Vista SP1 Gaming Performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter Devoldo
  • Start date Start date
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Devoldo

Just wondering if anyone has had any issues and/or problems since SP1 was
released today.

I know it may be too early to tell what with the manufacturers rushing to
create drivers that will actually take advantage of the over 550 hotfixes
incorperated into SP1, but so far for me at least I have seen at least a 20%
increase in overall gaming performance and system response. One main thing
I've seen that has not improved is any source games. It seems the source
engine is either not a fan of vista, or the 8800 series cards. But as for
games such as World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament III, all seem to have
an increase in FPS and load times.

If anyone has a positive or negative comments for SP1, please let me know;
very curious to see what Microsoft has accomplished/screwed up.


My personal System specs:
AMD fx-62 dual-core processor - 3.4 ghz OCed
4Gb corsair DDR2 800 ram
Western digital raptor 150Gb 10,000rpm HD
Asus Crosshair socket AM2 motherboard
Creative sound blaster audigy 2 zs sound card (which may have prevent
windows update from allowing me to download SP1...had to visit microsoft's
site)

Download Service pack 1 for Windows Vista here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en

Note that only five languages are supported, the rest aren't expected until
mid-april.
 
I can't be absolutely sure, but I think my FPS in Unreal Tournament went up.
I'm playing at 1680x1050 and I'm getting well over 100 fps. Not sure what
it was just prior to the update, but I don't think it was that high. Need
to do some more testing.

Jeff








Devoldjo said:
Just wondering if anyone has had any issues and/or problems since SP1 was
released today.

I know it may be too early to tell what with the manufacturers rushing to
create drivers that will actually take advantage of the over 550 hotfixes
incorperated into SP1, but so far for me at least I have seen at least a
20% increase in overall gaming performance and system response. One main
thing I've seen that has not improved is any source games. It seems the
source engine is either not a fan of vista, or the 8800 series cards. But
as for games such as World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament III, all seem
to have an increase in FPS and load times.

If anyone has a positive or negative comments for SP1, please let me know;
very curious to see what Microsoft has accomplished/screwed up.


My personal System specs:
AMD fx-62 dual-core processor - 3.4 ghz OCed
4Gb corsair DDR2 800 ram
Western digital raptor 150Gb 10,000rpm HD
Asus Crosshair socket AM2 motherboard
Creative sound blaster audigy 2 zs sound card (which may have prevent
windows update from allowing me to download SP1...had to visit microsoft's
site)

Download Service pack 1 for Windows Vista here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en

Note that only five languages are supported, the rest aren't expected
until mid-april. ust prioer u
Click to expand...
us
 
Devoldo said:
Just wondering if anyone has had any issues and/or problems since SP1 was
released today.

I know it may be too early to tell what with the manufacturers rushing to
create drivers that will actually take advantage of the over 550 hotfixes
incorperated into SP1, but so far for me at least I have seen at least a 20%
increase in overall gaming performance and system response. One main thing
I've seen that has not improved is any source games. It seems the source
engine is either not a fan of vista, or the 8800 series cards. But as for
games such as World of Warcraft and Unreal Tournament III, all seem to have
an increase in FPS and load times.

If anyone has a positive or negative comments for SP1, please let me know;
very curious to see what Microsoft has accomplished/screwed up.
Click to expand...

Installed it on my notebook and my sound card driver crashed, a lot. So I had to do some creative tweaking, but other than that I notice no difference between Pre-SP1 and SP1. Microsoft even said, all SP1 is, is a collection of updates that are already out with some minor tweaks.

I can't tell the difference.
 
Devoldo said:
Just wondering if anyone has had any issues and/or problems since SP1 was
released today.
Click to expand...

I've had a problem over the last week with my Nvidia drivers but I've
updated them - so far, so good.

I've noticed a general improvement in Vista's speed and responsiveness and
particularly file copying, but unfortunately in the 3 weeks since I've had
SP1 installed, I've not actually played any games that tax my system (thus
where I would notice a performance improvement).

However, I wasn't led to believe there would be much in SP1 that would
specifically affect gaming. On the other hand, every improvement is
obviously welcome.
 
However, I wasn't led to believe there would be much in SP1 that would
specifically affect gaming. On the other hand, every improvement is
obviously welcome.
Click to expand...

Almost all game performance issues for Windows Vista are the result of (a)
drivers or (b) the games themselves not being tested sufficently with
Windows Vista. Video drivers have improved a lot in the past 6-months or so,
and game publishers are engaging more on making sure their games run well on
Windows Vista.

The key changes in SP1 for gamers would be:

- An update to the DirectX runtime to support the new Direct3D 10.1
extensions for Direct3D 10.1 class hardware. Existing Direct3D 10 vidoe
cards and games are unaffected.

- Support for new content desscriptor for the ESRB rating system in Windows
Parental Controls / Family Safety settings. This means some newer games that
use these descriptors would show as 'unrated' on Windows Vista RTM, but will
be correctly rated on SP1.

- Support for the Korean GRB rating system added in Windows Parental
Controls / Family Safety settings. Newer games that have Korean GRB ratings
should show this in their game's metadata on SP1.

- SP1 includes some key hotfixes that impact games:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/940105
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710/en-us
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945149/en-us

(note a full list of KBs that are included in SP1 can be found at:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...7038-4e82-a32c-4bc10ffe56ab1033.mspx?mfr=true)
 
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