Gaming between Windows 7 & 8

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pillar

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So even though Microsoft Windows 8 has only been out since October of last year, there is still plenty of people uneasy about the new OS. Should I get it or not? While it is true that its a completely new interface, most people are used used to the simple booting up to the desktop with the Start menu on the lower left hand side.

Yes, of course we've read very similar articles to the above paragraph that I just typed out, but unlike most articles out there, this thread will talk specifically about the gaming aspect of Windows 8 and its compatibility. Before I post this link, please do not talk about hating on the new Windows 8 (even though I do not care for it). This thread is simply to discuss the differences gaming-wise when it comes to Windows 7 & 8.

If you would like to share your experience when it comes to gaming on these 2 OS's, please feel free.

With all that out in the air, check it out (I strongly suggest you read the conclusion area so that it gives you a good idea of what to expect with Windows 8): http://www.game-debate.com/blog/ind...dows 7 vs Windows 8 GAMING FINALE CONCLUSIONS
 
I will not post in Mavwreck's thread with regards to the OS anymore as he is looking for advice on a complete build and I feel we have already gone over the OS enough. I will post here however because I need to comment on the benchmark link you posted. That benchmark thread on tomshardware is exactly why I chose win 7. You said you find win 8 is better for gaming and those benchmarks prove it.. Well, almost every game had marginal differences of up to 5fps going one way or the other.. and Sleeping Dogs failed on both gpu with windows 8 unless you turn the graphics way down.. Not to mention this thread on tomshardware is from October 2012. Who knows what other games have this issue or what bugs have been fixed? It's all up for debate lol. I stick with my previous statement that win 7 is more stable option.

With regards to start up time, my computer boots in 11 seconds with my SSD. how much faster do you need? heheh

Now don't get me wrong, I would like to try windows 8 out. I'm all for it someday and I'm not hating on it. I'm just trying to point out that in most cases for gaming you won't notice a difference at all and in some cases you may have issues. I would save the money and go with a stable OS for now ;)

Sorry Pillar, that's the end of my ranting about operating systems. I would love others who have tried to compare both themselves share their experience!!
 
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Personally, when windows 7 starts to fade away into nothingness I'll probably jump over to linux.
 
Hi,

ResiDew; I would do that too but a lot of aspects do not work work on Linux, sadly enough :)

@TS; Personally I would choose for Windows 8 (I upgraded my desktop from W7 to W8 and bought a W8 laptop). I experience that things are smoother and a tat faster. I even notice this at one of my jobs (computer repairs).

But before buying, please check if the drivers can handle W8.

Also, my benchmark source (Dutch though, just look at the pictures);
http://tweakers.net/reviews/2802/3/...oek-naar-de-winst-windows-7-vs-windows-8.html
 
Now I would like to say real quickly that I have been wanting to try the user-friendly version of Linux called Ubuntu for quite some time now. Ive heard that its very good when it comes to video games, but theres just not that many games out there that work for Linux. I do like the fact that Gabe is trying to change the code around so that more & more games are compatible with Linux, which is great. However I will admit that I am in no big hurry to get on Linux until I have some good $$ set aside for such a project.
/rant
 
PureMusic said:
Hi,

ResiDew; I would do that too but a lot of aspects do not work work on Linux, sadly enough :)

@TS; Personally I would choose for Windows 8 (I upgraded my desktop from W7 to W8 and bought a W8 laptop). I experience that things are smoother and a tat faster. I even notice this at one of my jobs (computer repairs).

But before buying, please check if the drivers can handle W8.

Also, my benchmark source (Dutch though, just look at the pictures);
http://tweakers.net/reviews/2802/3/...oek-naar-de-winst-windows-7-vs-windows-8.html
Click to expand...

There are a view "compatibility mode" programs on linux that can mend some of that. Plus valve is working of Steam: linux edition!
 
pillar said:
Now I would like to say real quickly that I have been wanting to try the user-friendly version of Linux called Ubuntu for quite some time now. Ive heard that its very good when it comes to video games, but theres just not that many games out there that work for Linux. I do like the fact that Gabe is trying to change the code around so that more & more games are compatible with Linux, which is great. However I will admit that I am in no big hurry to get on Linux until I have some good $$ set aside for such a project.
/rant
Click to expand...

Linux is free. I switched for a year, and it was great. I just missed my games. Ubuntu isn't "the user-friendly version of Linux", you would be wrong to call it that. It's more like a variant of Linux that comes packaged with a desktop environment (that you may consider easy to use), and there are many of such variants (called distributions).

On topic, I game on Windows 8. Everything I've tried works. As a matter of fact, I've found that Windows 8 is noticeably better at performance than Windows 7, probably partly due to the lack of Aero.

/thread
 
I wouldnt do it. The touch screen platform is just far too early to intergrate into everyday gaming machines. Not every computer has a touch screen and I am positive that every game you want to play will not have features that will utilize all the features windows 8 has to offer.

My opinion: Wait it out.

Wait for windows 8 to pass and stick with windows 7 for awhile. Once the new windows OS is released I am sure they would have taken into account the touch screen idea that everyone disliked from the get go. IF your in dyer need of windows 8 you will want to get some sort if program to emulate the desktop of windows 7.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0fsyb-ttcw[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfODwWeP9MI[/ame]

Watch the video's teksyndicate has made. He makes some very great and valid points on almost everything out now. Probably some of the most unbiased person when it comes to anything too. As I said though, Wait it out and dont waste your money. Upgrade a PC part if you are really wanting to spend some cash.
 
I have some machines running Linux, some running Win 7, and some running Win 8. Linux is great if you like tinkering, but can be frustrating if you want things to "just work". As for Win 7 vs. Win 8, I don't really notice a difference. The start menu just turned into a start screen. No big whoop. Once you get into the desktop, which is where 99% of what I do runs, I don't really see any difference. I think that most of the opinions out there are just people buying into hype on one side or the other. No offense meant to anybody. I know that I was not looking forward to using Windows 8, but felt I had to get used to it as I work in IT and it's inevitable that I'm going to run into it. Once I got it installed I realized that my fears were unfounded. YMMV
 
Isn't it always that the other OS sucks, like, Win XP was great, Win Vista sucked, Win 7 is excellent, Win 8 sucks. Then after Win 8 i just feel its gonna suck after that, who the heck makes an OS for tablets and makes it work for PCs ??? I had Win 8 for a while, and had nothing but errors, all games had errors, I got random black screen flashes, artifacts, FPS was terrible, GPU temp shot way too high in win 8 compared to win7, games always crashed, always had OpenGL or DX related errors, drivers crashed repeatedly in it.
 
I've seen better performance across a range of games with 7 so far, but I've been tweaking 7 for many years on a 6 core machine .

However, I did load 8 on my laptop last year and saw a phenomenal performance boost in games (from 7). But it is only 2 core.

Been tweaking 8 for a while now and it hums pretty well. Still think 7 is the way to go though.
 
Cloakedsphere said:
Watch the video's teksyndicate has made. He makes some very great and valid points on almost everything out now. Probably some of the most unbiased person when it comes to anything too. As I said though, Wait it out and dont waste your money. Upgrade a PC part if you are really wanting to spend some cash.
Click to expand...

Wow...do you call that unbiased? All I saw was a circlejerk about the "number of mouseclicks" and the space required to move your mouse. If you think about it, the number of mouseclicks is the same - it just looks different; same goes for the Start Menu: everything is still there, it's just in a different format.

I've had Windows 8 since last December 2012, and sure, I've had some gripes with it. Because of the new function of the Windows key, accessing my computer via LogMeIn from my iPad while the taskbar is hidden creates a slight issue and takes a little more time, but ultimately the benefits outweigh those silly drawbacks.

For example: my boot time is much, much faster. I no longer groan whenever Windows asks me to restart to install updates. Right clicking the taskbar where the Start button was previously located brings up a useful menu, and the option of apps to access things such as Facebook and reddit is a nice function with a beautiful layout. When you think about it, you simply have to close those apps just as you would have to close applications on the desktop when leaving, or else they remain in the background. Apps such as Mail are convenient for accessing all of your mail accounts, and other apps allow a unified interface with Windows Phone 7/8 and XBox.

My final statement is that while I believe you should upgrade, you must also realize that Windows 8 has some features meant to be enjoyed on a tablet. While you may be able to access these features, they won't have the same functionality on a desktop. However, you will have increased performance and functionality in other areas, and generally my FPS is higher on W8 over W7; then again, I have a GTX 660 Ti, so oftentimes low FPS isn't such a big deal to me.

I say upgrade now, because eventually you will have to; anyone who thinks Microsoft is going to revert to a W7-esque layout with their next operating system is almost definitely wrong, for while some elements may be changed or reverted, others will remain a part of many Windows to come. Although Gabe is now behind Linux, there simply isn't enough backing behind Linux right now for it to become a viable OS, and obviously OSX is no better than W8 as far as performance goes.
 
PC is waaaay better than Console for gaming!




Woops, sorry, wrong thread.


:)
 
I used Win7 for awhile, I upgraded to Win8 and see no difference at all in my gaming. I haven't encountered a game that doesn't work yet and have only heard of one game that didn't work, but it was a horrible game.

A lot of people get confused with the "new interface" on Windows 8. Basically it's just a re-designed Start Menu.

If you want to get Windows 8 then get it, there's no issues with it. If you want to stay with Windows 7 then stay with it, there's no issues with that either. Don't listen to people that don't own the OS though, that's a wrong thing to do.
 
I just got a new gaming PC preloaded with Win8; my first walk thru was a disaster. It came loaded with all the usual HP bloatware, but I was expecting that. What I was not expecting was smartphone or tablet-style interface from a full size desktop. Frankly, it's a great social media machine, but a lousy interface for almost everything else. This is a desktop machine Microsoft; by definition it's not a social media platform!
I loaded and played a game, and the improvement over the old machine was immediately apparent, even without a game accelerator (I use Razer to make by dual core Vista system palatable). I can't tell if performance is in any way due to Win8, or just because it's a much more technologically advanced machine. I'm not a tech guy, but I do understand the marketing strategy of Win8; I just don't understand the logic of putting it in something other than a laptop or tablet.

Papa
 
I would like to add 1 extra thing to help us understand the experiences that we all face between these 2 OS's. Whether your system current has Windows 7 or like the last poster, who just bought a brand new system & it automatically had Windows 8 installed, each system will be built a different way. Whether your a gamer or not, you will see different performance improvements and changes between the 2 OS's.

With this in mind, please feel free to keep sending your feedback on your experiences with Windows 8. Also lets make sure to keep the comments constructive so that we dont start any flame wars.

@PBJ, for the most part, I enjoyed what you said in your last paragraph.
 
I'm liking Windows 8, they said the same about every single OS when it first came out. People are just creatures of habit. Besides who doesn't tweak Operating Systems anyhow?

Bottom line, it uses less resources and the tweaks you can do to the metro start are fun given that you use the right 3rd party program.
 
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