirement to run the OS. If you can run XP well, you should be able to run Vista should you choose to do so. Public builds should be available in the next 2-3 months for evaluation purposes so you can personally decide whether you like Vista enough to upgrade.
Looks like the graphics will be much better if you can afford them. Problem is that an awful lot of this world can’t. Hardware prices will eventually come down but not that fast and certainly not for a few years. So, what is the attraction for 70% of the world?
What is the attraction for business where glitz doesn’t pay the bills? Probably security will be better but probably no better than the competition. Not much here for business.
I don’t see any significant advantages for Microsoft.
Did someone say it was an “in depth” preview?
I couldn’t help but notice this line.
————-You’ll note the they reserve the right to collect COPIES OF ACTUAL FILES such as, but not limited to, networking reports, application files and your documents!—————
They reserve the right to *MY* documents? No sir.
Things continually look worse and worse for vista. DRM, the insanity called it’s system requirements, and now they think they are entitled to my personal files.
Microsoft is endorsing linux.
He kinda forgot to mention that it is opt-in only.
What DRM?
What system reqs? There has been no official announcment for them.
* Vector graphics
* The scaling capability
* Aero glass looks cool (though I’ve got XP set to classic mode)
* Systemwide search
Then again, other operating systems have had these things before (I’m thinking of the CrystalGL and Crystal KDE themes, Enlightenment e17, Beagle, Arthur, BeOS, MacOS X…) I wonder if Vector Graphics for system pictures is really the only major thing that nobody else is doing. (and that can still change before Vista is out)
The rest scares me.
GNOME and KDE have been using vector graphics for agers now(SVG)
Why would anyone measure performance on a pre-beta?
I just switched from Win 2k to XP about a year ago, I saw nothing in XP to get me excited. Now that I’ve finally made the switch, I wouldn’t switch back, too many productivity gains with only a slight hitch to performance. With that said, I see nothing in Vista that will send me out to buy a faster computer to run it.
I think MS’s curse is also thier blessing, namely backward compatibility. As long as backward compatibility is baked in, people will find it convenient and easy to migrate to. Of course the flip side is that as long as backward compatibility is baked in, MS will suffer from bugs, glitches, and security holes.
You say that your productivity went up compared to Windows 2000. I’d honestly like to hear some examples from you.
I don’t mean things like “setting up WLAN is so much easier” because that’s something you usually do very rarily.
Really, what kind of repetitive things go so much better in Windows XP that it improves your productivity?
“You say that your productivity went up compared to Windows 2000. I’d honestly like to hear some examples from you. ”
XP boots faster. Command line tools are better (tab to complete, path size not limited, new commands available like fsutil, symbolic links). Better wizards for when you attach a USB device. Built in remote desktop support. SP2 is XP only (which is quite nice with built in firewall)…
I run XP in the “classic” mode so it’s pretty much like 2000 with the above improvements. I personally have seen no speed differences between the two.
This is the best Microsoft can do? They have eliminated every feature of real value in favor of eye candy and more DRM and general intrusiveness. Visat is the best argument for buying a Mac that I ahve ever seen.
There has been no “official” announcement from Microsoft, but everyone who has worked with Vista at all says that the eye candy is slow and choppy on anything other than a monster graphics card with at least 128MB RAM. The Microsoft employee on that video they released a few weeks ago where he shows off the Vista interface even confirmed this.
But thinking a little further down the road, this sudden jump in minimum system requirements may actually be good for the OEMs and consumers. There hasn’t been a resource requirement jump like this since Windows 3.11 was replaced with Windows 95.
I remember clearly the day I installed Windows 95 on my 486 DX/2 66Mhz with 4MB RAM. I installed it the day it came out, and my heart sank at how slow it was, and it sank further when I realized it was still just DOS under the hood. Windows 3.11 on DOS had blazed on that same machine. I and everybody else had to shell out for more RAM immediately to make Windows 95 work. 4MB RAM cost between $75-$100 back then, but we all did it. Had to be l33t, you know. Going back to Windows 3.11 wasn’t even considered. And so very soon after that, RAM prices plummeted, and computers with 16MB RAM became the norm, since 16MB was the accepted minimum for being able to use Windows 95 decently.
It seems like every time a new version of Windows has come out that hogged yet more system resources, OEMs raised the minimum specs of their PCs and the industry and the technology took a big leap forward. We haven’t had one of those “big leaps” in a very long time now.
The “average PC” specs have been stagnant since about the time Clinton left office, haven’t they? Since 2001, you have been able to expect that an “average PC” will have 256-512MB RAM, 32-64MB shitty graphics card (or shared RAM and an even shittier onboard graphics chip), 100baseT ethernet, a 1 Ghz to 3 GHz processor, 56K modem, a few USB ports, a floppy drive, and an optical drive that can play DVDs and burn CDs. The only component that has been rapidly improving since 2001 is the hard disk, and those are gains only in capacity, not performance.
Just looking at what I remember from all the last “big” Windows upgrades, I’d be willing to bet that the meaning of Vista will be this: The baseline of what we consider a low-end or “average PC” will be raised very quickly, and the prices of those “high end” components will drop like a rock. And it’s about f–king time! If you had asked me in 2001 what a computer in 2006 would look like, I would have guessed they’d be running at 10GHz with 2GB RAM just on the graphics card!
So yeah. That means the very early adopters of Vista are going to need to shell out some extra cash for a super-high-end motherboard and a boeing cooling fan to strap onto it, and also a graphics card that throws off more heat than a hair dryer. Enough people will, and they’ll love it. The dudes who build their own rigs to run Vista will spare no expense on these and other components. They feel they’re due for a big upgrade.
And then they’ll put all of their new luxury components inside of the cheapest, beigest ATX case they can find at Fry’s. That’s the “Windows guy.”
In synthesis… This Vista is not worth changing from XP.
which windows offers the fastest most responsive feel in terms of boot, windows resizing, application launch, etc on identical hardware?
windows 2000, xp, or x64?
which windows offers the fastest most responsive feel in terms of boot, windows resizing, application launch, etc on identical hardware?
windows 2000, xp, or x64?
First I’ll qualify the following by saying I run an Athlon64 3500+ w/ 2GB RAM:
I’d have to vote x64. Though depending on what peripheral hardware you use (mainly printers, scanners, etc.), I’d wait for Vista before going totally to x64. There’ll be a lot more support from IHVs by then.
It seems to me that Microsoft has got all its priorities out of kilt with what end users want; there is now a sizeable number of people – not just elist wankers wishing to make themselves special, who are now actually going out and purchasing Macs; either dumping their PC in favour of a Laptop (iBook/PowerBook) for general computing and a games console for their gaming needs, which, lets be quite honest, consoles are pretty damn good these days, and any justification there may have been years ago about choosing a PC over a games console is pretty much moot.
The other side are those who are either jumping straight for the top consumer line, such as the iMac, or gradually slipping in their via the mini-Mac route; which ever way, its going to be Apple who’s is going to benefit off the canarge in the Windows world – and yes, there are Windows developers who are being open and honest about their praise for the Cocoa and Objective-C/C++ framework.
Linux and various other UNIX’s can pick up the slack there; as long as the don’t rely on Office, Adobe or Macromedia, again, the same scenario of Linux PC plus games console would also work for them – and better still, due to the low cycle of hardware upgrades for consoles, the over all TCO of owning computers would drop as neither would require the upgrade cycles that exist now, due to nutty hardware requirements from the games producers.
I think the requirements are also over the top in that people look over in the UNIX and MacOS X direction and say, “hang on a minute, look at what Apple is achieving with their current crop of hardware and software – how come they don’t have insane hardware requirements” – and they’d be right to ask that; how come MacOS X 10.4 delivers 98% of what Vista promises, delivered now, and yet, it doesn’t demand the same nutty hardware requirements? about the other 2%? the feature would be so obscure, no one could give a toss.
It isn’t about bashing Microsoft but getting Microsoft to justify the stance they’ve taken in regards to not only the features they’ve added, but how they’ve been added and the requirements as to using those features. I think the biggest thing they’ve lost focus on is this; what the average user wants – I can assure the IT wizkids that I sure as heck don’t hear joe averages sitting around the water cooler at work, getting excited about the ideas that Microsoft has been promoting.
I don’t know about you, but every time I hear the promotion of Vista, I quickly swing back to MacOS X and ask myself, ‘what is it delivering that I lack on this operating system’, and I can assure you, there isn’t one thing lacking in MacOS X 10.4 (apart from the 10.4.3 update! 😛 ) that I lust for, which is in Vista.
Wow, if a WinXP user is dissapointed by Vista’s resonsiveness you’re in for quite a horrortrip with Vista. Responsiveness, slow GUI buildup and stuck windows already make WinXP almost unusable for me on 3Ghz hardware, will Vista be even worse?
Slow GUI on Win XP with a 3 GHz CPU? Well, for one, the CPU doesn’t matter much. It’s the video drivers that really make the difference.
I’m running Win x64 on a Athlon 3800 X2 with a nvidia 7800 card. When I ran it without the Nvidia drivers, the GUI was crap just like you describe. After installing the drivers, everything happens pretty much instantly.