Member Avatar for blud

Those of you running vista know what I'm talking about. Mine is currently 3.6 but that is because my video card doesn't have drivers, I expect it to goto at least 5.6 once I get those installed (as that is the next lowest number on the page) :cheesy:

  • 37 Contributors
  • 121 Replies
  • 980 Views
  • 1 Year Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by newb1e

Dani AI

Generated

Short primer and practical checklist for the thread: the Windows Experience Index (WEI) is the results of the WinSAT system assessment — it reports five subscores (CPU, RAM, 2D/desktop graphics, 3D/gaming graphics, and primary disk) and the machine's base score is simply the lowest of those subscores. In Vista the visible scale capped out at 5.9, so a "5.9" often just means "not the bottleneck here" rather than a perfect machine. (en.wikipedia.org)

Why your numbers jump around: driver installs, background load and how Windows talks to the GPU/storage stack all change results. Aero and the desktop compositor depend on WDDM-capable drivers and on how the system exposes adapters; multi‑GPU setups (SLI/CrossFire/linked adapters) and driver models introduce extra variability so adding a second card doesn't necessarily raise the WEI for Aero or the DWM tests. That explains posts like , and seeing driver/SLI behavior that did not match their expectations. Update vendor WDDM drivers and treat WEI as a rough compatibility/bottleneck indicator, not a definitive real‑world benchmark. (gerhart01.github.io)

How to re-run or reset the index (safe, quick troubleshooting): run the WinSAT formal assessment from an elevated command prompt, or force a clean re-run if you changed hardware/drivers. The WinSAT XML results live in %WINDIR%\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore and can be cleared if you need a true fresh run. Example commands:

winsat formal
winsat formal -restart clean
winsat forgethistory

Run as Administrator and consider a clean boot (temporarily disable third‑party AV/startup items) when testing. (learn.microsoft.com)

Targeted fixes that work in practice: graphics — install the latest WDDM vendor driver (Aero needs it); gaming score often follows GPU driver and VRAM/Direct3D support. disk — AHCI/driver correctness or switching to an SSD will move the disk subscore most. memory — add RAM and use a 64‑bit OS if you need to remove WEI ceilings. If a driver update lowers WEI but improves real-world framerate (as noted), prefer actual performance; WEI is a guide to bottlenecks, not the final word. (en.wikipedia.org)

Recommended Answers

All 121 Replies

Member Avatar for 'Stein

My computer desn't have the specs to run Vista (it's a mini laptop).:sad:

commented: love your avatar :) +6
Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

Yeah same here (3.6) for the graphics, I installed the drivers but it didn't change the score.

Member Avatar for Davelray

LOL I think when I had RC2 on my desktop I garnered a 2.5, due to having PC2100 memory and only having 1.5 GB to boot, and also because I have an older Nvidea 6200 256MB AGP card.

Member Avatar for Dani

5.8 for me :)

Member Avatar for Dortz

I finally got my copy of regular vista business, (the business N edition didn't have 'any' multimedia stuff) and i've got a 4.1, held back by my processor and hard drive read speed. the next number is my RAM, at 4.6.

commented: love the avatar :) +6
Member Avatar for Dani

My video card is what's holding me back at 5.8. I have two Quadro FX 4500s but apparently Vista isn't yet capable of SLI mode. Everything else is 5.9.

Member Avatar for Dortz

truly a rig fit for a queen.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

my score's one, but i don't know why, vista runs very well on this system.

Member Avatar for Dortz

what are your individual scores? what is holding you back?

Member Avatar for TheNNS

well, my cpu has 4.2 rating, memory has 2 (i'm running on 512ram),grapchics has 1, on gaming it has 1, and hard disk 3.6.

I'm thinking of upgrading to 1g of ram, but i can't do much about everything else.

Member Avatar for jbennet

i got 1.2 as for a laugh i installed on a P3 699mhz with 512 ram and a 1mb video card and 20gb HDD

Member Avatar for Dortz

well, that's your problem there. your graphics are probably not fully supported. what is your hardware?

Member Avatar for rodders154

I have 3 I tried the downloaded FX5700ve drivers from Nvidia and they say there is no supported hardware ...................ho hum

Tried to get the windows rotating as in all the TV shots but to no avail

The more i use it the more i dislike it

Member Avatar for Dortz

well, i lost a lot of faith in the experience score system. I updated my graphics card drivers to the actual ATI ones, because i was getting crap framerate, and after, was getting much better framerate naturally. but, when i re-ran the score test, my graphics score dropped 3 points. i went from a 4.1 overall with 5.9 gfx, and after it dropped to 2.9 overall.

I guess if i wanted better numbers, i'd revert the drivers, but, the computer as a whole operates a lot better even.

Member Avatar for bjw45

:o O.K. You got me. What is the Vista Experience Score? I just completed a small network at home and installed Vista on all machines. It runs sweet in my estimation. For a switch, Bill "borrowed" the "look" from Steve. Nice touch. Got rid of the iMac...it's fun but not very functional. Vista has it all. And for the nay sayers who complain about bugs, et al, not to worry, all takes time.

Member Avatar for Dani

I think you're the first person who has managed to put a positive spin on the fact that so many elements of Vista are blatant rips of OS X.

Member Avatar for lasher511

Having just bought a vista machine for my workplace yesterday i must say that i am very unimpressed. When i turned the machine on i got a windows is preparing to start up for the first time message which it was on for 2 minutes then it went to a pretty blue/green screen and vista's new pretty spinning wheel busy mouse cursor came up and was on this screen for around 20 minutes doing what appeared to be nothing so i went on to other things and let the machine do its thing.

Once it had finished with this process (whatever it was) the machine rebooted and went to a screen saying windows is now inspecting your hard ware. It stayed on this screen for 5 minutes. Then it switched to a screen that looked very similar to the screen you get on a new Mac (not suggesting anything im just saying its a little suspicious) only on a mac it does not take half an hour of the machine doing nothing to get to this stage.

And then another reboot......

After another 6 minutes or so booting up i was finally into the OS and ready to make all the restore disks.

Now given it could have been the specs on the machine that was causing this long delay

512mb Ram
1.7ghz processor

However it seems to me that with every new OS microsoft releases the minimum requirements increase by crazy amounts especially as a machine with almost identicle specs running XP pro was set up across the room from me in half the time.

Over all i am not impressed with what i have seen of vista and its high dependency on having good hardware in order to run properly Unlike OSX which can run well on some of the really old Macs.(I am currently typing this on a Powermac G4 400mhz 256mb running Tiger)

Member Avatar for TheNNS

Why are people so negative about vista, I've had the best expirience. I haven't had any problems with it. and I don't have high end machines. Aero is like nothing apple has done, they don't have those fancy effects, transparent windows, flip 3d, any of that. Vista also offers a lot of new useful features like the inline search.

One more thing, there are about 140 million windows users. How many mac users are out there? how many linux users? yeah, that's what I though. If macs are so great, how come very few people have them?

Member Avatar for Cartel

[IMG][/IMG]

Member Avatar for jbennet

it takes over 10 mins for vista to boot up on my P4 with 1gb ram - after adding 2gb more ram to make 3 gig it now takes about 6 mins.

Member Avatar for TheNNS

jbennet, I have a laptop with a p4 hyperthreading, 486 RAM and it takes me one minute or so to boot up. It has to be your configuration or something.

Member Avatar for bjw45

Having just bought a vista machine for my workplace yesterday i must say that i am very unimpressed. When i turned the machine on i got a windows is preparing to start up for the first time message which it was on for 2 minutes then it went to a pretty blue/green screen and vista's new pretty spinning wheel busy mouse cursor came up and was on this screen for around 20 minutes doing what appeared to be nothing so i went on to other things and let the machine do its thing.

Once it had finished with this process (whatever it was) the machine rebooted and went to a screen saying windows is now inspecting your hard ware. It stayed on this screen for 5 minutes. Then it switched to a screen that looked very similar to the screen you get on a new Mac (not suggesting anything im just saying its a little suspicious) only on a mac it does not take half an hour of the machine doing nothing to get to this stage.

And then another reboot......

After another 6 minutes or so booting up i was finally into the OS and ready to make all the restore disks.

Now given it could have been the specs on the machine that was causing this long delay

512mb Ram
1.7ghz processor

However it seems to me that with every new OS microsoft releases the minimum requirements increase by crazy amounts especially as a machine with almost identicle specs running XP pro was set up across the room from me in half the time.

Over all i am not impressed with what i have seen of vista and its high dependency on having good hardware in order to run properly Unlike OSX which can run well on some of the really old Macs.(I am currently typing this on a Powermac G4 400mhz 256mb running Tiger)

I don't know how old you are, but IN THE BEGINNING Microsoft OS was on a floppy. As the program grew, so did the size of the media required to hold the code. Exactly what did you think when Vista came out, that it woudl be SMALLER. Reality check! Also, patience is a virtue, especially when you may not have done quite the research you needed to do to determine if you had the right "goods" to accomodate the software. It's all good, time will tell.

Member Avatar for jbennet

jbennet, I have a laptop with a p4 hyperthreading, 486 RAM and it takes me one minute or so to boot up. It has to be your configuration or something.

Clean install on a bog standard Dell D5150 + more ram. Only non MS thing on it atm is ATI gfx and intel chipset drivers for vista

When idle vista is giving me 60% CPU and 700 ram with NO aero.

Member Avatar for Cartel

it takes over 10 mins for vista to boot up on my P4 with 1gb ram - after adding 2gb more ram to make 3 gig it now takes about 6 mins.

My computer boots in 1 minute 12 seconds........with 3GB of ram I suspect it may stand up and kiss me.
Thats from being off the second I push the on button, it does its bios check and then discovers my sata and i typed my password as quick as I can.
When all Icons have appeared in the taskbar 1m 12s

Member Avatar for Dortz

I have almost exactly the same setup as jbennet. it takes me 1m 40s from bios to browser window.

Member Avatar for Dani

My computer takes a really long time to boot because I have a PERC raid card ... apparently hdds attached to raid cards take a long time to come up.

Member Avatar for jbennet

yeah ive got iton my mobo and to install vista (it wanted a goddamn driver floppy!) i had to set my SATA RAID to legacy (ide speed) mode

Member Avatar for Jaseva

When idle vista is giving me 60% CPU and 700 ram with NO aero.

I turned aero off and when idle it uses 0-3% CPU and 400-500 ram. Before I turned aero off, it usually sat around the same thing except it consistently used around 500 ram. Not sure why yours is using so much..

As far as your slow boot problem.. Event viewer should show exactly what is causing it to take so long. I was having problems with my startup and shutdown times and event viewer logs any of either of those if it feels it took too long. I went in and found out what the main issue was and disabled that program. I still have a few things slowing it down, but nothing too bad.

I know you've probably already checked there, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

commented: good idea +6
Member Avatar for jbennet

with windows classic (2k type theme) i get 650mb and 40% - stilll crappy

explorer is using like 250!

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.