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| | (Post a comment) » Windows 7 Beta Gaming Performance: XP vs Vista vs 7Which OS delivers better gaming performance at this point: Windows 7, Vista, or good old Windows XP? Tom answers this question testing all three operating systems out on midrange and high-end systems through 7 different games as well as USB transfer and 3DMark testing. See how they all stack up in this article! |  Previous news article | Back to main news | Next news article  |
| 24 User Comment(s) • 9 root comment(s) |
 Labotomizer (989)   Jan 24, 2009 - 09:52 am
| I think the article nails many of the points I think are important about Windows 7.
1) Boot Time vs Ready Time. I think this one is particularly important. XP and Vista can both "boot" and be at the desktop in about the same amount of time as 7. However 7 is ready when it gets there. If you click FF or IE it's already responsive. Even if you have things that start with Windows, it seems to be much better at determining background processes versus what the user is actually interested in launching.
2) Driver maturity. While the latest drivers should work with 7 you can't simply download and install them it seems. So you have to wait for the ones published through MS which almost always favor stability over performance. So we'll probably have to wait to see if it really gains in performance closer to launch.
3) The comment on the new taskbar is spot on. At first it seems odd but after a few days going back to the older versions of Windows seems archaic. The cool thing is the jump lists are capable of pulling Recent file information from any program that supports a recent file list. Even old ones. i.e. I installed Visio 2003 under 7 to do a diagram the other day. You can right click the Visio taskbar icon and it still shows you the jump list of recent drawings despite it being a 6 year old version.
4) Something I feel is beneficial, but all will not agree with me which may be why it wasn't mentioned, are the new Aero features that change Aero from simple eye candy to something truly useful. The new taskbar icons are the surface. Aero Peek, where you can mouse over a running program and see a mini preview, then moust over the mini preview to see the full screen window without minimizing other programs is handy. The Aero show desktop implementation is also handy, although that I think is mostly just eye candy. It's not terribly useful as I don't need to see my desktop unless I'm actually trying to get to something. However, Aero Snap is incredibly useful. Take a window and drag it to the side of the screen and it tiles it to that side at 50% of your screen. Drag another window to the other side and you've got a convenient side-by-side view. Aero Shake is also handy. Grab a window, shake it and everything else minimizes.
5) New resource monitor is on par with Sysinternals process explorer. Very, very useful.
6) Complaints - removal of parental controls kinda sucks, although they hint at it being a free download. Odd power issue on my laptop. On battery during startup or shutdown it will lockup. If it's on AC power it's fine. Once in Windows I can take it off AC power and it's fine as well. Very strange.» Login to reply to this   Yoda_Blues (263)   Jan 24, 2009 - 11:44 am
| Thanks for your comments. I was going to mention the mini-preview feature (which I love!) but since it's a performance article, I didn't want to get too bogged down in particulars.
About the parental controls, they will be available in the final version, just part of the free download called Windows Essentials that will also include Movie Maker, Windows Gallery, etc etc.
On your power issues, most likely just a simple bug that will hopefully be ironed out before release. So you have it installed on your laptop? I was thinking of installing it on my netbook just to see how it ran. How's battery life?» Login to reply to this Labotomizer (989) Jan 24, 2009 - 12:02 pm
| | Battery life is excellent once I switch over. 3.5 hours at work the other day and I still had 20% left. And a side note, it's a Core Duo 1.6 Ghz with 1Gb of memory and an Intel integrated graphics card. It runs Aero without issue and everything is smooth. I'm guessing it's using software DX10 but it runs extremely well. I had 7 FF tabs, Acrobat 9, 2 Putty consoles, Remote desktop, VNC and Media Player going and it was still quick and responsive. It really makes XP seem slow on the lower powered machine. » Login to reply to this |
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