Benchmarks: Win98 vs Win2K vs WinXP

[ThugsRook]

Win98se vs Win2000 Pro vs WinXP Pro
its been quite awhile since ive done an OS comparison. admitedly i havent used Win2k since SP4 was released, and with new (NV) drivers and a new game to test them on, this should be quite interesting for Win9x users.....


Test System
P4 2.8C @ 3.5ghz (1.50v, 250fsb)
Abit IC7 (Canterwood)
Kingston HyperX 3000 2x512mb (@ 400ddr c222)
BFG FX5900 @ 475x910 | latest drivers | DirectX 9.0c
Thermalright SP-94 | 92mm M1A | ASC
SBLive 5.1
WD SATA Raptor
Enermax 550w
Win98se | Win2K Pro SP4 | WinXP Pro SP1



http://users.adelphia.net/~d2rook/icons/ico-eve.gif Everest ~read-write
Win98 = 5608 / 1988 mb/s
Win2K = 5506 / 1977 mb/s
WinXP = 5550 / 1992 mb/s



http://users.adelphia.net/~d2rook/icons/ico-d3.gif Doom III ~1024x768, high quality
Win98 = 36.1 fps
Win2K = 51.1 fps
WinXP = 50.9 fps



http://www.bleedinedge.com/images/thugs/ico-q3a.gif Quake III Extreme ~1280x1024
Win98 = 151.4 fps
Win2K = 189.8 fps
WinXP = 189.0 fps



http://www.bleedinedge.com/images/thugs/ico-3dm2k1.gif 3DMark2001 ~1280x1024
Win98 = 15542
Win2K = 16048
WinXP = 15991



http://users.adelphia.net/~d2rook/icons/ico-ss.gif Serious Sam ~1280x1024, Memphis
Win98 = 70.8 fps
Win2K = 75.3 fps
WinXP = 75.5 fps



http://users.adelphia.net/~d2rook/icons/ico-ss.gif Serious Sam: SE ~1280x1024, Citadel
Win98 = 92.4 fps
Win2K = 125.4 fps
WinXP = 124.3 fps



the results are quite different from my previous OS comparisons.
new vid drivers, new DirectX, and a new game has seriously changed things for Win9x. either the new 9x vid drivers are buggy as all hell (very possible), or it just plain cant keep up anymore.
its been awhile since ive used Win2k and i have to admit SP4 finally kicked this OS upto WinXP perfomance levels.


~Thugsrook :)

[Hawk]

Thugs,

Nice. :thumbs: Windows 98. :scratch: Isn't that like 6 years old. :yup: :lol: :lol: :lol:

[ThugsRook]

thx Hawk :)

yea its pretty old. the latest NV drivers and the need to play new games are gonna be the death of win9x.

the older 5x.xx series win9x drivers are great and pump out close to the same scores as Win2k. however the 5x.xx / Doom III scores are only half of what the 6x.xx driver can do (in win9x). so if you wanna play newer games in Win9x you must use the latest drivers. its a catch22, and time to move on to Win2k.

:yikes:

[dbwillis]

Nice comparo Thugs....any chance of doing another XP comparo once sp2 comes out?

[ThugsRook]

yup :yup:

[v7700]

Thugsrook

Great job!
And I had downloaded your patched Doom3.exe too, thanks!

But there are some notes about your tests numbers…
I think, the reason of this Win98 weakness is in the way of the newest nVidia drivers’ parameters setup. I saw something like this on the last versions of the drivers (since NV made the separate parameters control for each game). After fresh installations of these drivers and setting all parameters in the driver’s panel to max performance (as I do usual), I saw significant fps drops (especially in OpenGl) from the older drivers (without this separate control). It was very unexpectedly for me: new drivers = less performance. But then I made resetting of these (about the same!) parameters in RivaTuner, performance came back (or became better)! I think if you’ll try this way, you’ll see better results in Win98 then Win2k. By the way, FarCry (modern game too) has better performance under Win98 then under newest OS (if right driver's tuning is done).


p.s.
Excuse for my English.

[ThugsRook]

yes, there is something strangely wrong with the newest Win9x 61.76 drivers. its as if the control panel doesnt work right and that 8xAF is always on and you cant turn it off.
but they are faster then the older Win9x drivers in Doom III....

Doom III 1024x768, high qual
win9x 53.04 drivers = 22.8 fps
win9x 61.76 drivers = 36.1 fps
win2k 61.77 drivers = 51.1 fps

exactly what settings did you use in riva tuner?
has anyone tried to use a 5x.xx control panel on the 6x.xx drivers? (nvcpl.dll)

it might be a bit silly to look into at this point ~ but i will ;)

:beer:

[ThugsRook]

added WinXP results...

[pointreyes]

Interesting. So I was not just imagining it. On my Athlon XP2500 system, I have Windows 98se on it. Then I popped in my other drive (removable drive bay :) ) and I have Windows 2000 Advanced Server on it. Now ever since I used 2000 Pro, 2000 Standard Server, and 2000 Advanced Server-I have always noticed that 2000 AS was faster. Well, I was shocked at how fast that OS 'felt' on my XP2500 system. Sorry, no 3DMark benches with this system though-it's using a Matrox G550. :rolleyes:

[ThugsRook]

i really like Win2k. no bloatware, very clean, very fast.

WinXP is also running very well too, but even trimmed down to its minimum its not as fast or as clean as Win2k. i really should get WinXP lite just to see how far i can really trim it down ;)

the WinXP lite trial version does allow for disabling "Windows File Protection". which is very usefull for deleting garbage youll never use w/o it reappearing after the next bootup :suspect:

and of course BlackViper.com has an awesome services tweaking page :thumbs:

[v7700]

hi Thugsrook !


About RivaTuner.
In there I (usual) set (both D3D and OGL):
1) Performance to max (but not for Doom3 – see below)
2) Aniso - off
3) PCI tex. memory - min
4) Vsync – off
5) PreRender limit – min (great for real(!) in game performance)
6) AA – off

About 61.76 and Win98.
There is a big problem to set it correct because then I try CoolBites hack driver automatically sets the default screen refresh rate to 240Hz after first calling the driver panel! I had never seen similar problems yet. And I have to make refresh strings corrections in registry to fix it!

About Win98 and Doom3.
There is something strange. It runs rather smooth. Level reloading is fast. There are no (or hard to see) doors opening pauses. There is no swap. But, ‘timedemo demo1’ shows bad performance – there are lot of hard(!) slowdowns and pauses. I say – It’s strange, because then I see ‘playdemo demo1’ or walk on these places, I have not any hard slowdowns and pauses! Also I can see massive slowdowns then I try ‘recorddemo’ too – but before and after demo recording the game runs smooth in same places! May I ask you – your performance numbers are from ‘timedemo’ or from ‘in game’ experience? In my case, ‘timedemo’ does not show right performance numbers.

About ForceWare (61.76) and Doom3.
There is some noticeable visual degradation if OGL performance slider (in RivaTuner) is set to max (rightmost). But then it is moved left for (even) one step – game picture became much better and game speed (in my case) is only a bit slower. There are four steps for this slider in RivaTuner, leftmost gives the best image quality. But the most noticeable difference is between rightmost and any other positions only. In my opinion, the max performance mode is not acceptable for Doom3 - image quality is too bad. But at least “one step back” is much better.



Doom3 in game setting:
High, adv. options – on, noVsync/noAA.
Doom3 .cfg options:
Aniso - off, all ‘…down…’ and ‘…skip…’ vars. - off, normal. compress. – on (otherwise some funny visuals artifacts are present, but speed is almost the same ), all visual options – on (except ‘doublevision’ (I don’t like it) and self(player) shadow (don’t try it yet)).


Config:
P4@2820(141*20), 1GB, GF4-128@300/600, SBLive1024

[ThugsRook]

ive finally found some time to work on the Win98se "problem".

i have verified that the problem is the 61.76 nVidia drivers. the driver has some massive control panel bugs. it is not possible to disable AA or AF with these drivers!!!!! (actually all w9x 6x.xx drivers)

so there is literally no way for me to compare OSes thru a "clean" graphics comparison. however using a few (hacked) driver tweaks i have been able to make W9x faster then win2k and wxp. unfortunately that doesnt make for a clean comparison does it?

hopefully NV will get off its arse and release a decent set of drivers for w9x. of course its always possible they dont give a chit and have no intentions of fixing this problem.

needless to say, im still working on it ;)

:beer: