Windows XP SP3 <------ Let's see Windows XP with no Service Packs. I hope you didn't think Windows 7 was some kind of godsend operating system and is flawless from the start lol. This proves nothing to me. Heil Windows 7! And it's already well known Windows XP SP3 takes lesser disk space, uses less memory. But there's been tons of benchmarks that put XP SP3 and Windows 7 head to head off by a few points running games. The GUI problem will probably be fixed in a patch I'm sure. I'd rather my CPU get used. Damn thing is getting fat. Needs to burn off some of them excess Ghz. I like my CPUs in the 100 MHz range ;-) So sexy... Though I mean if this certain aspect bothered you I wouldn't blame you for dual booting XP just for some frame rate gain. I would do the same exact thing actually. Depends on how hardcore you are. I believe all games should be enjoyed in max settings. However there are some definite advantages to keeping it low settings. Especially in FPS if you think numbers matter. I normally play max settings in lowest resolution. Specially on an older system such as mine.
That's why i still have it dualbooted with xp sp3. sp's will eventually solve it for win7, but untill then i'm not gonna give up on yea old xp yet
best way to test/stress your rig is to find a standard video test clip with set parameters and use VirtualDub to upscale to 720p with various filters crop/de-noise/de-interlaced etc.. (export settings). see how many frame per second/CPU cores usage you get. example 720x480 to 1280x720 conversion same clip/settings: XP sp3= 118 FPS @ 90% 2 cores OC to 3.9 Win 7 ult.= 109 FPS @ 85% 2 cores OC to 3.9 Win 7 ult. barebone = 125 FPS @ 85% 2 cores OC to 3.9
first off, yes explorer and 90% of the UI was written to optimize GDI, well guess what GDI is gone, everything now uses either Direct2D (new to DX11) or Direct3D. If MS wanted to optimize the UI for Direct2D they would have caused more issues with older cards. Also the ditching of GDI is because new CPUs can offload this amount with little to no effort unless you do something stupid like try to force your CPU to render windows and window contents quickly. Secondly, who is going to scroll their windows up and down and resize them like that? OMG Windows 7 takes up lots of processor usage when moving my window contents around all the time. Greaaat how about you play a game while doing that... oh wait you can't? How about you move those Window contents around while editing a spread sheet or writing an e-mail. Guess What Windows 2000 is faster than XP is anyway... so how about you move back to 2k since the GUI doesn't lag. Don't come to this board to incite flame wars.