32-bit vs 64-bit for Gaming

[misle]

I'm upgrading my computer for the first time in several years.

My old system is 32-bit (Athlon 2500+), the new will be 64.

I have XP Pro (assuming 32-bit) and Vista 32-bit.

New system will be:
4600+ Athlon X2
2GB of Ram
8800GTS

Games I will be playing:
Oblivion (finally with nice graphics)
Neverwinter Nights 2
F.E.A.R.

Pros and cons to 32 vs 64 and XP vs Vista?

 

[Heinrich]

64 bit is faster and smoother. However, it took ~10 days to play with different drivers and torture-test the system to come up with a stable driver combination between Creative, Nvidia graphics card and Nvidia board. 10 days between driver revisions, getting surround sound working with all speakers, and torture-testing with Superprime, etc. I can get a 32 bit system up , stable, and overclocked in probably less than half that time. It definitely takes more patience right now.

oh and I plugged in my Nostromo n52 and got the blue screen of death with beta drivers, so I immediately did a system restore. You just have to be meticulous.

Once I got a stable system I immediately backed up my external HD

 

[sandorski]

Not sure about Vista 64, but WinXP64 had some issues with certain games. Splinter Cell, for eg, just wouldn't work on it.

 

[misle]

Sounds like 32 bit is the way to go even with a 64 bit processor.

 

[sandorski]

Though this is an AMD specific website it has always been focussed on 64bit Computing. So it likely could give you some info on Vista 64 and whether it has the same issues as WinXP 64.

I haven't been there for over a year, but it might be worth you checking out.

 

[Sylvanas]

I am on vista 64 and have no problems at all playing any games, the driver immaturity has nearly come to an end and every major component company (Nvidia, Amd, Intel, creative) all have great drivers which have been revised many times since the launch of 64bit Operating systems.

 

[misle]

Well, it looks like I'll be in XP Pro because Adobe Audition (audio program that I use a lot) is not compatible with Vista.

Can I setup a Dual boot for XP and Vista?

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: misle

Can I setup a Dual boot for XP and Vista?

Should be able to, though I am not sure of the exact procedures to installing them both. Likely, you'd have to have the separate partitions, or hard drives, set up before hand.

 

[PClark99]

using 64 bit vista in the rig in my sig,

knock on wood no problems yet.

the key is to use the newest available drivers.

 

[Heinrich]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
I am on vista 64 and have no problems at all playing any games, the driver immaturity has nearly come to an end and every major component company (Nvidia, Amd, Intel, creative) all have great drivers which have been revised many times since the launch of 64bit Operating systems.

While I agree that you can reach a stable system with the above drivers, I do not agree that "all have great drivers." Each one of which has more issues than their 32-bit counterparts. Particularly Creative. There is a lot of stuff broken and that does not work with Creative, including their own applications, microphone, etc. Getting what they have up and running requires several trips to the support forums and gaining support from other folks struggling - and not from Creative itself.

How much does a viral marketing position from Microsoft pay these days? Your overly-rosy picture makes me suspect that perhaps you might know.

 

[Sylvanas]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Heinrich
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Sylvanas
I am on vista 64 and have no problems at all playing any games, the driver immaturity has nearly come to an end and every major component company (Nvidia, Amd, Intel, creative) all have great drivers which have been revised many times since the launch of 64bit Operating systems.</end quote></div>


While I agree that you can reach a stable system with the above drivers, I do not agree that "all have great drivers." Each one of which has more issues than their 32-bit counterparts. Particularly Creative. There is a lot of stuff broken and that does not work with Creative, including their own applications, microphone, etc. Getting what they have up and running requires several trips to the support forums and gaining support from other folks struggling - and not from Creative itself.

How much does a viral marketing position from Microsoft pay these days? Your overly-rosy picture makes me suspect that perhaps you might know.</end quote></div>

I am just saying what I think, I find that so many people come onto forums quoting problems when the people that have none (as yet) usually don't chime in to say 'everything is well'. As for Creative, yes their driver package is missing some elements found in the XP- but it works fine for me when I am playing games or music- and I don't get any cryptic error messages doing so which to me is 'working fine on 64bit'.

Lol Microsoft can have me if they pay my air fare to Redmond + living expenses .

 

[Ryland]

Well I am running into an issue with Bionicle Heroes in which it complains that I don't have a Pixel Shader 1.1 video card when I try to run it under Vista64 but it ran fine under XP32. Of course this could be an OS issue too.

 

[Noema]

If you have 4GB of RAM or more, 64-bit is the only way to go.

That's the main (only, really) reason to upgrade to 64-bit. The performance point is moot; I doubt there's any noticeable difference at all, and whatever there is, will most likely be due to drivers.

 

[postmortemIA]

For games perspective, there's no difference and absolutely no benefit to go 64 bit. Nor of having more than 3GB of RAM.

Let me first address that 4GB argument. it is valid when there's a game that is going to use significant amount of ram - over 3GB, but there's no a single game that uses more than a 2GB of RAM.

2GB of RAM is a limit for any single 32-bit application, and all games are made to take this into account. This limit is passed to 64-bit versions of Windows in two ways because game app is still 32-bit or it was built primarily for 32-bit.

Thus this is like proof: There's no single game on market that takes more than a 2GB of RAM.

Therefore, you could have 3.25GB or 4GB or 44GB or 444GB of RAM, it wouldn't matter. As long as there is enough RAM to put OS and game, and 3GB are enough for that.

 

[Noema]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: postmortemIA
For games perspective, there's no difference and absolutely no benefit to go 64 bit. Nor of having more than 3GB of RAM.

Let me first address that 4GB argument. it is valid when there's a game that is going to use significant amount of ram - over 3GB, but there's no a single game that uses more than a 2GB of RAM.

2GB of RAM is a limit for any single 32-bit application, and all games are made to take this into account. This limit is passed to 64-bit versions of Windows in two ways because game app is still 32-bit or it was built primarily for 32-bit.

Thus this is like proof: There's no single game on market that takes more than a 2GB of RAM.

Therefore, you could have 3.25GB or 4GB or 44GB or 444GB of RAM, it wouldn't matter. As long as there is enough RAM to put OS and game, and 3GB are enough for that.</end quote></div>

True enough! But that won't stay like that for long.

I'm willing to bet that, in a year or maybe 18 months, most games will require 4GB to run smoothly under Vista.

And thus, the move to 64-bit will be inevitable. Specially when games start to be written with a 64-bit OS in mind.

 

[drum]

i've had absolutely no trouble gaming with vista 64 and an 8800gtx

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Noema
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: postmortemIA
For games perspective, there's no difference and absolutely no benefit to go 64 bit. Nor of having more than 3GB of RAM.

Let me first address that 4GB argument. it is valid when there's a game that is going to use significant amount of ram - over 3GB, but there's no a single game that uses more than a 2GB of RAM.

2GB of RAM is a limit for any single 32-bit application, and all games are made to take this into account. This limit is passed to 64-bit versions of Windows in two ways because game app is still 32-bit or it was built primarily for 32-bit.

Thus this is like proof: There's no single game on market that takes more than a 2GB of RAM.

Therefore, you could have 3.25GB or 4GB or 44GB or 444GB of RAM, it wouldn't matter. As long as there is enough RAM to put OS and game, and 3GB are enough for that.</end quote></div>

True enough! But that won't stay like that for long.

I'm willing to bet that, in a year or maybe 18 months, most games will require 4GB to run smoothly under Vista.

And thus, the move to 64-bit will be inevitable. Specially when games start to be written with a 64-bit OS in mind.

Yes, only problem is that 32-bit version of same game address more than a 2GB RAM, so that makes development more difficult.

But that process is imminent: as soon as there are games that will suffer of low performance if bound to 2GB of RAM, the 64-bit will get better adoption.

 

[rangda]

I am running Vista x64 and have all 3 of the games you mention (using an 8800GTX and 30" dell). The only problem I have encountered is that Oblivion seems to have a memory leak related to textures; the game keeps using more and more memory eventually crashing and the process is accelerated using high res texture mods such at QTP 3. However, nobody else at the Bethesda forums has reported this so it must be something unique to my setup (although it has done it across 3 video drivers). Running with 4gb+ is nice as the game can be as much of a memory pig as it wants and paging is kept to a minimum.

 

[alent1234]

it took developers over 10 years to support 32 bit after Intel came out with the 386. right now 64 bit is only for more than 4GB of RAM. in 10 years or so they will expand the instruction set for some really cool things that we can't think of now

i may think of 64 bit for games in 5 years or so just for RAM, but nothing else. 64 bit is so new i'm one of the few people on sqlservercentral that manage 64 bit servers

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: misle

Can I setup a Dual boot for XP and Vista?

Should be able to, though I am not sure of the exact procedures to installing them both. Likely, you'd have to have the separate partitions, or hard drives, set up before hand.

It really seems to me that it wouldn't be worth it. WinXP works great for everything, you are in essences gimping yourself by running Vista... sure it looks nice but in the end it is just shinny with features that I usually just end up turning off. Part of me desires to still be running windows 2000

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: misle
Sounds like 32 bit is the way to go even with a 64 bit processor.

I agree for now. 64-bit is too new. For those of use with a heavy reliance on working 32-bit software should wait another year for Vista and WinXP 64-bit to stabilize.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: aCynic2

Originally posted by: misle
Sounds like 32 bit is the way to go even with a 64 bit processor.

I agree for now. 64-bit is too new. For those of use with a heavy reliance on working 32-bit software should wait another year for Vista and WinXP 64-bit to stabilize.

I disagree ,I have been running Vista x64 HP since Jan and I game a lot ,not had any real problems with games I have installed,only very old and I mean very old 16 bit games won't run due to no 16 bit legacy support in Vista x64.

My games list.

KOTOR
KOTOR 2 with sound patch.
Baldur's Gate and exp pack
Baldur's Gate 2 and exp pack
Oblivion
Morrowind and exp pack
World of Warcraft and exp pack
Anarchy Online
Star Wars Galaxies
UT2004
Vanguard
UFO:Afterlight
UFO:Extraterrestrials
Prey
Steam games(CS,TFC,DoD etc...)
Space Rangers 2 without Starforce protection
Silverfall
Space Force Rogue Universe
Stalker
Jedi Academy
Jedi outcast
UFO:Alien Invasion
XCOM:Enforcer
Might & Magic 8
Dark & Light
Starcraft with exp pack

I have tested a few more too ,remember 64 bit Vista can run 32 bit games and a lot of 32 bit software so its not really a problem.

 

[Noema]

Well, I just bought Vista HP 64-bit. Will be installing over the weekend.

I will also get 2 gigs of RAM next week.

Wish me luck!

 

[CrystalBay]

I'm going vista 64 and 4GB on my next soon too be be rig . At least Epic will fully support my config. I'm good to go ...

 

[aCynic2]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: aCynic2

Originally posted by: misle
Sounds like 32 bit is the way to go even with a 64 bit processor.

I agree for now. 64-bit is too new. For those of use with a heavy reliance on working 32-bit software should wait another year for Vista and WinXP 64-bit to stabilize.

I disagree ,I have been running Vista x64 HP since Jan and I game a lot ,not had any real problems with games I have installed,only very old and I mean very old 16 bit games won't run due to no 16 bit legacy support in Vista x64.

I have VC++ 6.0 and gameSpace, as well as Thunderbird and Firefox I need to make sure they work flawlessly on Vista before I consider it.