>6 installations later I have a working copy of Windows 7 with valid RAID, SATA, Chipset, Video, and Sound drivers. I was very careful this time, doing only one thing at a time and restarting after a change to confirm. I was a bit more cavileer when I was under the impression my errors could be undone. The restore feature was not able to handle the driver change for vital components so keep that in mind when you’re upgrading. Vista had similar problems, I wasn’t able to install it until SP1.
My first step once getting SLi working was to test the performace of games. I was able to test a couple DEMOs as is but GTA required a reinstall since it has so many background requirements. All in all I saw HUGE gains visually, everything ran better, something I’m not used to seeing from new (PC) OSs.
To further put this into perspective – in Vista my video cards are overclocked a good 40mhz higher, the video cards are running at stock speeds in Win 7.
Here are the numbers from GTA:
Windows 7 – GTA v1
Average FPS: 40.12
Duration: 37.37 sec
CPU Usage: 74%
System memory usage: 37%
Video memory usage: 50%
Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 2560 x 1600 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Render Quality: Highest
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70
Windows 7 – GTA updated
Average FPS: 43.98
Duration: 37.45 sec
CPU Usage: 78%
System memory usage: 39%
Video memory usage: 53%
Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 2560 x 1600 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 32
Detail Distance: 70
Vista – GTA updated 1920 x 1200
Average FPS: 37.65
Duration: 37.61 sec
CPU Usage: 81%
System memory usage: 44%
Video memory usage: 57%
Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1920 x 1200 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 75
Vista – GTA updated 2560 x 1600
Average FPS: 32.02
Duration: 37.72 sec
CPU Usage: 74%
System memory usage: 43%
Video memory usage: 59%
Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 2560 x 1600 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: High
Texture Filter Quality: Very High
View Distance: 100
Detail Distance: 50
*update* Futuremark Vantage Score: 14100!
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