Windows 8 & gaming: yes or no?

[kiddingguy]

Several sites mention there is practically no difference in gaming experience between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

My question to you guys is: is there a difference? noticeable? and is it preferable to upgrade for gaming-sake?

(and not for better performance and memory management, boot time increases etc already in Windows 8)

[Draconian Guppy]

IIRC DX11.1 is only available for windows 8?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

not really, at most you get maybe 1-5 more fps

not really anything noticeable in most cases

[Shaun N.]

Yes DX11.1 is for Win 8 only, I have been using Win 8 primarilly since its release and can't say I've noticed any difference.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

IIRC DX11.1 is only available for windows 8?

game devs have hardly started touching directx 11 and have just began taking real advantage of directx 10

directx 11.1 i wouldn't really say is a selling point at this point in time

[Draconian Guppy]

game devs have hardly started touching directx 11 and have just began taking real advantage of directx 10

directx 11.1 i wouldn't really say is a selling point at this point in time

Crysis 3 !

[Brandon H Supervisor]

Crysis 3 !

crysis has always been about trying to push the boundaries though

most other AAA titles are still using directx 9 as the base and adding in a little directx 10/11 as an afterthought

some companies are starting to announce they're gonna drop directx 9 support soon though thankfully

[spaceelf]

crysis has always been about trying to push the boundaries though

most other AAA titles are still using directx 9 as the base and adding in a little directx 10/11 as an afterthought

some companies are starting to announce they're gonna drop directx 9 support soon though thankfully

They already did. Even Activision finally released one without dx9.

ZeniMaxx is the only major one left that I can tell still releasing dx9 games.

Several sites mention there is practically no difference in gaming experience between Windows 7 and Windows 8.

My question to you guys is: is there a difference? noticeable? and is it preferable to upgrade for gaming-sake?

(and not for better performance and memory management, boot time increases etc already in Windows 8)

Load times do seem improved for gaming in W8, but performance on a same app basis won't be much different.

[Max Norris]

For my hardware, it feels like stuff does load a tad faster, could be placebo, never actually timed it. FPS wise, it's pretty much the same, plus or minus a couple depending on the program. Haven't run into anything that doesn't work. Pretty much the only noticeable difference is how stuff is launched, after that, nada.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

The only difference for gaming is full support for DirectX11.1. Some features will be made available for Windows 7 with a platform update (see here). At the moment, no games support it so it isn't worth upgrading to Windows 8 only for DX11.1.

[Mystic Mungis]

I've had 8 installed on my desktop since the Dev Preview, as expected it was a little bit buggy then but ever since the Consumer Preview I've noticed no difference at all. Was playing Guild Wars 2 on my friends desktop running 7 and thought it looked a little less smooth but to be honest that could just have been in my head so I'd just go with whatever OS you preferred.

[Guest]

GW2 felt quicker for me after Windows 8. I can't confirm that it did though sorry. Certainly boots quicker.

[ANON86364]

Yes or no? Yes.

[Raa]

Parts of DX11.1 are coming to Windows 7.

From what i've seen, I haven't noticed any major differences. I'll stick with 7 for now.

[Vasya_Vodochkin]

Yes. Found Start Screen very useful for sorting gaming-related tools. Also all of performance stuff.

[daniel_rh]

I don't see the reason why Windows 8 has problems with games

[PGHammer]

The only difference for gaming is full support for DirectX11.1. Some features will be made available for Windows 7 with a platform update (see here). At the moment, no games support it so it isn't worth upgrading to Windows 8 only for DX11.1.

I have one MAJOR reason that I prefer Windows 8 over any other Windows for non-browser-based gaming - and it's not DirectX versions or frame rates.

It's called (amazingly) stability.

Games simply crash less (far less) on Windows 8 than on earlier versions of Windows - even games that predate Windows 8 by several years.

Okay - why is browser-based gaming the exception? Easily explained; for some reason, Adobe Flash has issues with desktop flavors of Windows (regardless of browser) when it comes to stability. For browser-based gaming, the best Windows IMHO is (egads) *Windows Server 2012*.

[spaceelf]

http://techreport.co...le-in-windows-8

On the off chance all you want is a quote

Trouble is, that doesn't really matter. A moral victory in the borderline-meaningless FPS sweeps doesn't overcome the fact that the Radeon HD 7950 has a persistent problem with high-latency frames across a range of test scenarios based on the latest games. The 99th-percentile frame times reflect that reality. Our latest round of tests shows that Windows 8 is not the problem. On the contrary, Windows 8 generally improves the latency picture somewhat.

Except in AC3, 8 offers smoother gameplay for the 7950 in pretty much everything they tested.

[n_K]

Games simply crash less (far less) on Windows 8 than on earlier versions of Windows - even games that predate Windows 8 by several years.

Eh? Been a long time since I used windows but back when I did (xp/7) I never really remember many game crashes at all.

[threetonesun]

Yeah... I can't imagine many reasons why 8 would be more stabile than 7 for gaming.

But, I've been using it for a while now, works fine.

[.stan]

The only game I have problems with is Batman Arkham City, everything else works fine :)

[kiddingguy]

I don't do DX 11.1 gaming at the moment... it's kinda 50-50 around here with games on Windows 8.

Right?

Too bad I didn't make a poll of this......

[Jojo81]

Seems like loading times are definitely faster on Windows 8 on my few year old pc, I think there is a slight boost on min fps as well but overall they are more or less the same now the Win 8 drivers are maturing.

[Spartan Erik]

No difference. Using Windows 8 just because it boots up faster, and generally feels faster than Windows 7, but as far as FPS improvements I haven't noticed any.

[kiddingguy]

So basically it's just a matter of preference to have Windows 8 installed instead of Windows 7 on a gaming rig

(performance-wise is Win 8 slightly faster I guess)