Windows 7 64bit

[Pidesco]

It's slower, has a mass of useless features I have to disable or figure out how to disable, it made me buy an extra 2 Gigs of RAM to improve the performance, HD movies on my HDTV now have tearing, and it locks up my PC if I let it go into sleep mode.

 

None of these happened with XP before. I did a clean installation.

 

My PC:

ASUS P5QL PRO

Intel Core Duo 2 E7400

4 GB Kingston DDRII667 RAM

Gaiward 9800GT

Onboard Audio

Samsung 80GB 7200RPM

Samsung 320GB SATA2

Seagate 1Tb 7200 RPM S-ATA2 32Mb

Samsung 19" 923NW

Gamepad XFX XGear Dual Reflex

 

The only difference between this and my previous config is that I doubled the RAM in order to harness the 64bit architecture.

 

Damn you Just Cause 2.

[Arkan]

7 64 bit has run flawlessly on my computer. 32 bit, too, on two other computers.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Have you tried running your PC without the new RAM? If not you might want to see if that's the issue.

[mkreku]

I had the exact same thing happen to me when using the sleep mode and Win 7 64-bit. Well, not exact same thing, but it did bring me trouble.l It killed all my USB ports on reawakening. A BIOS update from Gigabyte (for my motherboard) fixed that eventually though.

 

I am also not impressed with Win 7. Why am I constantly using 1.2 GB of RAM, without getting anything for it? It's not faster than XP, it's not more stable than XP, it doesn't do anything XP doesn't (except play DX10-11 games, perhaps, but I feel that is an artificial advantage). That annoys me. Also, in XP you could change language of your OS installation rather easily. If I want to change my English version of Windows 7 to Swedish, I have to upgrade and pay Microsoft approximately $150 or so. For a language change. Awesome.

[Pidesco]

Have you tried running your PC without the new RAM? If not you might want to see if that's the issue.

 

Yes.

[LostStraw]

Why am I constantly using 1.2 GB of RAM, without getting anything for it?

It's called "SuperFetch" and you are getting something for it: http://www.osnews.com/story/21471/SuperFet..._it_Works_Myths

Windows 7 actually handles low amounts of ram fairly well, much much better than Vista, and there are plenty of YouTube videos that show this.

 

@Pidesco

The best advice I can give is to make sure all your drivers and such are up to date -- something you've probably already done

 

What features are you trying to disable?

[Guest Slinky]

HD movies on my HDTV now have tearing

I had tearing with XP, but with 7 now none at all. You should try Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, it has a option to get rid of tearing. Didn't remove tearing completely with XP for me, but did with 7. Get the latest version from here.

 

I am also not impressed with Win 7. Why am I constantly using 1.2 GB of RAM, without getting anything for it?

It's been like that since Vista, the memory management has improved. It stores stuff in memory that you have been using and if some app needs more memory, it throws not needed stuff from memory out. Why the memory you have shouldn't be used?

[Pidesco]

Among the features I've already disabled are Aero (seriously, who the **** uses this?), indexing. Others I haven't disabled yet are Libraries, generally removing the extra stuff from the new Windows Explorer, and the new stupid Start Menu. I'm still finding out new stuff to get rid of, though.

 

 

As for the tearing, only one of media player classic's output methods alleviates it somewhat, although not completely. Note that the tearing only shows up on the TV, not on the monitor. Usually, this is a result of low performance mostly affected by the CPU and GPU. On XP, I had the same sort of tearing before upgrading my CPU from a P4 to the current core duo.

[Walsingham]

What features are you trying to disable?

 

By the sound of it MSyesyoulooklikeabitch.exe

[mkreku]

Why the memory you have shouldn't be used?

Yeah, I've heard about prefetch. It supposedly saves like 0.5 seconds of start-up time from certain applications I use often. I'd MUCH rather it let me choose what I use my RAM for.

 

I also have a harddrive, a web connection and a webcam. Should I let Windows 7 handle those as it wishes too?

[LostStraw]

I haven't tried either of these so try them at your own risk:

Getting rid of the libraries: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-librar...e-in-windows-7/

Getting the classic start menu back: http://www.csmenu.com/

[LadyCrimson]

Win7-64 runs "awesome" on my rig too. Not slow or crashes or video tearing etc. I run 3 instances of Borderlands at the same time with no lag, which is great fun, hehe.

I don't use Sleep tho, so dunno about that. Also don't use Areo.

 

One reason - but not the only one - Win7 uses more RAM...have you taken a look at how many processes run in the background by default w/nothing open? It's quite a lot. I barely have any non-game programs installed and it was still close to 50 (I had my XP at 25ish). I've seen people post they have 80+ going. After fiddling I have Win7 down to 35 and I still that's too many, lol. And, of course, any programs that run at startup and/or sit in the task tray adds to it. Sometimes programs run at startup w/out ever telling you they do so and aren't in the tray so you don't even realize it w/out looking. (mlbtv's nexdef does that and uses quite a lot of MB's, grrr).

 

If you feel adventurous, you can Run/services.msc and play around with them - you can put a lot on Manual/Not Started or Disabled if you want, which cuts down on some of those processes you see. Here's a page that may help with that. I've used it and altered quite a few with no problems, but as always, fiddle at own risk. Changing some may actually slow things down.

http://www.blackviper.com/Windows_7/servicecfg.htm

 

On the pre-fetch...I read that if you install programs in your own created directory (rather than the default Program Files..) that it bypasses that, but I don't know if that's actually true or not.

Edited April 21, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Pidesco]

Nice post. Thanks.

[LadyCrimson]

Don't expect RAM miracles altering those, but it does help in that area some. I think mine went from using close to 1.4 RAM on startup to 897MB, 930 with nexdef on (grr again). Could help in performance areas a little maybe too.

[Pidesco]

My worry isn't about RAM, though. Doubling the amount helped general performance a fair bit. My problem is that the CPU, and maybe the GPU as well aren't giving the same mileage as they did under XP.

[Purkake]

Well, I'm super happy with it.

[LadyCrimson]

My worry isn't about RAM, though. Doubling the amount helped general performance a fair bit. My problem is that the CPU, and maybe the GPU as well aren't giving the same mileage as they did under XP.

What exactly is running slow? Just an overall sluggishness everywhere, or are there specific things like boot up times, certain programs, clicking around in Explorer/Library files etc? I've seen many people with Core 2 Duo & 2-4RAM that claim Win7 works fine/not slow, but definition of slow, I'm sure, varies. But yea, both Vista & Win7 are going to use up more of those things than XP. You could put XP on all kinds of ancient machines and it'd work pretty well. Win7 is NOT faster than XP if the rig stuff is equal...it's faster than Vista. If your PC is older, you'll probably see a little slowdown.

 

Win7 doesn't come with DX9 and that can cause some performance or other problems with some games as I hear the DirectX render mode can cause slowdown.

You can try installing the DirectX End-User Runtime Updater and see if that helps in that area. I wasn't convinced it did, but eh, it hasn't hurt anything either. :D

 

Oh and if I'm reading things correctly, your CPU won't support IntelVT/Win7's XP virtual mode. If you never use XPMode, don't think it matters, but just FYI. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-x...intel,7709.html

[LadyCrimson]

RE: the sleep crash issue...if your problem could be this one, there's a hotfix for it.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178

 

Otherwise, it most often seems to be driver/program related.

[Pidesco]

Games are significantly slower in 7 than in XP. Mostly, it's not the 2 to 3 frame drop off benchmarks online told me. They've gone from silky smooth to stuttering unless I start lowering the bling. The games I've tested so far are Dragon Age, Call of Pripyat, Last Remnant and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

 

Also there's the previously mentioned tearing of videos on the HDTV.

[Kaftan Barlast]

My laptop was actually faster with Win7x64 on it. Hewlett-mothefrakkin-Packard dudes...

[CoM_Solaufein]

The only disappointment I have is the stupid thing won't recognize my Creative X-FI sound card. So far its been good with everything else.

[Pidesco]

So Windows 7 is a bit of a ****, then?

[Purkake]

You need Creative Alchemy to get X-Fi stuff to work on Vista or Windows 7, something about Microsoft forcing Open AL. Works just fine with Alchemy, though.

[LadyCrimson]

You need Creative Alchemy to get X-Fi stuff to work on Vista or Windows 7, something about Microsoft forcing Open AL. Works just fine with Alchemy, though.

My SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio works just fine with Win7...

...but I did buy it the same time I bought the whole system, so maybe it came w/something already in it to make it work...er...I dunno?

[Purkake]

I think one of the Windows updates downloads all the necessary drivers. My X-Fi card didn't work until I installed the driver.