Windows XP Compatibility Mode, query

hi gamer123, welcome to sevenforums,

you're right - xp mode will disable dx10 - the game will 'think' that it is running on an xp machine and so will only allow dx9 rendering - that's where the performance boost comes from.

certain games, such as battlefield bad company can be forced into dx9 mode by editing ini files - this also results in a performance boost - the price you pay is less eye candy.

what i can't understand is why you want to run in xp mode - your 5870 is a very fast card and shouldn't have performance problems, even with crysis (unless you're playing at very high resolution).

Dear Mickey,

Thanks a bunch for the reply and help. Much appreciated.

YES, I know my GPU can handle high-end games, but on some PC titles I get a FPS boost under this ''XP compatibility Mode''. So, that's why I want to try it.

TBH, I'm not much happy with WIN 7's performance at least when it comes to GAMING. What do you think ??

I'm playing games on 1920*1080 screen resolution. Don't get me wrong, I like Windows 7 a lot, but I'm experiencing a lag while gaming.

IMHO, Win XP is still a better OS when it comes to gaming, even if it is DX9. I maybe wrong though ? Anyways, reply when you can.

Cheers.

i was an xp man for years, had vista for about a week (not because it was 'bad'), then went through various windows 7 beta versions.

my graphics card is less powerful than yours () - it's only a 4890. i've never noticed any lack of frame rate in my games compared to xp - although to be honest i haven't played most of the games i play now in xp, nor even xp mode.

i would be interested to know which particular games you feel run better in xp mode - and do they look the same? or has the dx10 mode got prettier explosions (for example)?

there are lots of charts you can look at on the web, i dunno how accurate they are, but look below an example of some games played at 1920x1200, which is close to what we both use, 1920x1080.

as you can see, there is a tiny difference for most games - there's only one on the chart that noticably wins out in xp - but then you can't see what it looks like - maybe you don't get all the eyecandy compared to dx10.

to me, there are so many advantages to 7, that i shudder when contemplating going back to xp. personally i can't even be bothered doing a dual-boot - i don't want to have to reboot to play a few games...

it would be interesting to hear what others think...

Hello again,

Thanks for the chart. Even I've been using XP for long, and I still use it for gaming (Dual-Boot my PC).

The following games run much better under Win XP OS, as well as XP compatibility mode:

FAR CRY 2.
Aliens Vs Predator 2010.
TIMESHIFT.
Borderlands.
Metro 2033.
STALKER. and few more games.

As you can see from the chart which you provided, there is NOT much of a difference between XP and Win 7. But yes, there IS a VISUAL difference between DX9 and DX10/11 modes, but you can't notice the details, unless you take screenshots and compare them.

While gaming, I didn't notice too much of a Visual/Image Quality (IQ) difference in FAR CRY 2.

Aliens Vs Predator is a very Graphic Intensive title, and there is an IQ difference between DX9 and DX0/11 modes. But there was a huge FPS drop when I played it on Windows 7. I don't know the exact cause of this, but after switching back to XP, the game ran very smooth. I suspect the 'GPU drivers' to be the cause of the in-game LAG.

'I've done a FRESH install of Win 7 OS'.
Cheers.