February 28th, 2008
XP SP2 vs. Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1: Gaming benchmark
Conclusions
Because we’re juggling with a lot of data here, I’m going to try to present the conclusions as clearly and concisely as possible.
- On the whole, applying SP1 to Vista makes little difference to most games.
- Seven out of ten of the games tested produced frame rate averages which were lower under Vista than XP SP2.
- However, a closer look at the numbers shows that when Vista is slower than XP SP2, the actual frame rate differences are only in the single digits.
- The only exception to the above is Doom 3, which shows a drop of 19 frames per second on Vista RTM and 15 frames per second on Vista SP1. This is the largest variation we saw during testing.
- The three games which performed better on Vista than on XP SP2 were Call of Duty 4, F.E.A.R. and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
- Vista gave The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion the best performance boost compared to XP SP2, working out at an average of 9 frames per second faster on Vista RTM and 13 frames per second faster on Vista SP1.
So, what’s the bottom line? Well, XP SP2 is still the better OS when it comes to gaming. However, Vista is getting better. Thanks to several performance updates from Microsoft, better drivers from hardware vendors and updates from the game makers themselves (a good example of this improvement is Oblivion, which was awful on Vista when it went RTM but has improved to the point where it’s actually better on Vista than on XP). What would be interesting to try (although I don’t have the time to do this) would be to re-run the benchmarks with a bare, unpatched Vista RTM and compare this to Vista SP1 - my guess is that you’d see significant improvement. Still, even comparing Vista SP1 to XP SP2, it’s clear that Vista has a long way to go before it can beat its older sibling.
Still, the fact that some gamers work better on Vista means that those after the maximum frame rates possible might want to set up dual boot systems.
As always, your mileage WILL vary!
Thoughts?
Note: Here are links to previous Vista benchmark posts:
1 - Some systems showing incredible SP1 performance boost | 2 - Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 - Benchmarked | 3 - Vista SP1 vs. XP SP2 - Part Deux | 4 - Vista 32-bit vs. Vista 64-bit - Benchmarked | 5 - Vista: 32-bit vs. 64-bit & RTM vs. SP1 | 6 - Vista RTM vs. Vista SP1 - Office 2007 benchmarking.
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Adrian is a technology journalist and author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology. He also runs a popular blog called The PC Doctor. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations
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| 02/28/08
