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Windows Vista gaming will be 10-15 percent slower than XP

Monday, October 9, 2006 · 10:39 am · 31 Comments

“Microsoft is telling its selected gaming industry chaps that gaming under Vista will be ten to fifteen per cent slower than XP. It is because you have to load the 3D desktop all the time,” Fuad Abazovic reports for The Inquirer.

“So if you play Battlefield 2 or FEAR or any other popular game you are likely to get lower frame rates with Vista. That is certainly not a good buying argument but don’t think you and I have much choice as it looks like a take it or leave it deal. I like Vista as the 3D desktop looks sexy but that is probably its key feature,” Abazovic reports.

Full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Yet another reason to Get a Mac. You can run XP and Vista on the Mac if you are so inclined, but you’ll also have Mac OS X if you’re into truly sexy UIs. See Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard (due spring 2007) sneak peek here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Billy Ash" for the heads up.]

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Comment Feed

31 Comments

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Dirty Pierre le Punk

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 10:50 am · Reply

This is significant since the Windows gaming market is huge. You have to think that if MS could have avoided this then they would. Maybe the coding is more out of control than anyone had previously thought.
Steve O

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 10:51 am · Reply

Again, Apple has nothing to worry about with Vista. Apple, crank up your hardware production!
MadMac

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 10:51 am · Reply

Yeah, but we have been shut out of gaming on the Mac for a long time (at least for many newer titles). I’m not much of a gamer, but I think using OS X to bash Vista on gaming is a bit of a strech.
Billy Ash

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 10:58 am · Reply

Check this forum post out. There’s graphical comparison between Vista and XP whilst playing Flight Simulator X.

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=121&topic_id=350718&mesg_id=350718&listing_type=search

Can I mention that Im a new switcher, after 15 years of Windows?

1 massive XP crash later.. Blechhh

I’m awaiting a 24″ iMac.. The ONLY reason that I will be using XP is to play Flight Simulator.
TowerTone

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:01 am · Reply

Windows seems to me like a compost pile. You can keep throwing new stuff on top, but everytning under it is still rotten.
Mr. Peabody

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:07 am · Reply

You know, all sarcasm aside, it really honestly looks like Windows is on a clear downward slide while, as usual, every new Mac OS brings more and better performance, along with great eye candy.

I guess we’ll know for sure when both FISTA and 10.5 are out and about. The “normalizing” of Windows in the market place could come sooner than even I might have hoped. We can only hope…
M.X.N.T.4.1

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:10 am · Reply

I tell you what, you have to give kudos to Microsoft. When they play a joke on the world they really go all out on it.
mudflapper

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:24 am · Reply

I’ve read that one reason why Mac games are slower is because it’s Open GL tendrils run deep. Perhaps games running slower on Vista is because of a similar situation?
macca

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:25 am · Reply

it’s a testament to the efficiency of OSX that my brand-new MacBook Pro (2.16 GHz dual-core Intel/2GB RAM/256MB VRAM) isn’t all that much faster than my three-year-old iBook (1GHz G4/1.2GB RAM/32MB VRAM).

Not only that – each update of OSX has made my old iBook faster. Can any Windoze users actually say that a new OS made their legacy machines faster? I think not! In fact, I hear that Vista will require most people to buy new machines just to run the bloody thing!
tyk

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:26 am · Reply

M.X.N.T.4.1:
That is the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
Macaday

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:27 am · Reply

Well Billy Ash, it’s about bloody time and what took you so long?!

Welcome, you’ll love it I promise.
M di L B Simoni

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:31 am · Reply

Windows people will never believe Mac people that after installing a newer version of OS X the older Macs actually get faster. This is directly contrary to Microsoft’s upgrades, the “standard” of what these people think is normal computing behavior.

Billy Ash should try X-Plane (http://www.x-plane.com/) for his Mac. It has much more realistic instruments, flight characteristics, realtime weather simulation, and scenery.
zerO

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:36 am · Reply

Music to the ear of PC gammers around the world. Now if they could only come to a complete stand still.
M di L B Simoni

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:39 am · Reply

Speaking of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, did you notice they are at version “X”, not “10″ (http://www.microsoft.com/games/pc/flightsimulatorx.aspx). It almost looks like a Mac OS X version of the software. But the graphics looks too cartoonish. Perhaps they had to simplify it to make it run at a decent speed on Vista.

Re: X not 10, Can’t they think of ANYTHING new without stealing an idea?!!!
Chris

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:43 am · Reply

When XP came out, people said it was slower playing games than 98 was. But then new games only would play on XP so…….end of story.
jackspratt

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:53 am · Reply

you know, i recall that Mac OS X 10.4.8 is rumored to contain the code for multi-threaded OpenGL.

so get Vista, get a performance hit. get a Mac, get a performance boost.
Switched

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 11:59 am · Reply

Where is the incentive to up, er, downgrade to Vista?

What feckless idiot is going to do that?

Vista OpenGL runs slower because they are trying to tie people into DirectX. Divide and CON!!!!

The graphics subsystem has to run through layers of sludge too!
darealgreg

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:01 pm · Reply

Sounds like trouble for MS. Vista will not run on many older PC’s. Big Business is not going to buy 10,000 copies of a $300 + operating system, and now the high end gamers are not going to buy something that plays slower. If this is true Vista will be a loss. 8 + years in development and will only going to be installed on new computer purchases.

I don’t see anyone camping out in front of a store to purchase this.
LorD 1776

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:10 pm · Reply

I’d say it’s time for that guy playing Flight Simulator X to upgrade his equipment. Vista is hardware intensive and really shouldn’t be compared on that stuff. An ATI 9600XT? And only 1 GB of RAM just doesn’t hack it. I’m not trying to defend Vista, but I would rather see the comparison on a decent rig. Just my opinion.
MacSmiley

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:22 pm · Reply

Vista doesn’t use OpenGL at all. It uses a Microsoft proprietory graphics engine.
Alex

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:26 pm · Reply

“Yeah, but we have been shut out of gaming on the Mac for a long time (at least for many newer titles). I’m not much of a gamer, but I think using OS X to bash Vista on gaming is a bit of a strech.”

100% correct. OSX is 40% slower in OpenGL rendering than Windows anyway. Answer that one!
mudflapper

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:50 pm · Reply

Alex,

See my post regarding OSX’s slower OpenGL rendering. It must have something to do with the fact that the OS itself uses OpenGL extensively, and Windows doesn’t. Until Vista, apparently.

m
spyinthesky

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 12:58 pm · Reply

Just proves if you have a better or more complex graphics environment you compromise by having a slightly slower (at least) responce. Speed is something that Windows users have boasted about for years over the Mac but the simple truth is that they will now lose that little repetitive chant of theirs while getting nothing as sophisticated or attractive when compared to the Mac to compensate them. Poor deluded fools.
mudflapper

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 1:10 pm · Reply

spyinthesky,

Exactly. That’s what I was trying to say. Thanks.

m
Consoles

Monday, October 9, 2006 - 1:32 pm · Reply

Don’t make decisions about what computer to buy based upon gaming that can be better done on a dedicated (and less expensive) console.