Windows 10 and the Enhanced Client, Final Verdict... for now...

[Llewen]

Just a heads up to anyone that uses the enhanced client who has yet to switch to Windows 10. If you are thinking about it, don't do it.

I started with the Windows 10 preview early this year, and my first impression was that the enhanced client's performance on Windows 10 was actually better than it had been on Windows 7. But unfortunately, it's been all downhill from there. The final straw was the first major Windows 10 upgrade after release, when the enhanced client's performance on Windows 10 officially got flushed down teh crapper.

And seeing as Windows 10 is really just Windows 8 with the Windows 7 UI shoehorned in, in addition to some bloatware and advertising, my guess is the enhanced client doesn't work well on Windows 8 or 8.1 either. So the last version of Windows I can currently recommend for the enhanced client is Windows 7. If you are on Windows 7 and using the enhanced client, stay there.

Don't upgrade to Windows 10. Maybe at some point in the future the enhanced client will run well on Windows 10, but right now, it simply doesn't, no matter what you do. And if you are playing the enhanced client on Windows 10, I'd suggest you go back to Windows 7. You'll be happy you did...

 

[Flutter]

EC works fine with Windows 10 what are you talking about?

 

[Llewen]

I'm not the only one who has noticed the EC's performance on Win 10 go down the crapper. If it's working for you, great, but I know there are quite a few of us... few... for who the EC is a slideshow on Windows 10. I went from 5 fps and severely choppy to 30 fps and smooth in pvp when I went back to Windows 7. Windows 10 has been responsible for a lot of my pvp deaths over the past eight months or so...

But it could be a hardware issue with Windows 10. My hardware is all AMD, so perhaps AMD's drivers and Windows 10 don't play nice together yet...

 

[MalagAste]

Honestly I haven't had any issues at all with Win 10 and UO. I didn't like all the sellware reminds me of why I hate Facebook and everything it stands for... but there are ways to have it removed from Win 10.

 

[Llewen]

1. Old hardware, switched to Windows 10, small improvement in performance.
2. New hardware with Windows 10, small degradation in performance.
3. New hardware with Windows 10 over time, huge degradation in performance.
4. Disabled Crossfire with new hardware on Windows 10, significant improvement in performance, perhaps back to old hardware on Windows 7 levels.
5. First major Windows 10 upgrade two weeks later. Performance went down the crapper and nothing I did improved it.
6. Switched back to Windows 7 with new hardware, huge increase in performance, far better than old hardware ran on Windows 7.

 

[Llewen]

Just out of curiosity MalagAste and Flutter. Who made your video cards and processors?

 

[BeaIank]

Running mighty fine here at 60 FPS on my laptop with a GeForce GTX 860M video card, an i7 processor and 16 GB of ram.
I can run up to 3 EC clients without a major performance hit happening. With 4, there is performance degradation in some areas.

 

[MalagAste]

I have an Nvidia GeForce GTX970 with an intel i7 4790 4.0GHz processor. 16GB Ram. I can run 5 ECs at the same time without too much problem except in me keeping it straight who's where. I've played on 2 different shards at once... Taken as many as 2 characters to EM events filled with people...

The only problems I have are in looting public "Boss" mob corpses mostly from EM Events. Which will ALWAYS crash the client. And having EM boss mobs use Nova Blast or some of the other mass damage effects.

But doing say Corgul or whatever I'm fine. I can outrun just about anyone. But then my internet gives me a 150Meg service which if I go to a website like Speedtest.net then I generally run about 176mps... with a ping of 28-36 and a 26 or so upload speed.

 

[Tomarke]

My personal experience:

Desktop -
Asus z97-a motherboard
i7-4790k
gtx 960 4gb DDR5
32 gb DDR3
500 gb Samsung EVO ssd
Originally a windows 7 pro build upgraded to window 10 pro with a clean install after public release. I have had no issues with either the EC or CC before or after upgrading to Win10 that can be attributed to the OS. Most problems I have are native to the individual clients.

Laptop -
Asus N550JK
i7-4700HQ
gtx 850M 2gb DDR3
16 gb DDR3
240 gb Samsung EVO ssd
Originally a windows 8.1 machine upgraded to windows 10 pro with a clean install after public release. Same thing, no issues with either client which could be attributable to the OS.

I am not saying that you are not having these problems, just that I can say that it is not specific to all Windows 10 installs. Maybe has something to do with your specific hardware setup or OS settings. Honestly, my experiences with Windows 10 up to this point have been mostly positive, I have a few things I'm not too happy about but they are mostly minor and far from deal breakers.

 

[BeaIank]

Crossfire means AMD. It could be a driver issue, not a Windows 10 issue.
Also, it would be worth checking in the AMD panel if UO is still set to run using the AMD video card or if it is running in an embedded card. On my laptop, I had to do that in the nVidia panel.

 

[Flutter]

I have an AMD FX 6 core processor and a 7000's series AMD Radeon video card with Windows 10 home. It's nothing particularly special. Been wanting to update my video card but haven't had the time or money lately.

 

[Llewen]

Crossfire means AMD. It could be a driver issue, not a Windows 10 issue.
Also, it would be worth checking in the AMD panel if UO is still set to run using the AMD video card or if it is running in an embedded card. On my laptop, I had to do that in the nVidia panel.

I don't even have integrated video on my mainboard. But I'm thinking this is an AMD issue.

I have an AMD FX 6 core processor and a 7000's series AMD Radeon video card with Windows 10 home. It's nothing particularly special. Been wanting to update my video card but haven't had the time or money lately.

That's an older video card, and you don't have dual video cards, so there might be something in that.

But regardless, now that I'm back on Windows 7, I actually feel like this year's hardware upgrade was an upgrade...

 

[Llewen]

All of my games, except for two, are running far better on Win 7 than they ran on Win 10, except for two, and those two are running just as well.

 

[Giggles]

I own a MSI gaming laptop with a SSD. I haven't noticed any issues with the EC and windows 10. I still get accused of speedhacking so.... Seems to be running fine for me.

 

[Thoronnar]

Hi Llewen I have a Desktop that I built myself. I have 2xR9280x video cards (which are AMD), and an Intel I7 overclocked processor. If anything I saw a lot of improvement with Windows 10 than 7. So I am not sure what you're talking about, I recommend you update drivers of your video card,and if that doesn't fix it, upgrade the Bios. I am using crossfire... no problems... I suggest you turn off crossfire for playing UO, and see how it goes. Crossfire can have issues sometimes, I am positive UO is not optimized for crossfire.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

*is glad he plays the classic client*...la

 

[Slayvite]

I own a MSI gaming laptop with a SSD. I haven't noticed any issues with the EC and windows 10. I still get accused of speedhacking so.... Seems to be running fine for me.

I run an Apache pro, MSI are awesome laptops and have problems with very little.

 

[Gameboy]

My only experience with Windows 10 and EC is when I close spellbooks and I think runebooks, it crashes to the desktop.

 

[Giggles]

I run an Apache pro, MSI are awesome laptops and have problems with very little.

Hell yeah they are! I have become their unofficial spokesperson since my husband and I bought our first ones a couple years ago lol. Amazing laptops!

 

[Parnoc]

Windows 10 is running just wonderful on my comp ---- Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3 Motherboard, Intel i7 4790k Processor, 16G GSkill Ram, 960 4G EVGA Video Card, 480G Intel SSD. EC with Pinco's and CC runs very smoothly and I am playing from Asia so around 8000 miles from server with a routing helper from Battleping.
Never thought I'd ever say it, but I am loving Windows 10...... but that being said, I am still afraid to upgrade my laptop, I upgraded it at the very beginning and it was a horror so backed off. I believe that first installs on new comps or perhaps the "clean Install" they speak about are much smoother transitions than upgrades from previous systems.
But I do have the same problem as Malagaste at EM events, I can open the corpse on the bosses before it goes public but if I try to open after it goes public it locks up for several minutes and if i try to push it, locks up the computer completely and has to be rebooted.

 

[Merlin]

Just a heads up to anyone that uses the enhanced client who has yet to switch to Windows 10. If you are thinking about it, don't do it.

I started with the Windows 10 preview early this year, and my first impression was that the enhanced client's performance on Windows 10 was actually better than it had been on Windows 7. But unfortunately, it's been all downhill from there. The final straw was the first major Windows 10 upgrade after release, when the enhanced client's performance on Windows 10 officially got flushed down teh crapper.

And seeing as Windows 10 is really just Windows 8 with the Windows 7 UI shoehorned in, in addition to some bloatware and advertising, my guess is the enhanced client doesn't work well on Windows 8 or 8.1 either. So the last version of Windows I can currently recommend for the enhanced client is Windows 7. If you are on Windows 7 and using the enhanced client, stay there.

Don't upgrade to Windows 10. Maybe at some point in the future the enhanced client will run well on Windows 10, but right now, it simply doesn't, no matter what you do. And if you are playing the enhanced client on Windows 10, I'd suggest you go back to Windows 7. You'll be happy you did...

I concur 100%. I rolled back from Windows 10 upgrade back to Windows 8.1. After having increased speed and functionality the first week, I got some forced upgrade that slowed everything down. Using TeamSpeak and ICQ with the Enhanced Client on Windows 10 locked up all the time. It gave me a lot of trouble and I rolled back before the trial period ended.

I note that I am very much a "corporate Microsoft guy". Whenever possible, I use Microsoft products. I never use Apple products, and only Google product I have is Droid on one of my phones (which I intend to upgrade to a Windows phone next cycle). So I was surprised that I was unsatisfied with Windows 10 and that I couldn't seem to figure out why the subsequent Windows 10 upgrades hurt my computers performance. I'm going to wait until they work out more of the bugs before upgrading again.

 

[Nexus]

You know honestly I get the feeling that it is partially hardware dependent. I've been using Win 10 since the Insider Releases with little trouble, and honestly improved performance over Windows 8.1.

I will say the Desktop I use primarily is using current generation components through and through, and that may have something to do with it since they were designed for the most part with Windows 10 in mind.

GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel® HD Graphics 530 - Newegg.com

G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2800 (PC4 22400) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-2800C15Q-16GVR - Newegg.com

MSI GeForce GTX 980 DirectX 12 GTX 980 GAMING 4G 4GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support G-SYNC Support Video Card - Newegg.com

 

[GarthGrey]

I"ve got a crappy computer and EC works great on Win10, better than the ec has ever worked for me before.

 

[Ender]

Windows 10 has only been an improvement over 8.1 for me, with just about every program I've tried. All my hardware is fairly modern and I keep all drivers up to date.

 

[kitiara-atlantic]

I'm not having any trouble with Windows 10 and EC until I load a 4th client... up to 3 is fine.

I'm on a crappy 3-ish year old vanilla HP Envy box, AMD 6-Core FX-6200 3.8GHz, 10GB Memory (2GB shared with video), Radeon HD 7570.

I did have issues when I first upgraded from 8.1 to 10, until I updated my video drivers manually. All has been fine since. It's not noticeably faster than 8 (probably because my machine is so old) but it crashes less than 8 did.

 

[Uvtha]

Have to join the pro w10 crowd here. I don't play EC, but I have had zero issues with any games I have played since the upgrade, from brand new games to nearly 20-year-old ones. Everything works peachy.

 

[Capt. Lucky]

With me there's a big difference between upgrading to windows 10 and having a fresh windows 10 install. My older computers that I upgraded I rolled back cause of all kinds of little quirks. My newest desktop came with windows 10 and it's just perfect.

 

[Parnoc]

With me there's a big difference between upgrading to windows 10 and having a fresh windows 10 install. My older computers that I upgraded I rolled back cause of all kinds of little quirks. My newest desktop came with windows 10 and it's just perfect.

Have you tried to upgrade any of your comps since the big November update?

 

[Capt. Lucky]

Have you tried to upgrade any of your comps since the big November update?

No. My desktop was getting old and I bought a new one. My old desktop is up at the cottage and it's good enough for up there. Actually I really like windows 7 anyway. My laptop still has 10 but I never use it. When I travel I use it but I don't travel that much lol. So have you been having better luck since November?

 

[Parnoc]

No. My desktop was getting old and I bought a new one. My old desktop is up at the cottage and it's good enough for up there. Actually I really like windows 7 anyway. My laptop still has 10 but I never use it. When I travel I use it but I don't travel that much lol. So have you been having better luck since November?

No, haven't tried it, that's why I sent out this feeler, I upgraded it right when 10 came out and it was a horror story and I rolled the laptop back to 7 and have been afraid to try it agian ever since. I'm hoping it is better now but i will NOT do it until I hear some other stories about it working better for upgrade from 7. I am the same as you, i bought a new desktop and so clean install of 10 and honestly, it is a bit strange and not intuitive in some of the stuff I was used to, but usually I'm trying to make it harder than it is. But that being said, I really like it now and (knock on wood) have very few problems.

 

[TimberWolf]

I gotta agree with the positive posts.....windows 10 seems to be a major improvement across the board....in UO ( both clients) and in life in general