Why Windows 7 is going to fail for gaming and more...

V8VENOM

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If you're an FSX fan (Microsoft's latest Flight Sim) you'll know how important it is to maintain maximum performance from your file system (NTFS) and keep running defragmentation process regularly (WinXP or Vista, the same applies). In fact, there are defrag tools out there specific to help out FSX load scenery files faster and more efficiently.

But the real question is: why do Windows users need to defrag at all? On Linux and OS X file defragmentation is not significant (yes it happens but has no real performance impact on the OS) and there is no "defragmentation" process to run. Linux and OS X using a construct called inode to keep track of files. NTFS still relies on a Master File Table (similar to FAT that was created in 1976 for DOS). NTFS is a little smarter than FAT, but still is subject to performance loss due to file fragmentation.

Microsoft were aware of this problem (OS slowing down over time as it get fragmented) and came up with WinFS (back in 2003) which is what is supposed to go into Windows 7 (release eta 2010). All good we think - right?! Wrong, it appears that WinFS is actually going to be yet another layer on top of NTFS -- ugh. This is going to once again slow down the OS with yet another compatibility layer and this one is a pretty core one. So just when we thought Microsoft were listening to what people want from their OS, it turns out they are doing business as usual.

For those of you skipping Vista and hoping Windows 7 will "sort it all out", it doesn't appear to be the case. It was perhaps foolish of me to think that Microsoft could and would be so bold and dump NTFS -- guess constant defraging is still in everyone's future...and for the new version of FS and any game that is heavily reliant on OS file performance, we're just out of luck yet again.

 

rtfm

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I bet if they ditched ntfs everyone would bitch and moan about it too. either way, they're f*ck*d:

Scenario 1) "Nasty MS dumps filesystem forcing everyone to upgrade"
Scenario 2) "Nasty MS refuses to modernise filesystem, basta***"

Personally I think MS is the lesser of all the evils of the OS options - I shudder when I think of the nightmare of Linux (I'm sure it's great if you have the time to use it and fart around with drivers and scripts etc) and laugh when I think of the restrictiveness of OS X (tiny hardware support - i.e. mobos, gfx cards etc and reletivly small software base).

Note, that's my option, not meant to offend anyone or start a war, just ignite a debate mybe :) [/disclaimer]

 

bobwya

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Yeh surprise, surprise. Also NTFS users are going to find it a pain when HD's hit the >2TB size and they have to use multiple partitions!! (Ah M$ and there build in hard limits yet again...)

Has anyone else used ext2fsd under Windows XP?
http://www.ext2fsd.com/

I am currently using it under Windows XP x64 as an experiment that will probably lead me to reformat my ~10TB drive space (external HD array) as EXT3 instead of NTFS. Of course support isn't fully complete yet for EXT3 (I don't think the journaling is fully implemented) but so far it looks quick stable. I can go in and fix my Grub loader errors (writing to a EXT3 Ubuntu /root partition) from Windows now... which is quite cool in my book! :sol:

I have still to test out performance on a big drive with a large transfer. However I would willingly sacrifice some performance for less drive wear. I mean who wants to wear out their HD with constant defraging. Even with Perfect Disk 8.x (easily the best Windows defragmenting software) this still takes a few hours (of extra wear) on a 1TB drive.

This reminds me of the OpenGL bullsh*t with Windows Vista... :heink:

Bob
 

V8VENOM

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Maybe Microsoft is hoping everyone will be using SSD drives by 2010 -- not only do you NOT need to defrag them (regardless of OS), you don't want to defrag them as that reduces their life span.

Just amazes me how nothing ever really changes at Microsoft...it's still limping along with circa 1976 compatibility layers all over it. The irony is that if compatibility is really so important, run a dual boot or better yet provide an emulation app -- that way you don't have to penalize the entire OS just because some die hards that hangs onto some ancient program (read cheap mofo) wants it to work on the next new OS.

And, the other benefiit is that existing developers/vendors get to sell a new update to meet the new OS -- which is what eventually happens anyway.

If you can have Parallels for OS X that runs Windows and/or boot camp to run Windows native on a MacPro, why can't Micrsoft do a WinXP or Vista emulation also? Penalize those that MUST have the layers of compatibility, not those that want a fast, reliable, and secure OS. Once again, Microsoft putting the cart in front of the horse.

Not to mention the really cheap folks, rarely upgrade anyway because they fear change for the most part, not really the cost.

Well, DX11 is apparently going to be only available on Windows 7 so it does indeed look like business as usual.

EXT2FSD looks interest, I need to check that out. How is the performance?


 

bobwya

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Ah someone else who doesn't bother reading other peoples posts!! Quoting from myself:
"I have still to test out performance on a big drive with a large transfer."

I think you would need to use this over a long period of time to assess stability, etc. The advantage is mainly for Linux users wanting to format drives in a native format with good support for accessing the drives from Windows... In otherwords I don't really class it as an NTFS replacement option for Windows and certainly you couldn't boot Windows from an EXT2/3 partition!!

I will not be doing any performance tests until I have a stable installation of Ubuntu on my boot disk (which starts to make it worthwhile having my external disks formated with the EXT3 filesystem). Currently Ubuntu and Kubuntu 8.04(.1) are barfing during the initial boot from the DVD (CD image) - so won't even boot into the Live CD. I will need to chase this up on the forums, etc., etc.!!

Bob
 

inquisitor03

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Spot on! Hard Drives have had their day and are doomed. SSDs will be affordable for the main in a years time and by then performance would be even greater than they are now making them the obvious choice.
 

V8VENOM

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I did read your post and my question still stands - How is the performance? Ok, I'll expand that to how is performance on files that are NOT large -- better?

Not sure SSD will be it or not, getting to current drive cost levels is predicted to be around 2012. However, many vendors are getting involved. Like I said, some challenges need to be resolved, such as the life span of SSD. Even optimistic 64GB is $600 - $1200 pending vendor, compared to 1 TB at <$200 -- that's a pretty big gap.

But having SSD is still no excuse for Windows 7 lame WinFS on top of NTFS and the endless compatibility layer on compatibility layer on ... it's getting so bad (read out of control) that I suspect companies will start producing hardware level "compatibility accelerators" to try and speed up this even more bloated OS. So much for progress, good to see MS not listening at all, just leaves the DOOR WIDE OPEN for competition.

 

V8VENOM

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As far as DX11, that's not what I understand the case will be, but I guess we'll have to wait and see ... I suspect you might be correct as MS's plans are becoming more clear and less and less is once again going into Windows 7.

Got a good chuckle that things like Windows Media Player is and add-on module because it "slows" down the OS... haha -- that had me ROFL.

It seems Microsoft are just getting more and more confused about what their next OS needs to be.

 

llama_man

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I think Windows MP will be an add-on because MS don't want to spend the next 10 years fighting against various international competition commissions ... again.
 

ewor

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Do these two comments not clash a bit? You've a 10TB drive space formatted as NTFS...but say you can only have a maximum 2TB drive in NTFS. Whats the external drive manufacturer? They normally format using ext2 or something similar.
NTFS partitions can allow individual file sizes of 16 TiB, and if you use 64 KB clusters you can have a volume size of 256 TiB.
But yeah currently 2TB is the reccomended maximum volume size, but thats not due to file system limitations.




Bob... your full of interesting, but fairly useless opinions... maybe you should keep them to yourself.... the opengl bullsh*t on windows vista has more to do with graphics card companies writing drivers for open gl on vista rather than vista supporting it.
 
I'd go so far as to say M$ should drop 32-bit completely starting with whatever replaces Vista SP2 (Windows 7). Make SP2 the last 32-bit OS, and keep it avaliable for those who want to use their older games.
 

thermalkisht

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i think it's good that they want to upgrade their OS,but is it realy an upgrade?!
No, realy it seems that they only distribute a bugfix and the bad part is you have to pay for that ....!
it's better that in newer versions of their OS let Open Source FSs be one the choices(like ZFS,XFS,ext3 and the like )...
Maybe it helps somehow!!!

 

ewor

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Vista had originally been slated as the last 32 bit os they would release..... but too many companies complained.. so windows 7 will now be the last 32 bit os from microsoft.

NTFS works fine... plain and simple... fragmentation? come on who really cares about fragmentation.. if you are worrying about fragmentation you need to get a newer os, or get newer hardware or both.

If textures do not load fast enough in FSX buy more ram and buy a better hardrive... but i think more ram ram+vista would do the trick.
 

bobwya

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There is a 2Tb partition limit in the NTFS filesystem. I have 14 normal SATA HD's in an external PC case all on a SATA controller card with 4 port multipliers (connected via a single multilane SATA cable). These drives are all formated with NTFS. The total capacity of the drives is around ~10Tb.

I do have to give credit to MS for giving support for it to be implemented at all (via the GPU driver) as this the main aid to compatibility for gaming under Linux/Wine.

Bob

P.S. Yawn about your OpenGL comment (-1 Karma points). Yeh cut back on the coffee/bacon and take a chill pill. You've just been added to my ignore list.

 

ewor

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Apologies.... below is far from the original posters topic... fragmentation... but I will say again, fragmentation is not an issue on current hardware and operating systems that it can impact negatively on gaming, in most situations


Lol Your wrong bob plain and simple. There is a limitation on MBR disks of 2TB but there is no such limitation on the ntfs filesystem. I would linky... but sure its easy to find specs on ntfs so why bother... plus there is possibliity of having to point out that your wrong again. Which I will....
While Hardware and OS's have limitations... the NTFS files system does not have a 2TB limit.


Nice of you to give ms credit, I am sure they really like credit from IT intellectuals like yourself, lol, thanks for the lifestyle tips also... ignore my betters, take drugs, and dont eat bacon....
 

bobwya

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OK thanks I read up on this on Wikipedia that is really useful info to know with bigger disks on the horizon...

Another point to MS as I see the volume limit is quite large - actually larger than EXT3 (16Gb vs. 8Gb @ 4K pages)!! Ouch this is really hurting!! :whistle:

Bob

 

quantumsheep

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Wow, a decent discussion on Tom's? Haven't seen one of these for ages.

I'm one of the minority that actually likes Vista, to me it seems more stable, faster, prettier and generally better all round than XP. Fair enough you may argue that you lose ~1-2 fps in games from XP but let's face it, that's hardly a significant amount.

Mainly the people that oppose Vista have yet to properly use it over an extended period of time, for me there's no significant problems. I'm not actually looking forward to Windows 7 due to the fact that i'm perfectly happy with Vista.
 

infyrno917

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This is why I wish game developers would port more games to OSX. There's a huge demand out there for gaming on unix-like operating systems like Linux and Mac... Why does it go unnoticed? :pfff:
 

rtfm

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Probably the market is too small for the costs involved in converting a title. Also Macs tend to have substandard gfx cards which doesn't help.
 

Flakes

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i was also under the impression that the max hdd you could have in windows was 2TB on NTFS, so how do you get them bigger? cause in my experience anything bigger than 2TB just does not show up.
 

ewor

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The big advantage of vista over previous os's is that it utilises new hardware far better than previous os's.
The 2 important ones for gaming being Vista handles:
large amounts of ram better
multi core processors better

and yes it uses more resources... because newer hardware has more to offer.. which vista uses and does more with it then. If you want efficency why not go back to windows 98, min spec is a 486 and 16mbs of ram.


How lazy are you..... and have you in your experience used a 2TB or greater volume? Your statment just propagates misinformation, thanks for making the world a smarter place!

This sums up everything nicely enough(information can be verified elsewhere if you wish):
http://www.itworld.com/nlswindows070220
Highlights:
-Vista supports two types of disk partitioning: MBR and GPT.
-GPT disks theoretically can support upto 18 exabytes
-Vista only supports NTFS-formatted disks up to 256 TB in size
 

Flakes

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yea, i dont use vista try XP.... and yes in my experience i have used larger than 2TB.... my first try was with 3TB and it would not work in NTFS, so i created it on a linux box using ext and set the box up as a NAS drive.
 

bobwya

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You are really need to take up mediation, yoga or something similar. I am getting extreme negative vibes off you man!!

Bob
 

number13

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very neat and information filled diss on HDD's, but what about the the original thread, tell me why it's not good for gaming???, as far as giving MSSKS a bunch of BS over Win 7, lord know they caught a bunch of it with Vista(well deserved I may add)do you have anything else to add that is really relavent to the thread other than you being dissed about the HDD thing- seems like the thread belongs in the NT section