Windows 7 and catalyst 9.1

P

pingjockey

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 14, 2006
Messages
177
I have been looking around to try and find a answer on this topic.

So here goes, is worth the risk to install the x64 vista package in a windows 7 environment or is it best to wait?

I know its kind of an oxymoron to use risk and beta os in the same context but I just would like some insight from people who have may or may not done this yet.
 
I'm running the 7 beta with the 9.1 drivers and everything is working fine for me.
 
Installed it this morning on my main rig using Win7 and it fixed my Fallout 3 problems! As in.... it actually runs now! It may not be what the hype was leading to, but it's a solid release from what I've experienced today.
 
Well I think I will wait alittle longer and see if ATI kicks out a Windows 7 driver.

If it ain't out by the end of next week then I will do a backup and install the driver.

Thanks for all the input gents!
 
what would the risk be? that you would have to uninstall it if it didnt work? or possibly do a system restore from the restore point made when you installed them?
 
I agree that the risk is minor at best but my concern was what sort of effects would installing a vista driver into a windows 7 environment be.

I had to use a vista driver for my sound card (Asus Xonar DX) and I was a little uneasy doing it but it worked. And in the past I have had video drivers blow up a windows installation before and I just don't want to have to pull from a backup again.

Thanks for the insight.
 
pingjockey said:
I agree that the risk is minor at best but my concern was what sort of effects would installing a vista driver into a windows 7 environment be.

I had to use a vista driver for my sound card (Asus Xonar DX) and I was a little uneasy doing it but it worked. And in the past I have had video drivers blow up a windows installation before and I just don't want to have to pull from a backup again.

Thanks for the insight.
Click to expand...

Windows 7 is just Vista with a pretty new wrapper. Under the hood it is very similar to just an SP update of Vista. Hence drivers and such work just fine, since the driver model and kernel didn't really change all that much (if at all).
 
If it were my personal build I would use the Vista 64 9.1's.

That being said, my buddy said he saw about a 5 - 10 FPS drop in both Crysis and Fallout 3 with my old 4870 512mb when switching from the Win7 Beta's to the V64 9.1's.

I have a feeling that he didn't uninstall the old drivers and/or install the new ones properly.
 
That's the driver set I am using now. I was hoping that ATI would release a Windows 7 9.1 Driver package.

I guess I will give the Vista X64 driver a shot, is there anything you loose by using a that driver set?
 
You gain a working Display Managment tab in the CCC by using the Vista 9.1s.

Display Managment still won't work perfectly, like cloning screens, tv-out, etc. 99% sure that's because of the built-in W7 display manager.
 
kllrnohj said:
Windows 7 is just Vista with a pretty new wrapper. Under the hood it is very similar to just an SP update of Vista. Hence drivers and such work just fine, since the driver model and kernel didn't really change all that much (if at all).
Click to expand...
Just like Windows XP SP3 is just a service pack to Windows 2K... pfffftt! LOL!

So, no, Windows 7 is not just a cosmetic change, but yes it was designed to work with Vista drivers. I'm not a Vista hater, I'm typing from it right now for example, but Windows 7 is superior to Vista in every and any measurable way. It is worth the hassle of a dual boot until release. :)
 
Ducman69 said:
Just like Windows XP SP3 is just a service pack to Windows 2K... pfffftt! LOL!

So, no, Windows 7 is not just a cosmetic change, but yes it was designed to work with Vista drivers. I'm not a Vista hater, I'm typing from it right now for example, but Windows 7 is superior to Vista in every and any measurable way. It is worth the hassle of a dual boot until release. :)
Click to expand...

Um, yes, yes actually it is. Internally, Windows 7 is just a tweaked and slightly streamlined Vista with performance improvements being the focus. All the major changes are GUI related. You can scoff at it all you want, but its true. (and no, its nothing like XP SP3 is a SP to Win2k :rolleyes:)

Oh, and it wasn't "designed" to work with Vista drivers. The reason it can use Vista drivers are because the two have the same kernel (with Windows 7 just being a newer build)
 
TheBlueChanell said:
If it were my personal build I would use the Vista 64 9.1's.

That being said, my buddy said he saw about a 5 - 10 FPS drop in both Crysis and Fallout 3 with my old 4870 512mb when switching from the Win7 Beta's to the V64 9.1's.

I have a feeling that he didn't uninstall the old drivers and/or install the new ones properly.
Click to expand...

how would that make a difference
 
feek said:
how would that make a difference
Click to expand...

Remnants of old driver installs are commonly the cause of driver performance/stability problems.

I've used dc.net to uninstall every single set of drivers I've used before installing new ones on my laptop and across thousands of different hardware configurations on my desktops and I feel confident in saying that I've hardly ever had driver problems even when using beta drivers.
 
feek said:
what kind of remnants?
Click to expand...

.dll's or whatever left over. You've never been told and/or read that it's best to clean up old driver installs before installing new ones. Why do you think programs like driver cleaner and driver sweeper exist.

Why do you care so much about this?
 
Im just curious, I hear people say stuff like this a lot, and it never makes sense to me. And it still doesn't. I've never had any trouble just running an installer in the past 4 or 5 years, no uninstalling required.
 
feek said:
Im just curious, I hear people say stuff like this a lot, and it never makes sense to me. And it still doesn't. I've never had any trouble just running an installer in the past 4 or 5 years, no uninstalling required.
Click to expand...

To each his own. :D As long as both our rigs our working than I guess neither of us are correct.
 
kllrnohj said:
Um, yes, yes actually it is. Internally, Windows 7 is just a tweaked and slightly streamlined Vista with performance improvements being the focus. All the major changes are GUI related. You can scoff at it all you want, but its true. (and no, its nothing like XP SP3 is a SP to Win2k :rolleyes:)

Oh, and it wasn't "designed" to work with Vista drivers. The reason it can use Vista drivers are because the two have the same kernel (with Windows 7 just being a newer build)
Click to expand...
Um, no, actually its not. :rolleyes: This back and forth is tiresome, and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel here when a five minute google can clarify any confusion for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7 Yes, it is an evolution of Vista, just like WXP built upon W2K, but the changes are not as small as a mere service pack.

And Vista's Service Pack 2 will be releasing before Windows 7.

Look, if you just spent the money on a Vista license, I'm sorry, but thats no reason to spread misinformation.
 
I would BSOD playing fear 2 in windows 7 64 with ati 9.1. I played the same in vista 64 and ati 9.1 with no problems.
 
Ducman69 said:
Um, no, actually its not. :rolleyes: This back and forth is tiresome, and there is no reason to reinvent the wheel here when a five minute google can clarify any confusion for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7 Yes, it is an evolution of Vista, just like WXP built upon W2K, but the changes are not as small as a mere service pack.

And Vista's Service Pack 2 will be releasing before Windows 7.

Look, if you just spent the money on a Vista license, I'm sorry, but thats no reason to spread misinformation.
Click to expand...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/153624-2/under_the_hood_windows_7_is_vistas_twin.html
Frankly, Windows 7 is Vista, at least under the hood; if nothing else, this should translate into excellent backward compatibility with Vista-certified applications and drivers.
Click to expand...

I'm not confused. Perhaps you should do that 5 minute google search yourself. Under the hood, Windows 7 is very close to Vista.

Oh, and for what its worth, I have both Vista and Windows 7 Beta installed.
 
kllrnohj said:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/153624-2/under_the_hood_windows_7_is_vistas_twin.html

I'm not confused. Perhaps you should do that 5 minute google search yourself. Under the hood, Windows 7 is very close to Vista.

Oh, and for what its worth, I have both Vista and Windows 7 Beta installed.
Click to expand...
As do I, and you must be joking with that ultra-negative article. "Lipstick on the Pig", give me a break. Consensus on W7 is glowing, while Vista has been ragged on since its challenged launch (justified or not).

My analogy was W2K to XP, and yes, Windows 7 and Vista are both on the same NT6 kernel, just like... yes... W2K and XP are both on the same NT5 kernel. There were some improvements to the kernel in XP, just as there are in 7. XP is not a mere service pack to 2K though, and Se7en boasts far too many changes as well including lower memory usage, faster boot times, reduced services, longer battery life, SSD optimizations, multitouch integration, new more accurate speech and handwriting recognition for tablets, reduced Aero requirements, virtual disks, along w/ all the GUI enhancements from the superbar to window docking/waggling to action center and control panel and the works along with features that should be included by luanch like native hybrid ATI/NVidia card pairing (great for Physx support for those of us w/ an older 8800GTX and the like sitting around) and Windows GPU hardware acceleration. Just install Vista Ultimate and then Windows 7 Ultimate on something low-end like a netbook, and tell me its a service pack. :rolleyes:

You've made up your mind, fine, but I'm just replying for the benefit of others.
 
feek said:
doesnt mean it's a god damned service pack.
Click to expand...

Since you're cussing I thought I'd join in here.

Yeah, it pretty much is a service pack.
In fact, Ballmer said if they could do it over again, they'd release WinXP SP2 as a new OS. So, that's basically what you're getting with Windows 7.

People want to bash Vista (mostly unfairly or without firsthand experience), so MS is giving you all what you asked for... a "new" OS, something that isn't Vista. :p
Brilliant marketing to the sheep.
 
Yea, to the people that talk shit about Vista but never actually used it on a decent machine... or any machine at all for that matter... Mojave was a great example...

I work at a PC repair shop, and people will pay us a couple hundred bucks to put XP on their new Vista machines (that $200 doesn't include the license either, they bring that in seperately). Some of them haven't even tried Vista yet, they just hand us the laptop in the box, and a brand new copy of XP...

For some of them it's a pain... like Toshiba Laptops specifically, I've done like 2-3 and they never have all of the XP drivers on their website so you gotta hunt and hunt... unless it's the business line, but those usually come with XP Pro still anyways...

And working in the shop, I see 50x as many machines with XP than Vista... and the ones that have Vista are ones with virus's/spyware... not anything directly related to Vista. Although I have used some machines (Like laptops with Celerons and 1GB of ram) that had Vista installed and I felt bad for them... just wasn't meant to run Vista...
 
Thats what I'm saying. The easiest way to tell Windows 7 is no mere service pack, beyond even going into all the features I've listed in my previous post... get a Dell Mini 9 netbook and install Vista Ultimate on it and use it for a day. Then install Windows 7 Ultimate on it and try it out... yeahhhhh, just a liiiiiiittle bit of a performance difference there! LOL! :D

Neways, and my Q6600/4870x2 gaming rig is Vista64 right now, and its not bad at all, but I'm definitely looking forward to the full launch of Seven and proper driver support from ATI... well, period, lol! Thats the one thing Nvidia definitely does better IMO.
 
housecat said:
Since you're cussing I thought I'd join in here.

Yeah, it pretty much is a service pack.
In fact, Ballmer said if they could do it over again, they'd release WinXP SP2 as a new OS. So, that's basically what you're getting with Windows 7.

People want to bash Vista (mostly unfairly or without firsthand experience), so MS is giving you all what you asked for... a "new" OS, something that isn't Vista. :p
Brilliant marketing to the sheep.
Click to expand...

how about some sources for what balmer supposedly said? how about citing when in the past a service past vastly changed the interface, added entire new ways to network computers, tons of administration options, or generally did much more than fix bugs?
 
Ducman69 said:
As do I, and you must be joking with that ultra-negative article. "Lipstick on the Pig", give me a break. Consensus on W7 is glowing, while Vista has been ragged on since its challenged launch (justified or not).

My analogy was W2K to XP, and yes, Windows 7 and Vista are both on the same NT6 kernel, just like... yes... W2K and XP are both on the same NT5 kernel. There were some improvements to the kernel in XP, just as there are in 7. XP is not a mere service pack to 2K though, and Se7en boasts far too many changes as well including lower memory usage, faster boot times, reduced services, longer battery life, SSD optimizations, multitouch integration, new more accurate speech and handwriting recognition for tablets, reduced Aero requirements, virtual disks, along w/ all the GUI enhancements from the superbar to window docking/waggling to action center and control panel and the works along with features that should be included by luanch like native hybrid ATI/NVidia card pairing (great for Physx support for those of us w/ an older 8800GTX and the like sitting around) and Windows GPU hardware acceleration. Just install Vista Ultimate and then Windows 7 Ultimate on something low-end like a netbook, and tell me its a service pack. :rolleyes:

You've made up your mind, fine, but I'm just replying for the benefit of others.
Click to expand...

I only ever said that UNDER THE HOOD. The *INTERNALS* of Windows 7 were just a slightly updated Vista. Multitough, speech/handwriting recognition, aero requirements, GUI enhancements - none of those are internal components. Virtual disks are an addon, not a change. I'm not sure what you mean by "reduced services" - windows 7 has just as many services as Vista.

So that leaves us with Windows 7's internals being a profiled, optimized build of Vista with 1 new feature (Virtual hard drives) and SSD optimizations. Sounds an awful lot like, say, XP SP0 -> SP1.
 
I have had trouble running OpenGL games like Quake Wars on Win 7 - 64 with all flavors of ATI drivers. (8.7 64 drivers, 9.1 catalysts, 9.2 catalysts). Otherwise it is very nice. I am back to XP due to the lacking of a proper video card driver. I will try again when ATI fixes the issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top