Are 64bit operating systems practical?

Effluo

Hi i'm buying an operating server for my new pc and i was wondering what works and what doesn't work on a 64bit operating server.

As i've heard that some apps don't work on it.

the pc will pretty much be used for gaming....

feylya

For gaming, you should be grand although it depends on what components you have in your PC. Check manufacturer websites for 64 bit drivers

AlmightyCushion

As long as it's vista 64bit you should be ok for most things.

yoyo

Vista 64Bit is great, not had any driver issiues, and most stuff runs grand,

Nick

Effluo

alright, anyone with anything to add to this?

in terms of applications maybe?

Overheal

This is the internet: I am sure without looking (and I will officially wager my left testicle on this) that if you google you can find an entire list of 64-bit compliant software applications, its simply a matter of making sure what you use is found on that list.

Kinetic^

Vista 64 is fine for gaming. XP64 is not.

The only realy hurdle I came into with Vista 64 was trying to play Diablo 2 which wasn't compattible. I did have games like portal, team fortress 2 and call of duty 4 running flawlessly on it though and you'll have no problems with new releases.

Overheal

why doesnt xp64 hack it?

Kinetic^

Overheal wrote: »

why doesnt xp64 hack it?

I found that quite a lot of the applications I used at the time were not supported and even when you go for stuff like drivers they might not always be available like they were for vista64.

tman

Kinetic^ wrote: »

The only realy hurdle I came into with Vista 64 was trying to play Diablo 2 which wasn't compattible.

Diablo II worked fine for me on Vista x64, don't recall having to do anything in particular to get it working (I only played for 10 seconds, but it did work)

Vista 64 is absolutely rock solid and perfect for gaming, I have recommended it to friends without any qualms. I'll recommend it to random strangers on the interweb too:)

evil-monkey

Effluo wrote: »

Hi i'm buying an operating server for my new pc and i was wondering what works and what doesn't work on a 64bit operating server.

As i've heard that some apps don't work on it.

the pc will pretty much be used for gaming....

I've never encountered an app that wouldn't run on Vista 64bit. 16bit installers won't work on x64, but there are very few of them around these days; you'd only find them in really old, small, 32bit apps.

If you ask me, the next version of Windows should only be in x64 - the days of x86 are long past. If I was buying a new PC, wouldn't go for anything less than 4GB of RAM, it being so cheap and all, automatically making me need an x64 OS...

You might as well move to 64 bit now, rather than be forced to move later...

yoyo

Overheal wrote: »

why doesnt xp64 hack it?

XP 64Bit isn't actually based on XP, Rather Server 03, so as its a server os technically, it has certain issiues developers probably wouldn't be bothered fixing, more info HERE

Nick

papu

Vists 64 if you want to 64bit , Drivers are more or less there for everything , if you have some old devices you could have problems , but tbh , vista 32 bit sees and uses about 3.5 gigs , which is enough unless you like running huge photoshops

Effluo

Alright, thanks everyone for the info on that.

I think i might get the vista home basic 64bit version so!

Well i was on the dabs.ie and now i see that there is a oem version for 75euro and a retail version for 125euro....

And the info on dabs is not very clear to what the main differences are and more importantly if it makes a difference to me....

I'm getting my pc from ankermann

http://ankermann-pc.shops4ecommerce.de/shop/sp.php?artnr=82483&extrahtml=2&

Is the oem version ok for me?

papu

Effluo wrote: »

Alright, thanks everyone for the info on that.

I think i might get the vista home basic 64bit version so!

Well i was on the dabs.ie and now i see that there is a oem version for 75euro and a retail version for 125euro....

And the info on dabs is not very clear to what the main differences are and more importantly if it makes a difference to me....

I'm getting my pc from ankermann

http://ankermann-pc.shops4ecommerce.de/shop/sp.php?artnr=82483&extrahtml=2&

Is the oem version ok for me?

Oem means no tech support from Microsoft , also with retail you can get 32bit and 64bit from microsoft , Oem is one or the other , also oem is locked to 1 install on one machine , each time you re-install you will have to spend 5 minutes of your life ringing microsoft , same goes for retail but only after 3 or 5 installs i think.

evil-monkey

papu wrote: »

Oem means no tech support from Microsoft , also with retail you can get 32bit and 64bit from microsoft , Oem is one or the other , also oem is locked to 1 install on one machine , each time you re-install you will have to spend 5 minutes of your life ringing microsoft , same goes for retail but only after 3 or 5 installs i think.

Yup, OEM is pretty much for system builders who won't need tech support...it's always the way to go imho

meowCat

evil-monkey wrote: »

I've never encountered an app that wouldn't run on Vista 64bit.

Cisco have some vpn client solutions that don't work on vista 64bit - as I discovered only recently

Additionally, I've had so many network/driver problems that I am not sure I'd recommend it to anyone at all tbh. No idea though about gaming.

Stephen

Home basic isn't available in 64-bit. Home premium is. I've been running Vista 64 bit on my own machine for ages now. I use a CheckPoint VPN client on it with no problems, and all my games and stuff run fine. No problems at all with drivers.

Cunny-Funt

What I wanna know is this... will I gain FPS using vista64 over xp32 or lose FPS.


The question for me isnt "will it run" its "will it run better" otherwise whats the point?

evil-monkey

meowCat wrote: »

Cisco have some vpn client solutions that don't work on vista 64bit - as I discovered only recently

Additionally, I've had so many network/driver problems that I am not sure I'd recommend it to anyone at all tbh. No idea though about gaming.

Could you post your system spec please...

papu

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

What I wanna know is this... will I gain FPS using vista64 over xp32 or lose FPS.


The question for me isnt "will it run" its "will it run better" otherwise whats the point?

depends on the game tbh , it shouldn't run worse.

evil-monkey

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

The question for me isnt "will it run" its "will it run better" otherwise whats the point?

The point is if you want 4GB of RAM you HAVE to go to x64...

Cunny-Funt

Forget about the 4GB ram thing for a second. Say my specs were a Q6600, 9800GTX and 2gb ram.

Would I see an fps gain from using Vista 64? Or would it actually lower my FPS?

In games like say GTAIV or Crysis for example.

Somehow I get the impression it'd be more taxing.

Cuddlesworth

meowCat wrote: »

Cisco have some vpn client solutions that don't work on vista 64bit - as I discovered only recently

Additionally, I've had so many network/driver problems that I am not sure I'd recommend it to anyone at all tbh. No idea though about gaming.

I have seen a host of Business apps not work in Vista, not just the 64bit client. I expected that though. For a average home user, I find it hard to believe most would experience anything outside of the norm for windows.

Donald-Duck

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Forget about the 4GB ram thing for a second. Say my specs were a Q6600, 9800GTX and 2gb ram.

Would I see an fps gain from using Vista 64? Or would it actually lower my FPS?

In games like say GTAIV or Crysis for example.

Somehow I get the impression it'd be more taxing.

What would the purpose of you upgrading to 64 bit be then? You wouldn't really be running a 64bit standard PC.

Kinetic^

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Forget about the 4GB ram thing for a second. Say my specs were a Q6600, 9800GTX and 2gb ram.

Would I see an fps gain from using Vista 64? Or would it actually lower my FPS?

In games like say GTAIV or Crysis for example.

Somehow I get the impression it'd be more taxing.

It will lower your fps. I tried it out with both and saw a reduction. Iirc it was about 10-20 fps, saying that I was still getting 200+ in counter strike source, didn't try it in any other games.

evil-monkey

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Forget about the 4GB ram thing for a second. Say my specs were a Q6600, 9800GTX and 2gb ram.

Would I see an fps gain from using Vista 64? Or would it actually lower my FPS? .

DO NOT put Vista on a 2gb rig if you intend to use it for gaming.

As another poster pointed out, if you're not going for 4GB of RAM, why go for 64bit at all??

It's like this - if you want 4GB of RAM - go for 64bit.
If you don't - don't.

There are no major performance differences between x86 and x64 when it comes to FPS. If someone knows otherwise, I'd be open to hearing a technical explanation as to why.

FPS, along with general performance, will seriously decrease on Vista if it's got only 2GB of RAM. I have 8GB of RAM, Vista uses 1.5GB lying idle!! For the spec above, intended for gaming, I'd go with XP. Put Vista on that, and you'll only have a gig or so of RAM available for your gaming requirements. That spec above, with 4GB of RAM on 64bit Vista will work very nicely. With 2GB, it won't. Simple as.

Cunny-Funt

So its all about the ram then. Theres nothing more to it? I just noticed on the back of the box of GTAIV it says enhanced for 64-bit.

Anyways I actually DO have 4gb ram in my machine. Of course only 3.25 shows up.

I wonder though, since vista is more taxing, will I actually see any boost at all with vista64 @4gb versus xp32 @3.25 since xp doesnt need as much ram anyway.

But apart from the ram thing I'm really curious if there is anything more to it for 64bit os.

elexes

it handels quad cores better

evil-monkey

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

So its all about the ram then. Theres nothing more to it? I just noticed on the back of the box of GTAIV it says enhanced for 64-bit.

Anyways I actually DO have 4gb ram in my machine. Of course only 3.25 shows up.

I wonder though, since vista is more taxing, will I actually see any boost at all with vista64 @4gb versus xp32 @3.25 since xp doesnt need as much ram anyway.

But apart from the ram thing I'm really curious if there is anything more to it for 64bit os.

It's not specifically about RAM, it's all about the addressing of hardware. I can give you a technical explanation if you'd like but if you're not a mathematical person you may find it pointless.

The fact that you do have 4GB of RAM should be deciding factor here - unless you feel like wasting 750MB of RAM...personally I wouldn't...

In a few years everyone will be x64 - people won't have a choice. x86 will be obselete. So you might as well change now rather than later. Vista is more resource hungry than XP, but your rig can take it. And, it has additional benefits once you get over the GUI.

All in all, this thread is becoming rather pointless. Why you haven't moved to to x64 already is beyond me man. 750MB of RAM is a handy chunk of RAM to be wasting...

Cunny-Funt

Its not a pointless thread, I'm looking for as much info as I can get. Such as this:

elexes wrote: »

it handels quad cores better

Which is an interesting comment.

I would assume also that if 64bit was 'the shlt' then windows 7 would have only a 64bit version. Finally burying the x86/32bit stuff. But no, its still gonna have a 32bit version from what I've been told in another thread. I just can't help but wonder why.

I've no BIG issues with vista btw, I use it on my laptop.

But in regards to 64bitvista V 32bit xp , and why I've yet to convert. Well I'm not convinced I'll get a boost. & in fact get the impression from others that I'll get a loss.

I probably will upgrade whoever, if only just to test if my rig performs better or worse with:

Q6600
9800GTX
4gb DDr2 ram on Vista64

Versus the same stuff but with 3.25gb ram on XP 32.

I dunno, it feels like I'll be taking a step forward (more ram) but at the same time taking a step backwards (bigger system hog - compatibility issues)

I'm just trying to understand what else there is to 64bit also.

Cuddlesworth

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

I'm just trying to understand what else there is to 64bit also.

Pretty much the added ram, 8gigs on mine which I use quite often. Other then that just the lack of a 2gig single process limitation on apps. Good for heavy memory intensive apps.

A few games over the years hit that wall, a few have implemented 64bit extensions. I think Battlefield2 was a good example of the 2gig limit getting hit, Supreme commander another. I would hope a few more games will release true 64 clients in the next few years.

Donald-Duck

evil-monkey wrote: »

FPS, along with general performance, will seriously decrease on Vista if it's got only 2GB of RAM. I have 8GB of RAM, Vista uses 1.5GB lying idle!! For the spec above, intended for gaming, I'd go with XP. Put Vista on that, and you'll only have a gig or so of RAM available for your gaming requirements. That spec above, with 4GB of RAM on 64bit Vista will work very nicely. With 2GB, it won't. Simple as.

Surely if you had vista you would know hwy it uses 1.5gb ram idle, and why it stops using that when other applications need it.

Cunny-Funt - I was under the impression that the 64bit version of Windows 7 was the main version, while the 32bit was just being released for older PCs.

Overheal

evil-monkey wrote: »

DO NOT put Vista on a 2gb rig if you intend to use it for gaming.

As another poster pointed out, if you're not going for 4GB of RAM, why go for 64bit at all??

It's like this - if you want 4GB of RAM - go for 64bit.
If you don't - don't.

There are no major performance differences between x86 and x64 when it comes to FPS. If someone knows otherwise, I'd be open to hearing a technical explanation as to why.

Frames per second is a display acceleration measurement, and you should well know that there are dozens of other important benchmarks to a machine. Perhaps for the shallow minded gamer who sees 34 fps vs 38 fps its a big deal. But theres a lot more to having a 64-bit bus to work with - its all in the binary: you can do vastly more processors per tick with a 64-bit bus. Being able to compile code or encode video and process databases (which also relates to Game AI and Script) happens a lot faster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit#32_vs_64_bit

Theres a host of other supporting arguments that you will find inside the article

A common misconception is that 64-bit architectures are no better than 32-bit architectures unless the computer has more than 4 GB of memory. This is not entirely true:

* Some operating systems reserve portions of process address space for OS use, effectively reducing the total address space available for mapping memory for user programs. For instance, Windows XP DLLs and userland OS components are mapped into each process's address space, leaving only 2 to 3.8 GB (depending on the settings) address space available, even if the computer has 4 GB of RAM. This restriction is not present in 64-bit operating systems.

(This also applies to computers running Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 as it only shows the installed RAM not the usable.)

* Memory-mapped files are becoming more difficult to implement in 32-bit architectures, especially due to the introduction of relatively cheap recordable DVD technology. A 4 GB file is no longer uncommon, and such large files cannot be memory mapped easily to 32-bit architectures; only a region of the file can be mapped into the address space, and to access such a file by memory mapping, those regions will have to be mapped into and out of the address space as needed. This is a problem, as memory mapping remains one of the most efficient disk-to-memory methods, when properly implemented by the OS.
* Some programs such as data encryption software can benefit greatly from 64-bit registers (if the software is 64-bit compiled) and effectively execute 3 to 5 times faster on 64-bit than on 32-bit.

The main disadvantage of 64-bit architectures is that relative to 32-bit architectures the same data occupies more space in memory (due to swollen pointers and possibly other types and alignment padding). This increases the memory requirements of a given process and can have implications for efficient processor cache utilization. Maintaining a partial 32-bit model is one way to handle this and is in general reasonably effective. In fact, the highly performance-oriented z/OS operating system takes this approach currently, requiring program code to reside in any number of 32-bit address spaces while data objects can (optionally) reside in 64-bit regions.

Currently, most commercial x86 software is compiled into 32-bit code, not 64-bit code, so it does not take advantage of the larger 64-bit address space or wider 64-bit registers and data paths on x86 processors, or the additional registers in 64-bit mode. However, users of most RISC platforms, and users of free or open source operating systems (where the source code is available for recompiling with a 64-bit compiler) have been able to use exclusive 64-bit computing environments for years. Not all such applications require a large address space nor manipulate 64-bit data items, so they wouldn't benefit from the larger address space or wider registers and data paths. The main advantage to 64-bit versions of such applications is the ability to access more registers in the x86-64 architecture.

BKtje

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

But in regards to 64bitvista V 32bit xp , and why I've yet to convert. Well I'm not convinced I'll get a boost. & in fact get the impression from others that I'll get a loss.

If you are going to compare you really should compare 32bit vista vs 64bit vista (or 32bit XP vs 64bit XP). When i moved to 64bit vista from 64bit XP i noticed zero difference, largely. I say largely because many of the games were able to use the full directx10 that comes with vista which it couldnt use with XP which of course killed some frames and the drivers were immature in some cases (which wouldnt be a problem today). If your machine is powerful enough than a move to vista (either flavour) is not going to harm your fps but if it's borderline it may.

Games themselves don't run in 64bit as they are developed for 32bit (there are some exceptions). Once games start being coded for 64bit then you will start seeing more of an increase in performance (possibly not fps but in how smart they can make the AI etc etc)

I dunno, it feels like I'll be taking a step forward (more ram) but at the same time taking a step backwards (bigger system hog - compatibility issues)

Unless you are running some old hardware there will be no compatibilitty issues with 64bit. 95% of things that have vista 32bit drivers also have 64bit drivers. One thing you might notice is that beta drivers for products might be a little harder to run as ms need everything digitally signed for 64bit and this is harder to circumvent.

I never regretted the move to 64bit and i did it a long long time ago and i would have been a hardcore gamer when i did.

Sarcasmo2005

The other thing to factor in is whether you are going to have the aero interface turned on with vista 64-bit. You'll get the best performance with aero turned off.

I have a DELL D630, vistax64, 8Gb RAM & nvidia quadro gfx card. The machine is quick, but with the aero interface does slow it down to what it could do. I find that the combination of both aero and the laptop hard-drive is slowing the performance. I've tested SSDs on similar setups and there is a big improvement.

hope that is of some help?

Overheal

Aero shuts down of its own accord whenever a program runs that is not compatible with it. The DivX player used to do this (no longer supported I think) and it will also turn off if a fullscreen application is launched and if your laptop enters power saver mode on battery.

evil-monkey

Donald-Duck wrote: »

Surely if you had vista you would know hwy it uses 1.5gb ram idle, and why it stops using that when other applications need it.

I don't have this issue with 8gb so I've never noticed.

Donald-Duck wrote: »

I would assume also that if 64bit was 'the shlt' then windows 7 would have only a 64bit version. Finally burying the x86/32bit stuff. But no, its still gonna have a 32bit version from what I've been told in another thread. I just can't help but wonder why.

I'll explain why - threads like this. Some people are afraid of 64bit because they don't understand what it is. Microsoft won't make an x64 only version of Windows until everyone is ready to take it on board. But x86 will eventually be obsolete - it's just a matter of time, as with any technology of this nature...

Donald-Duck wrote: »

I dunno, it feels like I'll be taking a step forward (more ram) but at the same time taking a step backwards (bigger system hog - compatibility issues)

What compatibility issues exactly?? Have you any "legacy" or 16-bit installer based software you need to use??

Donald-Duck wrote: »

I'm just trying to understand what else there is to 64bit also.

Ok, firstly, do you understand what it is?? If not, Wiki it, there are some good explanations on the binary side of it etc etc. 64bit processors have registers capable of storing 64-bit numbers, and before anyone ask, most of you with modern CPUs (dual core etc) already have 64bit processors. So while for the last couple of years ye might have been using an x86 OS, ye were doing so on an x64 CPU (that's irrelevant really so moving on). x64 can address more RAM, handle larger files, double the data processed per clock cycle, and improve performance on demanding applications, as mentioned by Overheal.

I still think a big deal is being made over this. Everyone will eventually make the transition to x64, that is a fact, not my opinion. If your rig can handle making the move now, what's stopping you doing so??

Capt'n Midnight

evil-monkey wrote: »

The point is if you want 4GB of RAM you HAVE to go to x64...

|Actually if you want to use more than about 3.2GB of RAM you should look at 64 bit.

evil-monkey

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

|Actually if you want to use more than about 3.2GB of RAM you should look at 64 bit.

I think you get my point. If you want to be that exact about it, theoretically you could go beyond 3.2...but now we're just dragging out this needless debate...

Nothingbetter2d

for vista x64 and really great performance turn off aero and the sidebar........its nothing more than bloatware...... if u can live without the fancy graphics u will see the benefits it brings in terms of speed... vista runs quite fast with all its bloatware turned off.