[HWI] Gaming in Windows 8 vs Windows 7: what's the difference in performance? - Page 6

Windows 8 still does not have drivers as mature as Windows 7. In 1 year it would be better to test.

You keep saying I'm proving myself wrong. Wrong about what?

While smoothness is subjective, if many people wind up agreeing that games are smoother, it still becomes a factor when debating between upgrading to Windows 8 or not.

Am I the only one that doesn't see him making any real points or much sense?

Well it's nice to know i waited. I am glad this review came out. I am looking forward more improvements down the road cuz i know all of us are not ready to leave Windows 7 because most games work well with it for the time being until we'll probably be forced to leave like how Windows Xp happened.

However the DX11.1 is exciting but i ain't having any high hopes because most games through the following year of 2013 isn't gonna need DX11.1 til maybe 2014 or 2015 games will be very demanding on high specs who knows.

1) Yes there were MANY things wrong with Windows Vista when it first launched.

a) File copy operations were slow sometimes. They had to issue a patch even before SP1;
b) From what I remember LAN connections were also slow because they had rewritten the network stack and it wasn't polished yet;
c) Compatibility with programs written in the days of Windows XP. They issued a lot of patches to improve compatibility with many programs;
d) GPU drivers were buggy. And yes, this is Nvidia's and AMD's fault, but also Microsoft's, after all they have a WHQL program for a reason and it's in their best interest to work with their partners to ensure that people have a good experience;
e) UAC was and is more intrusive than in Windows 7;
f) Many minor UI annoyances that were sorted out with Windows 7:
g) Windows Vista uses more RAM than Windows 7 and Windows 8. Hardware catching up doesn't mean you can't have a more efficient OS, especially in the mobile side of things, when a laptop will last longer on the battery if the OS is not constantly retrieving more stuff from the HDD like my Windows Vista laptop (a Core 2 Duo T8300 with 4 GB of RAM and a 200 GB 5400 rpm drive, which was always being accessed with Windows Vista and isn't with Windows 7 or 8);

2) There are no vast improvements in speed with Windows 8. Gaming benchmarks show it's a tie; productivity benchmarks show an improvement in some cases, but you can't call them VAST. Booting and shutting down faster is a clever trick, but you can obtain much of the same effect by using hibernation or sleep on Windows 7.

3. What is your definition of a completely rewritten kernel ? Windows 8 is a further enhancement of Windows 7's kernel, which was an enhancement of Windows Vista's kernel.

4. Neither the thread or the article it links to is a fallacy. Any test done objectively is valid. What you are arguing is a subjective feeling that has nothing to do with objectivity.

The objective truth is: Windows 8 came out, people want to know if they should upgrade right now - in case there are any clear improvements right away, or if there are no regressions, like there was with Windows XP -> Windows Vista, which is still in many people's minds and the reason this test is done. Some people might just be content with there being no regressions and will make the decision of upgrading, others will feel there aren't any improvements that they will take advantage of, and therefore decide to stay with Windows 7 at this point in time. If Windows 8 is later patched and suddenly offers more gaming performance, then people will surely want another review to detail the progress made and see if then there is an advantage. People who rely on objective data are not going to buy Windows 8 and then "Give 8 time to have some mature drivers.", expecting to eventually see better performance (your argument implies to a certain degree that the performance may improve, but there is no objective data do back that up, for all we know performance might as well stay the same, with only the regressions being fixed), no, what people will likely do is stay with Windows 7 and yes, "Give 8 time to have some mature drivers.", and if those more mature drivers provide better performance, then they will re-evaluate the situation, just like any person using reason to weigh the pros and cons of spending time and money to upgrade will do.
Edited by tpi2007 - 11/11/12 at 3:46pm

I doubt we will see to many great games in future 2 years.By then W9 will be out .We will have some multiplayers like CS GO ,some COD and some BF titles.They will all use older DX 11 versions in best scenario ,to be cheap and bring as much money as possible.

No ,DX 11.1 will not be the decisive factor in W8 adoption. We will switch naturally from W7 when W9 arrives.

Exactly.

Err, that happened once with Vista/7 (Even then, it's arguable as Vista was good after a few months), XP was crap to begin with, 2000 was crap to begin with, ME could have possibly improved but there was no point as the 16/32bit hybrid thing was out-dated by then.

It's like with the "trend" of Nintendo only using low-end hardware in consoles...despite the N64 and Gamecube being quite fast for their time and only the Wii and Wii U being arguably under-powered.

The "memory leaks" was simply Vista using your RAM to cache programs, it easily gave it up. At the very least, those were the ones I knew of that most people complained about. FPS was lower than XP but games were a lot smoother, I know, I ran Vista from beta on a Athlon XP 2600+ Single core with 1GB RAM, the touted performance issues were completely crap unless you were on a 1Ghz Pentium III. It did use more RAM than 7 on average but

Latency, ever heard of MIcrostutter? You can have ultra high FPS but if there's significant pauses between frames then you'll sure as hell see it. I was playing a lot of Oblivion and Guitar Hero 3, XP I got lag on GH3 but on Vista despite having lower FPS it was smoother.

FPS can be skewed by software bugs and lag and is hardly the end all be all of gaming performance.

Yes but I mentioned earlier microstutter is mostly on the driver's side and not so much client side. That usually gets taken care of relatively quickly with drivers and patches.

Reading comprehension must not have been your strongest suit in school.... Its funny that you don't bring any of your old arguments you were making and keep referensing smoothness. And yes you are pretty much the only one who doesn't see... Let me just say I won't be replying to your anymore because its just a waste of time.

While it's being discussed I must admit I did think things felt "smoother" when I installed windows 8, I figured it was a placebo but one thing for sure that's smoother is alt tabbing in and out of games :l My previous windows 7 install was not old and bogged down either, so that doesn't come into it :l

I'm fully adept at comprehending things if you were actually making any points.

I said smoothness is subjective, and then you turn around and talk about how smoothness is subjective as if you're making some kind of counterargument. Just because it's subjective does not mean it isn't a factor for someone who is thinking about upgrading their OS. If enough people come forward and say they see a difference for the better in terms of less stutter or more smoothness, which is hard if not impossible to measure without just sensing it, that information is much more useful than objective data that shows equal performance if you add any margin for error.

You honestly have not made a single useful point in any of what you've said. You just keep saying "wrong" and attempting to demean.

edit

This post and many others like it that I've read are what I'm referring to. People have had similar experiences in games as well. You can get identical frame rates with the experience still being perceptually smoother. This information is not useless if tons of people experience the same thing.


Edited by Kaldari - 11/11/12 at 5:24pm