Or: How much is Win7 a game platform? The question is right and proper, because the predecessor went mucky and got big slaps from gamers. Lets say it's OK, because after an agile and well mannered XP we got a behemoth which was able to slow almost every game significantly. In many cases the situation seemed hopeless. For example there was serious problems of compatibility in connection with the older pieces, so classic games could be brought to work only by great efforts or not at all. If Microsoft continued this wrong side out mechanism – new Win equals slowing in X percent –, we would see only some cool slide show, and not just in the case of power eaters like Crysis... So let's see what we can do with the new OS!
(The tests were made on a nearly average, not so hardcore machine what you can buy by saving a little for your hobby. The technical background is given by a common Gigabyte motherboard, 3x1 gigs of RAM on 1033 Mhz, an E6750 processor running by factory clock, an 8800 GT VGA with 512 Mb memory, and a 160 GB HDD.)
Max PayneIt was an interesting affair with good old Uncle Payne. In the very beginning the setup told me there are not enough memory, and offered the cancellation of the installation process. After I decided to continue it anyway and took a chance with the 3 Gigs, another message came: “Ok, I'll give you this game but you won't play a minute because you have less than 96 Megs of memory.” I took the bit in my teeth and said: Rock and Roll! During the process I waited intensely to click on the gourd of my favorite detective, I brutally set everything to the maximum at the Options menu, then I started the story. There was something I missed very much from the intro: the sound. Because there is no sound if you run Max Payne on Win7. After the intro I got to the first loading screen, and at this point the system gave up, Max won. The game was out of the Matrix without a word and I was blinking at the beautiful W7 desktop. But that was not the end of the struggle at all: Windows itself became an OS of action and started to search the cause of the failure without question. After some seconds it offered a solution: Maybe I should run this unruly program in WinXP SP2 compatibility mode. “Ok,” I said, and the rest was done by the system. Start it again? Yes, and soon I was in the dark game noir world of Max again. This time the game didn't kick me out, moreover, it goes very well, speed is excellent, no more problem. Just the sound, which was strange and incomplete. This was the only problem which showed up after the automatic – intelligent? – troubleshooting of Windows 7: There was no sound in the movies, and there was strangely warped and incomplete sound under the shooting and talking. Ambient sound was lagging, sometimes it lost completely, other times the sync was late or missing. Stepping through this failure it can be said: Max Payne is playable on Windows 7. (Update: It turned out that the sound compression is incompatible with the Windows 7 sound driver system – remember? There is no DirectSound – but there's a fix for that on the net. Google it.)
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
In spite of some hard efforts I couldn't make this classic II. WW FPS work on my previous Vista system: Not a compatibility mode or special driver could solve the problem. So it's understandable why my hands were shaking when I placed the CD on the tray of the optical drive, and I waited the end of the setup process excitedly. After that I entered the main menu and put the video settings on the possible highest values. Unfortunately the Vista-case was repeated, and the game finished its short carrier referencing some OpenGL failure. But I didn't give up: I chose a lower resolution setting – 1280x1024 – to try the impossible. Then I clicked on the star marking the first mission on the map and it worked! There was a huge shooting on screen for quarter an hour, then the whole thing froze, and I avoided restart only by serious pushing of Ctrl-Alt-Del. I started another test run and everything worked well. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault runs perfectly with the highest settings except resolution. Out of romantic causes I made the test time a little longer – it was more than an hour long – and it brought a stable 91 frame per sec. It can be said that with some little compromise it's not a problem to run MOHAA on Win7, so the newcomer went one better than its ancestor, Vista. (However, pay attention to MOHAA.exe, because it tends to stuck into the Processes, and so it is running in the background using up 100-130 Megs of memory. Switch it off in the Task Manager.)
GTA IV
The forums on internet are full of ugly gossips and rumors about this topic, mainly telling that GTA IV is not working on Windows 7. I was curious about the chemistry of the two programs, so undertaking the long installation procedure I took a chance on one of Rockstar's most successful sandbox games. The result was shocking: GTA IV and its assistants – Windows Live and Rockstar Social Club – were working like a charm, without any failure during the test. But if you want some improved output, you will be disappointed: At least I didn't sense any extra with the same settings I used on Vista. Unfortunately even the three installed patches didn't bring the Heaven down too, average fps was around 22, but at least it never went under 20, so after all it improved a little, in a way. It was not better on lower resolution, and I went down even to 1024, but GTA IV didn't want to run nicely. It gave a continuous moving image but in a resolution which is not enjoyable on a bigger display. Something had been screwed up here in the basics, and supposedly it won't be repaired. You should accept it.
Far Cry 2
As it was supposed, thanks to its much better technical construction Far Cry 2 produced nice results during the test. Here I could roam freely in huge spaces like in GTA IV, but the landscapes showed much finer objects, textures and shaders. Lush vegetation and complex shadows should challenge the machine much more, but somehow, maybe because of the knowledge and attention of the developers, Far Cry 2 rushed past Rockstar's little mascot. The game pressed averagely 27 frames per sec out of itself on ultra high resolution and with 8x anti-aliasing. With 2x anti-aliasing it was 37 fps, and on the proper resolution with no need of filters it went with 47 fps averagely. It's a great result, because on Vista the game never produced such quality with extreme settings. I bet on a 20% improvement of performance, which is notable at least. I didn't find any error during the installation process or the test play, so Windows 7 completed its mission without a slip.
Crysis Warhead
Here it is: The killer of every desktop OS, the software which knows no mercy even for the high end compositions. I was a bit afraid of starting the Benchmark of HOC which unfortunately allowed me only 1280x1024 as the highest resolution, and what's more, without filters. Of course, it was more than enough... But I was optimist – or just wanted to have some fun – during the first test and experienced with Ultra High settings, which went totally awry: the average fps was around 12 in the Airfield. When I piped down a bit and used only High settings there was a more playable result with 23 fps averagely. So, yes, regarding a thing Crysis counts as a technical milestone: It is the almost photorealistic graphics which is less charming if you see the fact that a hard to please player can use the filters on maximum, the HD resolution and the other Ultra High settings only after a few years from now. Till then there is the exceptional immersion to thrive on. I have to note that in the case of Vista the compromises were not helping and on a resolution of 1650, with High settings, without filters it cried for celebration when the fps went above 20. Regarding this, Win7 complied a bit better with similar settings than its predecessor. The improvement was not 20% but around half of it, to get somewhere near the truth. Unfortunately, even this was not enough, mainly if we consider that the 23 fps came from a strongly dulled Crysis Warhead... Hard action showed no better results: It's true that the game ran mostly above 20 fps, but this is still hardly good. On lower resolutions Crysis gave fps results between 25-30, and this is almost enjoyable on 17”-19” displays.
Bioshock, Gears of War
I lumped these two games together because both of them are fps-limited, which means they cannot step above a given 60 fps. However, Windows 7 held its ground during the installation and the test play alike with the highest settings. There is an inevitable tied score here, because these software are optimized very well – let's say they are school examples of how to build a game today –, so you can press the maximum out of them even with an average gamer rig. The point is: You don't have to give them up because of using Win7.
The Newer Ones...
During these tests some newer games arrived, for example the remake release of Chronicles of Riddick topped with a new adventure, or the Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. I have to tell you that in these cases Win7 didn't get balled up, there was no problem, the games ran excellently, and even on the highest settings they didn't hold back. During trying the new premier titles out I definitely got the XP-feeling: The quickness and stability that could be felt years ago, in the age of WinXP. So the conclusion is evident: If you are afraid of Windows 7 saying it is not mature yet, it's time to be steady, take a deep breath, and start the installation. You won't be disappointed, particularly not with the new releases.
Nvidia Cascades
This little software was written especially for Windows Vista and the 8800 series of graphic adapters. Well, on Windows 7 and native resolution, with the highest filter settings the it produced 23 fps. After removing the filters this result almost doubled to a number of 45 fps.
3DMark Vantage
Till now the famous test of Futuremark was running on Vista only, and it dragged its feet. The effect parade intended to be ahead of its time somehow fell away: During the test I met any gorgeous spectacle, but in exchange it went badly even on lower resolutions. This stupidity didn't change with the arriving of Win7. No go, an intently under-optimized, jobbing software serving business interests cannot do a miracle even on the new system of Microsoft. The end result of 6599 points is a little bit higher than Vista's 6338 points, but I think this test can be ignored in the future. It's a useless and nonsense waste of power.
Conclusion
In most games there is no big difference, but the new system definitely produced some improvement. The most important point is the compatibility with older versions which is much more advanced than Vista's. I was testing the system in beta phase, so the results can improve in the future – furthermore, I have to add that there was no really refined Nvidia driver dedicated for Win 7. The evidence for this was the relatively games' many freezing which was caused by the sudden halts and restarts of the driver (according to the Event Log). It's not impossible that when Nvidia comes out with some more elaborated stuff, Windows 7 will be more firm and faster regarding games.
