64-bit or 32-bit?

jamesc77

Junior Member
Nov 25, 2006
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Awhile back I had hell trying to run Windows XP 64-bit. I ended up having to throw away the 64-bit CD I purchased. Will Vista have better 64-bit driver support?

Is 64-bit ready for primetime?

Thanks
James

 

daniel1113

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2003
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Now: 32-bit.
In two years: 64-bit.

Luckily, all versions of vista come with both a 32-bit and 64-bit installation disk (except for the base version which I don't think will be available in the US).
 

hectorsm

Senior member
Jan 6, 2005
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Originally posted by: jamesc77
Awhile back I had hell trying to run Windows XP 64-bit. I ended up having to throw away the 64-bit CD I purchased. Will Vista have better 64-bit driver support?

Is 64-bit ready for primetime?

Thanks
James

I hope so. I am getting Vista 64bit (using a coupon). I have a license for XP home in case I need to fall back to it.

 

John

Moderator Emeritus<br>Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Originally posted by: videopho
64 all the way.
32 is getting a bit slow and old.

How exactly is 32-bit XP or Vista slower than 64-bit? If anything you want to avoid 64-bit for now due to lack of drivers and overall hardware support (printers and wifi devices come to mind). Look how much flak XP x64 catches...... :p
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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In two years: 64-bit.

It'll probably be a lot sooner than that, MS is requiring 64-bit drivers along side the 32-bit ones for WHQL certification.

64 all the way.
32 is getting a bit slow and old.

Oh please, I would _love_ to see how you came to that conclusion.

Look how much flak XP x64 catches......

That's because XP64 was pretty much a beta test released by MS to get people thinking about it, no one really cared about supporting it. A good counter example is Linux, I'm running 64-bit Debian right now and have been since I got this machine and haven't had a single problem. The only thing that doesn't work right now is flash and I consider that a feature.
 

videopho

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2005
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Oh come on...
How can you not like 64 bit window?
I own both rigs, so I know what I'm talking about.;)
I have been on it for a year and have never has any one single issue with it.
In fact it is my gaming rig too.
It runs all of apps and games I've thrown at it with ease.
One thing I have to admit it gets and the others don't:
SPEED and IT IS FAST!
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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One thing I have to admit it gets and the others don't:
SPEED and IT IS FAST!

No one said it was slow, but the fact that XP64 is fast doesn't mean XP32 is slow like you claim.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
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IMHO :

Personally, I'd just stick with 32-bit for teh time being, let other people work most of teh bugs out.

There's not enough advantages at this point in time to go through the extra hassles.

And there is likely to be no major game/app that will be noticably different with x64 for at least a year+

 

videopho

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2005
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Originally posted by: Arkaign
IMHO :

Personally, I'd just stick with 32-bit for teh time being, let other people work most of teh bugs out.

There's not enough advantages at this point in time to go through the extra hassles.

And there is likely to be no major game/app that will be noticably different with x64 for at least a year+

What bugs?
They're all buggy, 32 or 64 or even 16 if going back that far!
M/$ has been selling 64 bit for over a year now.
Vista is going to be 64 (or 32 for the wimps)

 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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What bugs?

Driver bugs mostly, not very many manufacturers are looking at 64-bit support right now.

M/$ has been selling 64 bit for over a year now.

So? The hardware manufacturers are the ones writing the drivers and they're the slowest ones to come around, MS could put out the best OS in the world but it doesn't mean dick if you can't use your hardware with it.

Vista is going to be 64 (or 32 for the wimps)

There you go again, claiming that the 64-bit version is oh so much better than the 32-bit one without one single reason why. Please, either contribute something meaningful or stop posting here.
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
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32-bit Vista. You'll be disappointed when a lot of tweak programs malfunction because they don't have WHQL-certified drivers. And, you can't install NVIDIA/ATI beta drivers.

I bet everybody will still be coding 32-bit apps, and with 64-bit Vista you'll just be running 32-bit emulation for everything. So what's the point? With the required signed driver thing, 64-bit Vista is not worth it unless you have native 64-bit apps that consume >2G RAM apiece.
 

videopho

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2005
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Originally posted by: xtknight
32-bit Vista. You'll be disappointed when a lot of tweak programs malfunction because they don't have WHQL-certified drivers. And, you can't install NVIDIA/ATI beta drivers.

I bet everybody will still be coding 32-bit apps, and with 64-bit Vista you'll just be running 32-bit emulation for everything. So what's the point? With the required signed driver thing, 64-bit Vista is not worth it unless you have native 64-bit apps that consume >2G RAM apiece.


Here we go again.
This discussion reminds me 10 years ago when MS was transitioning from 16 bit to 32 bit windows. No driver this and that...Blah, blah, blah.
Yeah I've heard all that before.
As far as 64 bit drivers, I have drivers for everything I ever need for my everyday usage, that includes video/printer/wireless/joystick etc.
Even IE7 and WMP have 64 bit software as well.
M/S will soon eventually pull away from 32 bit support and going for 64 bit full flesh.
What else can you ask for? Staying at 32 bit forever?




 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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M/S will soon eventually pull away from 32 bit support and going for 64 bit full flesh.

Just like they did when they pulled away from 16-bit software? Oh wait, they still support it even now.

What else can you ask for? Staying at 32 bit forever?

But you still haven't said why anyone should move on, the benefits of 64-bit vs. 32-bit address space are minimal and at the risk of provoking a "64K is enough" response most people and most apps see absolutely zero benefit from being 64-bit. Niche apps like databases, 3D renderers, etc have real tangible benefits but then those are the apps that have already been 64-bit for the past 15 years or so.
 

Arkaign

Lifer
Oct 27, 2006
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This guy is majorly trolling.

Nobody here is even debating the point, that at some time in the future (1 year? 2 years? 3?), that 64-bit will be the way to go as far as your OS.

What is obvious for now, however :

(1)- 64-Bit XP/Vista both have more driver/app incompatibilty/instability issues SO FAR.

(2)- The benefits of 64-bit have not materialized for MOST users SO FAR.

(3)- Unless you both require one of the extremely rare apps that runs significantly better on 64-bit AND do not require anything else that has numerous issues (niche apps, almost everyone uses a couple of these) on a 64-bit os.

(4)- You, sir, are a mindless troll, as evidenced by your ridiculous wannabe insults. You won't be taken seriously at such a site as this with such a narrow perspective.
 

InlineFive

Diamond Member
Sep 20, 2003
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videopho, although the speed differences now are intangible 64-bit will improve with continued development/refinement.

Everyone else, Microsoft is also requiring 64-bit drivers for HQL. This means that most manufacturers will provide both 32-bit and 64-bit so that users don't receive warnings. Which might make them look bad.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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videopho, although the speed differences now are intangible 64-bit will improve with continued development/refinement.

Doubtful, most things these days just don't give a damn about how much VM is available, the extra GPRs will help a bit but nothing outrageous. Sure as 64-bit systems become more common new things will be written to use the extra VM but most of the time when a process needs that much virtual memory it also wants physical memory to go with it and right now 4G is still way on the extreme end for personal machines.
 

hectorsm

Senior member
Jan 6, 2005
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Does anyone know if Vista will ship with both the 32Bit and 64bit OS versions? Will that be a totally different package like right now?
 

xtknight

Elite Member
Oct 15, 2004
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Originally posted by: hectorsm
Does anyone know if Vista will ship with both the 32Bit and 64bit OS versions? Will that be a totally different package like right now?

I believe 32-bit and 64-bit DVDs will be separate but all SKUs will be contained on one DVD and the SKU that gets installed is determined by your serial number.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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Does anyone know if Vista will ship with both the 32Bit and 64bit OS versions? Will that be a totally different package like right now?

I heard that you'll get both discs on one box, but I can't say for sure.
 

Markbnj

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Sep 16, 2005
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I'd go so far as to say there is nothing in the general consumer computing application landscape that will benefit from 64-bit at all. I'm leaving games out of that definition. Perhaps some media applications.... eh, I'm stretching. Most of those apps are bound by device i/o at this point anyway.

What does 64-bit really mean to software? You can move quadwords around as units. You can do math on quadwords. You can address huge amounts of memory. I have 2 gb in my current desktop, and even with multiple development environments, browser, and media stuff going I don't use it all. I don't mean to sound like Mr. 16-Bit circa 1990. Maybe someday, with the trend in bloatware, accessing more than 32-bits worth of address space will matter, but it pretty much doesn't now.

There's no question that a 64-bit CPU can run native 64-bit code faster than 32-bit code, but outside of true performance applications like games (and even those are more often GPU-limited), when does that matter? It sure doesn't in Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. It probably has some decent effect on overall responsiveness when the bulk of the OS is native 64-bit, but most people's machines spend 98%+ of their CPU time idling.
 

Noema

Platinum Member
Feb 15, 2005
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Originally posted by: Nothinman
Does anyone know if Vista will ship with both the 32Bit and 64bit OS versions? Will that be a totally different package like right now?

I heard that you'll get both discs on one box, but I can't say for sure.

I really hope that's the case.

That way I can use 32-bit Vista until drivers / support mature and then switch to 64-bit after it's benefits outweight the inconvencience that trying to go 64-bits represents, without having to buy the OS twice :)
 

videopho

Diamond Member
Apr 8, 2005
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Originally posted by: Arkaign
This guy is majorly trolling.

Nobody here is even debating the point, that at some time in the future (1 year? 2 years? 3?), that 64-bit will be the way to go as far as your OS.

What is obvious for now, however :

(1)- 64-Bit XP/Vista both have more driver/app incompatibilty/instability issues SO FAR.

(2)- The benefits of 64-bit have not materialized for MOST users SO FAR.

(3)- Unless you both require one of the extremely rare apps that runs significantly better on 64-bit AND do not require anything else that has numerous issues (niche apps, almost everyone uses a couple of these) on a 64-bit os.

(4)- You, sir, are a mindless troll, as evidenced by your ridiculous wannabe insults. You won't be taken seriously at such a site as this with such a narrow perspective.


You're dead wrong that I'm a troller!
At least not intentionally on my part.
The OP asked a simple question so I gave him (or her) a straight answer from the user who happens to use both O/Ses like myself.
Whether he chooses 32 or 64 is totally up to him but he is entitled to all the information given to him so that he can make a better choice for himself.









 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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The OP asked a simple question so I gave him (or her) a straight answer from the user who happens to use both O/Ses like myself.

The problem is that you gave an answer with lots of opinions that you presented as hard facts and no data to support them. Saying that you run and like XP64 is one thing, but claiming that XP32 is slow and old for no reason is just plain misinformation.