Game Performance

[Frenzy123]

I guys im currently running a dual boot, i guess ill start by posting my system setup;
CPU:AMD 9600 Phenom Quad Core
GFX Card:Nvidia 8800 GTX
RAM:2 x 1G 800MHz
Dual booting XP Pro 32bit and W7 Pro 64bit

So my problem is that I am getting bad game performance from Windows 7. Taking 1 game for example (left for dead) in XP i can recieve a range of FPS values from 50-100. In W7 with the same settings, I get half if not less performance. I specifically tested 1 scene on both operating systems, XP pulls around 60fps where as W& achieves less than 20 at best.

So im thinking i may have missed something out on my W7 installation. To start with I have split 1 partition of my harddrive into 2 partitions for both operating systems, each having ~20g of space, my W7 installation has ~5-7G of free space (I only mention this incase space is my problem). I then I have a second partition of ~200G of space for docs, programs and games.

As soon as I installed W7 I downloaded the latest W7 64bit nvidia drivers for my card, I installed my monitor driver and let windows update install its updates mainly for compatabiltiy of programs. I then disabled a few services I know I don't need and setup my virtual memory, I setup ~3G of Virtual memory on the same partition as the W7 installation.

OK thats pretty much it, I have a few concerns that may be the cause of the problem of reduced performance on W7;

• The total sum of memory of the W7 installation and the virtual memory nearly take up ~ 16-17 G of space out of 20 not leaving much space free.
• The fact that my XP system is 32bit and my W7 system is 64bit has some affect over performance of games.
• The fact that W7 has DX11 is causing reducing performance of games not compatible with W7.

I have done some research and I realise W7 current performance is generally slightly lower in games than XP. But a difference of 50% is alot I think there must be something wrong. I was hoping to get rid of my XP installation but my main use for my PC is games and I cant be dealing with 20fps until I upgrade my pc. As a final note I ran the performance test on my system, I didnt get a number less than 5.9 out of (i think) 7 and some values were above 6.5.

Quite a detailed post guys I hope someone can help me out. Thanks in advance for any comments.

 

[sup3rsprt]

I'm in the same boat (as are many others). Gaming is just not as good on Windows 7 for the most part. Although I admit that 50% performance loss a bit extreme..

If I were you I would continue to play my games on XP where they are undoubtedly better performing (anyone who says otherwise is not an experienced PC gamer).

 

[Frenzy123]

Thanks for the quick post, XP has always been good for games but im still a little suprised by the amount of performance loss, anyone else have some ideas ?

 

[sup3rsprt]

What is the level of AA and AF you are using? What about Vsync? Is it On or Off? What refresh rate are you using? Did you try defragmenting your hard drives? Is there heavy activity on the system before you even start playing the game? How much memory usage before you load the game? Is there enough available memory for the game?

 

[sup3rsprt]

By the way, I've never heard of a 8600GTX before. So I assume your graphics card is actually a GT or GTS? Or is it a 8800GTX?

And what about power options? Do you have it set to Max performance?

 

[Frenzy123]

yes sorry I meant 8800 GTX and my power settings were not set to high performance so I swapped that over now,as far as individual gfx settings, theyre identical to my XP setup and as Im sure you know W7 has a hell of alot more processes running in the background compared to XP, My XP setup uses ~16% of RAM idle and has 18 processes, W7 has 40 processes and uses 40% of my RAM. VSync is off.

 

[sup3rsprt]

are you getting this poor performance in all games or is it just L4D?

try uninstall your graphics drivers and reboot. Go into device manager and uninstall the driver again (because there's probably a Microsoft driver also, so delete it). Reboot once more and then install the latest driver from NVIDIA. I am using 191.07.

 

[Frenzy123]

also getting poor performance in garrys mod I will try ur gfx driver suggestion thanks

 

[sup3rsprt]

garry's mod and L4D probably use the same game engine. In that case any problem affecting one game will affect the other. If you can, try some other games and report.

Maybe there are known issues with Windows 7 and the Source engine.

 

[Frenzy123]

trying another game will be the next thing I try, I reinstalled my gfx card drivers as u suggested and also changed the power settings, no change. I just ran L4D in windowed mode so I could check my RAM and CPU usage, my cpu didnt go over 55% usage and my RAM didnt go over 75%. I will try running a different game next, I also just checked windows 7 games compatibility list for L4D, it is rated excellent... so there should be minimal difference...

 

[sup3rsprt]

my cpu didnt go over 55% usage

What is CPU utilization like under XP? Usually the more the better, when it comes to gaming (no sense in leaving part of the CPU unused). Although since you have a quad core, there's likely to be some part of the CPU that isn't used just because the game wasn't designed to make use of it.

 

[Frenzy123]

Ok, so i tested my fps on city of heroes, there was ~ 40% reduction in fps from xp to w7. I also lowered all my gfx settings to the lowest possible on both OS's. my XP setup runs l4d at 200 frames where as w7 90... in specific locations... there must be something wrong to get such different results...

 

[Frenzy123]

my cpu utilization on XP mid game is ~60-70% and RAM ~roughly 50% , just did the same again on w7, the results for the cpu are ~ 60% but goes between 50% and 70% and 70% RAM utilization (but there are around 25 extra windows processes running in the background which I think accounts for the RAM usage).

 

[stew2]

Hi frenzy123 try installing these two updates:

DirectX (You need this whether you running DirectX 9, 10, 10.1 or 11)
C ++ for 64 bit

Then reboot your PC and try your game again.

 

[LPDad]

Hi frenzy123
I have a very similar setup as you, and I am experiencing pretty much the same game experience (or lack thereof).
You are not alone. Tried pretty much everything suggested so far..nothing has helped.
it is interesting to note that L4D plays pretty much the same whether I have all my vidoe options set to HIGH or whether I have pretty much all options either turned to low or off. (that makes me think it is not a video card problem)
I have a full 8 Gigs of DDR2 high-speed optimized RAM on my system (and I don't seem to be using any more than half-of it during extreme gameplay..so RAM is probably not an issue).
I will be off all next week and will be trying everything I can think of to see if I can narrow down possible causes. (Got a new highspeed LAN Card to try out, etc).

I did the DirectX update (Through August)....and as far as I can tell, I am completely up to date with ALL the latest drivers on my system (I have been trying with Win7 loaded drivers and also with directly downloaded drivers from mnfr sites--no big changes discovered yet..will keep trying)
Just wanted to give you some support and let you know you are not alone.
All we can do is systematically keep trying to figure this out.

-LP

 

[sup3rsprt]

Your video card and sound card (hardware acceleration) works better in Windows XP which increases gaming performance.

 

[Frenzy123]

A couple quick questions in regards to stew2's question, as far as i know and can tell, Windows7 comes with DX11 anyway and also why is VS2008 C++ required? I am a developer and am currently using VS 2005, what difference to my system will installing VS2008 ? if this would improve performance of games then it would surely be a requirement for all systems? Thanks for the hitns though

 

[stew2]

Hi frenzy123, although windiws 7 comes with direct X installed there are always new updates for it released and so its a good idea to install these updates as it may improve performance etc.

For the C++ download its usefull for compatabality, for example my gamecube emulator requires it to be able to run.

The two links i gave you are just updates for what already on your system, its up to you if you want to try them or not.

 

[Frenzy123]

ok thx for the tips ill give them a go.

 

[sup3rsprt]

I am a developer and am currently using VS 2005, what difference to my system will installing VS2008 ?

You don't need VS2008. Just the runtime libraries.

You can continue to use VS2005 to write programs.