xp sp2 vs vista sp1...

Well, I have been reading all these benchmarks, and most of them seem flawed. I know at times, Vista can be slower, but personally I think, that it isn't all the time. There are things I like about Vista and things I don't. I did a personal benchmark with the same hardware, clean install, and used PC Mark 05 and 3D Mark 01. I ran all the test 3 times. All from a cold start, so there was no caching from a restart or what ever there might be. Just thought I would share my results and hopefully I don't get judged, that this is a flawed test. Everything thing is ran with the latest drivers and all set to default, no optimizing was done. So here is the test...

Test Setup (Tried to keep the hardware similar to what a typical person would use)
Pentium 4 (not dual core) 2.4Ghz
Intel p865 chipset
2GB DDR 400
80 Gig Maxtor HDD
Nvidia 7800 GS XP/Vista Driver 169.25
XP SP2 w/ current drivers and updates, and the same w/ Vista SP1 RC refresh

Startup time:
XP - 37 sec
Vista - 47 sec

3D Mark 2001:
XP - 9805
Vista - 11122

PC Mark 2005:
XP-3198
Vista - 2665

HDD XP startup: XP - 7.2MB/s   Vista - 7.18
Physics: XP - 98fps   Vista - 75.53
Transparent Windows: XP - 1040 windows/sec   Vista 474
3D: XP - 189fps   Vista - 180
Web Page Loading: XP - 1.82/s   Vista - .94
File Decryption: XP - 48.27Mb/s   Vista - 48.1
Graphics Memory: XP - 1352.59fps   Vista - 1165.21
HDD - General usage: XP - 5Mb/s   Vista - 4.97
Multi app test:
1 Audio: XP - 785.2kb/s   Vista - 739.8    
1 Video: XP - 106.14kb/s   Vista - 97.75
2 Text: XP - 46.5   Vista - 37
2 Image: XP - 9Mb/s   Vista - 8
3 File Compression: XP - 1.62/?   Vista - 1.43
3 File Encryption: XP - 13.3Mb/s   Vista - 12.14
3 Virus Scan: XP - 26.47Mb/s   Vista - 20.48
3 Latency: XP - 6.47   Vista - 6.35

These tests took a looong time to do. So hopefully someone finds them useful.

So the conclusions is that, in most categories, Vista is slower?

For a reliable test, make sure you disable everything that doesn't come with Windows (including anti-virus firewalls, Office etc).

Also try testing the difference between XP's startup and Vista's unhibernation.

evildictaitor wrote:

Also try testing the difference between XP's startup and Vista's unhibernation.

That would be unfair. A fair test would be xp's hibernation and Vista's hibernation.

And running the tests only with defaults on - that doesn't provide a realistic result. Especialy if the performance of non-default stuff (e.g. AV realtime) is affected by the OS.

GoddersUK wrote:



evildictaitor wrote: Also try testing the difference between XP's startup and Vista's unhibernation.

That would be unfair. A fair test would be xp's hibernation and Vista's hibernation.

And running the tests only with defaults on - that doesn't provide a realistic result. Especialy if the performance of non-default stuff (e.g. AV realtime) is affected by the OS.

Does XP have hibernation? I forget (it's over a year since I used the beast).

If so then by all means.

Basically the test should not be for like-like operations, but for getting your box from an overglorified paperweight to something you can do something on.

evildictaitor wrote:



GoddersUK wrote:  evildictaitor wrote: Also try testing the difference between XP's startup and Vista's unhibernation. That would be unfair. A fair test would be xp's hibernation and Vista's hibernation. And running the tests only with defaults on - that doesn't provide a realistic result. Especialy if the performance of non-default stuff (e.g. AV realtime) is affected by the OS.

Does XP have hibernation? I forget (it's over a year since I used the beast).

If so then by all means.

Yes, Vista doesn't, IIRC... at least I can't find it

I want it back

Didn't Vista combine standby and hibernate to make some kind of uber low power, but still powered state. I wouldn't have thought they'd get rid of the other two though.

Lloyd_Humph wrote:


Yes, Vista doesn't, IIRC... at least I can't find it

I want it back

Start menu -> little arrow next to the two buttons which turn off and lock respectively (bottom right) -> hibernate.

GoddersUK wrote:

Didn't Vista combine standby and hibernate to make some kind of uber low power, but still powered state. I wouldn't have thought they'd get rid of the other two though.

Hibernate is an unpowered state. Maybe you're thinking of "Sleep"?

evildictaitor wrote:



Hibernate is an unpowered state. Maybe you're thinking of "Sleep"?

Sry, that was badly worded. I was meaning in addition to hibernate

evildictaitor wrote:



Lloyd_Humph wrote:  Yes, Vista doesn't, IIRC... at least I can't find it I want it back

Start menu -> little arrow next to the two buttons which turn off and lock respectively (bottom right) -> hibernate.

I don't have it.

I'm assuming it's an Ultimate thing... I never used to reboot before, just hibernate

There was no other software installed. Just the base os and all the current updates.

At least with my system, it seems Vista is only about 2% slower. Not the 50% most websites or blogs are posting. Even on my Core 2 6850, 2GB DDR2 1333 and SATA II drives, and a geforce 8800 GT 512, my findings right now w/ Vista sp1 rc refresh, is that Vista is less than 5% slower. Maybe it will be less than this in the final service pack. The only thing that I know for a fact, that is slower, is waiting for programs and downloads to finish. They seemed to sit there a bit longer than they should. I thought I heard it had something to do with the shadow copy, but not totally sure. 

From my little bit of research, it looks like hibernate isn't available from the shutdown menu if hybrid sleep is enabled (which combines sleep with hibernation:  the hibernation file is saved to the hard disk, then the computer goes into standby and resumes from memory unless power is removed).

This is an excellent test...thank you for doing all of this work. I'm sad to hear that Vista is any bit slower, but I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who believes the media is stating exaggerated numbers. I can't understand why there is such a general hatred of Vista...it's really not that bad, or bad at all.

My only real complaint is that Microsoft consistently has the worst UI/User Experience. I wish they would realize how far smooth transitions and minor usability features would get them.

farina wrote:

My only real complaint is that Microsoft consistently has the worst UI/User Experience. I wish they would realize how far smooth transitions and minor usability features would get them.

Trust me, we know

There a lot of work being done on this aspect and, while there are some (yeah, a lot) of rough edges in the UX, we get the overall user interaction model as well, if not better, than our competitors.

But we're working on it. Let's hope you'll like it

Lloyd_Humph wrote:



evildictaitor wrote:  Lloyd_Humph wrote:  Yes, Vista doesn't, IIRC... at least I can't find it I want it back Start menu -> little arrow next to the two buttons which turn off and lock respectively (bottom right) -> hibernate.

I don't have it.

I'm assuming it's an Ultimate thing... I never used to reboot before, just hibernate

I have a button to the left of the Lock button, which "saves my session and puts my computer in a low power state so that I can quickly resume working."  Hibernate, in other words.

You can also change your settings in Control Panel > Power Options > System Settings to make your PC's or keyboard's buttons engage hibernation(, sleep, or shutdown).

That's in every edtion of Vista I have used thus far (Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate).

JChung2006 wrote:


I have a button to the left of the Lock button, which "saves my session and puts my computer in a low power state so that I can quickly resume working."  Hibernate, in other words.

No, hibernate is a state which requires no power. That's more like a glorified Sleep state.

Hibernate saves settings and open apps etc. to memory then shuts down the PC, and reloads them back into the OS upon boot. Saves re-opening stuff...

Lloyd_Humph wrote:

I don't have it.

I'm assuming it's an Ultimate thing... I never used to reboot before, just hibernate

Hibernate is available on all Windows Vista versions (well, maybe not Starter), however if your computer supports "Hybrid Sleep" it will not be available.

With hybrid sleep, using the sleep option on the start menu saves state to the hard disk (like hibernate) but doesn't turn off power (like standby). If your system loses power while in hybrid sleep, it will still be able to resume as if it was resuming from hibernation. Additionally, after a configurable period of time (the default is 2 hours if on battery and 16 hours if on AC) the system will hibernate properly automatically.

Hybrid sleep works fantastic imho. My laptop supports it (my desktop does not), I always use hybrid sleep so if I return to it within two hours it resumes within a second, and if its longer its hibernated so I don't waste battery, and can still resume in about 15 seconds.

You can disable hybrid sleep in the power options (choose "Change plan settings" for the active power plan, then "Change advanced power settings", then it's under "Sleep", "Allow hybrid sleep"; if this option is missing your computer does not support hybrid sleep), after which the regular hibernate option returns to the start menu.