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Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 Torture Test

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,288
OK, so this may be a bit of a series here. After running XP with less and less RAM until it finally blew up, I decided what better way to continue the fun than with the next major Windows version in line! As we all know, Windows Vista was much maligned due to its comparatively bad performance and awful backwards compatibility. But does Windows Vista really live up to its infamy, performance wise? Well, the answer with our test here is surprisingly and pleasantly no! Mostly no. Or at least, not with its Service Pack 2 installed anyway. (I currently don't have the OG Vista Ultimate 1.0 install discs on me, so I couldn't test that version, but I will have them soon.)

Also, as an aside, I really have to say, Vista just looks absolutely stunning, even today. I don't know, maybe I'm just a sucker for that glass ass. Vista may have gotten some things wrong, but its presentation was definitely a 10/10. Even Windows 7's look is... Well, it's certainly close, but it's just not entirely the same for some reason. But anyway. Let the torture begin.

Final numbers with VMware Workstation 15 Player:

Minimum-Recommended
CPU: 1-2 Core (3.3 GHz)
RAM: 256 MB-2 GB
HDD: 14.3 GB
Monitor: 800x600

RAM Usage @ 4 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~850 MB
RAM Usage @ 2 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~700 MB
RAM Usage @ 1 GB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~625 MB (Dropped slowly during idling, no increase of Page File usage, all the way to ~530 MB where it stayed)
RAM Usage @ 512 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~450 MB (Same behavior as above, finally holding stable at ~320 MB)
RAM Usage @ 256 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): ~245 MB (Started to struggle here finally. Kinda slow, but still very usable. RAM usage held steady throughout.)
RAM Usage @ 128 MB (w/ Aero Enabled): (Boot not successful.)

RAM Usage @ 1 GB (w/ Aero Disabled): ~565 MB (Dropped slowly as above to ~460)
RAM Usage @ 256 MB (w/ Aero Disabled): ~215 MB (Definitely faster than with Aero and all the gadgets/graphical features disabled. Still just a bit of noticeable slowdown though when opening files.)
RAM Usage @ 128 MB (w/ Aero Disabled): (Boot not successful.)
 
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gaijinkaiju

Lord Inquisitor
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
612
Thanks for giving me flashbacks to my OG pc. You may have been an unreliable paper weight , but at least you were reliably unreliable.
On a serious note, I want to say it started fine, but it really didn't. It was incredibly temperamental when it came to games. Warcaft 3 ran fine, Command and Conquer depended on what game and was often hit or miss, but diablo 2 was the worst. The further I got in the game, the more prone to crashing it became, using the map would drop the framerate to a crawl and eventually became a coin toss whether or not it would crash the game. Terraria was hit and miss too, sometimes it worked, sometimes It didn't. By the time I upgraded to something decent, it was crashing on launch and if you made it to desktop, you'd need to make sure you didn't upset it otherwise it would just crash for no reason. As much as I disliked it though, I do have some fond memories of it and kinda wish I'd kept the HDD
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,288
Thanks for giving me flashbacks to my OG pc. You may have been an unreliable paper weight , but at least you were reliably unreliable.
On a serious note, I want to say it started fine, but it really didn't. It was incredibly temperamental when it came to games. Warcaft 3 ran fine, Command and Conquer depended on what game and was often hit or miss, but diablo 2 was the worst. The further I got in the game, the more prone to crashing it became, using the map would drop the framerate to a crawl and eventually became a coin toss whether or not it would crash the game. Terraria was hit and miss too, sometimes it worked, sometimes It didn't. By the time I upgraded to something decent, it was crashing on launch and if you made it to desktop, you'd need to make sure you didn't upset it otherwise it would just crash for no reason. As much as I disliked it though, I do have some fond memories of it and kinda wish I'd kept the HDD
Was this the 1.0 version of Vista? No service packs? Was it upgraded to Vista or cleanly installed?

And yeah, I also used to have a Toshiba PC with Vista. Never had nearly the amount of issues you had, but that was later on in its life though.
 

gaijinkaiju

Lord Inquisitor
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
612
Was this the 1.0 version of Vista? No service packs? Was it upgraded to Vista or cleanly installed?

And yeah, I also used to have a Toshiba PC with Vista. Never had nearly the amount of issues you had, but that was later on in its life though.
Can't remember what service pack, but it would've been a fresh install. Was just some generic pre-built one. It never got Internet access for about a year, but once it did I likely updated its service pack
 
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