DDO and Windows 7

[Danmor]

Hi everyone,

I'm getting a new computer one of these days and I'm thinking about what version of Windows I'm going to use.
Is there anyone out there that has tried to play DDO under Windows 7?
Is Windows 7 supported at this time?

[giveuptg]

I play it on Windows 7 (Release Candidate, 64-bit) and it works fine. It does give a strange graphical glitch upon opening the client, but the game works fine after it's open.

[survient]

It has to disable Aero due to a directX incompatibility but other than that it runs fine

[Lundivar]

DDO works great with Windows 7 64-Bit without doing anything special, just install & go. And make sure your video drivers & audio drivers are up to date (especially for microphone).

[SuperHeroInTraining]

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and the game runs fine, only problem I had was that the game would crash to the desktop on the first start but worked fine when I started it the second time. Apparently the problem was with AVG Free because I decided to try the new Microsoft Security Essentials (AVG scans were ridiculously slow) and after dumping AVG, the game doesn't crash the first time I start it.

[mtcarpentersr]

I'm having audio issues. All drivers and bios is up to date. Other than that it runs fantastic.

[mtcarpentersr]

Aaaaaaaannnnnd I take it back. You have to, you know, choose the headphones under the options for them to work...

[Nosterafu]

The only thing under windows 7 is download the dot net 1.1 redistribution and ignore the warning it gives you.
As far as sound issues are you using a creative labs sound card under 64 bit there are known issues with them because of creative labs lousy drivers.

[frogh]

Where can I get dot net redistribution? Couldn't find a file online.

[ogboot]

look for .net framework if that's what you think you need. I didn't have to install anything special to get Windows 7 to run DDO though. In fact there are far less issues in Windows 7 than I had in vista ultimate. Considering the performance of windows 7 is on par with xp i say it's a win-win situation all around. I may have disables UAC, that seems to cause all kinds of issues with software, regardless of what windows version you are running. I'll take a look and see when i get home.

Have you opened a ticket with Turbine?

[Kaldahr]

Where can I get dot net redistribution? Couldn't find a file online.

Links to redistributable and service packs and, as an added bonus, slipstream instructions are included at no extra charge!

[Tyndaleon]

As far as any actual crashes or bugs, I don't have any problem when playing under Win7 64.....but I'm disappointed in the performance difference. I have both XP 32 and now Win7 64 installed on separate partitions on the same machine, and the Win7 performance compared to XP is a bit choppy and, for lack of a better way of putting it, 'sluggish feeling'. It's definitely not the hardware either:

ASROCK X58 Extreme motherboard
i7 920 Processor
6 gigs (3 x 2GB) of memory
ATI Radeon 4870 1 Gig video card
Western Digital 'Raptor' 300 Gig hard drive (200 of it is the Win7 64 partition, 100 is the XP 32 partition)
SB X-Fi XtremeGamer card

All drivers are as up to date and direct from the various card and/or chipset manufacturers as the cases may be as well (9.10 Catalyst is installed on both OS's now).


I really wish the performance difference didn't exist, because I absolutely LOVE Win7 and would love to be able to use it almost exclusively......but at least for now, the drivers don't appear to be quite up to par. Win7 (obvously with DX10 effects turned on) looks a little better even of course, but actual real-world playability just suffers enough to be anywhere from annoying to problematic. I've toned down various settings to try and tweak it a little but nothing really seems to help unfortunately.

[Nosterafu]

As far as any actual crashes or bugs, I don't have any problem when playing under Win7 64.....but I'm disappointed in the performance difference. I have both XP 32 and now Win7 64 installed on separate partitions on the same machine, and the Win7 performance compared to XP is a bit choppy and, for lack of a better way of putting it, 'sluggish feeling'. It's definitely not the hardware either:

ASROCK X58 Extreme motherboard
i7 920 Processor
6 gigs (3 x 2GB) of memory
ATI Radeon 4870 1 Gig video card
Western Digital 'Raptor' 300 Gig hard drive (200 of it is the Win7 64 partition, 100 is the XP 32 partition)
SB X-Fi XtremeGamer card

All drivers are as up to date and direct from the various card and/or chipset manufacturers as the cases may be as well (9.10 Catalyst is installed on both OS's now).


I really wish the performance difference didn't exist, because I absolutely LOVE Win7 and would love to be able to use it almost exclusively......but at least for now, the drivers don't appear to be quite up to par. Win7 (obvously with DX10 effects turned on) looks a little better even of course, but actual real-world playability just suffers enough to be anywhere from annoying to problematic. I've toned down various settings to try and tweak it a little but nothing really seems to help unfortunately.

Your Creative Labs card is the culprit surprised you could even run with those garbage drivers the Creative labs folks have really screwed up on 64 bit drivers. Try going with onboard sound and taking out that sound card just to see the performance increase.

[Tyndaleon]

Wow....X-fi's are that bad under Win 7 64 eh? I'll give it a try and see I guess. But I wouldn't need to actually physically pull the card would I? I usually disable onboard at the BIOS level, so I could just try enabling it, letting the OS detect the hardware and install the drivers for it, and then choosing that from the options within the game instead I'd think.

[Kaldahr]

Wow....X-fi's are that bad under Win 7 64 eh? I'll give it a try and see I guess. But I wouldn't need to actually physically pull the card would I? I usually disable onboard at the BIOS level, so I could just try enabling it, letting the OS detect the hardware and install the drivers for it, and then choosing that from the options within the game instead I'd think.

Definitely, probably. I've run dual sound cards in machines before but never two Creative cards at a time. It's always been Creative and something else (i.e. onboard). Granted, this was on XP and not Vista / Win7. To get everything to work ok, you might need to swap slots for the X-Fi but, if you're going to do that, you could just pull the card.

As long as the hardware / drivers don't interfere with each other, you're probably ok. DDO can be picky so I'm curious to see if this works for you.

[Tyndaleon]

Oh there aren't 2 Creative cards, it was the X-Fi vs. the Realtek onboard High Def chipset.

Anyway.......the above wasn't the issue. Apparently ATI's Win 7 64 Catalyst drivers just aren't up to snuff yet. Either that or the DDO client needs tweaking to be more Win 7 64 friendly.

Under XP32 SP3 (Catalyst 9.10):

Standing still in one of the more crowded Marketplace instances with near-max graphics settings --> ~180-210 FPS
Moving about in the same instance--> ~100-120 FPS


Under Win 7 64 with all hardware exactly the same, tested with both using either Creative or Realtek sound set as default in both Win 7 & DDO (also Catalyst 9.10):

Standing still in the same Marketplace instance as before with graphics settings as low as possible --> ~40-45 FPS
Moving about--> ~15-22 FPS


Wish it wasn't so, because I love Win 7 so much, but for now it appears I'll have to stick with XP to run the game. :/

[Tyndaleon]

Just to add, after doing a bit of Googling earlier today, it looks like there may be performance issues in general with what otherwise are the more modern ATI generational cards under Windows 7 64 at least. I didn't have time to look and see if it's something isolated only to ATI products or if Nvidia users (say 8000 series cards and forward) experience the same performance nosedive under Win7 64 as well.....anyone using later generation Nvidia cards care to chime in and comment?

[Bardicwolf]

I run the 8400GS, and I have no real issues....

[Tyndaleon]

Oh there aren't 2 Creative cards, it was the X-Fi vs. the Realtek onboard High Def chipset.

Anyway.......the above wasn't the issue. Apparently ATI's Win 7 64 Catalyst drivers just aren't up to snuff yet. Either that or the DDO client needs tweaking to be more Win 7 64 friendly.

Under XP32 SP3 (Catalyst 9.10):

Standing still in one of the more crowded Marketplace instances with near-max graphics settings --> ~180-210 FPS
Moving about in the same instance--> ~100-120 FPS


Under Win 7 64 with all hardware exactly the same, tested with both using either Creative or Realtek sound set as default in both Win 7 & DDO (also Catalyst 9.10):

Standing still in the same Marketplace instance as before with graphics settings as low as possible --> ~40-45 FPS
Moving about--> ~15-22 FPS


Wish it wasn't so, because I love Win 7 so much, but for now it appears I'll have to stick with XP to run the game. :/

Just to update this, I pulled out my previous card I used before getting the Radeon 4870 1 Gig I use now, which is an Nvidia 8800 GTS (original 640MB version), switched out into my rig, and downloaded/installed the newest 195.39 Forceware set from their website and tested with it. Frame rates were slightly higher...50-55 FPS standing still, but still dipping down into the teens to low 20's when moving about and still an overall sluggishness in general. So there appears to be a global driver performance issue with running DDO on Windows 7 64 all around regardless of which video pathway you choose and not isolated only to ATI's drivers.

[Slickest]

I have a HP Elite, that I purchased this year. I received a voucher for a windows xp to windows 7 Home Premium upgrade, when I bought my computer. I received the disk in the mail a few weeks later. Knowing the history or windows' new operating systems, I was hesitant to install it, until I knew it was not going to "suck ass"(for lack of a stronger definition).
Everything seems fine except for that ATI problem mentioned above. I was wondering if you ever resolved that ?