[H]ard|OCP takes a look at the performance differences between Windows XP and it's fairly new successor Windows Vista. We know from the get-go that this is going to be a difficult task. There are literally countless configurations that folks game on, and obviously, not everyone’s experience is going to be the same. There’s also the issue of the games we wished to test. Each of them put their own demands on a system and the OS, so some games may show a dramatic performance delta while others may not. Driver support is another issue. We wanted to publish this article in a timely manner, but with enough of a “grace period,” if you will, that publishers and graphics card manufacturers would have stable and optimized drivers for Vista. And finally, we need to make sure that our gaming experiences between the operating systems are as exact as possible so that a direct comparison can be made. Those looking at a new build with or a possible upgrade to Vista really should check this out.
