Rollback to XP from 7: Is it worth it? (older hardware)

O

Ong

I have an older computer that I want to improve performance on. I'm wondering how much of a performance improvement Windows XP is over 7, and if it's worth it to use an un-supported OS. I have some more specific questions too...

1. I know XP uses GDI rendering, would this affect performance very much?

2. Would using Windows Classic theme improve performance further? (anything counts..)

3. Is there any performance difference between XP Media Center edition 2005 and XP Professional?
3.1 Or would a fresh Windows 7 install be better somehow?

4. Any other tips as to improving performance?

Computer specs:
2 gigabytes RAM (low transfer speed, too)
1.5 Ghz processor (Intel)
256 (or 128, I forget) megabytes graphics memory
60 gigabyte hard drive, old and slow

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, please move it if it is.
 
It is worth it if you want to play media. My 7 y/o machine dual boots XP/Win7. On the same HD media file, I have encountered stuttering in Win7, where there was none in XP.

Means, if you want less lag, XP is the way to go.

On the other hand, I also like Win7 task bar. Programs are located where I pinned them, but they just appear in loading order in XP.

I wouldn't want to use Win7 as a media center PC. On the other hand, I prefer to be productive on Win7, but only after I've tweaked it for performance and disabled most eye candy effects.
 
Last edited:
Ong said:
Computer specs:
2 gigabytes RAM (low transfer speed, too)
1.5 Ghz processor (Intel)
256 (or 128, I forget) megabytes graphics memory
60 gigabyte hard drive, old and slow
Click to expand...

What are you kidding me? My machine:

2.0GHz C2D processor perm down-clocked to 1.0GHz d/t overheating issue
2GB RAM
shared/integrated graphics

It performs better on XP than current machines on Win7/8.1. Should tell you how much of a performance there is to be gained downgrading to XP. But Win7/8.1 is better for productivity after tweak...
 
Last edited:
Windows 7 is likely to work better but you have to disable all the unnecessary stuffs

My windows 7 laptop uses 800mb ram without running anything

If you intend it to use it for important stuffs use windows 7 instead, cause you will have a hard time with compatibility issues on XP
 
My 7 also needs ~800MB after boot.
XP too, but I've got some additional tools running.
I have a lightweight XP that only uses ~230mb after boot - so you could use ~600MB more RAM by choosing XP.

About video playback: The performance depends on A LOT!
You have to understand windows's directshow system to make thoughts about performance. There are e.g. very performant filters to split mkv files, decode h.264 and ones that even support hardware accelleration of old graphics cards, which can drastically reduce cpu usage.

If you choose XP, I'd also suggest to turn off all unnecessary effects and background services (especially there I denote the word "unnecessary" - only disable those ones :) ).
 
Rhino Cracker said:
About video playback: The performance depends on A LOT!
Click to expand...

No u r wrong. If u have Win 7, you notice the Windows logo sort of blinks/warps like it's on a CRT display right before it switches to the Welcome screen. That's MSFT messing with the video path by forcing it thru a video filter to ensure compliance with DRM. The blink is there as a way for MSFT (and the media companies that bribed them to incorporate this feature) to tell the video filter is activated. The momentary warping of the Win7 logo is what the system will do and then some to illegal video content copying or playback.

The presence of this forced video filter (which is on 100% of the time post Welcome screen) will always ensure XP will be many folds faster than Win7 at rendering video frames since graphics is probably the most resource intensive task a computer has to deal with, especially when it has to artificially manipulate the video frame before it is displayed!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top