Windows 10 experience

[disi30]

I want to share some experiences I made using Windows 10 64bit (edu)

 

All my hardware worked more or less out of the box, the support for drivers seems to be very good by now.

Close to all 'fancy' features can be easily removed or there is a guide on the internet on how to get rid of things like the apps store and that woman for example.

 

Wasteland2 (DX12) didn't want to run properly for me in Windows 7 DX10, I had to force it to use DX9. It ran flawless in DX12 on Windows 10.

Fallout4 (DX11) runs quite smooth on Windows 10 using a single GPU. There were always graphic glitches that forced me to restart the game client after a while (1-2 hours).

Skyrim (DX9) ran flawless on Windows 7. It runs ok but with limitations on Windows 10.

 

Crossfire ([G|C]rimson driver) did not work very well on Windows 10. I only tested Skyrim and Fallout4. It took a long time until there was an official profile for Fallout4 and for me it was more like a performance hit than improvement. The official Skyrim profile makes my face and other stuff flicker, with the Assassins Creed profile it worked ok, but only very small performance improvements.

 

Now I reinstall Windows 7, because of the artificial limitations MS built into the Windows 10 system for DirectX9 applications to only use a total 4GB of VRAM (even with enboost etc.) on my AMD 390X with 8GB.

 

For me Windows 7 or Windows 10 is a choice between DX9,10,11 or DX12 and nearly all games I have are not yet DX12 ready and/or never will be.

 

I am not willing to not use ENB, not use Reshade, not use high quality textures in Skyrim, Like some people suggested to Boris (creator of the ENB series) on the Nvidia forums. That one thread shows the whole potential and quality of this forum :smile:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/863242/geforce-drivers/-request-remove-4gb-limit-of-vram-for-dx9-games/

[obobski]

The "artificial 4GB limit" has nothing to do with Windows 10 - it's a limitation on 32-bit applications (like Skyrim). It will apply anywhere/everywhere (e.g. XP x64, Vista x64, 7 x64, etc all are subject to it as well) as it is a function of the Win32 API limits. The flickering in Skyrim sounds like the framebuffer issues that CrossFire used to exhibit YEARS ago (like back in 2011) which were fixed with later drivers (you can probably go dig up old guides on workarounds for that from back in the day too, but honestly since AMD fixed it in their drivers I haven't bothered with such in years). Thanks for the reporting on the rest! :geek:

[disi30]

Well, at least the vmramtestool for DX9 from Boris does go beyond 4046MB, since I moved back to Windows 7. This is what I need to properly play Skyrim on my system. Just to point out, the VRAM is something used by the 64bit video driver and not the application iself directly (except for when you run something directdraw).*

 

I will do some testing on Crossfire this weekend, same hardware, same games, probably the same amount of mods and see how it goes.

 

p.s. for the record, installing Windows 7 is a PITA. I only have a pre-SP1 image and the auto-update did not go well. The WSUSOffline tool can get you past the pain of failing updates, it lets you auto-package needed updates for the system and generates auto-install scripts for those, very professional and a brilliant tool to use. http://www.wsusoffline.net/

 

*here is a brilliant article about it:

 

 

When video cards had 16 or 32 MB of Video RAM, this memory was mapped directly into every process that used Direct3D for efficient access by the application and video driver. As video cards grew larger, this became unsustainable. A 768 MB hole in the 2-GB virtual address space of each process would leave very little space for applications. Similarly, taking 768 MB out of the 4 GB physical address space would be too constraining. This problem is exacerbated in dual GPU configurations (SLI®/Crossfire™).

Growth of VRAM, http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3602/sponsored_feature_ram_vram_and_.php?print=1

 

pps. Windows 7, plain Skyrim Ultra with ENB through the Mod Organizer Beta 2.0.5 and no Mods yet, no face flickering in Crossfire (Skyrim profile) with constant 60 fps (vsync).

Windows 7, Fallout4 Ultra with ENB and Reshade through Mod Organizer Beta 2.0.5 heavily modded, no textures glitches in ~20min Crossfire play with mostly 60 fps (vsync). There are some views, like when I get out of the Vault and overlook the Sanctuary, when it goes down to ~35fps.

[disi30]

Actual I get about the same performance using a single card for both games. It is either because I am mixing models in Crossfire or the older PCIExpress 2.0 supported by the motherboard, but I cannot get it improve any real performance in both games.

 

I still get the graphic glitches in Fallout4 after longer time playing. Funny colours instead of the properly rendered textures until I walk closer and it goes away. Reloading the game and it is gone.