Jump to content

Vista vs XP vs Ubuntu Linux


Azrael Strife

Recommended Posts

Vista rules. That test was crap for Vista because it needs a minimum of 1GB of RAM just to stay awake. You shouldn't be running Vista on a crappy box like that anyway.

 

I could perform the same test on my Vista machine with 3GB of RAM and a quad core CPU and it would take about 5 seconds tops.

 

Anywho, nice test for OS's that can run on lower end machines, but that ain't going to work well with Vista.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is Vista's main problem, it requires too much power just to run, leaving little room for optimal performance. A proper test should use the same top-noch computer for all OSes involved. Care to volunteer your machine for such tests Pete? :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could perform the same test on my Vista machine with 3GB of RAM and a quad core CPU and it would take about 5 seconds tops.

Any system that requires more to do the same is IMO worse.

 

Vista offers little to none real improvements and demands much more to run normally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It could be argued that Vista takes better advantage of modern hardware - That you'd get better decompression times with Vista if all computers were using quad cores. I agree, it'd be good to see some tests done with a ninja PC.

 

However, seeing as most of the systems it's shipped with lack that sort of hardware, that's something it'll have to "grow into". It's not a selling point just yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any system that requires more to do the same is IMO worse.

 

Vista offers little to none real improvements and demands much more to run normally.

 

Completely agree, I find it rather insulting that even games require almost invariably twice the minimum requirements of XP to run in Vista.

 

The only thing Vista has the advantage over other OSs that it's MS and so hardware manufacturers provide better support (i.e. official drivers and such) for it. But over Windows XP? I'd say it has none.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
Vista rules. That test was crap for Vista because it needs a minimum of 1GB of RAM just to stay awake. You shouldn't be running Vista on a crappy box like that anyway.

 

That is like saying parapalegic could win a foot race against an average man if he had a rocket car.

 

Blatantly giving one side, however handicapped it may be, enough advantage to be one-sided is not a fair test.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That might be the case now, but in a few years you won't be able to buy the metaphorical running shoes. The choice will be between rocket cars and warp drives - there won't be any more foot races.

 

Sure, there'll still be older rigs around with older hardware, but they won't be on store shelves.

 

Am I saying Vista is just ahead of it's time? No, I'm saying a test using older systems is just as biased as a test using more powerful ones. If Vista can pull a better time when all OSes are using the same rig, then it does hold at least some advantage.

 

Though as I type this I've just sat down and watched that video for the first time. Twelve minutes, man.... There must be some serious thread priority issues there, wouldn't mind seeing a task manager view of what's going on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Vista machine had the better rig in that video, complete with twice the RAM. That is why I brought up the "parapalegic with the rocket car".

 

It's basically underperforming despite working with a slightly better rig than the rest. However, if you performed the same test to accomodate for it's overuse of resources (Like trippling the rig's abilities) that is giving too much handicap.

 

But here is the problem... The more you upgrade the Vista machine, the more you must upgrade the other machines to accomodate equality. The mere fact that Vista underperformed using more power nulls everything, however. The more you upgrade, the other rigs will just get better and better, while Vista will just be starting to stand up on it's own feet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Going off on a bit of a tangent...

 

Me mum decided she wanted a laptop, and so got me to specifically order a Dell. Turned up a day or so ago and I've been slowly setting it up (read: wiping all the crap off it) since then.

 

Now for whatever reason Dell only offers Vista on their laptops, so that's what it's got. To save confusion I've set it to up to look more or less the same as Windows 95 (in much the same way as I did with her old XP system). I'd played with Vista a little bit, at least long enough to say that it feels like XP with a bad case of paranoia.

 

Anyway, I was "putting up" with most of the changes on the basis that some of them seemed to make sense, but I ran into two humdingers that I thought worthy of mention.

 

First off, network permission errors. You wanna copy a file from a network folder to your local drive. Boom! "Destination Folder Access Required". What, Vista means to tell me I don't have access to the folders on the laptop's drive? Nope, the actual problem was I didn't have permission to access the FILES from the SOURCE location. The folder they were in was set up just fine, the folder they were going to was set up just fine. Vista's error message was misleading bull.

 

A web search gives me the impression it's supposed to replace the ambiguous "Can't do what ever to file or folder: Access denied" messages of old. But all they've done is made an uninformative message (Why can't we access the file? What's using it?) plain wrong.

 

Next up! Initiating file transfers. I go to copy a file, move a file, whatever and Vista gets stuck sitting there for a good five to ten seconds or more apparently "calculating the time remaining". The more files I try to operate on at the same time, the longer it sits there. Then it finally gets around to doing it's job but it's STILL calculating the time... So what's going on?

 

Well, turns out there's a service called "Windows Search", and it's job is to slow things the hell down. I assume if I'd let it live file searches (you know, those things you do once every few months) would run a bit faster (due to the file index it maintains), but with it off file transfers (you know, those things you do once or twice a day) seem to be running smooth.

 

I'm willing to bet that the twelve minute zip file operation was mostly due to that same "feature".

 

Not really liking Vista thus far. Sure, it might work to my satisfaction if I keep kicking it long enough, but I shouldn't NEED to kick it any more then is required to turn off all the performance hogging cosmetics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, the one thing I've found out about the new Live Search is: Let it live.

 

It'll only take a couple of days to complete the indexing. After that, it pretty much boosts file access speeds across the board. Pretty much any Windows programs that comes on more than one file, or that creates and accesses other files will see the speed improvement.

 

As for file transfers, it's fixed in SP1. You may want to check if it's installed. If it isn't, I'd like to warn you that there are install issues between SP1 and some Dell systems.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I re-enabled the service and it doesn't seem to be causing any more slow downs. So I dunno, I guess it can live for now... I Googled around a bit as to how to force a complete index to be built ASAP so I'll tweak the registry as required and hope that I don't see any more issues there.

 

Used 7Zip to extract a 70mb RAR file. Pulled out over 10,000 files in about 40 seconds. Not too bad. Wouldn't dream of using Windows' built in ZIP support, hopefully I can disable that in the same way as you do with XP.

 

Can't seem to tell if I'm running SP1... All the places I'd expect it to be displayed aren't mentioning any such thing, but Windows Update doesn't offer it up for download either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not surprised. There must still be issues with installing it on some Dell computers. So far, I've had it install with no problems on 3, but the 4th just dies on startup. Restarting then causes the Startup Repair program to go into an endless loop. I should know, I left it to "repair" over the weekend. No luck. Had to do a System Restore.

 

A quick check online shows this to only occur on some Dell computers. Last I checked, there's no way to tell for sure.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As much as I resisted it, I finally decided to give Vista a go, I just cannot help it, I HAD to try it (hey, I study Computer Science, I just cannot help myself).

 

My system specs are as follow:

 

1,5 GB RAM DDR2

Pentium D 2,66 GHz

nVidia GeForce 7300GT 256MB

80GB HardDrive (need an upgrade, badly)

 

I was wondering how the Aero interface would work, if at all, hearing that it was such a resources hog.

I couldn't contain my curiosity (and firm thought that you just cannot resist an eventual upgrade to Windows, you'll eventually be forced to, especially if you're into gaming or such) so I got myself Windows Vista Ultimate (if I was going to let loose a monster, let it be a BIG one)

 

I am very surprised to say that so far it works as good, or even better, than my previous Windows XP Pro SP2.

I still don't like the concept that this thing requires such high system specs, but oh well.

Running with Aero Glass, btw, and it works perfectly, only problem so far was a complete system freeze, apparently random (had to reset with the reset button, Windows was not responding at all), but all of us have grown accustomed to sudden freezes or reboots from MS products, so I wasn't that much alarmed (thought it wasn't a good omen, luckily it hasn't happened again).

 

So, if you got the specs, the upgrade doesn't seem as painful as I imagined it would be, but I still have a lot to test, I still don't really like the fact that most games require twice everything to run on this, but...

 

Somehow, Firefox 3 and the Windows Updates seem to run faster on this :blink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once indexing is completed it boosts file access speeds across the board. Although I'm not too sure about Windows Update. :blink:

 

I'm guessing all those hating Vista vehemently for it's slow speed have never let the indexing finish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, indexing must have been pretty fast on my system, I didn't notice it at all! :blink:

I'm guessing all the updates and the SP1 finally did their job and this thing is (nearly) as stable and useable as WinXP, I'm satisfied with my change ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
  • Create New...