Vista Performance Killed By Slow Drivers?

[Jason Dunn]

I've ranted about the lack of Vista drivers before (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11796), but this time I have Vista drivers for my product and I'm still not happy. Why you might ask? When I built this new Intel E6700-based system (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/index.php?action=expand,12002&start=0) with an ATI Radeon X1950 Pro, the drivers at the time would case random blue screen of death errors and take down the whole system. I found the solution (which involved disabling a system service for monitor detection), and for a time things seemed to be pretty good. I don't know how a video driver could crash Vista, especially after Microsoft touted the way Vista was far less vulnerable to wonky video drivers, which are the cause of many system crashes.

Last week ATI released an updated driver with an official fix for this problem - I installed the new drivers, and the new AVIVO software as well. Things just haven't been the same since<!> - it's not crashing (thankfully), but I'm getting system hands and sluggishness that seems tied to the video card. When I log in after my system locks itself, the desktop is semi-transparently blacked out for around six seconds, which is not normal behaviour for Vista or this system prior to the driver update. Neverwinter Nights 2, a game I've been playing lately, used to start up instantly - now I stare at about five seconds of black screen before it loads. This smoking-fast system is starting to feel "slow", and I think it's purely from the ATI drivers.

I know Vista is a new operating system, but this is ridiculous - why doesn't ATI have their game together better? And how could they release a driver so completely dysfunctional after having the embarrassment of releasing a driver that crashed the system? I'm not sure if I should roll back the driver and live with the "BSOD Special Driver" or grit my teeth and hope for the best. The really sad part is that on my other system, running Vista Ultimate and a GeForce 7600 GS video card, I see something similar: when I minimize Media Center I see nothing but a black screen for three seconds, then the desktop appears. And this is a system with 2 GB of RAM and an AMD X2 64 5000+ CPU - I should not be seeing lag like that.

Vista, and the ecosystem of drivers surrounding it, is certainly causing me some frustration. How are you faring a few months in?

[randalllewis]

My system is an HP Core 2 Duo 6400 with Ultimate and the same nVidia card Jason has. I just installed nVidia's 158.18 driver that came out last week. I don't have the Media Center lag you report and I noticed an improvement in other areas as well. At least nVidia acknowledges that this driver isn't the final word either and several features are not yet implemented. While I have not had any system crashes with the older or this new nVidia driver, I too wonder why it has taken so long to get these products out. On the other hand, HP finally released what they call a "full featured" driver for my three year old 2510 all in one printer yet the networking feature of the printer still doesn't work and the automatic two sided printing feature only works in manual. I guess I should be happy that HP even bothered writing a driver for a printer this old, but they shouldn't call it "full featured."

[Doug Johnson]

I have no idea why your system with the nVidia card would be running slowly, but ATI's video drivers for Vista are still quite poor. I'm really hoping they get fixed soon; my new Dell E1705 laptop just isn't performing like I know it can, and between the video driver and the Intel Wireless N driver the occasional blue screens are getting annoying.

[jeffd]

I have actually uninstalled vista from my dell laptop and gone back to xp. Even though it looks great, overall performance was just slugish.. and I convinced myself there was no reason I had to sacrifice total system performance for some flashy window translucency. Detecting networks was slower (lots of refreshing or it dosn't search for networks untill you hit the tab), decoding video was slower (1080p h264 drops less frames in xp in my testing), games had less memory to work in and tabbing out of them overall was slow (I frequently do web searches and browsing when playing warcraft and guild wars).

[Filip Norrgard]

Well, the Acer Ferrari 4005 that I've been running is quite fast in relation to XP, but that might be just me. :) The games that I've tried seem to be running better (visually) in Windows Vista than they did in XP for some reason. I believe that it is because of the way Windows allocates active processes between RAM and the page file, and not because of Vista's support for DirectX 10.

The ATI Mobility Radeon X700 (with 128 MB) doesn't really fulfill the needs for DX10 as far as I know. But the latest drivers (released in February, I think) seem to do their work just fine. Sure, Alt-Tabbing out of a game seems to take a while, but that's probably because Vista switches the theme from basic to Aero (and thus grabs the whole 3D card's attention from the game).

Another thing that I'm running is ReadyBoost on a 512 MB secure digital card, which did seem to kick the system into some faster mode. I'm looking for a fast 4GB SD, but by the looks of the current prices, I'll have buy a 2 GB card.

Lastly updating to a "Vista BIOS version" that Acer quite recently released for my model seemed to improve the hibernation times drastically. Quite ironically, I had to boot into XP to be able to upgrade the BIOS although the readme implied that Vista was supported -- 64-bit Vista isn't as I found out. What else the Vista BIOS brings, is unknown.

Vista seemed to detect most of the drivers for my system when I installed it and I haven't touched them. There was an issue with the integrated memory card reader, but the old Win XP 64-bit drivers did work just fine and I haven't cared to check if Acer's Vista "certified" drivers work better in any way.

The bottleneck on my system seems to be the hard drive which at around 5000 rpm seems to bring the system down sometimes when Vista cleanes out the RAM to page file or whatever it does to strain that poor old disk. Anyone know I can find a 7200 rpm IDE notebook hard drive around 100 GB or larger?

[aroma]

I've got Vista running on three machines. My HTPC machine is dedicated soley to Media Center, and nothing else, so I don't do much with that machine do notice any issues. Media Center runs smooth and seemless, and that's all I care about. My main, day-to-day use machine is the oldest of the three, with a 945 series Intel MB (IIRC), a P4 CPU (around 2.8 GHz or so), and a X1600 series ATI card. This machine absolutely screems with Vista. I don't have a single performance complaint with this machine. Ironically, the worst performing of the bunch is the highest end machine. It has a 975XBX Intel MB running a Pentium-D Extreme processor and a couple of X1900 ATI cards. (This machine has had almost no applications installed since the Vista installation.) This machine has some odd delays when booting into Vista. Even after Vista appears to be completely booted, the machine is unusable for a minute or two (I know... not long, but with this machine, this clean, it's very odd and seems like for ever.) This machine just feels a little sluggish graphically at times. I don't know how better to explain it.

[Chris Baxter]

I am etremely disapointed with ATI and their Vista drivers. I have an All-in-Wonder X1900 that I was really hoping to use with Vista's Media Center. I cannot though, because ATI has not written Vista drivers for the tuners in any of the AIW cards. Plus other than acknowleging the problem, they give no indication that they will ever fix it. Creative is pretty bad too. I still cannot use all the features of my Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty card.

[jeffd]

Filip, I used a 2gb high speed SD card (2ndary card I got for my camera) in it and gave it all the space. The problem is readyboost only caches small files. This ment no noticable improvements with my games and their large audio and video files. I would have liked to try and move the swap file to it (its 20mb/sec wich I am pretty sure is faster then my 5400rpm notebook drive) but alas, because the SD card is initialised after most of windows is loaded, its unable to start the file on it (It accepts it as a valid drive, but after reboot, there is no swap file).

Another thing I didn't like that made me switch vista out was its active cacheing to the HD. While the dual core cpu made most pre-cacheing un-noticable, I really didn't like seeing my hd light on for the majority of the time I was using the computer. It's wear and tear I don't need, and makes battery life even shorter.

[Jason Dunn]

I just installed nVidia's 158.18 driver that came out last week. I don't have the Media Center lag you report and I noticed an improvement in other areas as well.

Well, I'll eat some humble pie here: I did the nVidia driver update as well and, lo and behold, the "staring at a black screen" problem has gone away. When I exit Media Center it snaps immediately to the desktop. Nice!

On the other hand, HP finally released what they call a "full featured" driver for my three year old 2510...

&lt;sigh> hp really sucks with the drivers this year. The fact that you got ANY sort of a driver for your three year old printer while I'm sitting here with my six month old printer with nothing got me ranting:

http://www.jasondunn.com/still-no-printer-drivers-for-hp-2600n-colour-laser-printer-351

[Jason Dunn]

Another thing that I'm running is ReadyBoost on a 512 MB secure digital card, which did seem to kick the system into some faster mode. I'm looking for a fast 4GB SD, but by the looks of the current prices, I'll have buy a 2 GB card.

I initially had 2 GB ReadyBoost drives on a couple of my computers, but in doing some reading it seems that if you have 512 MB of RAM ReadyBoost can help, but if you have 1 GB or more, it's pretty much useless.

Check these articles out:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/31/windows-vista-superfetch-and-readyboostanalyzed/

http://www.msblog.org/?p=716

Anyone know I can find a 7200 rpm IDE notebook hard drive around 100 GB or larger?

Sure, I bought a 7200 RPM 100 GB drive well over a year ago, so there are plenty of options out there (assuming we're talking about 2.5" drives, not 1.8"). I've used two Hitachi drives in my 17" laptop.

[Jason Dunn]

Ironically, the worst performing of the bunch is the highest end machine. It has a 975XBX Intel MB running a Pentium-D Extreme processor and a couple of X1900 ATI cards.

That's kind of the same way with my setup...Vista is slower on the lower end hardware, although to be fair the low end hardware isn't running Aero. But still...there's no way I should be seeing delays with the systems I have here.

[Kris Kumar]

I am not seeing display issues. But I am affected by the wireless network being flaky or slow - in terms of search and connect and also bandwidth.

I am also noticing more disk access.

[ctmagnus]

Disk access is a biggie in Vista. :?

[Jason Dunn]

Disk access is a biggie in Vista. :?

Yeah, no doubt - I'm actually quite dismayed at how much and how long the hard drive crunches for. I guess the reality is that the search index needs to get built sometime, but still...it's a change from XP for sure.

[Jason Dunn]

BTW, the driver for the 2600n was just released:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&amp;cc=ca&amp;prodNameId=446154&amp;prodTypeId=18972&amp;prodSeriesId=446153&amp;swLang=8&amp;taskId=135&amp;swEnvOID=2093

I think it's just a local driver though, no networking support - I'm trying to find that out now...

[whydidnt]

I think it's just a local driver though, no networking support - I'm trying to find that out now...

It works for both local and Network printing. I downloaded the standard Driver Package and unpacked and installed it. Then used Vista's built in add printer wizard. It didn't find the printer on my network, but when I manually added the IP address and Port number it then gave me an option to select the driver from the list of drivers. I installed that one and it works for me so far. Doesn't appear to have the XP drivers built in wizard for finding the printer on the network, but it still works. :D

[Jason Dunn]

Then used Vista's built in add printer wizard. It didn't find the printer on my network, but when I manually added the IP address and Port number it then gave me an option to select the driver from the list of drivers...

Yup, I just did the same thing myself a few minutes ago - woo hoo! I'm so happy I can print to that printer again!! :D