[RESOLVED] Windows Vista is absolutely fantastic! If you want to slow your computer down a lot.

[EntityX]

I just upgraded to Windows Vista Business from Windows XP Home. I've been installing updates for more than a day now. I've noticed before and after the updates that the Visual Basic 2008 application I've been working on for some time that was originally a Visual Basic.NET 2003 application runs way slower with Vista.

The application has a lot of graphics and some screens will run at close to the speed I was used to but others will run noticeably slower with Vista and some portions of some screens will run perhaps 20 or more times slower than when I was using XP.

Perhaps upgrading a graphics card or some other hardware will solve my problem but why should I have to upgrade hardware just to get my performance back to what it was with XP?

I'm under the understanding that you have to have IIS(Internet Information Services) to create an application that uses ClickOnce and Windows XP Home doesn't have IIS and that's one of the reasons I upgraded to Vista Business. Perhaps I'll downgrade to a version of XP that has IIS if you can still buy new copies of XP. But then I'd still want to find a fix for Vista for people that have Vista if I want to ever put my application out there.

[Lord Orwell]

not sure about IIS. I do know it's an optional install on professional edition. But vista has a newer version that will never be available on xp.

How much memory does your system have?

[DeanMc]

I would imagine this is not vista's fault and could be due to old hardware as lord orwell has suggested. Also have you turned AREO glass off. If your using your machine as a Dev environment I would suggest to keep it off as it hogs system resources unnecessarily.

[EntityX]

If I do a Vista performance test for my computer it gives it a 1.9 subscore for graphics and a 1.0 subscore for gaming graphics. I just ordered a new Vista Compatible graphics card with 512 MB of memory. Hopefully that will get the speed at least back to what it was with Windows XP

My computer has 767 MB of RAM. The processor is an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ with 2.21 GHz clock.

I confirmed that AERO glass is off.

[DeanMc]

I would also increase your ram, sticks are pretty cheap these days, 2GB would be more than enough.

[Lord Orwell]

the graphics score is only important if you have aero glass on. Your biggest bottlneck is the memory. Vista uses nearly that much memory on its own. You start launching programs and you are going to be hitting hard drive cache pretty quickly.

Your processor is fast enough.
Have you confirmed your current card is running the correct driver? Even onboard-video on a system with that processor should have scored higher than that.

Easy way to test if you have correct driver:
Run dxdiag.exe from run box (win+r)
if texture acceleration is disabled you don't have correct driver.

[RobDog888]

Did you do an Upgrade from XP or a clean fresh install? Clean is always best when possible.

[EntityX]

I was considering doing a clean install but it would take some time to reinstall the programs I have on my computer. I'd have to reinstall Visual Basic 2008 Express and and some other stuff via a dial up connection. If I had a fast internet connection I'd lean more toward doing a clean install. Maybe I could save the installation files to a CD if I see that I have them.

I bought Windows Vista Business upgrade but from looking at the instructions it appears you can do a clean install if you want.

I also discovered another problem since I started this thread and I created another thread for it in VB.NET. I can't open the designer when I'm working on a Visual Basic 2008 application. Didn't have that problem when using XP just since upgrading to Vista.

Concerning the driver for my existing graphics card I know it worked great with XP. I got a message when I ran the Vista Upgrade advisor program that said I should upgrade my graphics card. My Lexmark X75 printer isn't worth doo doo now since its not Vista compatible so I'll have to upgrade my printer. That doesn't bother me too much.

I looked into memory. I can buy a 1 Gig memory stick for $ 50. I have 2 slots on my computer now. One has a 512 MB stick and the other a 256 MB stick. I'm thinking I'll replace the 256 MB with a 1 Gig and then I'll have a total of 1.5 Gig. If I'm still not satisfied with the performance I can change the 512 MB stick to a 1 Gig and see if that helps.

[Lord Orwell]

it's a common issue with lexmarks. I actually downgraded my mother-in-law's system to xp because her printer was a lexmark. (among other reasons, including the fact her computer had 512k of shared ram)

[vbcode1980]

I looked into memory. I can buy a 1 Gig memory stick for $ 50. I have 2 slots on my computer now. One has a 512 MB stick and the other a 256 MB stick. I'm thinking I'll replace the 256 MB with a 1 Gig and then I'll have a total of 1.5 Gig. If I'm still not satisfied with the performance I can change the 512 MB stick to a 1 Gig and see if that helps.

1.5 GB might be enough to run Vista, but if you want to run Visual Studio, I recommend getting at least 2 GB.

[RobDog888]

Usually from what I have seen on the Forums, upgrades of Vista are usually problematic with your vs project files, OS issues and other misc items.

It may be worth it to spend some time reformatting/reinstalling Vista clean.

2GBs of RAM minimum when having VS on Vista too.

[EntityX]

On Monday I did a clean install of Vista. My modem stopped working and I looked for the modem driver among my CDs and couldn't find it. Had to go to library and download driver from website. I just got it working today. I live out in the middle of nowhere so I had to wait until Wednesday because the library isn't open except on Mondays and Wednesdays.

One problem at a time. I'll upgrade my memory to 2 Gig RAM as you guys suggest. Now to download Visual Basic 2008 Express and install and see if anything changes.

I put in a new ATI Radeon HD 2400Pro graphics card with 512 MB RAM. I ran a Vista performance test. New scores: Graphics 1.0 , Gaming Graphics 1.0. So my performance went down. It's a good thing I don't take life too seriously.

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream.

[Lord Orwell]

told you your old card was ok. Sounds an awful lot like your fresh install didn't install your motherboard drivers though.

Run dxdiag.exe and see if texture acceleration is enabled. also check hardware to see if new card is listed correctly.

Are you running the 64-bit vista? I bought a brand-new card that advertised it was 64-bit compatible on the box and the install program, upon detecting 64-bit os said "download drivers from website".

[EntityX]

The Windows upgrade advisor said my old video card should be upgraded. My old card only had 32 MB RAM though it worked just fine with Windows XP and was running certain portions of my application perhaps 20 times faster than it runs now.

I ran dxdiag.exe. It tells me:
Direct Draw Acceleration : Not Available
Direct 3D Acceleration : Enabled
AGP Texture Acceleration : Not Available

I called the support department for my new card and they said that the card has direct draw and agp texture acceleration but you can't turn them on or off.

Anyway after doing a clean install of Vista Business and downloading and installing Visual Basic 2008 Express all problems still remain as before. No improvement. I'm waiting for 2 1 GB Memeory sticks to arrive. That might help with the speed problem. The problem of not being able to get into the designer is still there though.

[EntityX]

I'm running 32 bit Vista. My AMD processor is only 32 bit.

[EntityX]

Someone suggested to me that if you're releasing software nowadays it's good to have 2 computers. One with XP and another with Vista. Maybe the computer I have now I'll return to XP and then buy a new completely Vista ready computer.

[Lord Orwell]

you don't have the correct driver installed.
I don't have enough information to tell you which driver you are missing though. Did you run the install cd the video card came with?

You are either missing your motherboard's chipset driver or the correct driver for the video card. Both of these are needed to enable the advanced functionality of your video card.

Based on the fact direct3d works however, it looks like the problem is the motherboard driver. You need to look up vista drivers for your motherboard and install them. You can either get them from the motherboard's website, or, alternately, you can get them from the system manufacturer's web site.

You may simply have to visit microsoft's windows update web site though and choose "install optional hardware drivers" in the options list on the left, if any are there. The correct driver may even be in service pack 1.

For simple development, you don't need a super-powered video card. a 2mb video ram is enough to display 2-d graphics. Vista's upgrade advisor was suggesting you upgrade the card so AERO would function properly. It is a completely unnecessary eye candy that will actually slow you down when you are developing software due to the resources it uses.

If you have any more issues after this post, you need to post either the model number of your computer and brand, or the motherboard information and i will find you a download link.

[EntityX]

I did install the software that came with the ATI Radeon graphics card.

I have a homemade computer. I didn't build it myself but I can give you all the goods on it. It has a Microstar Int. KT6-V Motherboard with 2 memory slots. One has 512 MB RAM and the other 256 MB RAM. It has an AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2 GHz processor that is 32 bit. Mainboard Model # MS-7021. Mainboard BIOS Vendor: AMIBIOS. Mainboard BIOS Version : 2.00. (after upgrading today)

After seeing your last reply I went to the Microstar website and downloaded their latest upgrading software and then downloaded and installed all the latest BIOS, chipset drivers, etc.

After doing that I ran my Visual Basic 2008 application but everything is just as slow as it has been since I installed Vista. I then did another Vista performance test. The scores haven't changed.

Here's the full range of scores.
Processor : calculations per second - subscore 3.6
Memory (RAM) : Memory operations per second - subscore 3.9
Graphics : Desktop performance for Windows Aero - subscore 1.0
Gaming Graphics : 3D business and gaming graphics performance - subscore 1.0
Primary hard disk : disk data transfer rate - subscore 5.3

I'm in the process of downloading the latest drivers for my graphics card. I'll let you know if that changes anything.

[Lord Orwell]

due to the screwy way of things driver related, sometimes when you install chipset drivers after the graphics drivers, the graphics drivers need to be reinstalled.

Reason: The support files aren't installed if it doesn't detect the hardware is there. So your updated graphics driver may simply fix the problem because you are reinstalling the graphics driver. This is especially true for VIA chipsets.

Any chance you could post a hardware list from your control panel/system/hardware applet? It sounds like the GART driver was missing in the beginning. This driver is included in the VIA 4-in-1 driver package. Did you download that? Here's a link from the MSI website for the vista 4-in-1 package, just in case.

4 in 1 chipset drivers

[EntityX]

After installing all the latest drivers for my new graphics card still no improvement. I'm not sure if when I did the updates for my mainboard if it included the VIA 4 in 1 package or not. I went ahead and downloaded from the link you provided. I installed it as it suggested. There's a point in the installation where you see 5 components to install but only 2 were automatically checked so I just went ahead with that. After that installation no improvement so I redid the install and checked everything and still no improvement. All scores same as before and my application runs as slow as it has been since using Vista.

If I open the device manager it recognizes the ATI Radeon HD 2400 Series AGP card. I noticed in one screen where it gives details about the graphics card it says Dedicated System Memeory : 0 MB. I don't know if that's normal or not. Another thing that's sort of fishy is that in the screen for getting the Windows Experience Index it says :
! New hardware detected
Your Windows Experience Index needs to be refreshed

Yet after I refresh the index and see the identical scores it will still say the same thing and if I restart the computer it will still say the same thing.

I don't know if unseating and reseating the board would do anything. That's usually something you try if the board isn't even seen as being there. But what if it sees most of the connections but not all of the connections. That's not likely because all the connections are lined up so that if one connects they should all connect.

I'm attaching a screenshot of the device manager that shows that Windows has determined I have the best software installed for my graphics card.

[Lord Orwell]

i knew the ati card was installed correctly. It's the info under system devices i am interested in. Look under there and see if there's an AGP GART driver installed. If so reinstall the graphics driver again. If that doesn't work i am stumped.

[EntityX]

Thanks for the help Lord Orwell. I looked under system devices and I don't see an AGP GART driver. I'm attaching another screenshot so you can see everything under system devices.

I'll start looking for a source to get the AGP GART driver now.

[Lord Orwell]

if i remember correctly, it was installed with the video card driver. The agp driver is there correctly. Note that you have settings in the ati control panel. It is possible that for some reason the agp gart is disabled. You can turn it off in the control panel.

Have you considered trying an older driver? Maybe that one has a bug in it.

[EntityX]

I'm just going to keep trying things until I find a fix. I discovered there's a SP1beta for Visual Studio 2008 out. That could fix my problem of not being able to get into the designer in Visual Basic 2008. There are a lot of things though that will keep it from installing like for instance if you have SilverLight installed you have to uninstall it. I'm defragmenting my hard drive right now. According to some of the documentation about fixing install problems for the service pack beta disk defragmentation can help. When I'm done I'm going to install the new memory I got (2 GB worth) and see if that changes anything. The disk defragmenter in Vista doesn't give you any idea of how much progress has been made like the ones in XP and before did.

[EntityX]

I installed the 2 GB of memory. My Visual Basic application has a total of almost 10 MB worth of files and used to take quite a bit of time for it to load. After putting in the new memory I noticed it loads much much faster.

I did another Vista performance test and Memory (RAM) : Memory operations per second : subscore now 4.2 (was 3.9). All other subscores remain the same.

The screens in my VB app still run about as slow as they did since moving to Vista. I think I'll start bugging ATI support. Why should a NVIDIA GeForce2 video card that was installed back in the summer of 2005 and has only 32 MB RAM outperform an ATI Radeon HD 2400 Pro AGP card with 512 MB RAM and is stated as being Vista ready. The GeForce2 gave me a 0.9 higher subscore in Graphics.

If I give ATI all this info hopefully they'll work to prove to me my ATI Radeon card can do much better. Perhaps my ATI card has a bad chip or connection somewhere. Even if I get my subscores in graphics up that doesn't necessarily mean my VB app will run faster but it is likely it will.

[Lord Orwell]

good luck. I still blame your via 4 in 1 drivers. I have had the same issue. After about the 8th install in random order of components i got mine to work.

[EntityX]

I've found different versions of the VIA 4 in 1 drivers. Some more recent than from the link you provided. I've tried reinstalling a number of times and have installed the components separately and then did a restart as I found a source that said that it's better to install the components separately and do a restart after each install. I've also tried going back to older versions using the same method and always doing a Vista performance test after each install and restart and no improvement. Sometime before I pass out of this body I hope to solve this problem.

In post # 23 for this thread you said that you can turn AGP GART off in the control panel. I don't see how. I did a search in help and support with agp gart. It gave a few results which I followed but didn't see any place where I could enable or disable agp gart.

[Lord Orwell]

not in the windows control panel. In th ATI control panel.

[EntityX]

In the ATI control panel I don't see agp gart. If I enter agp gart or gart in help no results come up. There is something called SmartGart.
Here's what it says about SmartGart.

SmartGart™ is a software testing and diagnostics tool that performs a variety of AGP and PCI bus tests in order to determine the optimal settings for your graphics card in terms of system stability. The tests are run automatically when the computer is turned on; if your computer is functioning normally, you do not need to adjust anything.

Advanced users can manually adjust the AGP bus settings to meet the individual requirements of your computer. Once you have made the changes you can retest SmartGart™ by using the Retest All button.

Note: Changing these settings could result in system instability.

Note: This option is available only for AGP or PCI graphics cards. Since Windows Vista® directly controls the AGP and PCI bus, this option is not available on systems running Windows Vista®.

The second note tells me that I can't do anything in terms of adjusting SmartGart since I'm running Vista.

[Lord Orwell]

ok i was not aware of the vista difference. I just switched to vista ultimate yesterday. Still working my bugs out. For whatever reason it came with drivers for my processor but not the math coprocessor on the same chip. Took me an hour to find them.

[EntityX]

My graphics card is a Diamond ATI Radeon card so I was talking with a Diamond tech in Technical Support and giving him the story on my situation. He said that because my card is AGP and I'm using Vista I should just return the card. He basically said that you can't get the drivers you need to run my card at a high performance level in Vista. If you're happy with subscores of 1.0 in graphics then you don't have a problem.

My advice is if you're going to buy an ATI Radeon card stay away from AGP cards. The motherboard on my computer is about 3 years old and doesn't have any PCIe or PCI express sockets on it. It only has PCI and one AGP socket so that's why I went with the AGP board. I would stay away from all AGP graphics cards if you plan on using Vista. Maybe there are some AGP cards that will work well with Vista from other manufacturers but if you're going to buy an ATI Radeon card definitely stay away from AGP if you're going to use Vista or are using Vista now.

I'm thinking about buying a new computer :
You can get the one described below for $ 749. I'd change it to Vista Business
Gateway DX4200-UB001A AMD Phenom X4 9550 6144MB RAM 640GB HD Windows Vista Home Premium
Manufacturer: Gateway
System Type: Desktop
Form Factor: Desktop
Processor: AMD Phenom™ X4 Processor
Processor Model: 9550
Graphics Card Manufacturer: ATI
Graphics Card: Radeon HD 3450
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium
Display Size: none
Hard Drive: 640GB
Internal Memory: 6144MB

I could keep the computer I have now to test my VB applications for Windows XP.

[Lord Orwell]

there is one more possibility. I was running a newer system with a radeon 9800 pro and it absolutely refused to work at 8x agp. When i set it at 4x in the bios, it worked correctly.
However, considering your hardware, you could probably buy a motherboard that supports the same processor and switch to pci express and get a low-end pci express video card, and have a faster system for about the same money. My last upgrade i spent $499 and this included ram, processor, memory, and video card. You can spend a lot less if you buy on line. 8600 video card is down to about $79 now and couple that with a motherboard and, say a 4800 multi core athalon and 1 gb of ram, the whole setup would run you under $300.

Also that system is 64-bit. I can tell by the amount of ram it has. You didn't specify, but if you are using the free edition of visual studio dot net, it automatically compiles to the bit depth of the operating system. so you would be making 64-bit packages that wouldn't run on most systems.

[EntityX]

Thanks for all the information Lord.

I was going to add a note. The entire time I had the ATI card on my computer I never saw the message in the Vista Performance Index screen go away that said. "! New hardware detected Your Windows Experience Index needs to be refreshed." It was always there no matter how many times I refreshed the index or restarted my computer. I took the ATI card out and put my old graphics card in yesterday and when I first started my computer naturally I saw that message but after I refreshed the index it disappeared and hasn't returned on restarts. Maybe there was a defect in the card or maybe it needed to have some BIOS setting adjusted or maybe it needed better drivers but whatever the case I'm returning the ATI card.

I think I'll buy Visual Studio 2008 Standard some time soon. You can get it now for $ 149. I could specify bit depth for the project.

Getting Visual Sudio 2008 Standard also might eliminate my problem of not being able to get into the designer when using Vista.

As to what I do about upgrading my computer or buying a new computer I'll think about that for a while since I don't buy anything on credit and I don't have the mulah right now.

[Lord Orwell]

you can actually specify bit depth on the express edition as well, but it's not an option in the IDE. You have to save your project, edit the project's xml, and add a new line to it. There's a microsoft knowledge base thing about it.

[EntityX]

I fixed the problem of not being able to get into the designer by uninstalling Visual Basic 2008 Express and installing Visual Basic 2008 Express with SP1 Beta. http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=531271

Here's a related thread I just started. I created a Graphics Test program. You can download it and try it if you like and give me the results. Or you can refrain from giving me the results. Or you can not install it and not give me the results that you never got. http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.p...34#post3303034

[Lord Orwell]

ok i just did this exact same thing you did. the agp gart driver is installed as part of the 4 in 1 package (or uli if you use them). I had to uninstall reinstall them three times before mine worked, and the gart driver actually had a warning on the install program "install graphics driver after you install this"
which i did but next boot xp locked up and i had to uninstall it and redo the whole shebang again. it worked the 3rd try, but not until i rebooted one more time than it told me to.

(not my computer: i built one out of spare parts for sister in law)