32bit Win7 Vs. Vista Vs. XP 641
An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes tested the latest Win7 build against XP and Vista and came to a surprising conclusion: Win7 performs better than the other 2 OSs in the vast majority of the 23 tasks tested. Even installation. 'Rather than publish a series of benchmark results for the three operating systems (something which Microsoft frowns upon for beta builds, not to mention the fact that the final numbers only really matter for the release candidate and RTM builds), I've decided to put Windows 7, Vista and XP head-to-head in a series of real-world tests...'" This review shows only a 1-2-3 ranking for each test, so there's no sense of the quantitative level of improvement.
I question the results. (Score:4, Informative)
Take results with a grain of salt. He ranks Vista as better than XP on the AMD machine and as nearly equal on the Pentium machine.
Of course, the AMD machine has 4 GB of RAM and the Pentium machine has 1 GB, so that could have something to do with it.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Interesting)
that just sounds like a fisherman tale....
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you need the proprietary ATI or nVidia drivers, one reboot at the end of installation and it's done. And, if you do need to download those drivers, that's only one more reboot. Two at most, and you're done.
Not true, even if you use [gxk]dm, you should be able to "activate" the new driver (after updating xorg.conf) by killing the dm. It'll auto-restart and thus load nvidia.ko.
Of course, God only Smiles on you if you use startx.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Funny)
And they say Linux isn't ready for regular users.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Funny)
Of course it is, but the newbies have to suffer a reboot, only the elite get to keep their uptime even while updating graphics card drivers.
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The installer will tell you to reboot anyway, but the driver has been updated.
This is possibly the best feature in Vista
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No need to if your Windows DVD happen to have all drivers either I guess, or atleast not many times.
Do you still have to rebuild/reinstall modules for Linux for each version of the kernel? That's always awesome ..
Atleast you don't have to reinstall every driver in Windows each time you've ran Windows update ...
And before you moderate me flamebait, be sure to understand that it's NOT needed for all other oses.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
That depends on which driver and how you install it in the first place. I use Fedora, so I can only use that for my example. If you use a different distro, YMMV. If you download the nVidia driver from the OEM site and install it, you will have to reinstall it every time you update the kernel, because of the way it works. Or, you can download kmod-nvidia and install that, because that gets updated whenever the kernel does. And, just in case there's a time gap, you can also install akmod-nvidia. That checks on boot to see if you have the latest kmod, and if it's out of date, builds another one on the fly.
So, the answer is, yes, you do have to rebuild/reinstall modules, but the process can, and often is, done either by the distro maintainers, or on the fly without any user intervention.
About rebuilds (Score:5, Informative)
Do you still have to rebuild/reinstall modules for Linux for each version of the kernel?
In addition to the other /.ers' reports :
- openSUSE : No, you don't. .ko into the current modules collection.
if you install the drivers from an RPM (which is one single click on a web-page away, thanks to their 1-click-install feature) everything is taken care of by the package manager.
if you install the drivers from an ATI/NVIDIA installer or something more esoteric that you compiled your self, the openSUSE kernel upgrade will attempt (successfully in all my occurence) to import automatically the previous
- Debian stable : no you don't.
Everything including the kernel version, etc. stays the same across version updates, except for patched bugs. The previous modules keep working because the situation is exactly the same as before.
Atleast you don't have to reinstall every driver in Windows each time you've ran Windows update...
The fact that their whole OS stays exactly the same and doesn't improve a bit over the course of 5 years may have something to play in this situation.
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Unless you need the proprietary ATI or nVidia drivers, one reboot at the end of installation and it's done. And, if you do need to download those drivers, that's only one more reboot. Two at most, and you're done.
The only reason you'd ever need a reboot when installing Linux (apart from the obvous one to boot into your freshly installed system) would be if a new kernel had been released since your installation disk image had been issued and you have to upgrade. A kernel upgrade is the *only* case you have to restart a Linux (or pretty much any Unix nowadays for that matter) system (unless you managed to lock it up tight).
Video drivers are merely kernel modules (loaded dynamically, so no reboot) and a X11 server, thu
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Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Informative)
It's possible that the people who compiled the test results rated the OS's from 1 to 3 with 3 being the best
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
But he could have benchmarked Vista and XP, then given an above/below rating for Windows 7.
And in fact, he HAS [zdnet.com] performed that test in the past and come to the conclusion that XP outperformed Vista.
The fact that his results are reversed this time must throw serious doubt on his credibility.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
The test you link to used SP2, while the new tests use SP3. XP SP2 and SP3 aren't the same thing. In fact, most benchmarks put Vista SP1 ahead of XP SP3 or at least within spitting distance of each other.
I'm not a big fan of Adrian, but he does hardware pretty seriously and lays out all his testing method well enough for you to duplicate it.
Just how badly does XP SP3 hurt performance? (Score:3, Interesting)
> The test you link to used SP2, while the new tests use SP3. XP SP2 and SP3 aren't the same thing. In fact, most benchmarks put Vista SP1 ahead of XP SP3 or at least within spitting distance of each other.
I think that's pretty telling, actually, assuming it's the reason. Did Microsoft manage to destroy XP's performance with SP3 enough that it's now below Vista? Did their software department design that "upgrade" or did marketing? (Assuming the two departments haven't been unified this whole time...)
O
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Insightful)
My major problem with these test results is that he ranked them 1, 2, and 3. He should have put in the actual amount of time these tests took so we could see how much big of a difference it is. 1, 2, 3 tells me nothing. The difference between 1 and 2 could be 0.01% or 5000%.
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If he tested all 3 OSes on the exact same hardware configuration and compared those results, then the tests results are valid.
Kindly disagree. There are billion different ways to make or tune benchmarks so that your favourite (OS, language, whatever) will look better.
The results shown are 100% meaningless.
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Partitioning the drive won't make the test any more fair. It may lessen fragmentation between each "chunk" of the drive than an OS would ordinarily take (if you decided to falsely assume that you can put more than one copy of Windows on a single partition without it blowing up).
Hard drives are cheap, and quite re-usable. Get three identical ones. Do your testing, throw the results online, and then reformat the drives and throw them in the nearest fileserver.
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With a fresh partition he meant on a single clean 100% disk coverage partition before installation of the OS. As in not one partition for each OS. I know it looked weird but ..
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Optical media starts at the inside (i.e., closest to the hub).
Magnetic media starts at the outside.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Informative)
i've found out that generally speaking ZDNet articles are total bullshit, with no relevance to the real world.
This article and your example is just one example of that.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Informative)
Take results with a grain of salt. He ranks Vista as better than XP on the AMD machine and as nearly equal on the Pentium machine
Sadly, as much as the SlashDot world not like to believe, this is accurate.
If you have 1GB of RAM even on old hardware, Vista is as fast as XP, as the extra RAM offsets the Vista features overhead and Superfetch and other tricks of Vista help make up performance gains.
With 2GB of RAM, Vista will be faster, even if you have a 800mzh PIII and a 1998 ATI video card.
Vista or should we say the NT kernel in Vista is not slow or bloated, it is the extra features that Vista is doing that consumes RAM that offsets its performance gains over XP. (Search Engine, etc.)
The CPU cycles for the Vista features are light, it is all about RAM. Just like with virtually every Windows and known OS update in history, they want more RAM for the features they add.
- Even for Leopard to perform as fast as Tiger you need 1GB of RAM, which is funny considering Apple was making fun of Vista for the exact same reason.
Here is how it works:
512MB RAM - XP > Vista
1GB RAM - XP = Vista
1.5GB+ RAM - Vista > XP
Windows7 so far is showing that even on 512MB is faster than XP in many cases, which is the result of the event based service manager, that unloads processes/services when not needed and saves RAM.
An example on a running test system with 3Ghz P4 and 1GB RAM:
Vista 41% - OS Consumed RAM
Win7 20% - OS Consumed RAM
See how that might help the Vista RAM overhead and put Win7 back in line with XP?
PS And on this test system Vista is faster than XP - even in gaming with a Geforce 5600 video card.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are some benchmarks right over at tomshardware [tomshardware.com] that show that the "SlashDot world" in this case is accurate (amazing!).
This was on a system with 2 GB of RAM, so according to you Vista should have been faster, but it wasn't. So your idea that it's the RAM that's the problem is bollocks.
Anecdotally, a colleague of mine was complaing her brand new lenovo thinkpad with Vista was slow compared to her imac -- she was kind of amazed that the they had the same processor and memory.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Interesting)
Beyond that, I have yet to see any conclusive benchmarks posted by the defenders of Vista on this thread showing any proof that Vista is faster than XP, just empty assertions. What I do see is a bunch of Microsoft fanboys comforting themselves that their favorite brand released an OS that has turned out to be a flop.
Let me qualify my positions here though. I have Vista installed on an old hard drive on a brand new PC -- my own conclusion is that Vista is not as bad as everyone makes out, but you all need to stop pretending that Vista is fast. It isn't. It's not terribly slow on nice hardware, and it looks very nice and it has some nice features, e.g., the DX10 features on new games, but it's not fast.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Insightful)
Scheduler in Vista also performs worse than on XP (so MS had to resort to such hacks: http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2007/08/27/1833290.aspx [technet.com] [technet.com] ).
Saying this with the link you provide pretty much discredits anything you continue to say.
You have no idea what you are talking about...
Here:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2302499,00.asp [extremetech.com]
Make sure you read the PCMark, then click Next to go to the Gaming Page. Vista outperforms XP in every test. (The only test it is a couple of points behind is the synthetic 3DMark.)
And this is SP3 - the fastest XP compared to Vista.
So go on again about how horrible the scheduler is in Vista, I am guessing you don't even know what a scheduler does and especially I know you don't know how it works in NT.
If you want to put your hands over your ears and eyes and keep screaming, "Vista is slower", try clicking your heels together too, it is as likely to make it true and take you to Kansas.
The Vista is slower myths need to stop and the idiocy behind them is really getting annoying.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is you just don't understand what the audio system in Vista does. It is by far the most advanced personal computer audio system available on any platform. Which is the reason that it needs a more consistent stream of data. Because adjusting the timing to the computer's various speakers so that the audio arrives at your head at the same time rather than leaves the speakers at the same time isn't free.
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I quite understand what Vista audio system does (down to the driver level). For one thing, it doesn't use hardware acceleration (!!!) anymore and does everything in software.
"It is by far the most advanced personal computer audio system available on any platform." - is a complete lie.
JACK (http://jackaudio.org/) is probably the best personal high-quality audio system (it has a zero-latency design). It's followed by PulseAudio which is now not quite yet zero-latency but much more efficient.
Adding some more l
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Interesting)
True. I wasn't exactly clear. I'm talking OS audio subsystem for delivering audio from apps to the hardware. Not apps.
Right. Zero latency. Talk about lies. It establishes callbacks in the apps, writing into shared memory segments which are then mixed and delivered to the standard linux audio device. Yeah. Zero latency as long as you stay ahead of the playback. Just like pretty much every sound system since the days of the original Soundblaster Pro using DMA. Where's the signal processing layer in there? Oh, it's third party. Where's the channel synchronization? Can't find it. And awesome how it punts sample rate changes back to the apps. And it uses floats as the sample format? Talk about a really bad design decision. I mean you get three of four apps going in hi definition audio (96/24/7.1) and you're going to be seeing twenty or thirty percent of your system going down the shit hole just to do sample format conversions. And what is the upside? Nothing. For every 32 bits of sample data you get 24 bits of mantissa and a useless exponent. And shockingly enough it's all software. Where's that hardware acceleration you're so fond of?
And what happens under load and the realtime scheduler can't quite keep up? Ah, I see, you get drop outs. What happens on Vista? Nothing, they hook into the scheduler to guarantee that their audio paths get time on the CPU.
It's not a matter of delaying individual streams. It's a matter of delaying individual channels from the same stream. So that your rear speakers sitting against the far wall behind you play just a bit earlier.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Informative)
"Right. Zero latency. Talk about lies. It establishes callbacks in the apps, writing into shared memory segments which are then mixed and delivered to the standard linux audio device."
That's pretty much all I want from my audio system. Just give me a precise control over my audio stack and then you can build anything on top of it.
XP does exactly this - there's a fast, efficient, hardware-friendly kernel streaming layer.
Vista on the other hand forces you to use inferior-quality stack because MS couldn't figure out how to do protected audio path with kernel filters.
"Yeah. Zero latency as long as you stay ahead of the playback. Just like pretty much every sound system since the days of the original Soundblaster Pro using DMA."
DirectShow is famous for its imprecise timing control due to KMixer ;) My previous employer made a lot of $$$$$$ by making time-correcting kernel streaming filters.
"Where's the signal processing layer in there? Oh, it's third party. Where's the channel synchronization? Can't find it."
Everything is third-party. JACK only gives you a microsecond-precise information about audio system. You can do the rest yourself.
"And shockingly enough it's all software. Where's that hardware acceleration you're so fond of?"
It's possible to have hardware filters in JACK. The problem is that hardware filters are not that useful for professional-type audio systems. Look at OpenAL/EAX for hardware acceleration of spatial sound and other goodies.
BTW, OpenAL Creative Drivers even work on Vista by bypassing all its audio stack.
And.... SURPRISE! Windows Vista uses 32-bit floats as internal audio sample format ( http://blogs.msdn.com/larryosterman/archive/2007/04/03/volume-in-windows-vista-part-1-what-is-volume.aspx [msdn.com] )!
"And what happens under load and the realtime scheduler can't quite keep up? Ah, I see, you get drop outs. What happens on Vista? Nothing, they hook into the scheduler to guarantee that their audio paths get time on the CPU."
Newsflash: if Vista scheduler can't quite keep up - you'll get sound drop-outs (I _do_ get them when I test my audio app on VMWare). There's no way around it. Realtime scheduler guarantees that your audio stack will get the highest priority, just like in Vista.
"It's not a matter of delaying individual streams. It's a matter of delaying individual channels from the same stream. So that your rear speakers sitting against the far wall behind you play just a bit earlier."
That doesn't matter. It's still not hard to do using kernel streaming.
I can distinctly remember that nice '3d-room' settings on my Creative Audigy 2 back in 2003. All in hardware.
Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying then, if I got this right, is that the best audio system on the planet is the one that you have to write yourself? Awesome.
Didn't say it was hard. Said no other OS is doing it. Your argument seems to be that it's possible to do something, therefore it's already been done. To go for the car analogy, you are saying that since you can melt a Honda Civic down and recycle the materials into some of the parts needed to custom build a super car, a Honda Civic is better than a Bentley Continental.
Show me another OS that, out of the box, has the same feature set that Vista has. Any linux distro. Any kernel. And I'll concede that Vista doesn't have the most advanced audio system. Until them blather on, but you're still wrong.
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True. You have to calibrate it first. But once calibrated it delivers to the position you told it your head would be in.
The devil is in the details (Score:4, Funny)
Explain to me why this rates a +3 "Informative" mod when the poster tells us absolutely nothing more about his system, his applications, or how he uses his machine.
Re:The devil is in the details (Score:5, Informative)
How about this.
HP DV9825NR
1.83 GHz T5550 Intel
4GB DDR-800
320GB SATA
512MB GeForce 8600M GS
RealTek HD Audio
I had to hack drivers to get the video card to be seen under XP.
Used for audio production, I made a quick multi-tracked setup using CoolEdit under both Vista and XP, then tested mixdown/encoding from .WAV to MP3.
XP beat Vista - 13 seconds in XP vs 28 seconds in Vista, for the same minute and a half of music.
For gaming, even with my hacked driver to get the video card recognized, playing Fallout 3 in Vista at 1280x720, medium details, gives me an average of 32 FPS. In XP, same detail settings and resolution, I average 40, following the same path, same difficulty. In XP I also lose the stuttering issue in Fallout 3 that Vista users seem to be getting, which seems to be caused by the audio subsystem, as turning audio acceleration to Basic stops about 90% of the crashes, and fixes several noise loop issues.
So, Vista SUCKS. My laptop is dual-booted with it and XP, and I only use the Vista partition for internet stuff, webcam, skype audio chat, etc. Games and any WORK gets done in XP.
I want to try 7 on this laptop.
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It's not pointless.
Re:I question the results. (Score:5, Funny)
Take results with a grain of salt
Salt is forbidden by the EULA......and my doctor.
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Re:I question the results. (Score:4, Informative)
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If I didn't have compatibility issues with Windows 2000, I would still be using it (for games, that is). It is the only Microsoft product I have ever been content with.
Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Informative)
I agree. Nobody is selling 32-bit processors anymore.
Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
Of course they can, and do. Vista x64 runs 32 bit apps just fine.
Unfortunately MS doesn't have the source for all the devices out there, and can't just recompile all of those to be 64-bit, and the 3rd party vendors that can do it, would rather not spend the effort -- hell, they kicked and screamed and did a half-assed job of updating their drivers to work with Vista in 32 bit (the main source of most real Vista woe).
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Since MS adopted the LLP64 [wikipedia.org] model, there really isn't a need to recompile 32 bit code to make them run on a 64bit OS. This model maintains maximum backwards compatibility but sacrifices it for forward compatibility. A 64 bit program would have to be rewritten for a 32 bit OS in this model. So companies would have to write and maintain two different source code trees for separate compiled versions.
Unix and Linux went with a LP64 model. Forward compatibility is stressed instead of backwards compatibility.
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I'm not sure what your point is.
So proprietary code stifles the advancement of hardware....
No, proprietary code stifles the support of legacy hardware.
New hardware, conversely, tends to be supported by proprietary software first, and the FOSS comes later.
And niche hardware tends to be exclusively supported by proprietary software, and FOSS never gets around to adding support. (Think medical instruments, etc...)
Meanwhile, open source drivers for linux and bsd have been ported to 64bit hardware years ago.
Yup,
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Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
To some extent they can. The problem comes when an app relies on a custom driver (either because it really deals with hardware, to help it enforce it's drm, to provide drive mappings or whatever). 64 bit versions of both windows and linux need 64 bit drivers.
For example it is only recently that a netware client has appeared for 64 bit windows and it seems they still don't support 64 bit XP. And it looks like my first generation M
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. Nobody is selling 32-bit processors anymore.
Intel's Atom processor is 32-bit.
Linux can handle 32-bit applications on 64-bit OSes. Surely MS can do the same?
It's the proprietary drivers that make it hard for MS to do the same. In Linux the vast majority of drivers are maintained in source, so this isn't as much of a problem.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Informative)
32bit or 64bit is essentially meaningless...
Unless you have more than 3.5 GB of RAM
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:4, Informative)
Unless you have more than 3.5 GB of RAM
Unless you allocate more than 3.5 GB per process.
PAE has gotten around the 4 gig limit a long time ago.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Informative)
Despite supporting PAE, Vista-32 still limits addressable physical memory to 4 GB (Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]). PAE will also run into problems at 64 GB, whereas 64-bit machines shouldn't reach another addressing limitation until they hit 16 EB.
Transitioning to 64-bit is a better solution in the long term.
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Unless you're playing tricks like storing other data into the upper bits of pointers, this shouldn't matter; from the application perspective addresses are 64-bit. With current hardware a bunch of bits is always zero, but allowing applications to use more memory should come transparently with newer hardware generations, with no recompilation necessary.
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You mean like 8 and 16 bit addressing? Or did you miss the problems we're having with 32bit allocations?
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It's like all the wackos out there want to stop using 8-bit and 16-bit processors [wikipedia.org] and replace them with Pentiums. I'll upgrade my toaster when they pry it from my cold, dead hands!
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Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:4, Insightful)
64bit x86 gives you 4 times the general purpose register space and twice as many vector registers, which is a huge benefit for an architecture that's so lacking in register space.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:4, Interesting)
And in practice extra x86-64 registers are not that great improvement because modern CPUs got very good at pipelining and data prefetching.
Good point. However, those extra registers may matter quite a bit more for something like the 64-bit Atom processors, which deliberately forgo most speculative features that mitigate register pressure. It would be interesting to see whether it's a better use of silicon to make an out-of-order processor or a 64-bit in-order processor when you're operating under the power constraints of the Atom. The current existence of 64-bit in-order Atom processors suggests that the performance per watt impact of 64-bit is better than out-of-order execution. I suspect this is because 64-bit takes less silicon than OOE, in a similar manner to how useful a good implementation of simultaneous multithreading can be.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:5, Informative)
lol. you've drunk the kool-aid, 32bit or 64bit is essentially meaningless
There is kool-aid, but you need to check you own cup.
If you are referring to the Apple marketing machine, they ya, 32bit and 64bit are not much different, just larger memory addressing. (Of course OS X is still a 32bit OS could be the reason they like to create this mis-perception.)
On a real 64bit OS, there are 64bit registers and tons of other tricks and optimizations that happen, let alone full 64bit drivers that can shove data to devices oh like Video cards much faster.
If you look at Vista x64 it performs 15% faster than Vista x32 if you have 2GB of RAM.
This includes not only the OS's operation, but even 32bit applications running on the OS.
You see when you have a 64bit memory addressing and can optimize for this in the memory manager you no longer have FS and pagefile lookkup tables for extended amounts of RAM.
You also can do like Vista x64 does and shove two 32bit memory writes into on 64bit address space, so when it can, you get double the read/write performance out of the memory chip because you are pulling two 32bit chunks in one read cycle.
And we could go on and on and on...
Understand yet?
Links Please. (Score:3, Insightful)
full 64bit drivers that can shove data to devices oh like Video cards much faster
How do 64bit drivers speed up DMA [wikipedia.org]?
This includes not only the OS's operation, but even 32bit applications running on the OS.
My understanding is that 32bit application would run slightly slower if the CPU was in 64bit mode. Presumably 15% would be the overall system performance, including legacy 32-bit applications?
You see when you have a 64bit memory addressing and can optimize for this in the memory manager you no longer have FS and pagefile lookkup tables for extended amounts of RAM.
What is a FS (filesystem?) lookup table?
You also can do like Vista x64 does and shove two 32bit memory writes into on 64bit address space, so when it can, you get double the read/write performance out of the memory chip because you are pulling two 32bit chunks in one read cycle.
By "64 bit address space" I presume you mean 64 bit register (you fit 2^32 32bit address spaces in a 64bit address space). But even in 32bit mode Intel CPUs can access 128bit registers via SSE [wikipedia.org]. Anyway, this presumably has more to do with your com
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While it may take a particularly clever compiler to use the extra width of the registers when operating on 32bit data, even the most basic compilers will be able to take advantage of the fact that there are twice as many general purpose registers.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some good TechNet articles at Microsoft that would give you specific answers of what happens on Vistax64 with regard to 32bit memory allocation. (The SDK/DDKs will also give you some answers.)
Also check out interviews with NT engineers at channel9.msdn.com.
As for you questions regarding the compiler, yes. If you compile your application for 64bit, optimizations like you describe are handled unless you disable them in the compiler.
However, the things I was talking about in reference to Vistax64 is that running 32bit code on the 64bit OS, gives the OS the ability to make decisions like this on the fly for upper level system RAM (not CPU level optimizations/etc). So on Vista x64, and running your 32bit code, it will execute faster on Vista x64 because the OS is running faster, but also if you are using large chunks of RAM, the 32bit application will get additional boosts by combining 32bit memory chunks into one read/write of 64bit space.
Once you get what you need on what Windows x64 is doing, head over to AMD and read about CPU specific optimizations that happen in the register and cache levels of the CPUs when executing 32bit code.
Even if you stick to 32bit development, your applications get benefits of Vista x64.
---
Side Note for others:
Anyone here that installs Windows for gaming, if you have 2GB of RAM, grab the 64bit version of Vista, you will easily get 15% more performance out of your games over Vista x32 and XP.
And if you play MMOs, your zone and load times in either version of Vista will make you never want to touch XP again as it is often a 10x to 20x difference due to SuperFetch.
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You need to check out how Snow Leopard is built a little better, as it will not be 100% 64bit. It will be 'more' of a hybrid, but still not a full 64bit OS.
Actually, it will be a full 64-bit OS from kernel to user with legacy support for 32-bit carbon and cocoa. By your reasoning, XP 64 and Vista 64-bit aren't 100% either as both use the less-elegant WoW for 32-bit stuff and System32 for the 64-bit bits. This, in addition to the fact that Microsoft requires separate versions, rather than just shipping a product that covers both architectures. There's also that pesky problem that most programs for Windows are 32-bit apps, and many are very fragile on the 64-
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Two reasons for this (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Netbooks. The Atom processors in most netbooks are 32-bit only. Also consider any other embedded scenario where 64-bit CPUs are not available, practical, or where 64-bit addressing is not necessary.
2) Upgrades. Windows does not support upgrading from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS (you have to choose the "clean install" option). If you want to sell upgrade discs to the vast majority of current customers, you need to sell 32-bit copies.
Re:Two reasons for this (Score:5, Insightful)
If they were halfway competent, they would port VirtualPC to Win7, include a modified copy of XP that will only run 1 program at a time, and include drivers to share the clipboard between the host and the guest. A little configuration magic so that launching the virtual machine also launches the application instead of a desktop, and virtually 100% all current software would not only work, but could be sandboxed by default. If they really wanted to do things right, they would include images for every version of Windows and MS-DOS ever released. This would not only improve security, clean up the API DRAMATICALLY and keep only one code base which would be fully 64-bit but it would also make Win7 by far the MOST backward compatible version of Windows ever released. Hell, they could make even make it XBox 1 compatible and let all of their partners re-release all of their XBox 1 games as "XBox Classic".
Of course, this would have the negative side effect of not letting them claim that backward compatibility was the reason for all of the crap in Windows.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Cool idea. Now let's take a step back and look at the realities:
Port VitrualPC to Win7: I suspect it'll already run on Win7, but even if it won't they'd do that anyhow.
Drivers to share the clipboard: Sure. Of course, you'd also need drivers to handle OLE stuff (drag-and-drop, for example). I'm sure it could be done, but don't make the mistake of assuming it's trivial. It takes a bit of work (made utterly painless, but still required) just to allow near-seamless mouse movement in and out of the virtual windo
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Drivers to share the clipboard: Sure. Of course, you'd also need drivers to handle OLE stuff (drag-and-drop, for example). I'm sure it could be done, but don't make the mistake of assuming it's trivial. It takes a bit of work (made utterly painless, but still required) just to allow near-seamless mouse movement in and out of the virtual window.
This stuff is already done by their competitors. So, even if it isn't 'trivial', it is something they will have to do anyway.
Virtually 100% all current software would work: Except, you know, anything that needs 3d hardware acceleration. Or direct driver access. Or more than two COM ports (yes, such programs exist, and VPC's limitation to 2 COM ports is an issue for the one program we have that won't quite work right in Vista. The problem could be worked around, but it's indicative of the greater issue).
So, your saying that MS sucks too much and does not have the resources to bring their product up the match their competitors who are already on the market? I'm not buying it.
Sandboxed by default. How sandboxed? Windows supports an incredible number of forms of inter-process communication. Some programs rely quite heavily on such things. You could allow the VPC to run one process and all the programs that it spawns, perhaps, but there would still be problems.
MOST applications don't share data via inter-process with other applications beyond a simple clip board. But even for the ones that do, you would at least know what applications were trying to access what. Eve
Re: (Score:2)
The last 32-bit only processors were sold about 2-3 years ago so I imagine that most OSes are going to continue to support regular x86 for a long time hence.
Most owners of the original macbooks (Intel Core Duo) would be pretty pissed if Snow Leopard didn't support them because their processors aren't x86-64 compatible.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, Apple does this on a pretty routine basis. My girlfriend's powerbook is PowerPC based, so Snow Leopard won't run on it. My even older powerbook was 603e based, and couldn't run OSX. My desktop was 680x0 based, and couldn't run OS9.
Apple has transitioned many times throughout their history, each time adding a virtualization layer so that older applications could continue to run on new hardware. This didn't help older hardware run the new OS, but that has been seen as an acceptable compromise.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
PowerPC is freaking ancient and were supported for 7-8 years, which is all you can reasonably expect
The last PowerPC Mac I bought was less than 8 years ago. They only started selling Intel Macs in 2006 - about three years ago from the launch of Snow Leopard - and they didn't transition all of their product lines until some time in 2007. Leopard was the only version of the OS to be released after the switch. Not supporting three-year-old hardware is pretty poor, even by Apple's standards.
Re:Still making 32 bit? (Score:4, Interesting)
What bothers me about Vista 64 is that Microsoft do not let you load unsigned drivers. Got a driver from a vendor that's not signed? You have to go through the trouble of signing it yourself and kicking your OS into test mode. The problem became worse with SP1 when MS made several known workarounds disappear.
I understand they're trying to work against root kits but I'd rather be able to easily install any drivers I choose on my own system then have Microsoft protecting me against myself and causing me all kinds of grief. I've also never been hit by a root kit and I would guess that regular viruses are just as problematic and more common for nearly everyone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Driver signing requirement is NOT for rootkit prevention.
It's here to make pro-DRM studios happy. Plain and simple.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"Rootkits? You wish. Microsoft was trying to prevent people from doing sneaky things like rip DVDs and record the audio output from programs like Windows Media Player to "rip" DRMed files."
Vista x64 does not prevent people from ripping audio streams, DVD disks or Blu-Ray disks. Almost all the tools that allow this on 32 bit windows work on 64 bit windows. Even the Slysoft people don't have a problem with 64 bit windows.
Completely useless (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words a totally subjective opinion with no numbers/statistics to back it up, also known as Totally And Utterly Useless.
Re:Completely useless (Score:5, Insightful)
It isn't useless. It isn't "subjective" since it's based on actual objective measurements. It conveys the indication that Windows 7 has *broad* performance improvements.
It has been suggested that exact numbers were not given due to the beta's EULA clause that prohibits benchmarking against the pre-release build.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You can dance all you want, but the truth is we have no evidence that they even performed testing since there are no numbers. That's not subjective, it's called an editorial/not factual.
If there are numbers out there, other people can compare and go "hey, that isn't what I got using the exact same setup as you tested with", etc.
The eula literally says "NO BENCHMARKING ALLOWED" so this means that this guy isn't even allowed to benchmark. It doesn't say "no posting of a benchmark", it says no benchmarking per
Re:Completely useless (Score:5, Insightful)
You may not disclose the results of any benchmark tests of the software to any third party without Microsoft's prior written approval.
What the author did was within the bounds of the EULA since he didn't disclose the results (the numbers).
What really frustrates me though is that you would suggest that the author is LYING. What gives you the right to make such accusations? Are you working on some kind of historical precedent? Do you know the author personally? Has he lied before? Or are you just being a douche? I can completely understand if you want to see the raw data, so do I. But really, I thought Slashdot attracted a smarter caliber of readers who don't have to result to personal attacks. Apparently, I was wrong.
For the record though, the relative performances he gives us are a valuable indicator. Are you saying that a race scored based upon who crossed the finish line first instead of a stop watch is not a valid way to measure the performance of the athletes in it, because I can think of plenty of sports (even a few Olympic ones) that are scored this way. That makes no sense. Maybe next time, you should think before you post.
win7 rocks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:win7 rocks (Score:4, Funny)
A friend showed me build 7000 for the first time a few minutes ago.
It blue screens in kl1.sys and reboots the whole system every time he tries to register the Kapersky AV it nagged him to install.
I'm showing him Kubuntu 9.04 alpha 2 now, but I haven't found a way to show him a crash.
Re:win7 rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:win7 rocks (Score:4, Informative)
So, you're saying that when Win7 nags you and clicking the nag opens up http://www.microsoft.com/windows/antivirus-partners/windows-7.aspx [microsoft.com], they're pointing you to uncertified software? BTW - I just went to his system and did the install again and didn't get any warning about installing uncertified software, so I'm guessing it's signed.
Are you guys actively testing Win7, or just ragging on people that don't report the bestus experience ever?
Re:win7 rocks (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as he reported the issues to MS, then it all seems like standard operating procedure for using test software running on a test OS.
No 64bit test and a 4gb system? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do a 64bit test as well as most system today with with 3-4gb ram + video ram and other system stuff go over the 4gb limit 32bit.
My benchmarking scheme (Score:3, Funny)
Windows Vista 3rd
Windows XP 2nd
Windows 7 1st
Windows 7 wins... it uses the least number of letters.
Microsoft has a good version of Vista! (Score:4, Informative)
Their 64 bit version of Vista is actually the best consumer level OS they've done so far. It's the version that should become Windows 7. It's stable, fast (way faster than the 32 bit version on my machine), and its backwards compatible with almost every application that I've tried.
If they made the default install 64 bits, they'd actually be pushing forward an improvement in their consumer OS. As it is, we'll be living with Vista mk. II.
I'll bet the folks who work on the 64 bit version are scratching their heads wondering why they bother!
Re:Microsoft has a good version of Vista! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
How does it "feel"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does it "feel"? (Score:4, Informative)
How often do you really have to move 100 MB or 2.5 GB of files around?
A benchmark like this still probably matters though, as if it's fast on moving 100 MB (a size more easily measurable than 10 MB), it's likely faster at 10 MB too. And it's at these ranges it starts creeping into everyday use and the "feel" you're talking of.
Judge it when it's done (Score:3, Insightful)
I've said the same when people complained about crappy Vista beta results, so I will say it again: Judge the system's speed when it is done. No nanosecond earlier.
The reason is simple. First, it's plenty possible that there are still parts missing. Parts that can weigh the system down again. In Vista's case, we saw a pretty good improvement in handling, but this can work the other way 'round too if early results are promising (maybe too promising) and optimizing takes a back seat to other matters.
From what I can see so far, Win7 still has some stability issues. Improving stability often comes at the price of speed. It is entirely possible that MS tried to get a system out for "beta report" tests that is as fast as possible to get these desired effects. Vista's resource hunger and its sluggish handling was one of the core gripes reviewers had, so it was likely the first tests Win7 will be put to will be about speed and handling. Vista had no really crippling stability issues (aside of driver problem which are arguably the hardware supplyer's problem), so this won't be one of the things reviewers will make a big fuss about.
So what did they produce for a beta review? Exactly what we have here. A system that is as fast as it can be, everything else back to the corner there. Yes, it's maybe crashing from time to time, but it's beta, you know, and Vista already was stable, so they'll get that done by release, no worries. Now imagine it was the other way 'round, stable as a rock but sluggish. Yes, it's beta, so the speed issues could be ironed out, but reviewers would have had a field day with it.
Bluntly, I don't give a flying fsck about a beta review of Win7. Wake me when it's ready for release. In other words, when SP1 arrives.
No extra garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
Notebooks? (Score:3)
I think that would be an important test what with vendors clinging onto selling XP with laptops/notebooks for as long as possible.
It could be (Score:5, Insightful)
The general feeling around here is that no-one WANTS to believe it is even possible that Windows 7 doesn't suck. Because if that were true, that would sort of devalue everything done to improve Linux the last few years. (because if Windows 7 is fast and stable and lets you play games, that doesn't leave any room for Linux on the desktop)
It could actually be that Microsoft got it right. It may be that the core of Vista is not as terrible as we all think it is. I've seen posts discussing how Vista uses a completely refactored kernel, with more layers of abstraction and cleaning up of many of the quirks of win32.
Then, on top of this decent foundation, they overloaded it with poorly thought out gimmicks in an attempt to compete with Apple. In addition, some of their rewrites introduced new bugs, such as the networking problems where Vista machines are unable to talk to shared file servers.
It's possible that Windows 7 succeeded. If they fixed the bugs, and ripped out some of the bloated, inefficient Vista code then you might have a decent OS after. Microsoft might be a monopoly, but if they sat on their heels for too long, eventually (it might take 10 years) alternatives would overtake them.
Has nothing to do with linux, OS X, BSD, hurd ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that is bullshit. If Microsoft got their act together and made somethign as fantastic as Longhorn was supposed to be it really doesn't have anything to do with linux, a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I read that article.
Microsoft developers are actually TRYING. Remember, there are a LOT of these people : I know quantity isn't everything, but microsoft has thousands and thousands of these men and women. Also, while standards have gradually slipped as the company grew, they have always tried to hire degreed computer science graduates with the top grades. Meaning, on average, microsoft developers are at least competent.
Sure, brilliance and freedom and various efficiencies (as well as IBM having a h
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
UAC can be disabled (and in general, UAC only confirms things that would request confirmation in other OS, or at least priviledge elevation... yeah yeah i know, people say "but in Linux you only have to sudo ONCE!), you can do that in Windows too...just doesn't seem anyone realise you can elevate a Window or a terminal session instead of an operation...which is exactly how you'd do it elsewhere...)
Changing the control panel back to basic is in plain view. You go to the control panel, and at the top left you
Re: (Score:2)
Vista is pretty stable. I know people like to crap on vista but in terms of stability it is far better than xp has been.
Re:win7 performance (Score:4, Informative)
Who likes chairs anyway?
Steve Ballmer, that's who.
Re:win7 performance (Score:4, Insightful)
"Win7 performs better than the other 2 OSs" In other words, it only crashes once a month, instead of once a week.
The article wasn't about Windows 2000 vs. 98 and 95.