Author Topic: 64 Bit Windows Vs 32 Bit Windows (Read 759 times)

eskimo2 · « **on:** August 20, 2007, 07:30:57 PM »

The bottom line: If you are a noob and don’t know what this means, be sure that when you buy Windows to get the 32 bit version.

Last night I was about to place my order for my new PC parts, but decided to call a friend and go over things first. It all sounded good, but I had selected 64 Bit Windows Vista instead of 32 bit. Being a PC building noob I had no idea what 64 Bit Windows and 32 Bit Windows meant. I downloaded the manual for my motherboard and determined that 64 Bit Windows Vista Premium was better because it would support up to 16 GB of RAM while 32 Bit Windows Vista Premium (or any 32 bit version) maxed out somewhere between 3 and 3.5 GB of RAM. 64 bit sounded better and newer.

My friend Wabbit set me straight, however. 64 bit is better and faster, but is unsupported by drivers and software. Good luck getting your PC to do anything with 64 bit. I researched it further and confirmed that it will be a long time until 64 bit will be useful for the typical user.

I may be the last one here to learn this, but I thought I’d point it out if it might prevent someone from making the mistake I almost made.

eskimo

Spikes · « **Reply #1 on:** August 20, 2007, 10:29:10 PM »

I am using 64 bit right now

Although I have another gaming laptop that runs 32 bit.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #2 on:** August 21, 2007, 06:16:46 AM »

As long as your games and apps are 32-bit you don't need 64-bit OS for anything. All it will bring on the table is trouble.

4 gigs of RAM is more than enough for gaming use.

Connection · « **Reply #3 on:** August 24, 2007, 03:58:58 PM »

Running Vista 64.
Runs absolutely fine, no issues whatsoever the last month and a half (knocks on wood.) And it sees my whole 4GB of RAM. Playing through Bioshock at the moment.

Core 2 Duo
4GB
NVIDIA 680i
Geforce 8800GTS 640mb
X-Fi

Fulmar · « **Reply #4 on:** August 24, 2007, 04:04:45 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
4 gigs of RAM is more than enough for gaming use.

I remember about 8-9 years ago or so when a friend of mine bought a new Dell with 128mb of ram. And he was told by the sales rep that 128mb is more than he'll ever need or use.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #5 on:** August 25, 2007, 03:19:35 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Fulmar
I remember about 8-9 years ago or so when a friend of mine bought a new Dell with 128mb of ram. And he was told by the sales rep that 128mb is more than he'll ever need or use.

Yeah but this time it came from a mouth that actually knows what he's talking about. Current games run at around 1 gig memory consumption - you still have quadruple growth space.

If in 2 to 4 years from now the games will demand over 3 gigs of memory, then hardware and OS update is long due anyway. Do you seriously think you'll be gaming with your current box (even a new one) 3 years from now? Maybe if you like a slideshow..

Going 64-bit at this moment is like shooting in the dark. If you're really lucky you'll get hardware that actually has semi-working drivers for the enviroment. If not - well.. Then you end up joining the endless row of whines in different support forums.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #6 on:** August 25, 2007, 05:53:41 AM »

Thereis no reason to go with 64 bit. A 32 bit OS can address 64GB of RAM. Microsoft arbitrarily limits the amount of RAM an OS can address. There is no technical reason for the limitation.

The 64 bit Windows OS's are poorly supported.

All the 32 bit variants of UNIX haven been able to address up to 64GB of RAM for a couple of years now.

artik · « **Reply #7 on:** August 27, 2007, 04:47:22 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Thereis no reason to go with 64 bit.

Skuzzy, this is not exact.

Memory is not the single factor that affects the performance.
There much more, like an instruction set etc. I agree that once
you use mostly 32 bit applications you do not have real reason to use
64bit system, however 64bit applications do enjoy performance gain
in most of cases.

Once I had run benchmarks that had compared lots of different SW:
games, web browsers, servers, multimedia, math etc.

There results had shown that there is a common misconception
"If you do not have more then 4G ram you do not enjoy from 64bit SW"

There is an article I had prepared.
http://art-blog.no-ip.info/files/amd64vsi386.pdf

BTW: I'm running 64 bit Debian system...

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
All the 32 bit variants of UNIX haven been able to address up to 64GB of RAM for a couple of years now.

However you sill have only 4G of memory per process.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #8 on:** August 27, 2007, 10:01:09 AM »

And how does this affect general gaming use? Let's stick to the topic pls.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #9 on:** August 27, 2007, 01:01:40 PM »

The primary reason to stay away from MS 64 bit OS's is the lack of support for the 64 bit OS's from all the third party hardware manufacturer's.

The 64 bit OS's from MS, in general, are poorly supported.

If you want the most stable and best supported MS OS, stick to 32 bit.

Crusher · « **Reply #10 on:** August 28, 2007, 01:22:26 PM »

Rumor has it that 128 bit will be out soon.....

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #11 on:** August 28, 2007, 01:32:39 PM »

Why not go straight for 256-bit? None of those will work anyway..

BoilerDown · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2007, 02:27:30 PM »

A friend of mine once told me he was holding out for 64 bit processors before upgrading his computer, as he listened to a guest lecturer talk about the future of CPUs in one of his classes.

That was in 1996.

68Wooley · « **Reply #13 on:** August 29, 2007, 01:53:06 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by BoilerDown
A friend of mine once told me he was holding out for 64 bit processors before upgrading his computer, as he listened to a guest lecturer talk about the future of CPUs in one of his classes.

That was in 1996.

Seems perfectly reasonable. I was using a DEC Alpha workstation at the time. That was 64 Bit.

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #14 on:** August 29, 2007, 08:07:16 AM »

Are people still pointing at this friend and making the Simpsons 'Hee-hee' sound?