Windows Vista Gaming Performance

It is apparently true for DX9 games (and below) and has something to do with the fact that behind the full-screened game, Vista will still be running Aero and everything else, and so taking up resources that could otherwise be used by the game.

I thought I remembered reading that Vista was going to have a special setting for full-screen gaming that involved shutting down or turning off any resource that wasn't vital in order to give the games the maximum amount of computer power possible.

Either this never happened or maybe it will only apply to DX10 games.

We'll see what the actual benchmarks are when the completed Vista is released, which shouldn't be too long from now.

JonML at 2007-9-3 >

DirectX 10 games should run really well, due to the architectural advances in the new DirectX model. The API has completely eliminated the GDI as an "intermediate" layer and now can access hardware more directly.

Now, for DirectX 9 games, there could be a potential, although in reality I don't see a difference (I am running the latest Vista both 32-bit and 64-bit) in any of my games.

Also, from what I understand, having Aero enabled or not has minimal to no impact on fullscreen games. As long as the game is written to use "Exclusive" mode (a feature available since the beginning of directX), then the desktop will not be drawn in the background (hence, using up mem and processor).

If something I said doesn't make sense, let me know.

Thanks,

Reza

RezaNourai-MSFT at 2007-9-3 >

My god, CS runs at 15 FPS? Something's seriously wrong here.

Try enabling XP styles rather than aero.

robinjam at 2007-9-3 >

Are you sure you have updated your drivers?

Maybe your ammount of RAM or processor speed is low?

If not, it's a serious problem!

I think they must fix in the final version or Vista will not mean anyhting for most of the users.

mustafa91 at 2007-9-3 >

There seems to be a huge difference between different games, some work just like before and some works realy bad.

This is my experience of vista so far:

Battlefield 2, Equal framerate, slightly faster loadingtimes on vista. BF1942, 50% lower framerate and double loadingtime on vista(auch!). WarCraft 3, Equal loadingtime and framerate. Quake 3, Equal loadingtime and framerate in fullscreen, in windowmode framerate and loadingtime is about 10 times slower on vista(unplayable). Quake1, About 10times slower on vista(unplayable). FlatOut 2, Equal loadingtime and framerate.

System: nforce2, athlon 3200+, 1gb ram, 9800pro 128mb

Chimme at 2007-9-3 >

I think memory is the only issue. As for the guy with a 85FPS difference - that is merely something wrong with the display driver... get WDDM drivers for the 7800GT and call it a day..

erode at 2007-9-3 >