65 replies to this topic

[ObiWanToby]

Mark, on 03 August 2012 - 14:48, said:

Surely even if performance is better/worse, it'll only be a few fps either way, right? I would have thought the OS had very little to play in overall performance. Mainly hardware and drivers!

Windows 8 has had some pretty darn good gains.

http://www.reddit.co..._preview_build/

[+patseguin]

Diablo 3 seems to perform not as well as on 7 but I haven't run any numbers. I also discovered SLI wasn't enabled for who knows how long lol. Why can't the driver install just enable it if it detects 2 or more cards?

[theyarecomingforyou]

I've found gaming performance to be excellent on the Release Preview, so I imagine the final version will only improve on that. However, I came across some compatibility issues with certain games (LA Noire, Crysis 2) and that is simply unacceptable to me. I blame the games developers, as the vast majority of games run without issue.

As drivers mature I have no doubt that Windows 8 will be the faster operating system, just as Windows 7 improved over Vista and Vista improved over XP (yes, benchmarks confirmed it was faster in most games despite people's perceptions).

@patseguin - SLI is always disabled by default and with driver updates, which to me seems counter-intuitive.

[PGHammer]

theyarecomingforyou, on 03 August 2012 - 15:03, said:

I've found gaming performance to be excellent on the Release Preview, so I imagine the final version will only improve on that. However, I came across some compatibility issues with certain games (LA Noire, Crysis 2) and that is simply unacceptable to me. I blame the games developers, as the vast majority of games run without issue.

As drivers mature I have no doubt that Windows 8 will be the faster operating system, just as Windows 7 improved over Vista and Vista improved over XP (yes, benchmarks confirmed it was faster in most games despite people's perceptions).

@patseguin - SLI is always disabled by default and with driver updates, which to me seems counter-intuitive.

Considering that the issues with Crysis 2 and Windows 8 are entirely in DX11 (with DX9, which is the default, 8RP smoked 7 rather badly), I'd wager that it has to do with one of two issues; either Crytek had an OS-ism in the DX11 code (which is utterly inexcusable) or there is an issue with the runtimes (specifically, those for DX 11). I'm thinking that the former (not the latter) is the issue (as other games that support both DX9 and DX11 don't have the issues Crysis 2 does).

[veternan]

snorge, on 03 August 2012 - 13:50, said:

what does the dpc latency do?

Falcon4 @technet:
DPC latency, which (for the uninitiated) basically is how fast the "needs to be processed as fast as possible" tasks in a PC are run. Deferred procedure calls (DPCs) allow programs to "queue" actions to be done quickly in the processor scheduler, and they hang the whole computer until they get processed. For example, drawing a video frame on a screen needs to be done as soon as the data is ready and the frame time is reached. Playing music needs to keep the audio buffer filled in real-time. Moving the cursor is done in real-time as well - the mouse driver uses a DPC to move the cursor around.
That's why DPC latency is important. If there's a hardware driver using a DPC outside of MS's specs for drivers (which say that the DPC shouldn't be used to transfer data, and to return as quickly as possible - e.g. to signal "hey, go get the data")., DPC latency spikes can cause laggy, slow performance, audio glitches/stuttering, etc.

[Mr Nom Nom's]

Mark, on 03 August 2012 - 14:30, said:

Does it support openGL out of the box? A lot of the included drivers don't...

Microsoft does not provide OpenGL functionality - OpenGL functionality is vendor dependent hence if there is no OpenGL provided by said vendor then I'm sorry you're not going to get OpenGL support.

[GP007]

For the most part drivers play a key in performance by optimizing the OS and cutting any overhead (because while you game the OS is still in the background and other things are still going on, then it will only help performance in the end. Win8 is out of the box lighter and faster than Win7, there might be some minor changes to the WDDM, i dunno the details for sure, but that could be why current drivers don't show much change over Win7.

Also doesn't Win8 ship with DX11.1 which is basically a even more tweaked and faster version of DX11 iirc. We just need more games to finally ditch DX9 and go full on with DX10/11 so we can see more of the benefits.

[SHoTTa35]

Since this not discussing a beta product:

Moved to Windows Discussion & Support

[aionaddict]

yeah the games I played on the release preview felt like they were stuttering even though the overall fps was good so I guess that was a dpc latency issue.

[Deranged]

Mark, on 03 August 2012 - 12:21, said:

Couldn't say on my system, AMD's RP drivers don't seem to install properly.

I assume they're blocked as the release drivers are newer. I don't have it so can't verify, but it seems logical.

[ahhell]

SHoTTa35, on 03 August 2012 - 16:49, said:

Since this not discussing a beta product:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Once I get my grubby little mitts on the Technet version, Win 8 is going on all my machines at home.

[Artins90]

if you have the leaked RTM installed in dual boot it would be nice if you uploaded some Win 7 and Win 8 RTM benchmarks results so we can start comparing them DX11 benchmarks and cinebench for the cpu would be great

[ObiWanToby]

I'd be willing to run it full time if I knew I could game .

[xendrome]

ObiWanToby, on 03 August 2012 - 21:53, said:

I'd be willing to run it full time if I knew I could game .

Why couldn't you?

[Mark]

Deranged, on 03 August 2012 - 20:10, said:

I assume they're blocked as the release drivers are newer. I don't have it so can't verify, but it seems logical.

Hang on, are you saying there are RTM drivers? I didn't see any....

Tried installing an older version but the catalyst install manager simply didn't even show the option to install drivers.

I managed to get the VISION centre app installed but it only showed power options for my cpu (and clock speed stuff) none of the usual graphics stuff.