32 bit is no longer valid

[wordsworm]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

BTW, it was just an ugly personal attack, having absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this thread.

Did this person even realize that I AM running Vista 64...?

Yes, slower or faster, it has been my primary OS for over 1 month now, and I have to admit that I haven't logged in to my XP since early January...

Even when I'm being flamed, I try not to engage in it, but sometimes I can't help myself. By replying, I reason, one validates or acknowledges the flamer. But... I've always had a talent for flaming back. It must be my background as a writer and addiction to reading useless books and information that no one cares about.

I have XP at work. It's not bad, but I can't see myself going back at home. I can't really think of anything that XP does that Vista doesn't do (for me). I liked the differences advertised in reference to security, not to mention the ability to have as much RAM as my motherboard can handle. XP was a bit of a nightmare for me out of the gate, but Vista has been really quite smooth, with the exception of its problem installing on 4GB. The updates clear this, and I have a pair of RAM that isn't in use should I need to install it again. Some problems I had with XP persist in Vista though. Sometimes I still have to use DOS to get rid of files that are protected by the windows.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: n7
I am eagerly awaiting the results

However (& no offense meant), i am also eagerly awaiting to see how funny & meaningless we find this thread in a couple years, when no self-respecting gamer is running Vista x86

I'm sorry, but i cannot understand how people are swearing by an OS that is so obviously going to be outdated in a very short while.

Now obviously we are going to witness benches for today, which is fair enough, but when you invest in buying an OS, you don't spend hundreds of dollars for the very shortterm (i.e., 32-bit), you invest to use it for years down the road...at least that's what i do.

BTW, Mem, why do you call it x68 instead of x86...what am i missing?

they are all x86.
The original x86 was 16bit. then 32bit x86 came along, then finally 64bit x86.
Some places refer to it as x86_32 and x86_64. But microsoft has decided to call it x64 instead of x86 in their marketing geniousity.

My take on the matter... I would rather take a 1% penalty when running 32bit apps for a 20-400% benefit when running 64bit apps.

The only 32bit apps I have anyways are ancient games (all of which will max out FPS anyways) and a few select small programs.

I have bench marked only a few things myself:
7z compression is about 25%+ faster in 64bit mode then in 32bit mode.
Firefox and IE7 64bit versions are about 5 times faster. (try concurrent loading of 20 web pages at once to see meaningful results. with FF3 ability to save session that becomes a constant activity).

Also, doesn't 64bit seem to boot faster?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: n7
I am eagerly awaiting the results

However (& no offense meant), i am also eagerly awaiting to see how funny & meaningless we find this thread in a couple years, when no self-respecting gamer is running Vista x86

I'm sorry, but i cannot understand how people are swearing by an OS that is so obviously going to be outdated in a very short while.

Now obviously we are going to witness benches for today, which is fair enough, but when you invest in buying an OS, you don't spend hundreds of dollars for the very shortterm (i.e., 32-bit), you invest to use it for years down the road...at least that's what i do.

BTW, Mem, why do you call it x68 instead of x86...what am i missing?

they are all x86.
The original x86 was 16bit. then 32bit x86 came along, then finally 64bit x86.
Some places refer to it as x86_32 and x86_64. But microsoft has decided to call it x64 instead of x86 in their marketing geniousity.

My take on the matter... I would rather take a 1% penalty when running 32bit apps for a 20-400% benefit when running 64bit apps.

The only 32bit apps I have anyways are ancient games (all of which will max out FPS anyways) and a few select small programs.

I have bench marked only a few things myself:
7z compression is about 25%+ faster in 64bit mode then in 32bit mode.
Firefox and IE7 64bit versions are about 5 times faster. (try concurrent loading of 20 web pages at once to see meaningful results. with FF3 ability to save session that becomes a constant activity).

Also, doesn't 64bit seem to boot faster?

you are quite wrong

*All* of your games - except for a select two or three are 32 bit

64 bit doesn't make the slightest bit of sense for a gamer - yet
your games run thru a emulation layer and you apparently suffer the loss of a few FPS compared to a Vista 32 user.

Also, doesn't 64bit seem to boot faster?

what is "seems" is no matter ... they boot differently ... Vista doesn't really settle down for about 1/2 hour - longer if you leave it completely idle.

 

[taltamir]

I am a gamer, but it doesn't mean I don't use my computer for anything else.

Besides, those select games with 64bit are the ones who actually need it...

Looking at my gaming directory there are only the following games which I am not maxing out with my setup (universe at war, galciv2, etc all max out without a hitch):
The Witcher - 32bit only, too slow on 7900GS, maxes out on 8800GTS (except AA) despite the 32bitness. a 64bit version of that might help a bit, who knows.
Crysis - 64bit available
Neverwinter Nights 2 - 32bit only, I use low graphical settings to decrease the atrocious load time due to the game inefficient and buggy engine.
Hellgate London - 64bit available
World in conflict - currently not installed, I can't check
Company of heroes - 64bit available

So to me it seems like 64bit makes perfect sense for a gamer. The games that need it most are 64bit, the games that don't... well who cares. so galciv2 is 32bit only, I am getting 60 frames per second on max everything.

NWN2 and the witcher might suffer slightly, but the witcher is borderline anyways and will no longer be an issue when I am upgraded from 7900GS to 8800GTS 512MB (I got one at frys, returned it, and ordered one online for 90$ less, will arrive on 02-14-08). And NWN2...
Actually since i upgraded from a x2 3800+ to an E8400 last week I will finally try increasing the nwn2 settings beyond the lowest (on which I get 60fps obviously). I was at the lowest settings because the game unpacks all the datafiles for each individual zone every time you change zones, and you do so OFTEN... so with high settings I would wait 1 minute for loading every 3-5 minutes of play. With absolute lowest settings I would wait 5-10 seconds every 3-5 minutes... much more bearable. It might be a case where the 32bit only causes it to suffer on a 64bit machine... the question is, by how much?

EDIT: I tried NWN2 with the new CPU e8400 and its amazingly fast load times, a few seconds instead of a few minutes to load a level. Even with graphical settings maxed out. On a 7900GS everything at max except with no AA and low antistriphic filtering I get 15-20fps. definitely playable for this type of game, but could be better. I wonder how much I "loose" for running it as 32bit on 64bit vista.

WIC is the only unknown there... if it is only 32bit then this would be a case where I would actually prefer to play that game on 32bit (assuming there is a real FPS benefit for it), since its so slow. But that's it, those are the only games I have that don't get 60 fps on (I have vsync forced on in drivers, with triple buffering DISABLED to avoid input lag).

All this is assuming that the impact is even of any significance either way (that is, that running a 64bit game is noticeably faster then its 32bit counterpart, or running a 32bit on 64bit os is noticeably slower).

EDIT: The ideal situation right now is a dual boot vista64 / XP32bit machine. Maybe even tri boot with vista32bit for DX10 games that have no 64bit executables, anyone know of a DX10 game that has no 64bit executable?

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Did you check out my AT survey?

it was good for a laugh
did you check out the Valve survey of 1.2 million gamers ?

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

... Vista 64 is insignificant - even compared to Vista 32, never-mind XP

Maybe Vista x64 users are very fussy about what games they play , however talking about stats we all know that figure( whatever the real figure is in the real world) will grow with time,32bit games were in the same sort of boat years ago when 16 bit gaming was the norm,progress moves forward ,sometimes slowly but always forward.

I see Vista x64 as waiting to takeover from Vista x86, the time is not quite here but there's light at then end of tunnel .

 

[taltamir]

well... its not about what everyone is using, its about what us high end users should use. Is there a benefit / drawback to using 64bit windows...

I would say there are more benefits then drawbacks, and since I do NOT want to dual boot (too much of a hassle) I choose to just go with 64bit vista. But 32bit is still a valid choice for certain games.
XP vs Vista seems to matter a LOT more then 32bit vs 64bit...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I am a gamer, but it doesn't mean I don't use my computer for anything else.

Besides, those select games with 64bit are the ones who actually need it...

Looking at my gaming directory there are only the following games which I am not maxing out with my setup (universe at war, galciv2, etc all max out without a hitch):
The Witcher - 32bit only, too slow on 7900GS, maxes out on 8800GTS (except AA) despite the 32bitness. a 64bit version of that might help a bit, who knows.
Crysis - 64bit available
Neverwinter Nights 2 - 32bit only, I use low graphical settings to decrease the atrocious load time due to the game inefficient and buggy engine.
Hellgate London - 64bit available
World in conflict - currently not installed, I can't check
Company of heroes - 64bit available

So to me it seems like 64bit makes perfect sense for a gamer. The games that need it most are 64bit, the games that don't... well who cares. so galciv2 is 32bit only, I am getting 60 frames per second on max everything.

NWN2 and the witcher might suffer slightly, but the witcher is borderline anyways and will no longer be an issue when I am upgraded from 7900GS to 8800GTS 512MB (I got one at frys, returned it, and ordered one online for 90$ less, will arrive on 02-14-08). And NWN2...
Actually since i upgraded from a x2 3800+ to an E8400 last week I will finally try increasing the nwn2 settings beyond the lowest (on which I get 60fps obviously). I was at the lowest settings because the game unpacks all the datafiles for each individual zone every time you change zones, and you do so OFTEN... so with high settings I would wait 1 minute for loading every 3-5 minutes of play. With absolute lowest settings I would wait 5-10 seconds every 3-5 minutes... much more bearable. It might be a case where the 32bit only causes it to suffer on a 64bit machine... the question is, by how much?

EDIT: I tried NWN2 with the new CPU e8400 and its amazingly fast load times, a few seconds instead of a few minutes to load a level. Even with graphical settings maxed out. On a 7900GS everything at max except with no AA and low antistriphic filtering I get 15-20fps. definitely playable for this type of game, but could be better. I wonder how much I "loose" for running it as 32bit on 64bit vista.

WIC is the only unknown there... if it is only 32bit then this would be a case where I would actually prefer to play that game on 32bit (assuming there is a real FPS benefit for it), since its so slow. But that's it, those are the only games I have that don't get 60 fps on (I have vsync forced on in drivers, with triple buffering DISABLED to avoid input lag).

All this is assuming that the impact is even of any significance either way (that is, that running a 64bit game is noticeably faster then its 32bit counterpart, or running a 32bit on 64bit os is noticeably slower).

EDIT: The ideal situation right now is a dual boot vista64 / XP32bit machine. Maybe even tri boot with vista32bit for DX10 games that have no 64bit executables, anyone know of a DX10 game that has no 64bit executable?

the weird thing ... is that the games you mention ... the Witcher and Hellgate: London, both run *better* on 32 bit

i have them installed on both partitions. Both are fine ... TW loads quickly, saves quickly ... but - especially with Hg:L, i get better on FPS on Vista32.

and NWN2 is a buggy PoS engine as released and patched - only slightly better than G3; i was amazed at the improvement in TW.

so ... only FC appears to run faster on Vista64

oh ... we already did the 'Vista32 vs XP32 gaming' Last Summer ... Vista was as fast as XP - back then.

 

[Chaotic42]

Edit:

Never mind, I didn't notice how long this thread was!

 

[taltamir]

of course the witcher runs faster on 32bit OS... it doesn't have a 64bit executeable...

Hellgate is a surprise though, the game has a 64bit executeable... hellgate is also a very buggy engine.. it ruitinely blue screens on me... both an nforce5 AMD machine and on a P35 intel E8400. Both are rock solid but hellgate gets blue screens... moreover, After 6 hours of playing the game i got a blue screen while finishing a quest which caused my character to get deleted (there was no backup, and saving is impossible, like in diablo).

What about the rest of the games though? they are good intensive games that have 64bit executables... Does CoH, WIC, and crysis run better on 64bit on 32bit windows? thats the big question there...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: taltamir
of course the witcher runs faster on 32bit OS... it doesn't have a 64bit executeable...

Hellgate is a surprise though, the game has a 64bit executeable... hellgate is also a very buggy engine.. it ruitinely blue screens on me... both an nforce5 AMD machine and on a P35 intel E8400. Both are rock solid but hellgate gets blue screens... moreover, After 6 hours of playing the game i got a blue screen while finishing a quest which caused my character to get deleted (there was no backup, and saving is impossible, like in diablo).

What about the rest of the games though? they are good intensive games that have 64bit executables... Does CoH, WIC, and crysis run better on 64bit on 32bit windows? thats the big question there...

i have Crysis demo - there is no advantage with 64-bit .. and i guess the game does not yet take advantage of 64-bit. i don't think CoH or WiC are either but i am unsure. i DO know CoH had serious problems with memory management until MS rescued them with a hotfix. Actually, so did the witcher and especially HGL

i have been playing HgL since the beta and have had "issues". Since the 1.2 patch i have been playing HgL only in Vista32. For some reason i CANNOT get the patch in 64-bit without a time out ... and i have tried dozens of times

PrePatch, BOTH 64 and 32-bit has serious problems with crashing and out of Memory and general performance issues.

With the last patch, Vista 32's HgL has been Transformed. With my rig, i can play it fully maxed in the DX10 pathway with every setting extreme or ultra or maximum and not only is it 16x10 but i am also playing with 4xAA/16xAF [although in the heaviest fight scenes i eschew AA]. Actually, HgL's DX10 not only looks better, it runs smoother than DX9 at DX9's highest setting [lower than DX10's].

they get my congratulations. and there are NO more crashes ... not for at least a couple of hours ... i got tired and put it away [and it didn't hang at the shutdown]. Most Improved.

 

[leexgx]

intresting thread

maybe when this XP setup fails i move to vista, i been dual booting with XP 32 and Vista64 (ghost has broke the Vista OEM boot loader (somthing about CHS not set right now need an tool to fix this) i own an vista 64 key tho) for the most part its ok

thay need to tune superfetch so Back off trying to Fill the ram when other programs are trying to access the hard disk as we are not at SSD hdds yet so hard disks cant do random reads very well utterly when it starts to read small files, Vista can be an tad slow onces superfetch kicks in more so the more ram you got as hdd activity is needed to fill the ram, if you got 4 hard disks in RAID 0 you may not get this problem as much due to the amout of disks, just that my hard disks are alot more active then XP that ultimately means most likey going to have more hdd fails with vista sooner

System restore/System vol shaddow copy/trusted installer, going bonkers holding the pc up for Extended amount of times or useing All hdd spce as M$ in there wisdom removed alot of options to Set Limites on system restore, you now have to revert to CMD to set the limit

apart form that and some niggles with the 64bit kernel protections (coretemp not working) system has been mostly stable
games can Load faster on Vista 64 (not FPS) due to the amout of cacheable ram as alot of games will fit in ram (if thay are cached)
Opera Loves vista more so when you got 30 tabs open in it as it basicly opens instanty (once superfetch has finished filling 2gb of cache)

the only problem i had that was starting to get alot more annoying was my mouse not been able to assign the Buttons on me mouse to press letters in game and sound issues as well (mosty vista+creatives fault)

allso the ram parts
XP is fine with 512-1gb, gameing 2gb is norm ok unless our useing Supreme commader
Vista 512mb is an Joke all auto start items Need to be turnd off, 1gb is ok as long as you Limit what you have on system start up 2gb is strongly recommended , 3-4gb for gameing as i found windows was Swaping alot of active programs of Page file when running games that use 1gb of ram and the system becomes very slow after game exits as well (superfetch not helping) as windows loads none active programs that are needed now back up to ram, and recacheing starts

older but usefull info (relateing to vista and XP)
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/showdoc.aspx?i=3034 (Explaining the 2gb limit with apps)
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...ts/showdoc.aspx?i=3044 (before the 940105 patch was around)
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3060 (940105 Fix in use and when not in use)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936710 for SLI or duel card users (Vista)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105 the DX9 Ram eat fix (Vista) this should be the first file you install on vista gameing pc this is NOT part of windows update but i think it is part of service pack 1

 

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Dadofamunky

Originally posted by: Pabster

Originally posted by: taltamir
iTunes cannot burn audio CDs on vista... because it uses its own driver for burning CDs, and thats only available in 32bits. It warns you that it is not compatible with 64bit OS but aside from not burning CDs it works perfectly... personally I wouldn't touch that piece of crap, but my brother who uses it on vista64 never had any trouble with it, ever (he doesnt need it to burn audio cds, not only does he never do so, he has nero in case he wanted to for some reason).

Yes, iTunes can burn Audio CDs on Vista, both 32 and 64 bit flavors. I know, because I do it all the time on x64 and I've done it on x86 several times too. The 64-bit requires the 64-bit GEAR drivers, and then it works just fine.

Pabster, that is a great tip. Thanks for posting that.

Read my reply too... I know about that 3rd party driver and I tried it... while it works it has the issue of casing crashes whenever you try to update itunes. So be aware that when you update itunes you have to uninstall it first.

Yeah, that's exactly what I did. Runs like a champ. Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

 

[Acanthus]

I have only found 2 problems with vista64...

1. WMP10 wont see my burner. (Nero and other applications utilize it just fine)

2. There is no working driver for my LG VX5200 phone.

 

[taltamir]

thats the companies who make those parts trying to get you to buy their newer version which DOES support vista...

I got my dad an HP laptop 2 years ago.. I was very specific about getting one with a 64bit processor, thinking "I will just install 64bit windows and bam, instant upgrade)".
Then HP went and said that laptop will NEVER be supported in any OS other then XP32bit... if you want 64bit XP or vista support of any kind buy their newer version...

Ofcourse I went and dug and dug, and despite finding no success stories online I tinkered with it for 3 days straight and managed to get it to work... I ever wrote instructions on how to replicate it.
HP Pavilion zv6000 Windows Vista 64bit Guide: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...ht_key=y&keyword1=6000

 

[wordsworm]

Hey, all the problems I've had with Vista 64 are now dealt with. Happy day! My Tascam now works, and so does Yahoo's Jukebox! The BSoD has stopped, and everything is working smoothly. Oh happy, happy day! I remember being upset when the company that made my old $500 sound card refused to make drivers for XP... but today is a very happy day!

PS

Are there any benchmarks out there for audio equipment?