Windows 7 Performance Guide
by Ryan Smith and Gary Key on October 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Gaming: DX9
As we have moved most of our benchmark suite to DirectX10 these days, it's not possible to run XP under our normal gaming test suite given its DX9 limitation. Instead we have taken a limited selection of our test suite that does run under DX9, and compiled separate results for it so that we can compare Vista to XP and Win7 using our GeForce GTX 275. On the next page, you will see our regular test suite.
FarCry 2
Featuring fantastic visuals courtesy of the Dunia Engine, this game also features one of the most impressive benchmark tools we have seen in a PC game. We set the performance feature set to Very High, graphics to High, and enable DX9 with AA set to 2x. The in-game benchmark tool is utilized with the Ranch Small level.
Left 4 Dead
This game is a blast and addictive to boot - provided you like killing hundreds of zombies while trying to take care of your teammates and sustaining high blood pressure rates. We enable all options, set AA to 2x and AF to 8x, and play back a custom demo of a game session from the Runway Finale chapter within the Dead Air campaign.
Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
While not a true flight simulation or even serious air combat game, it is a lot of fun and looks visually stunning on a 30” monitor with all options turned up. In our case, we set all options to high, enable 2xAA and DX9, and then use FRAPS to time a custom demo sequence.
World in Conflict
We utilize the built-in benchmark for our game test. We set the resolution to 1920x1080 with 2xAA/16xAF, DX9, and High Quality options.
On a final note, although we didn't include a multi-GPU setup in here, there will be much greater differences in performance there. Vista and Win7 get much better multi-GPU performance, which is something we've seen before such as in our Release Candidate article.
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Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
It is Vista with a facelift. If you already have Vista i agree with you. I only have Win7 thanks to my Technet account. Doubt i would pay for the upgrade from Vista.But I still think Win7 is a very kickass OS. I have been impressed. Except for the dumbing down of UAC.
bigpow - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
If you're just going over the features, and installation of Win7 - why call it performance guide?"Intro to Win7" would be more appropriate.
We expect to see performance related GUIDES, when we saw that title.
Not just some boring and obvious old-recycled presentations the whole internet has already gone through.
So boring!
computerfarmer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
Windows 7 was released and the people with AMD systems running RAID setups were in shock, no RAID drivers for windows 7. This is an issue. Today there has been RAID drives posted at the AMD site, with the posting date back dated to the 22nd.I had tried for hours try to get this new OS installed on the 23rd, but none of the available drivers were accepted by Win7. There for I could not install with a RAID setup. After Googling for a bit I realized I was not the only one, this was a far bigger problem.
My initial excitement of enjoying the weekend with the new OS did not take place. It is now monday and I am wondering when I will take another stab at another install attempt.
The link I have found for the AMD RAID driver is
http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx">http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx
Why was this issue not covered by any review sit?
Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
This is an AMD issue, not a Win7 issue????How is it Microsofts fault AMD dropped the ball with their RAID driver support?
DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"Why was this issue not covered by any review sit?"Because it's not a Windows 7 issue.
computerfarmer - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
I believe you are half right.If a business runs a raid setup and most do, they can not use this.
If individuals run raid, they can not use this.
If millions of businesses and individuals can not use this. Then what good is an operating system that so many can not use. This is not good business.
The RC version worked with the existing drivers and the RTM version came with out warning that the rules had changed for this OS. The OS has changed, therefor this is an OS issue.
Genx87 - Wednesday, October 28, 2009 - link
How many businesses do you know run RAID on their desktops? I'd like to know myself because in the thousands of workstations I have built over the past years only a handful ever used any form of RAID. And those were RAID 1 and I am convinced the engineers who ordered them only did it to say they have RAID.DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
"Certainly someone is going to bite my head off for this, but I don’t think Microsoft should have made such a fundamental change to UAC. More casual users may not have been fond of how Vista or UAC Level 3 handle security, but it was a more secure choice than Level 2."What are you doing complaining about security while running as admin?
UAC is about social engineering. That it acts like a security feature is because if you want to engineer towards the security model with limited accounts, you have to make the administrator account act like one.
The standard access tokens and UAC nags used by the administrator account are not a part of the tiered model's administrator level -- they're there to mimic the experience of a standard user account so programmers will actually program for standard user account access. (and so users will get used to the prompts for elevation that come with operating as a standard user.)
To obsess over a reduction in limited user -type security in the administrator account is to miss the point that that's not even aligned with Microsoft's security philosophy. Their model (along with everbody else) has been tiered privileges, not somehow patching all possible vulnerabilities out of root.
Vista's default UAC was pretty much universally reviled. People wanted fewer nags, meaning less limited-access -like behavior. But you can't have auto-elevation without a reduction in security.
Could Microsoft do a better job securing the hole they opened to god-mode from the administrator account? Yes. Would the amount of effort be insane, judged in light of the fact that an administrator account is supposed to be god mode? Yes.
Should Microsoft rewrite the Win7 kernel so that these apps run in protected space that restricts them to pre-authorized actions and disallows daughter processes just so the lazy and power-mad among us can dismiss the logical security scheme and continue to run as Administrators 24/7? There's always going to be system vulnerability from the administrator account -- that's kinda its purpose. Instead of trying to secure the unsecurable, Microsoft is trying to get people to embrace a better model.
And at least they took out the obvious stupidity, like MSPaint auto-elevating. (You can delete anything [like C:\WINDOWS] from its file manager when elevated.)
And, for the record, I'm one of those lazy and power-mad who run as Admin 24/7. But I'm also on a non-critical machine.
DominionSeraph - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2009.0...">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga.../2009.07...ElectricBlue7331 - Monday, October 26, 2009 - link
What's the big deal about out of the box codec support? Is it really that difficult to get a different media player and/or codec pack?