Intel X3100 users rejoice! It's finally here! New Pre-Beta Drivers

[mrkitty5]

kind of off the current topic, but has anyone posted a benchmark of windows 7 vs xp vs vista which actually accurately represents the game performance difference?
all the ones I have seen so far have actually shown windows 7 to be worse than both, but from all the times I have used it, it has been obviously much faster.

[diegorborges]

I think until now what you can trust is what you feel. But for me, yeah, 7 is faster.

[mrkitty5]

well, for me, every game has been faster, some by very noticeable amounts (cod 4, xp:15-20fps, 7:25-30 on higher settings) but source games like HL2 EP2 seem to have no difference, which is wierd, as I have always thought of the source engine as being incredibly well optimised.

Also, does FRAPS decrease performance? after a lot of googling this, I have got very mixed answers.

[nicocarbone]

Originally Posted by nando4

nicocarbone - would you be willing to run 'winsat dwm' with one ram module removed? This would give an idea of how much Aero Desktop performance is lost in Win7 in the single-channel configuration.

I did what you asked. I run "winsat dwm" in single channel mode and the result was 1422.39 Mb/s.

[nicocarbone]

Originally Posted by mrkitty5

well, for me, every game has been faster, some by very noticeable amounts (cod 4, xp:15-20fps, 7:25-30 on higher settings) but source games like HL2 EP2 seem to have no difference, which is wierd, as I have always thought of the source engine as being incredibly well optimised.

Also, does FRAPS decrease performance? after a lot of googling this, I have got very mixed answers.

How do you configure COD4 to have this performance? Are you using any modified config file? In which map did you do the test?

By the way, you can use the in-game fps meter in COD4 and compare it to fraps results to see if there is a difference. The command is cg_drawFPS 1

[mrkitty5]

XP: cod4, 640x400, everthing on low, 15-20 FPS (if lucky- the view distance in bloc reduced it to about 5!)

Windows 7: 800x600, all texture settings medium or high, bilinear, glow on, model detail medium, water detail medium. This gives me about 25 fps on shipment, 20-25 on crash, 25 on backlot, 20 on bloc, other maps I can't remember but I have only rarely seen the framerate go below 15, and that was when I was using the PEZBOTS mod, which creates multiplayer bots, which have to run off the CPU, and that lowers freamerates dramatically.

Single player: 15-30 FPS, and only went below 15 once, in the mission when you get nuked.

[mrkitty5]

And no, I have never used a modified config file: all the variables seemed to have no impact on performance, but then again I'm not too experienced in using config files... (although my one great pride was getting Fallout 3 to work playably on XP......However, none of the characters had heads, and I essentially stole all the ideas from people on a site where they were trying to do the same thing...)

[nicocarbone]

Originally Posted by mrkitty5

XP: cod4, 640x400, everthing on low, 15-20 FPS (if lucky- the view distance in bloc reduced it to about 5!)

Windows 7: 800x600, all texture settings medium or high, bilinear, glow on, model detail medium, water detail medium. This gives me about 25 fps on shipment, 20-25 on crash, 25 on backlot, 20 on bloc, other maps I can't remember but I have only rarely seen the framerate go below 15, and that was when I was using the PEZBOTS mod, which creates multiplayer bots, which have to run off the CPU, and that lowers freamerates dramatically.

Single player: 15-30 FPS, and only went below 15 once, in the mission when you get nuked.

I tested your conf, and I can't get your performance results. (What driver are you using?) In bloc for example, it oscillates between 12 and 18fps, and the performance in single player is usually lower too. Maybe Its related to my lower CPU spec (1.83 vs 2.2 GHz), or maybe there is somwthing wrong with my config. I am upgrading to W7 rc this weekend, and test again.

Have you tested your performance in the Killhouse map? This is the worst for me. It has an average of 20fps in one side of the map, but it drops to around 9fps in the other side.

Does any one know how to configure the Windows 7 drivers to use all the screen when using a 800x600 resolution?

[nando4]

Originally Posted by nicocarbone

I did what you asked. I run "winsat dwm" in single channel mode and the result was 1422.39 Mb/s.

So combining this with your previous post we have:

Win7RC1 Intel Core 2 Duo 1.83 GHz, DDR2-667

Config          | Video Transfer Rate 
single channel  | 1422.39 MB/s
dual channel    | 2186.67 Mb/s

So single channel performance is about 65% of a dual-channel config. Quite a significant difference in performance. Wish I had another RAM slot.

[mrkitty5]

nicocarbone, I'm using the latest vista drivers on windows 7 RC.

The processor speed may be to blame, as COD4 can be quite processor intensive. And killhouse is wierd: there is no great view distance, or trees, or other complicated scenery, and yet the performance is almost the worst of all the multiplayer maps, but only when going in one direction! Walking from one end of the map to the other gives 20-30fps, while the other direction gives 13-15!