XP vs Vista (transcoding)

[stiltman]

I just setup this box and wanted to put it through some paces.

I decided to see how XP and vista compare with doing a DVDShrink of the movie 300

Setup,
Brand new Q6600 with 2Gb Ram
XP SP2 with all the updates and all Intels latest drivers
Vista same thing as XP (AUC turned off)
Only installed software was Ripit4me, DVD decrypter, DVD shrink

Backup to ISO with Deep analysis and set to smooth
XP = 9:54mins
Vista = 10:23mins

I check tomshardware for their tests with clone DVD on the same Q6600 from 2006 (XP) and 2007 (Vista) and the numbers were about the same. I wonder what the number would be like for Win2K my OS of choice

[cd090580]

Very fast with Smooth for error compensation.

Times are almost equal. What about running the same test but on a single core AMD or INTEL P4 cpu ????

[andkiich]

I would like to see some numbers once they get the DVD transcoding tools tweaked for Vista.

[stiltman]

Umm, no one's going to tweak DVDShrink, or they would have by now.

BTW, shink had no problems using all 4 cores

[jagabo]

BTW, shink had no problems using all 4 cores

You mean all four cores were running at 100 percent?

[stiltman]

about 85%

[jagabo]

That's better than I would have expected.

[JohnnyMalaria]

One of the possible reasons Vista is slightly slower is Aero. Specifically, dwm.exe. The more things going on on your desktop, the more CPU time it uses. e.g., just running the mouse across the task bar and waiting for each live thumbnail to appear uses about 4%. With multimedia apps running, it goes up. I've seen typically 6 - 8%.

If you disable Aero (or just kill dwm.exe), you may find Vista as quick as XP....I'd be curious to find out. Alternatively, you can minimize everything ("Show the Desktop") - that sometimes helps.

[redwudz]

I never got around to installing XP on a second boot drive in my Vista computer as a test, but with a comparable computer running XP, your results are similar to mine. I did have UAC and Aero running, though. The speed differences were within a few percent, less than ten, using DVD Shrink.

[stiltman]

One of the possible reasons Vista is slightly slower is Aero. Specifically, dwm.exe. The more things going on on your desktop, the more CPU time it uses. e.g., just running the mouse across the task bar and waiting for each live thumbnail to appear uses about 4%. With multimedia apps running, it goes up. I've seen typically 6 - 8%.

If you disable Aero (or just kill dwm.exe), you may find Vista as quick as XP....I'd be curious to find out. Alternatively, you can minimize everything ("Show the Desktop") - that sometimes helps.

True...so true

These were both default untweaked installs.

Already blew the drive away and pulled everything out of the case I had it in.
I might just re-intall it all and load Win2K to see what it does.
I'll also might update the numbers about using my old P4 2.6 with 512 PC133 Ram

[JohnnyMalaria]

Just to clarify, I run XP and Vista on the same box.

[rotten apple]

I never got around to installing XP on a second boot drive in my Vista computer as a test, but with a comparable computer running XP, your results are similar to mine. I did have UAC and Aero running, though. The speed differences were within a few percent, less than ten, using DVD Shrink.

Is that with 2GB physical memory ?

As my belief of Vista as a needlesly bloated memory hog could the same test be carried out with 1GB of the same memory?(NOT a rhetorical qu. just not a (hardcore at least) transcoder)

You fairly kept UAC + Aero on, as these are peculiar to Vista re "upgrade" over XP ,if you make it more like XP to function adequately surely that defeats the object?

yeah Vista's faster than XP.....as long as you switch off major "attractions" beforehand!

If you start tweaking Vista and not XP surely the comparison is not a fair one?

[stiltman]

Setup,
Brand new Q6600 with 2Gb Ram
XP SP2 with all the updates and all Intels latest drivers
Vista same thing as XP (AUC turned off)
Only installed software was Ripit4me, DVD decrypter, DVD shrink

Backup to ISO with Deep analysis and set to smooth
XP = 9:54mins
Vista = 10:23mins

Pentium 4 2.6ghz 512 (133mhz) running a highly tweaked Win2K
win2k = 58:23mins

[redwudz]

stiltman, with either OS, that's some impressive speeds. If you're not aware of it, there's a small program that can easily turn UAC off and on as needed and put it in 'Silent mode', where it's not so irritating, TweakUAC: http://www.tweak-uac.com/

rotten apple, both PCs have 2GB memory. And both are presently running at the same speed, though they are not the same MB.

In Vista, lot of the extra memory seems to used for graphics and audio, both which seemed to be handled differently in Vista than in XP. And I'm sure UAC and other security features use a fair bit of memory. But memory is cheap enough at present, so I don't really see that as a concern.

For the reasons above, I wouldn't try Vista on a older computer or a motherboard that's not 'certified for Vista'. That seems to be the cause of a lot of problems. My external hardware, drives and ADVC-100 all work fine with Vista. Only my MDP-130 HDTV card doesn't work because drivers aren't available yet or I would run Vista on my HTPC also. All my regularly used video software runs on Vista with no problems.

EDIT: I did find a MDP-130 Vista driver, so now I'm running Vista on the HTPC.

[RabidDog]

Backup to ISO with Deep analysis and set to smooth
XP = 9:54mins
Vista = 10:23mins"

SURELY A LOT OF THAT TIME IS TAKEN UP WITH READING THE DVD.
Best would be to make an iso copy on a really fast disk, to bring out the differences between procs and Os's
Cant wait to get my hands on a 6750...

[stiltman]

Backup to ISO with Deep analysis and set to smooth
XP = 9:54mins
Vista = 10:23mins"

SURELY A LOT OF THAT TIME IS TAKEN UP WITH READING THE DVD.
Best would be to make an iso copy on a really fast disk, to bring out the differences between procs and Os's
Cant wait to get my hands on a 6750...

Nope, I ripped the full DVD to the HDD.
Ripping time was not a consideration. Neither was the pre-analysis when first importing a movie into DVDShrink
All test were done reading and writing from ATA 5200rpm

Really, my point in doing this was to see the differences on defualt installs of XP and Vista. I will most likely do Win2K on the same setup, but I don't think Win2K can see 4 cores

[ofbarea]

You will need W2K server for the 4 cores support.

[stiltman]

You will need W2K server for the 4 cores support.

Good to know. I can install any version of Win2k....yes legally