NEED ADVICE: WIndows 8.1 pro vs Windows 7 pro ( both 64 bit )

Taid · April 2014

Greetings,

i could need some advice since my windows 8.1 enterprise testversion will run out in about 3 days and im about to decide which System im gonna use.

First of all, i own a windows 7 pro 64 bit license, i would have to buy a new lincese for win 8 for about 120 Euros.

Im a fan of Windows 7, i only installed the the windows 8.1 testversion for battlefield 4 on release. I got a brand new setup 1 day old and played battlefield 4 with real bad performance ( floating fps between 40 and 55 ) , checked the interwebzzzz, read some guides and it said that bf4 was better optimized for wind 8, tryd it out and tested it with nearly perfect test-situation ( fresh installed windows etc ) got solid 60 fps through the whole game O_O. So i tryd win 8 for the next 180 days.

In the end i didnt noticed any performance boosts on other games, most of the features of windows 8.1 i couldnt care less. Sometimes i even got conflicts with certain programs like gfwl or other stuff.

I play elder scrolls online for the most time right now and a lot of other games were the performance doestn matter that much ( civ5, xcom, dragon age, skyrim ).

So my question is what would oyu recommend for Elder scrolls online? win 7 or 8? any performance boosts with win 8? anyone know for which win it is better optimized? can anyone recommend to buy win 8 pure for gaming? Looking forward to your opinions

just in case my pc specc:

i7 3770k 3,5 gig not oc
gtx 770 palit jetstream 2 gig ( sometimes shows 4 Oo )
8 gig of ram ( max hz )
64 bit windows

Belrim · April 2014

no reason whatsoever to spend cash for 8, since you already have 7. No real difference when it comes to gaming performance.

I grabbed a win8 Pro lisence about year ago, when they were stil lselling them for 50eur. Was a no-brainer at that price. But in my gaming comp, im using w7 ultimate 64.

Saerydoth · April 2014

It doesn't really matter. Win8 is just Win7 with some minor improvements, and a terrible interface. The terrible interface can be fixed by installing Classic Shell.

Taid · April 2014

Yeah classic shell was pretty much the first plugin i installed^^ im just not sure because of this battlefield 4 anomaly... either they did a bad job at optimizing or it was some moneygrabbing campaign from microsoft, but the performance boost was more than real.

Guess if noone has a real proove of win 8's big impact on games ill stick to win 7 then.

sociald100ub17_ESO · April 2014

From the benchmark tests I have seen all else being equal 8.1 displays your colors a tiny bit better and 7 performs PhysX functions a tiny bit better.
You wont see any impact worth changing.

Dorado · April 2014

I'm gonna be flame bait for saying this, but imho you might as well go ahead and get Win8. Out of the box on equal hardware it performs better and is more secure than Win7. Fact. Also, Win 8.1 update 1 is out now, it has a smaller memory footprint than previous 8.x.

With update 1, using Win8 on the desktop is painless compared to all the wailing and nashing of teeth desktop users had when Win 8 first came out. If Metro -really- bothers you, just install Start 8, or like others said, something like Classic Shell. Current news is also hinting at start menu will return later this year (before windows 9 release).

I've been using Win8 since release on all my boxes, even uninstalled Start8. I use Window Blinds to reskin my desktop to something darker (tweaked Win8 Metro skin). I just treat Start Screen as a full screen start menu and I have no issues with it. In my opinion, Win 8 is more stable and some of the new tools and utilities it comes with are quite nice to have. Learn a few of the key windows key hotkey combo's and you should be fine.

flintstone · April 2014

I have both........(Geforce gtx 770).....both operating systems systems run the game great. Ones an i5, and the other is an i7.

Audigy · April 2014

Windows 8 does not improve your gaming performance right now, the jump from directx 11 --> 11.2 isn't that big like for instance from 10 to 11.

I would wait, once Dx 12 is out you will most likely need a new windows anyways as I doubt they add DirectX 12 support for windows 8.

That said, Mantle might be the future anyways and this runs independently from your OS.

You would be better of running BF4 with Mantle anyways, that said you would need an AMD card for that.

Taid · April 2014

Well i dont know what mantle is and bf4 was just an example of my windows 8 experience. I will not change to some B-Class OS and most important i will never again buy an ati card.

Thanks for the answers guys, i decided to stick to my win 7 and wait for the next direct X to come out. Seems to be a good strategy.

raglau · April 2014

I run Win8.1 64bit (but I am director of an MS partner so get it free and early) and it's great.

HOWEVER, I don't think it's any greater for games than W7 64bit. So if it came down to money for a license and I was not using any extra features of Win8.x (which I am - HyperV local) I'd stick with Win7 until such time as something I needed was supported in Win8.x only.

Taid wrote: »

Greetings,

i could need some advice since my windows 8.1 enterprise testversion will run out in about 3 days and im about to decide which System im gonna use.

Taid · April 2014

squicker wrote: »

I run Win8.1 64bit (but I am director of an MS partner so get it free and early) and it's great.

HOWEVER, I don't think it's any greater for games than W7 64bit. So if it came down to money and I was not using any extra features of Win8.x (which I am - HyperV local) I'd stick with Win7 until such time as something I needed was supported in Win8.x only.

Taid wrote: »

Greetings,

i could need some advice since my windows 8.1 enterprise testversion will run out in about 3 days and im about to decide which System im gonna use.

thx for your respond, to be honest, it really just come down to gaming. If the windows 8.1 has minimum to zero impact to games in general, than thats all i need to know. If there were some proof for performance boosts like more stable fps, better optimizing with video driver or some stuff, i would totally spend the money, because in terms of Computer-gaming i learnd one lesson the hard way :

"You get what you payed for "

So you can buy nice-shiny offers with a good price-performance balancing blabla .. but in the end, if you want 60 fps on the games max settings ( which i want for eso ) you have to spend money. There is no magic trick

raglau · April 2014

Yeah, absolutely and that £100 or whatever it is for a retail Win8.x license, can go towards something that does make the game faster.

When I went to Win8 I tested it quite deeply for any noticeable improvements to gaming FPS and they were not there. Or if they were there, they were so small as to not be noticeable amongst the other variant factors that might have improved gameplay a little bit.

So, even as a Microsoft partner, I would say you have made the right choice to NOT upgrade. And you won't hear many partners say that ;-)

Taid wrote: »

thx for your respond, to be honest, it really just come down to gaming. If the windows 8.1 has minimum to zero impact to games in general, than thats all i need to know. If there were some proof for performance boosts like more stable fps, better optimizing with video driver or some stuff, i would totally spend the money, because in terms of Computer-gaming i learnd one lesson the hard way :

"You get what you payed for "

So you can buy nice-shiny offers with a good price-performance balancing blabla .. but in the end, if you want 60 fps on the games max settings ( which i want for eso ) you have to spend money. There is no magic trick

Audigy · April 2014

Taid wrote: »

Well i dont know what mantle is and bf4 was just an example of my windows 8 experience. I will not change to some B-Class OS and most important i will never again buy an ati card.

Thanks for the answers guys, i decided to stick to my win 7 and wait for the next direct X to come out. Seems to be a good strategy.

Mantle is an API, that will give you a FPS boost of about 50% in games that support it. Without an AMD Card, no Mantle however

Is there a reason why you dislike AMD so much? I moved away from Nvidia about 8 years ago and didn't regret that step. You get more performance for less money and the cards are also a lot less squishy in my opinion.

Not saying Nvidia is bad, but I really think people miss out if they ignore AMD cards completely

wrlifeboil · April 2014

Audigy wrote: »

Taid wrote: »

Well i dont know what mantle is and bf4 was just an example of my windows 8 experience. I will not change to some B-Class OS and most important i will never again buy an ati card.

Thanks for the answers guys, i decided to stick to my win 7 and wait for the next direct X to come out. Seems to be a good strategy.

Mantle is an API, that will give you a FPS boost of about 50% in games that support it. Without an AMD Card, no Mantle however

Is there a reason why you dislike AMD so much? I moved away from Nvidia about 8 years ago and didn't regret that step. You get more performance for less money and the cards are also a lot less squishy in my opinion.

Not saying Nvidia is bad, but I really think people miss out if they ignore AMD cards completely

AMD makes good gpus but still comes off as an underdog. For me, if I'm going to spend a chunk of money to buy hardware, I don't want to risk it on the underdog. The r290s are good but still overpriced. As for the api, until more software developers release games that actually support mantle, performance comparison under directx will be what most prospective buyers will use to make their buying decision.

raglau · April 2014

Yeah, basically AMD shot themselves in the foot repeatedly over quite some period of time re slower performance and less stable drivers than Nvidia, and this image still haunts them. Despite the fact the new series of AMD cards look very strong.

You know what you get with NVidia and when spending a reasonable amount on a component, people will tend to stick with something they are more confident in, even if the reasons are long historical.

Mantle is not the strategic answer because it's going back to the old model of native hardware support, which is a needless complexity we thankfully did away with via DX. Not to say DX is perfect, in fact it needs to be improved so that specific hardware APIs like Mantle are made redundant. And hopefully DX12 shall do this. By the time Mantle picks up any steam, DX12 will be here.

wrlifeboil wrote: »

AMD makes good gpus but still comes off as an underdog. For me, if I'm going to spend a chunk of money to buy hardware, I don't want to risk it on the underdog. The r290s are good but still overpriced. As for the api, until more software developers release games that actually support mantle, performance comparison under directx will be what most prospective buyers will use to make their buying decision.

Taid · May 2014

First of all, i bought a retail windows 8.1 key for 90 bucks hehe and not sticked to win 7. Lets hope it will pay itself off in the future.

To Graphic cards. I really never heard of mantle and i highly doubt that any gimmick will REALLY give me 50% boost, no matter whos gonna tell this to me. Maybe its the same crap like with this hd series..what was it? get more fps on direct x11 with our new amd series bla bla. Sounds like the typical PR bla to me. Where ati has its new gimmicks, nvidia comes with some bigblock megacard totally overprized. I dont believe both of them, but i have to choose $:\$

And i choosed based on my experience. Most of the time i used amd cards even in crossfire because they were advertised with good price-performance. But the few situation were i played with an intel-nvidia combo i allways got the best outcome for me.

And since my golden rule " you get what you pay for" i stick to the system i had the best experience with.

It is also to mention that nearly eeeeeevery single streamer gamer tournement player used these exact combo when i checked their pcs. They have i5 i7's, and allways nvidia cards. And these people actually NEED their system to life, they make money thorugh gaming, and they choose THIS! not only big guys, also underdog player and streamer. And for me this was in the end a more logical decision " Hey these guys food and rent rely on their pc's, and they use this and that".

Well thats my story :9

raglau · May 2014

Taid wrote: »

To Graphic cards. I really never heard of mantle and i highly doubt that any gimmick will REALLY give me 50% boost, no matter whos gonna tell this to me.

Well, like any lower level API Mantle does have the potential to bring performance improvements, the same as if everything talked directly to all hardware without the Windows Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) or DirectX getting in the way.

BUT...That caused a lot of problems and Windows specifically manages hardware access via the HAL and DirectX for security and stability reasons. So in my view, architecturally at least, Mantle is a step backwards even though it is not a bare-metal API (i.e. it will still have to traverse the HAL, Microsoft would not allow it any other way). Essentially, if everyone were suddenly writing direct access drivers to their own hardware the gamers life would be as complex and unstable as it was in the DOS era.

However, there's no doubt that DirectX currently brings about inefficiencies in the name of compatibility across a wide number of hardware variations. Such is the payoff for reduction in complexity. But the strategic answer is to improve DirectX, not to have hardware vendors desiging their own point solutions and cluttering up what we've managed to make a relatively simple landscape since the release of DirectX, albeit at a performance cost that is unpalatable to the cutting edge developers and gamers.

wrlifeboil · May 2014

Taid wrote: »

It is also to mention that nearly eeeeeevery single streamer gamer tournement player used these exact combo when i checked their pcs. They have i5 i7's, and allways nvidia cards. And these people actually NEED their system to life, they make money thorugh gaming, and they choose THIS! not only big guys, also underdog player and streamer. And for me this was in the end a more logical decision " Hey these guys food and rent rely on their pc's, and they use this and that".

Well thats my story :9

The fact that they choose nvidia is probably because nvidia is perceived to provide better developer support for AAA games. AMD has great gpus but many gamers would pick nvidia as providing better and more timely driver support. If AMD could solve that problem, whether it is based mostly on perception or if it is reality, they would really be eating nvidia's lunch.

On upgrading to Windows 8.x, there is a reason why gamers on Steam have more than twice the Windows 8.x adoption rate than the general population.

Taid · May 2014

wrlifeboil wrote: »

Taid wrote: »

It is also to mention that nearly eeeeeevery single streamer gamer tournement player used these exact combo when i checked their pcs. They have i5 i7's, and allways nvidia cards. And these people actually NEED their system to life, they make money thorugh gaming, and they choose THIS! not only big guys, also underdog player and streamer. And for me this was in the end a more logical decision " Hey these guys food and rent rely on their pc's, and they use this and that".

Well thats my story :9

The fact that they choose nvidia is probably because nvidia is perceived to provide better developer support for AAA games. AMD has great gpus but many gamers would pick nvidia as providing better and more timely driver support. If AMD could solve that problem, whether it is based mostly on perception or if it is reality, they would really be eating nvidia's lunch.

On upgrading to Windows 8.x, there is a reason why gamers on Steam have more than twice the Windows 8.x adoption rate than the general population.

As an Enduser i just have to choose what i think is right for me. I didnt studied IT or something in that way. Im pretty sure even if i did, i wouldnt understand this whole hardware deep enough to advice someone. I dont like this amd - nvidia wars, i dont care tbh. But i thinks its necessary that both exist, at least for competition.

Windows 8: So you see this as a sign that win 8+ is promising for gaming in the future?

raglau · May 2014

And that is why most people will buy on brand loyalty and reviews, which right now leads them to Nvidia. And there's nothing wrong with that. It would take a big thing from AMD to make me move from NVidia, and Mantle is not persuasive enough.

Taid wrote: »

As an Enduser i just have to choose what i think is right for me. I didnt studied IT or something in that way. Im pretty sure even if i did, i wouldnt understand this whole hardware deep enough to advice someone. I dont like this amd - nvidia wars, i dont care tbh. But i thinks its necessary that both exist, at least for competition.

Windows 8: So you see this as a sign that win 8+ is promising for gaming in the future?

Taid · May 2014

I agree, in terms of modern PC hardware you are basically helpless as customer. No matter how deep you inform yourself. In the end you will just know what others have told you, and there are 2 different camps filled with people who just know what others have told them.