PC Gaming: XP Pwns Vista?!

Windows Vista is finally here, and one of its big selling points is the inclusion of DirectX 10, but what does that really get you? We all know that DirectX 10 is the next big thing for graphic programming, but how will it perform with current and older games? This is an issue that many gamers are hinging their purchase decision on, and it doesn’t look all that great for Microsoft right now.

Rob Williams with Techgage, a hardware tech site, has written an interesting article about gaming on Vista, including fps(frames per second) graphs and comparisons with XP. The numbers vary from game to game, but one thing stays the same: XP out-performs Vista on every game. In fact, not only does XP out-perform Vista on every game, some games it just completely slaughters it. Half-Life 2, for instance, has a 13 fps difference between the operating systems. This isn’t a particularly good thing for Microsoft’s new OS. Most people aren’t going to want to upgrade to something that makes their games perform worse.

Of course, there are a few things to be said for Vista as well. As with all new operating systems, Vista is going to have a rough time of it because of new drivers and new ways to do things. In our interview with Brad Wardell, he spoke of such problems by indicating that the code is currently immature. This, as we all know, will be fixed over time. The real problem for Microsoft is going to be with the early adopters. It always seems that the people who buy products first are the most passionate and therefore complain the loudest.

When Vista really hits the home market, expect to hear a lot of negative press. I don’t envy Microsoft PR right now.

loading

Comments have been disabled for this post