Gaming Signal: 64 bit Windows Vista Ultimate finally usable with latest nvidia drivers.

64 bit Windows Vista Ultimate finally usable with latest nvidia drivers.

Hello again my naughty little meerkats! On a whim I decided that since I recently came in to a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate (Full Version) that I did not have to pay the ridiculous sum of $400 to get. I figured I might give Vista 64 bit a shot on my PC now that nvidia has recently released version: 158.18 video divers for 64 bit OS's. I was pleasantly surprised...

What surprised me the most was how good a job nvidia did with the 64 bit 158.18 video drivers compared to older more stable (and more overclockable) 32 bit XP or Vista drivers.

So I guess a good place to start is my current basic machine stats. If you want more detail look to the screen shots below.
Case: Antec P180 Mid-Tower
PS: Silverstone DA650 650W
MB: ASUS A8N32-SLI-Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
GPU: EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 KO
RAM: Patriot eXtreme Performance 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
HD: Western Digital WDC WD3200KS-00PFB0 SATA Device

So this is not a true "apples to apples" test since I am not a review site and don't have multiple similar PC's to test with so there is some variance in the GPU hardware I am testing with. In the 4 3DMark06 projects I am comparing I switch OS's and video cards + drivers only. Everything else stayed the same. Yeah yeah, not the best test, but since I don't care, (about anything for that matter) you shouldn't either. It's the experience I'm trying to exemplify and not the controlled environment of my test.

So what we have below is four different 3DMark06 comparisons running the default test at 1280x1024. One thing I would like to mention the light blue bar txt header should read "ASUS A8N32-SLI-Deluxe Win XP SP2 SLI CPU OC Max Vid OC 520/1315" because that unit had 2x 7800 GTX in an SLI config:

Items of note:
Look at 64 bit Vista rockin' the house in second place in the "Overall Score" with no overclock. It has the highest score out of the non-OC'd units!

Items of note:
Again look at 64 bit Vista come in second to a mild OC from Windows XP SP2 in the "Graphics Tests". Impressive!

Items of note:
This is the clincher I think? 64 bit Vista is beating all the other configurations in the "CPU2 - Red Valley" test here and two of the other configurations even have CPU overclocks?!?! VERY impressive!

Items of Note:
Well there is always one weak category. I wonder why the "Canyon Flight (SM 3.0)" test was so hard for 64 bit Vista. This one will take some research to figure out.

Items of Note:
Nothing here but the system specs and device values for reference. What? That not good enough for you?!?!?

Observations:
If this is what we can expect in 3DMark06, imagine what real world game performance is! Well done nvidia! So what about game compatibility you ask? Well so far I have loaded these games on 64 bit Vista. (Steam - Half-Life Source, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Day of Defeat Source, Medieval II: Total War, Thief: Deadly Shadows, X3: Reunion, The Ship, DEFCON, Counter-Strike: Source.) (EA Link - Battlefield 2 + all map packs, Battlefield: 2142 + all map packs, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars) (Others - Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Neverwinter Nights 2 (still dog slow!), F.E.A.R., Heroes of Might and Magic V, and last but not least The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.) So far all of these have worked quite well. Some had performance gains, some had losses, but minor losses only.

As far as productivity software goes I have loaded MS Office 2007 Enterprise, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Alias Wavefront Maya, 3D Studio Max, Adobe Premier without issue.

64 bit software surprises came along with this install in the way of me finding actual 64 bit versions of Logitech's G15 Gaming Keyboard applications, and Daemon Tools, and one more I can't remember. (I'm posting from work, sorry.)

Conclusions:
I think I'm going to leave 64 bit Vista as my primary operating system. So far I have not ran in to a single incompatibility with the 64 bit OS and in a lot of cases I have seen a performance gain. I'm sure none of the compatibility info is new to anyone, but the performance while gaming with the nvidia 158.18 video divers is new and quite a boon to those who have taken the plunge on Vista with an 8800 series GPU.

I hope there is enough data here that you might give Vista 64 bit a shot if you can. I wouldn't spend the money on a Full Version of Vista that comes with the 64 bit as Microsoft is totally kidding themselves with that $400 price tag. But all is not lost. If you currently have 32 bit Vista, Microsoft still seems to be running their alternate media program where you can get the 64 bit DVD for a small fee and shipping here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I hope you enjoyed what I learned. I know I did, and from what I read online, there aren't a lot of 64 bit virus or malware written yet by hackers so the 64 bit OS might last a little longer before it bites the dust after running too many Sony rootkits and other DRM fiasco's from Sony.

Cheers!
-Trent