To 64 bit or not to 64 bit

[MakeMyDay]

So I am getting an Athlon 64bit , and am wondering if it is worth it going to Windows 64bit.
The performance is pretty much the same for software written for 32bit , but I having a 64bit cpu , I would love to be able to say I am running 64 bit.

But I also have allot of stuff on WinXP and it would be a bitch to get all of that together for XP 64.

Does anyone here use Windows 64bit? Care to comment?

[Captain Colon]

Windows 64-bit is pretty cool if you like spending hours searching [in vain] for drivers that work.

[StandingCow]

Yea, if your looking for an OS that has lots of support like XP your going to have a hard time. Since its not really out yet for purchase.

And not many programs..even take advantage of the 64 bit yet, so while its fine getting the CPU (I have a 64 bit CPU) going windows 64 isnt something Im gonna do yet.

[MakeMyDay]

yeah that's what I thought too.

[Modest Genius]

unless youre doing some serious work, like CAD or matrix manipulation, chances are theres no software for it, so the benefit would be nothing.

however, give it a couple of years...

[siddy]

unless youre doing some serious work, like CAD or matrix manipulation, chances are theres no software for it, so the benefit would be nothing.

however, give it a couple of years...

I'm not even sure that there are CAD programs that benefit from 64 bit processing as of yet.

[pk!]

microsoft offer a 30 day trial of XP 64 pro so you can dual-boot and try it out.

^^^what they said about drivers.

I have amd64 laptop but very few drivers so still running xp32.

"give it a couple of years".... I'd say give it 4 months. Just my opinion.

64 bit linux distros are out now.

[Rob_F]

A lot of of people say "Well xp 64-bit won't make a difference blah blah everything's still 32-bit blah blah negligable difference, etc blah blah"

Let me tell you, they're full of shit. XP 64-bit blows the fucking doors off 32-bit, especially in the games that require a lot of CPU. Even though the actual games themselves are only 32-bit, the driver backend is all 64-bit. I noticed a very large difference in terms of frame rates (1000 more 3dmark 2005 points (2900 versus 3900), for what they're worth) and the consistency of rendering is much smoother. The new kernel strain, which XP 64-bit is based on, is much improved over XP 32-bit. Kernel lock is much less frequent in 64-bit then in 2k or xp.

That being said, driver compatibility is a large issue. If you want to go 64-bit, you're best off researching hardware support for ALL the hardware you have. My mouseware drivers do not work on 64-bit and no new ones have been released; limiting my mouse to 400 dpi mode :( Some games don't work correctly or exhibit flaws specific to running under 64-bit, but almost all I've tried don't. Battlefield 2 is the only example I can think of.

Dual booting is your answer. Install xp 32-bit first, then xp 64-bit. The order is important; if you install 32 bit over 64-bit, the 64-bit one will fail to boot with the older bootloader that 32-bit installs. Other than that, they co-exist flawlessly. You can use the same partition.

Use xp 64-bit for games and anything else you can get away with, and 32-bit for everything else. It's what I do, and it's quite nice because not only is 64-bit much faster, it won't get loaded up with crap that tags along with other apps you install in your 32-bit installation.

[spartan]

Rob, do you really notice that big of a gain in 64bit vs 32bit? I haven't seen much evidence to suggest anything beyond Far Cry 32bit vs 64bit benchmarks in which they both roughly cancelled out...

[MakeMyDay]

hmm from the review I have read 64bit is the same as 32bit when it comes to games. MAYBE a little bit slower on some games.

What interests me more though is does Win 64 really coexists with 32bit peacfully?

Can I just install them on the same partition and still keep them seperate? What about My Document folders and such? aren't they going to go bananas?

I will have to research .

[Rob_F]

Rob, do you really notice that big of a gain in 64bit vs 32bit? I haven't seen much evidence to suggest anything beyond Far Cry 32bit vs 64bit benchmarks in which they both roughly cancelled out...

It's a fair gain, but the biggest difference is in the speed of the actual OS itself. I go back to xp-32 bit and it feels like my computer is in reverse. The game performance improvements are affected mostly by how CPU-dependant the game is. Games with high-detail reflection maps that update in real-time run much faster on xp 64-bit versus 32-bit (on my machine.) Versus the graphics card's ability to push polygons will be almost unaffected between the two OS's. This is based on actual testing, not benchmarks.

Also, kernel lock does not happen nearly as much as in 32-bit. This is an OS thing, though; xp 64-bit is based on server 2003, not windows 2000 like XP is. Also noteworthy, the rendering consistency is much improved in 64-bit. Games don't "hitch" nearly as much in 64-bit.

hmm from the review I have read 64bit is the same as 32bit when it comes to games. MAYBE a little bit slower on some games.

It depends on the game, as mentioned above. Need for Speed: U2, with it's real-time reflection maps applied over extremely complex car body meshes, renders at almost double the rate on 64-bit versus 32-bit on my computer, which I have tested myself. Both OS's were lean, as in they aren't running extra-curricular programs while I was testing.

As far as slower? Bullshit. None of my games run slower on XP 64-bit.

What interests me more though is does Win 64 really coexists with 32bit peacfully?

As long as you install 32-bit first, then 64-bit, they operate fine together. Use the same partition.

Can I just install them on the same partition and still keep them seperate? What about My Document folders and such? aren't they going to go bananas?

When you install Windows 2000 and up, it looks for those folders and sets itself up accordingly. On your second installation, "Administrator" will show up as "Administrator.<hostname>". So if your hostname is "ATHLON64", it will show up as "Administrator.Athlon64".

[MakeMyDay]

It's a fair gain, but the biggest difference is in the speed of the actual OS itself. I go back to xp-32 bit and it feels like my computer is in reverse. The game performance improvements are affected mostly by how CPU-dependant the game is. Games with high-detail reflection maps that update in real-time run much faster on xp 64-bit versus 32-bit (on my machine.) Versus the graphics card's ability to push polygons will be almost unaffected between the two OS's. This is based on actual testing, not benchmarks.

Also, kernel lock does not happen nearly as much as in 32-bit. This is an OS thing, though; xp 64-bit is based on server 2003, not windows 2000 like XP is. Also noteworthy, the rendering consistency is much improved in 64-bit. Games don't "hitch" nearly as much in 64-bit.



It depends on the game, as mentioned above. Need for Speed: U2, with it's real-time reflection maps applied over extremely complex car body meshes, renders at almost double the rate on 64-bit versus 32-bit on my computer, which I have tested myself. Both OS's were lean, as in they aren't running extra-curricular programs while I was testing.

As far as slower? Bullshit. None of my games run slower on XP 64-bit.



As long as you install 32-bit first, then 64-bit, they operate fine together. Use the same partition.



When you install Windows 2000 and up, it looks for those folders and sets itself up accordingly. On your second installation, "Administrator" will show up as "Administrator.<hostname>". So if your hostname is "ATHLON64", it will show up as "Administrator.Athlon64".


hm I think you convinced me to at least try Win64.. thx!

[StandingCow]

Yea, I have been enjoying this thread.. its making me want to try win 64 more and more...

You did say its easy to dual boot with win xp 32 bit right? You would think they got along.

[Rob_F]

Yea, I have been enjoying this thread.. its making me want to try win 64 more and more...

You did say its easy to dual boot with win xp 32 bit right? You would think they got along.

Yes, but install winxp 32-bit first, then 64-bit. Otherwise you'll get a bootloader that will only boot to 32-bit successfuly. I've been running this dual-boot setup for months, with no issues. They even can use the same pagefile without any problems.

[StandingCow]

Yes, but install winxp 32-bit first, then 64-bit. Otherwise you'll get a bootloader that will only boot to 32-bit successfuly. I've been running this dual-boot setup for months, with no issues. They even can use the same pagefile without any problems.

yea, my 32 bit is installed... hmmm

[Vulpes Foxnik]

Just a few notes when you going to run XP-64bit. It's not really XP, but a striped down Server 2k3 with the special server sections removed and recompiled for 64 bit.

There are couple issues with the 64 bit as well. You have to have 64 bit drivers. Idiot Companies like Logitech do not support and have not supported 64bit, and are slow to support anything a little bit different. FFS they still don't support Firefox. The Other issue is virus protection. There is only 1, Mcaffey, that is currently able to run on windows XP64. As for a firewall, I was unable to find any that were able to run, even in compatibility mode. And speaking of compatibility mode, It's a nice trick, but doesn't always work, especial with certain security improvements they have made. This is mainly a problem with really old games that require things like directx 3, but I recently purchased Myst V, which will not run on the NT kernel 5.2 AT ALL.

Windows XP 64 bit is still bleeding edge. I'd either A. install linux (they support 64 bit fully) or B. Wait for Vista or Better support of 64 bit.

But as for the processors goes, go ahead. They are fully stable, and the dual coring is excellent if you don't want to spend extra on buying an additional processor and ram and a multiprocessing motherboard. It's a real money saver at only a slight loss of performance of a Dual processing machine. Dual coring is the way to go, IMHO.

[Rob_F]

Just a few notes when you going to run XP-64bit. It's not really XP, but a striped down Server 2k3 with the special server sections removed and recompiled for 64 bit.

There are couple issues with the 64 bit as well. You have to have 64 bit drivers. Idiot Companies like Logitech do not support and have not supported 64bit, and are slow to support anything a little bit different. FFS they still don't support Firefox. The Other issue is virus protection. There is only 1, Mcaffey, that is currently able to run on windows XP64. As for a firewall, I was unable to find any that were able to run, even in compatibility mode. And speaking of compatibility mode, It's a nice trick, but doesn't always work, especial with certain security improvements they have made. This is mainly a problem with really old games that require things like directx 3, but I recently purchased Myst V, which will not run on the NT kernel 5.2 AT ALL.


I'm too lazy to reiterate, but I already covered that:

That being said, driver compatibility is a large issue. If you want to go 64-bit, you're best off researching hardware support for ALL the hardware you have. My mouseware drivers do not work on 64-bit and no new ones have been released; limiting my mouse to 400 dpi mode :( Some games don't work correctly or exhibit flaws specific to running under 64-bit, but almost all I've tried don't. Battlefield 2 is the only example I can think of.

Use xp 64-bit for games and anything else you can get away with, and 32-bit for everything else. It's what I do, and it's quite nice because not only is 64-bit much faster, it won't get loaded up with crap that tags along with other apps you install in your 32-bit installation.

[MakeMyDay]

about the antivirus bit..

I think it is safe to say that if the antivirus doesn't work on Win64 then neither will the virus.

Are there viruses for Win64 out yet?

[StandingCow]

Im sure there are some... but until 64 bit becomes more used and is out of beta... making a virus is a waste of time.