No. Simple answer. That is why it is a BETA. It isnt gonna be faster than XP just yet. they still have to trim some of the fat off it yet. RC2 is quite good and very stable. I have been using it as my Main OS since it was released.
I am gathering that you are using RC1. The Display drivers gave me nothing but problems on RC1. I got multiple BSOD's with them installed. I know that the topic of Vista and games has been gone over.
http://tech-forums.net/showthread.ph...hreadid=126462
It just goes to show you that the games is not M$'s problem. That is up to the game developers. Just like the apps is the software developers. If Avast and Daemon tools can get their software to work everyone should be able to.
Also you are at a bit of a disadvantage since you are using 64Bit. It isnt as highly supported for apps let alone drivers. My only suggestion would be to try Vista Build 5744. That is the most recent build and it is good. Not better than XP just yet. But it is getting there.