So right now I have xp x64 with 4 gigs of ram.
I like to play games on my computer (that is the main thing I do on my computer)
Most of the world (including microsoft themselves) don't really support xp 64 bit much anymore.
So my question here is, should I switch to windows vista, and if so, should I stick with 64 bit, or loose some of my ram and use 32 bit.
I don't know that I want to switch or not though, because my brother has vista x64 on his computer at work with 4 gigs of ram, and the computer is new and a fairly good computer, and he says it runs kind of slow. I want to be able to play games still, but I would like to have an operating system that is still supported by the world.
Bottom line: Windows vista(x64 (supported by the world, xp x64 not supported by the world)) should I switch, or just stick with my xp x64?-nite_monkey (April 08, 2009, 06:45 PM)
As I understand it Windows 7 will be a 64 bit environment only.-sgtevmckay (April 08, 2009, 07:13 PM)
Another Example, how long have game consoles been 64 bit?-sgtevmckay (April 08, 2009, 08:14 PM)
Why are you considering switching? Is XP64 giving you problems?well I'm not having problems with xp x64 (other than my stupid bluetooth adapter) I just wanted an operating system that was still supported by the world.
Personally, XP64 does the job fine. If my machine crashed today, I'd probably install Vista64 on it, though. But if it doesn't, which I kinda hope :), my next upgrade will be Win7-64.-f0dder (April 09, 2009, 07:37 AM)
If it works on Vista64, it'll likely work just fine on XP64 as well...lol, try telling that to an installer designed to chew you out if you don't run the installer on vista.-f0dder (April 10, 2009, 06:22 PM)
I just bought a laptop with 32 bit OS. Does that mean I will be unable to run windows 7 on it when it comes out? Will a 64 bit OS run on a machine with 32 bit? Is it the chip that makes it a 32/64 bit machine or the programs?AFAIK, Win7 will still come in a 32bit version.-Kimitwo (April 21, 2009, 02:03 AM)
And as far as the os being 64-bit, how big are those letters you type, how many equations do you have in your spreadsheet, how much imperceptibly smoother does that movie have to play, and are you really so good at that fps that you have to have lightening fast graphics to make those incredibly subtle moves that keep you in the top 10 of players?Moving to 64bit doesn't give much speed advantage in the general case, and can even cause slowdowns if developers are careless about porting their code. But memory demands are growing, and to access lots of memory 32bit just isn't enough. Games are getting closer and closer to the edge, and it's not just about bad programming - datasets are becoming huge.-DDRAMbo (April 21, 2009, 12:57 AM)
I just bought a laptop with 32 bit OS. Does that mean I will be unable to run windows 7 on it when it comes out? Will a 64 bit OS run on a machine with 32 bit? Is it the chip that makes it a 32/64 bit machine or the programs?-Kimitwo (April 21, 2009, 02:03 AM)
I just bought a laptop with 32 bit OS. Does that mean I will be unable to run windows 7 on it when it comes out? Will a 64 bit OS run on a machine with 32 bit? Is it the chip that makes it a 32/64 bit machine or the programs?-Kimitwo (April 21, 2009, 02:03 AM)
Any machine that runs Vista should be able to run Windows 7 (that's Microsoft's stated goal).
Windows 7 will have both 32-bit and 64-bit support (just like Vista). Also, even though you're currently running a 32-bit OS, it's quite possible that your machine can run a 64-bit OS. x64 machines can be set up with either a 32-bit or a 64-bit OS (but there are definitely machines that are only capable of running a 32-bit OS).-mwb1100 (April 21, 2009, 04:22 AM)
AIUI there are few performance gains moving from 32 to 64 bit (in some cases it appears they are slower than 32 bit - which is ludicrous) the only advantage of 64 bit is being able to add more memory and if you have 4Gb you will probably get to use 3.5Gb of it (depending on your graphics card) so to me it isn't really worth the effort.Why is that ludicruous? Pointers double in size, and the native integer size does as well. Code size increases a bit... all that means higher CPU cache pressure. Don't port your applications to 64bit just for the heck of it :)-Carol Haynes (April 21, 2009, 04:30 AM)
Having said that Windows 7 should really be called Vista SP3 so it shouldn't be too much of a problem from the off in terms of compatibility.IMHO it falls somewhere between a service pack and a "full new OS". There's enough kernel changes that simply calling it a SP is unfair, and there's enough UI changes as well. It's not as much of a change as Vista was from XP (UAC and all that), though.-Carol Haynes (April 21, 2009, 04:30 AM)
As for Windows 7 being faster, it might be slightly faster than Vista but it still runs like a tortoise compared to XP and its not surprising as it is still based on the Vista code base.-Vinny (April 22, 2009, 05:16 PM)
dunno where people are getting that "dog slow" nonsense from-f0dder (April 23, 2009, 03:12 AM)
Memory consumption | Run an OS on a machine with too little memory, and it's going to be dog slow no matter which OS it is - linux included. Vista might require more memory than XP (although a lot of people don't understand filesystem caching and shout their mouths off wrongly). I haven't used it on hardware with less than 2GB of RAM, but from watching my own usage stats I'd expect it to run smoothly with 1GB except when playing recent games. |
Disk overhead | A lot of people bitch at Vista's disk indexer - but that can be turned off. Other than that, I'd say that Vista feels smoother than XP, probably because of the more aggressive prefetcher and cache system. Might also have something to do with Vista being able to I/O requests larger than 64KB... and I/O prioritization is a nice feature as well. |
GUI overhead | On able hardware, the Vista GUI is a lot smoother than XP. It's probably a bit unfortunate that MS decided to implement the acceleration purely with shaders, though, since that leaves some otherwise capable fixed-function hardware without acceleration. |
Any OS uses All the clock cycles it is given-DDRAMbo (April 23, 2009, 11:48 PM)