XP vs win 7

Using a 2.4ghz dual core Macbook with 2 gigs of ram, and an intel 965gma chipset, I did some tests in the two operating systems to prove which was better.

I used fraps to determine my FPS.

on default settings

Program XP Win7
Bioshock fps 4 2
UT3 fps 5 *
Left 4 Dead unplayable 5

one thing worth of note, is that you cannot change the screen resolution lower than 1024x768 in bioshock. although, after lowering the settings to the bottom most level, I got it in widescreen somehow (1200x800).

on reduced settings (lowest)

Program XP Win7
Bioshock fps 14 5
UT3 fps 20 15*
Left 4 Dead 10 20

results incoming...
I also am actually able to get l4d running about 25 fps on xp, however that requires hacks that the general user may not be aware of, for more info check out the tweak guide on hl2 (google it holmes).

surprisingly, left 4 dead actually runs better on 7, but that could be because of direct X, and because I used some diferent features that I hadn't used before (turning up film grain, disabling multicore rendering). This probably would have mean a better score for L4D on XP with reduced settings, but it is still unplayable on normal settings via xp.

It's interesting to note that Unreal Tournament 3 automatically changed my settings to something that would run faster in win7, but this could have been because recently UT3 was updated via steam and my intial test was done prior to the update on XP.

Anyway, I heartily recommend trying out vista for yourself, now I'm going to see how far I can get with tweaking the hell out of it.

All of my tests on win7 were on the base installation, and what was necessary for the game. XP was tweaked, and probably isn't a pure test either. I'm going to do the same benchmarks in windows 7 after tweaking it appropriately.

Happy New Year

and it's been pretty good so far!