64-bit or not?

[imported_rod]

Ive looked through the threads here, but I still havent really found a good answer to my problem.

I can purchase an academic upgrade of XP pro for AU$120, or i can purchase an OEM copy of XP Pro for $240. I can send away the OEM copy to be upgraded to 64-bit, but not the student copy(because it's already an upgrade).

So my question is this: Should I pay twice the price now for 64-bit windows XP, or should I wait for longhorn, (which should be a better 64-bit OS, from what I understand)?

RoD

 

[Nothinman]

Better is subjective, but it'll definately be bigger.

Essentially if you get XP64 now you're volunterring to be a beta tester, even though MS called it final there will still be a lot of application bugs to work out, I'm sure.

 

[hippotautamus]

Speaking from experience, Longhorn is little more than XP64 with a new (read - mooched from apple) interface. I can't claim to have seen Avalon yet, but the core of the operating system behaves the exact same way as XP always has. Get XP64 now...

 

[Nothinman]

Speaking from experience, Longhorn is little more than XP64 with a new (read - mooched from apple) interface

Duh. Why would they throw away a working core system and start over? And anyway, the final release will end up looking nothing like the current betas.

 

[imported_rod]

When is Longhorn meant to be coming out? Sometime next year isn't it?...

 

[Nothinman]

Maybe. MS release estimates are never accurate until they start pushing out RC builds.

 

[hippotautamus]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Speaking from experience, Longhorn is little more than XP64 with a new (read - mooched from apple) interface

Duh. Why would they throw away a working core system and start over? And anyway, the final release will end up looking nothing like the current betas.

Because they've been using the same bloated core (more or less) since the original windows NT, and they keep bloating it more and more with every release.

 

[Nothinman]

Because they've been using the same bloated core (more or less) since the original windows NT, and they keep bloating it more and more with every release.

Wow, I didn't know you worked at MS. What part of the kernel did you work on?

 

[hippotautamus]

You don't need to work at MS to look at the revision number on the windows Kernel. 2000 was NT5, XP is NT6. Same kernel, different GUI.

EDIT: Quit your flaming and say something constructive, lol.

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: hippotautamus
2000 was NT5, XP is NT6. Same kernel, different GUI.

Im not certain, but I thought XP was NT5.1

 

[Nothinman]

You don't need to work at MS to look at the revision number on the windows Kernel. 2000 was NT5, XP is NT6. Same kernel, different GUI.

Actually XP is NT 5.1, a minor revision to NT 5. And that was my point, they have a working kernel so why replace it?

EDIT: Quit your flaming and say something constructive, lol.

Constructive? Saying something is bloated with no proof isn't very constructive either.

 

[hippotautamus]

Well, in my defense, it's kind of hard to prove that an OS is deliberately bloated to take more system resources. However, why does every new microsoft OS require double the memory and a faster CPU to run mostly the same processes and a slightly more complex GUI? It's not exactly unknown that MS is in bed with Intel...is it that much of a stretch?

 

[Nothinman]

In many cases it's not the same processes and the GUI is much heavier by default, the kernel is pretty much the same between Win2K and XP.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/default.aspx

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
In many cases it's not the same processes and the GUI is much heavier by default, the kernel is pretty much the same between Win2K and XP.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/default.aspx

S3 savageIV :Q

 

[ncage]

Originally posted by: hippotautamus
Well, in my defense, it's kind of hard to prove that an OS is deliberately bloated to take more system resources. However, why does every new microsoft OS require double the memory and a faster CPU to run mostly the same processes and a slightly more complex GUI? It's not exactly unknown that MS is in bed with Intel...is it that much of a stretch?

Well you say xp is bloated. Install one of the major distrib of linux (suse/redhat) and then load xwindows and see how much memory its using (top). Sure you can improve things by a recompile of the kernel but im just trying to prove a point here. Everyone thinks xp is so bloated. It isn't the only thing.

 

[imported_rod]

This has been an interesting read, but hasn't even come close to answering my question.

It seems that winXP Pro 64-bit isn't much better than 32-bit XP. Is Longhorn going to be much better than winXP 64-bit?

Also, is it worth switching over to 64-bit now, considering so many pieces of software and hardware will not run under a 64-bit OS?

RoD

 

[Nothinman]

S3 savageIV

S3 SavageIX

Well you say xp is bloated. Install one of the major distrib of linux (suse/redhat) and then load xwindows and see how much memory its using (top). Sure you can improve things by a recompile of the kernel but im just trying to prove a point here. Everyone thinks xp is so bloated. It isn't the only thing.

Recomiling the kernel will save you less than a meg, probably a lot less. For real savings you have to choose a different WM or DE. Personally I use Enlightenment, with 8 desktops it's using less than 5M RSS and XFree86 itself is using around 50M, hell Galeon with 2 windows and ~30 tabs is using more memory than both of them combined. And the memory reported by top isn't 100% accurate, there's a lot of memory that's shared between processes. For instance, when you run a full Gnome desktop there may be 20 processes running but there's only one copy of each shared library (GTK for instance) in memory.

It seems that winXP Pro 64-bit isn't much better than 32-bit XP

It's the same thing for a different processor, what did you expect?

Is Longhorn going to be much better than winXP 64-bit?

Better is subjective, personally I think it's going to be a huge piece of crap. But it's impossible to tell what the final release will look like right now.

Also, is it worth switching over to 64-bit now, considering so many pieces of software and hardware will not run under a 64-bit OS?

Every piece of 32-bit software _should_ run, just as every piece of 16-bit software should run on 32-bit XP. But I'm sure there will be exceptions and things that need special handling.

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

It seems that winXP Pro 64-bit isn't much better than 32-bit XP

It's the same thing for a different processor, what did you expect?

If there's little difference, what is the point of even making it? And Why would I switch over if I dont gain anything?

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Also, is it worth switching over to 64-bit now, considering so many pieces of software and hardware will not run under a 64-bit OS?

Every piece of 32-bit software _should_ run, just as every piece of 16-bit software should run on 32-bit XP. But I'm sure there will be exceptions and things that need special handling.

I know that everything _should_ work, but I've heard reports of plenty of applications not working. Even some recent games (eg. Spliter Cell 3: Chaos Theory) are not compatible.
compatibility list
Ive also heard that many 32-bit applications run slower. So unless the only game I want to play is FarCry64, Im going to be going slower than with standard XP.

Also, does anyone know how 32-bit and 64-bit will compare when the dualcore AMDs come out?

RoD

 

[Nothinman]

If there's little difference, what is the point of even making it? And Why would I switch over if I dont gain anything?

If you mean XP64, they have to release something to give developers something to use, otherwise no apps will be ported. Linux has had AMD64 port for years and since Linux has been ported to other 64-bit architectures it was a pretty simple port for the most part so MS is playing catchup.

If you mean AMD64, it's because there are certain things that need it, it's just that right now there's pretty few of them. Things like databases, 3D renderers, maybe photoshop with huge images, etc can benefit from having >4G of VM available. I'm sure that in a few years game developers will also find uses for it too, but in general most apps don't come close to using the space they have available now.

Ive also heard that many 32-bit applications run slower

I can't speak to that from experience, but I find that hard to believe; unless MS screwed up majorly in their new WoW layer, AMD64 has always been able to execute 32-bit code at the same speed as 64-bit code.

Also, does anyone know how 32-bit and 64-bit will compare when the dualcore AMDs come out?

It'll probably be exactly the same, except you'll have 2 cores to execute things on.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Actually many 32bit apps have been shown to run quicker on the XP64. I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade to XP64 right now because little takes advantage of it. Unless you are video editing, rendering and have a full 64bit version of those programs I would wait for Longhorn and that version has shown massive increases in performance.

Edit: By advantage I mean more than 1% performance increase.

 

[Nothinman]

Actually many 32bit apps have been shown to run quicker on the XP64

That's only because the hardware itself is faster, running the 32-bit apps on XP32 on an AMD64 system would probably yield similar results.

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: michaelpatrick33
I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade to XP64 right now because little takes advantage of it. Unless you are video editing, rendering and have a full 64bit version of those programs I would wait for Longhorn and that version has shown massive increases in performance.

I think that's what I'm going to do.



The only thing I was worried about with Longhorn was that some ppl are saying that it'll be paid for as a monthly subscription, not a one-off cost of buying the software. Does anyone know if there is any truth to this?

RoD

 

[Nothinman]

Anything said about Longhorn right now is pure rumor and even if it's in the current plans it's still subject to change, Longhorn is probably still over a year away.

 

[imported_rod]

I think I'll just stick with XP Pro 32-bit then. I cant be bothered with a buggy OS at the moment.

RoD

 

[Nothinman]

I think I'll just stick with XP Pro 32-bit then. I cant be bothered with a buggy OS at the moment.

That seems like an oxymoron to me =)