Considering moving to Windows 10 from Windows 7 - better for ED?

[Windscreen Smudge]

If you're planning for a PC upgrade soon you're going to have to upgrade to 10. Intel and AMD, doesn't matter which way you go.

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/intel-s-latest-cpus-will-only-support-windows-10-1327487

 

[Garix]

If you're planning for a PC upgrade soon you're going to have to upgrade to 10. Intel and AMD, doesn't matter which way you go.

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/intel-s-latest-cpus-will-only-support-windows-10-1327487

not 100% accurate.

AMD appear to be changing their minds http://www.pcmag.com/news/351565/amd-ryzen-processors-will-support-windows-7

EDIT: Scratch that. Turns out they retracted that statement. http://www.pcworld.com/article/3167...-no-official-ryzen-drivers-for-windows-7.html

 

[WR3ND]

If you're planning for a PC upgrade soon you're going to have to upgrade to 10. Intel and AMD, doesn't matter which way you go.

http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/intel-s-latest-cpus-will-only-support-windows-10-1327487

All the more reason not to touch that proprietary mess with a 10 foot pole. Forcing people to update needlessly by cornering 3rd party vendors and costumers into compliance instead of just making an OS people actually want to update to does nothing but entrench my stance that Microsoft is no longer making OSs that I want to use.

When Windows 7 can no longer do what I want it to, it'll be Linux (Debian/KDE) for me all the way. I already use it exclusively on my laptop for gaming too without issue for compatible games, of which there are a growing number of both "AAA" and "indie" games to choose from, and I use it on my main PC in virtual machines too and a backup boot option, of course.

 

[shadragon]

OP - Win10 has advantages and disadvantages. Educate yourself and make up your own mind.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/328489-Windows-10-is-Not-For-Me

Comments from the tech community (I love The Reg): https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/09/02/windows_intel_kaby_lake_amd_zen/

Oh and if you do upgrade. look into this product made by a Microsoft partner:

[video=youtube_share;TmZxn0W00DI]https://youtu.be/TmZxn0W00DI[/video]

 

[shadragon]

If you're planning for a PC upgrade soon you're going to have to upgrade to 10. Intel and AMD, doesn't matter which way you go.

Or Linux. [yesnod]

 

[Judz]

Since I put win10 on I lost FPS in ED and other games, it has fast boot times yes (very), the system runs faster than win7..or seems to, but it also installs crap on that you wont need (think Android phone updates). Having previously ran 780Ti SLi and getting 105 FPS in win 10 I opted to buy a 1080. ED runs smooth now especially coming out of supercruise at a Coriolis or an Orbital , but there is zero FPS gain at all, there is zero loss of FPS as well. In win7 I had constant 120FPS, when I took V-sync off it went to the upper end off 170 or so. I'm still considering going back to win7, only time will tell.

 

[Commander Debic]

Only advantage I can see is DX12 support but does ED actually use DX12 features to improve game performance or is it still DX11?

Any other benefits to ED I should know about?

Most obvious benefit I see is that MS won't be supporting win 7 a great deal longer as they only ever support 3 iterations back. If they are counting 8.1 as separate from 8 then when you add 10 you are already talking 3 iterations, and if not then it probably won't be all that long before updates for 7 join the software graveyard.

 

[Commander Debic]

As an IT Tech i'll give you my opinion.

We've upgraded all the systems at work to 10 and all its done is created more work, think VISTA bad.

I've used 2 PCs gaming wise for ED with Win10 and they were, well seemed ok but when i was on 10 ED lost a lot of FPS due to NVIDIA shield putting some terrible overlay on top of my 3 screen setup, Win7 is flawless.

My opinion: not broken dont fix, 7 is great, 10 isnt .

Well you answered your own problem there it wasn't win 10 that caused your problem, it was NVidia.


Personally I use win 10 having upgraded from 7 when the free transfer came out. Then last year I upgraded my 780 nvidia to a 980TI which gives me 85 to 105 fps on a 4k monitor, 3840x2160, output colour depth set to 10bpc with a second 1920x1080 for browsing while travelling around ED. For me win 10 is fine and has a much better desktop interface than win 7. Biggest problem with 10 is the amount of help it always wants to give to you but you can turn most of that off anyway.

 

[WR3ND]

These Titans?

Anyway, would it be possible for you to test something for me? There is a setting in AppConfig.xml in the main game directory called "PreferNativeDoubles". Evidently it has to do with the default precision of terrain generation and is set to "false" by default. With the GPUs that I have with significantly lower FP64 than FP32 performance changing this setting to true seems to produce a moderate frame rate hit with little benefit. Could you change the value to true and see what sort of performance you get on planetary surfaces, and if there are any loading/LOD improvements?

Titan Black cards, EVGA "Superclocked" version – I like to think it has a slightly higher parts binning, but not sure.

I rolled back my Nvidia drivers to a slightly earlier version since the previous screenshot I posted, because the newer drivers weren't working well with some double precision OpenCL tasks, causing them to error out. The slightly older drivers may be why there seems to be a slight performance hit in the game in the following screenshots, or it may just be because I'm on a different world, etc.

I couldn't really tell much of a difference with PreferNativeDoubles="true" saved and reloading. If anything it was maybe just a bit lower FPS.

I restarted the game before each test screenshot to try and minimize any GPU temperature differences, etc.

Before...

Spoiler

After...

Spoiler

And here's with double precision optimization disabled and the "false" setting saved...

Spoiler

So, too close to call, I'd say, though not much if any significant difference for game performance.

One thing to note though with double precision optimization enabled on these cards, they don't tend to run single double precision tasks much if at all faster, they can just be loaded with more tasks running in parallel without loading up the GPUs as much.

That doesn't seem to be the case with some AMD cards that have higher double precision performance. They will actually tend to run single double precision tasks much faster than Nvidia cards. So there may be more of a performance boost with this setting changed on some AMD cards.

...

Edit: Also note that the "glow" reflection in the shadows is just due to the normal slow breathing type lighting effect I get on the dark side of worlds and isn't because of any setting changes. It didn't affect the FPS.

 

[dape]

Oh and if you do upgrade. look into this product made by a Microsoft partner:

https://youtu.be/TmZxn0W00DI

why would a Microsoft partner do this???

 

[WR3ND]

why would a Microsoft partner do this???

Maybe to get people who are concerned about privacy to use Windows 10? My outlook though: No need to bother with Windows 10 in the first place. Not on my PCs at any rate.

 

[Cheapchips]

If you don't care about the privacy stuff, I'd second the if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I say this even though both my Win 10 upgraded machines run well on it. Any gain, if there is one, is going to be marginal.

ED is on the supported list for Game Mode due in the next win10 update. The previewers don't seem to be getting any significant gains for other games in articles I saw (that was a week or so ago though).

 

[shadragon]

You misunderstood. I am not talking about hardware but about software. I am using my mobiles for 2-5 years myself, but if it asks me to update the OS because they found a security issue I am going to do it.

Very true and a good solid policy, but understand that MS is no longer telling people what is in their Win 10 patches to the same extent they used too. Also, they are patching home users first to see what breaks before rolling it out to the Enterprise. MS got rid of the majority of their QA staff and now relay on testing in the wild and forcing regular users to fault find and report issues for them. You no longer have the option to opt out of any given patch and what they send you isn't necessarily a security patch either.

https://betanews.com/2016/03/09/windows-10-advertising-in-ie-security-patch/

http://www.infoworld.com/article/30...0-fixes-for-a-windows-10-update-meltdown.html

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3150...patch-to-fix-broken-internet-connections.html

https://www.thurrott.com/windows/wi...delivers-yet-another-broken-windows-10-update

I don't care what professionals are doing

You should. IT Staff are a conservative bunch who typically avoid risky situations because they literally have lots of money (and potentially their jobs) riding on every decision they make. When eye brows go up in an IT office, there's usually a damned good reason why.

At some point, if you have Win 10, you are going to have issues or some sort of conflict on your system. It is a good OS, but saddled with lots of unnecessary garbage to monetize your personal info. As long as people keep buying the OS, it will get worse as MS has no incentive to improve things. Future iterations will get more invasive and problematic. If you're good with that, then game on. Just accept that a lot of us professionally paid IT people don't think Win10 is worth while. We banned Win 8 from our campus and do not have a single installed copy beyond a test VM. Win 10 is not impressing us either so far for many more reasons.

 

[bootsam]

I dont like Win10. I preferred Win7 but I upgraded along with everyone else. Win7 I knew where everything was etc, but for me win10 is just a graphical tart up whilst shoving stuff behind yet another window. I just dont like it much but as i only use a pc to game its not a big deal. I see the pc as just a big xbox.

We still run win7 at work thankfully.

 

[WR3ND]

I dont like Win10. I preferred Win7 but I upgraded along with everyone else. Win7 I knew where everything was etc, but for me win10 is just a graphical tart up whilst shoving stuff behind yet another window. I just dont like it much but as i only use a pc to game its not a big deal. I see the pc as just a big xbox.

We still run win7 at work thankfully.

How is it an upgrade if it doesn't improve your OS "experience" or what you want out of it? Upgrade is too subjective of a word in this case, which is why I prefer to use the word update instead.

And yes, I haven't updated to Windows 10 along with everyone else who also hasn't.

 

[bootsam]

I agree with your reasoning 'update' is more suitable as it hasnt improved anything for me as far as I can tell.

 

[Nick Sticks]

Most obvious benefit I see is that MS won't be supporting win 7 a great deal longer as they only ever support 3 iterations back. If they are counting 8.1 as separate from 8 then when you add 10 you are already talking 3 iterations, and if not then it probably won't be all that long before updates for 7 join the software graveyard.

That's not quite how it's done. There are dates that are set, and even these can be extended as happened to XP.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet
.
Windows 7 SP1 extended support (as of today) ends January 14th 2020.
.

 

[BigF]

Like it or loath it the Legacy OS's will go the same way as always, eventually functionality will fail due to no supporting of updates to web browsers applications etc. Users are then left with no choice.
This happens to all platforms in one way or another, even Linux.

Some of the newest boards and cards are now starting to ship without 7 drivers, this trend will continue as it has done before, with XP, 2K, 98,95 etc. All geared to make you buy newer.

Now most of us have no need to worry until ED make radical changes that demand more than our current rigs can deliver or parts go pop and need to be replaced.
Then as MS hope you'll need to change OS as your oem licence will no longer apply as you have changed to many parts due to failures and obsolescence, to allow that new board and processor to work in your system. that or they'll can activation, forcing you to go Pirate activation and hope they'll not notice.

Until then you can still get 7 licences new if you know where to look.

- - - Updated - - -

That's not quite how it's done. There are dates that are set, and even these can be extended as happened to XP.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet
.
Windows 7 SP1 extended support (as of today) ends January 14th 2020.
.

XP was the exception to the rule.
It lasted over a decade in the end, MS originally envisaged a 4 year run, but Vista killed that dream for them and then a lack lustre pick up for 8 due to the market fearing another Vista.

 

[WR3ND]

I agree with your reasoning 'update' is more suitable as it hasnt improved anything for me as far as I can tell.

To be fair too, I do use my computer for a lot more than just a gaming machine, and I can see the appeal of playing around with a new OS.

Not saying this is the case for you, but keeping up with the Joneses is hardly a compelling reason for me to update. I've set my Windows 7 interface to my liking and it runs what I want it to how I want it to, which is mostly to keep useless stuff out of my way, and to give me access to stuff I want fairly easily. I use the start menu and custom popup menus on the task bar instead of desktop icons, for example. I also use a fair amount of software and virtual machines that I'm not sure how well and stable they would run on Windows 10, and I don't have any incentive to find out. My computer is sometimes up for months at a time between reboots, though more commonly a couple weeks or so. I don't get around to cleaning it as often as I might like, but the air filters on it help a bit with that at least.

Here are a couple pictures showing my desktop with typical background task resource loads and main PC's guts...

Spoiler

 

[OCD]

I think his IT buddy doesn't know what he is talking about. There is no reason to stay with 7 but plenty of reasons to go to 10. Better security, better compatibility, less people slowing progress down, new features, etc.

Good IT advice.....
Ive been at this since the late 70's (just) ... punch cards and fortran 44

I moved from 7 to 10 around 3 months ago and have a dual boot
My SLI / graphics setup is better under 10

The point babelfisch makes is the key one .... ISV's and HW companies are all putting more dev into their windows 10 drivers and SW now than 7. Sticking with 7 will see more legacy releases with less functionality and poorer security, performance etc.

A best of both worlds dual boot is what ive used from windows 2 to 3 to 3.11 to NT to 95 to 98 to ME(myeloencephalitis) to XP to VISTA (Shudder i stil find people running this on laptops) to 7 to 8 to 10

You will notice that every second major version of windows is the good one and the -1 is where the learning occurs

Good
10
7
XP
98 NT

Bad
95
ME

Ugly
Vista

When 7 asks you to upgrade go into custom and ask for a second partition to be setup. You will then get a dual boot.

The other option if you want to keep the 2 versions more apart is on different disks

Use your BIOS to set a different (new) boot drive and install the "upgrade" on there

Windows 10 is good in that you get a period to activate it so you can just download the latest version from microsoft and use the USB pen drive boot tool to build a working setup/boot environment.

Im happy with 10 now, its stopped all the strange stuff and blue screens of sreaming abdabs and stability is good. I have noticed that 10 handles my USB and PCiE errors better (I have an asus x99 motherboard).

hth