Improved responsiveness
Inconsistency in PC performance is one of the top issues for computer users. One day, applications launch quickly and everything seems to be working well. Then you go out for lunch, and the computer slows down. Another day, applications seem to take longer to launch in the morning. Users want to be able to count on consistent responsiveness from their machines. Windows Vista includes a number of innovative technologies that help ensure that you can launch applications quickly when you start your machine, and that these applications will continue to be responsive throughout the day.
Windows Vista uses memory more efficiently, improving performance by providing new scheduling mechanisms for time-critical work. These improvements provide a more consistent and responsive user experience, with fewer blocking disk I/Os and less performance degradation from background system activities.
Windows SuperFetch:A new memory management technology in Windows Vista, Windows SuperFetch™ helps make the computer consistently responsive to user applications. Most memory management schemes employ a most-recently-used algorithm, in which the content last accessed remains in RAM until it is replaced by something else. When users leave their machines to attend a meeting or go to lunch, background applications take this opportunity to execute actions such as indexing, virus scans, or system management functions. Before SuperFetch, these background applications remained in memory until the user returned and launched another application. Thus, users would find that applications that ran quickly before they left their desk were much less responsive when they returned.
Automatic disk defragmentation: Infrequent disk defragmentation leads to an inefficient layout of files on the hard disk, which can slow PC performance. Windows Vista includes a new disk defragmenter that runs in the background and automatically defragments the hard disk as the need arises. The new disk defragmenter no longer needs to complete in a single session—it can defragment incrementally, whenever the computer is idle. Disk defragmentation is one of the processes that takes advantage of low-priority I/O out of the box. A hard disk can thus be defragmented in the background without hurting the responsiveness of your applications.
Performance Center
Windows Vista introduces a new Performance Center to help you understand your PC’s performance characteristics and manage and troubleshoot performance-related issues.
A feature in Performance Center called Windows System Performance Rating is a simple, numeric rating system that helps you understand the performance capabilities of your Windows Vista PC and the software you want to run on your machine. WinSPR also indicates whether your PC is capable of running Windows Vista’s more performance-oriented capabilities, such as the new Aero user interface, multiple monitors, and HDTV Personal Video Recording functions—all of which have minimum performance requirements.
The WinSPR rating is determined by Windows Vista’s Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT), which runs tests on your machine’s hardware and converts the results into a numeric performance rating of your system. The test specifically looks at your machine’s processor, memory, hard disk, general graphics capability, and gaming graphics capability.
The rating system is particularly useful because it allows independent software vendors (ISVs) to display the WinSPR rating on their application packaging, indicating what level of performance is needed for their software to work well on a Windows Vista PC. For example, if an ISV creates digital video editing software that requires a Windows Vista PC with a recommended rating of 4, a user with a PC rated 4 or higher will know that it will run well on their machine. If a user has a lower-rated rated machine, she can look at her components’ sub ratings to determine which hardware she will need to upgrade to run 4-rated software smoothly and with all the features available.
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