Benifit in vista 64-bit?

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
Explain what MORE can an avarage person do now, with our state of the art computers running 64-bit OS' with >4GB of RAM, that they were not able to do before...?

I was running my 2GB XP Pro 32-bit rig out of RAM a couple years ago already, just from multitasking with consumer-grade software programs. At the time, I was wishing for quad-core or two dual-cores, 4GB+ of RAM, plus XP Pro x64. Alas, I did not get them

 

[JustaGeek]

See, I might have gotten carried away with DOS and Win 95.

People can now watch movies, use wireless networking, webcasts etc., so they obviously take advantage of new technology running in the background.

But if the 64-bit OS is our "Only" choice in the future, why is Microsoft considering the 32-bit version of Windows 7...?

32-bit computing must still be considered useful then...

 

[Yngwie]

Originally posted by: dclive
If you've got 4GB you might consider a 64 bit OS. If you've got 6GB or 8GB (or more), you'll want to run a 64 bit OS. Otherwise, it's not worth the bother.

Yeah I agree it is kind of pointless becasue XP 32 bit and Vista 32bit only support 3.5gigs of ram any ways even if you put 4 gigs in windows will only acknowledge that it has 3.5gigs IDK if acknowledge is the rite word but yeah I agree. This link shows the benefits of 64 bit XP Vs. 32 bit XP I think it applies to Vista 32 and 64 bit as well but im not certain.


http://www.microsoft.com/windo...64bit/facts/top10.mspx

 

[imported_wired247]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Explain what MORE can an avarage person do now, with our state of the art computers running 64-bit OS' with >4GB of RAM, that they were not able to do before...?

Run everything QUICKLY and SEAMLESSLY (the big two IMO) with prettier graphics while doing more in the background, keeping the computer secure, providing maximum accessibility and making it all user friendly.


Vista is quite a bit easier for the noob than WinXP, IMHO.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: wired247

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Explain what MORE can an avarage person do now, with our state of the art computers running 64-bit OS' with >4GB of RAM, that they were not able to do before...?

Run everything QUICKLY and SEAMLESSLY (the big two IMO) with prettier graphics while doing more in the background, keeping the computer secure, providing maximum accessibility and making it all user friendly.


Vista is quite a bit easier for the noob than WinXP, IMHO.

An average user will only notice that - the "prettier graphics".

All the other functions remain basically the same.

As someone once said, we are running the combination of a Gaming Console with the Word Processor.

If you take the "Gaming console" out of the equation, my Sempron laptop does exactly the same as my OC'd E6600 machine.

It was even faster before with the "obsolete" 32-bit XP!


EDIT: What would you recommend someone with a laptop like mine (see sig), if they asked you about the benefits of running Vista on it...?

 

[JustaGeek]

BTW, if you have the Ultimate version, try the latest extras' "Dream Scene".

Absolutely stuning waterfall set as my desktop background.

LOVE IT !!!

Talk about pretty... :laugh:

 

[mechBgon]

I think one of home users' pressing needs is actually security.

At the end of 2006 we had about 250 thousand detections in total. That took 20 years to accumulate. (From 1986 to 2006.)

At the end of 2007 we had doubled our total number of detections to just over 500 thousand. So it only took one year to double the previous twenty year's accumulation.

Taking a look at today's numbers, we have close to 560 thousand total detections. It's February 12th. That's an additional 59000 detections added in 43 days at an average of 1372.093 per day.

Maintaining that pace (no guarantee that it won't further increase) there will be at least another 500 thousand detections this year for a grand total of one million or more by the end of 2008.

--from F-Secure's blog.

The top security enhancement on my list is to not run apps as an Admin unless necessary, regardless of what version of Windows it is. Vista accomplishes that automatically. Suddenly anyone who can log onto Windows can enjoy a substantial security boost without needing any special skills or knowledge. Even if they don't see that themselves, that doesn't mean it isn't a benefit to them.

 

[rchiu]

Buy 32bit, order the 64bit dvd from MS, try it out and see if you like it, if not, go back to 32bit, your license doesn't limit you to 32 or 64bit version. You can always install your 64bit dvd when you/your software/peripheral is ready. Right now, I don't see a reason to have more than 2GB of memory, but 2 years down the road, it may very well change.

 

[Magumi]

I believe that with Vista x64, quad-core processor and plenty of RAM, you have a good chance of not needing to upgrade for quite a long time.

Vista x64 is slightly more secure, slightly faster on modern hardware and can handle and can give applications more memory than the 32-bit version, which makes it more future-proof. It is also quite a bit faster with x64 applications, but those are still quite rare and tend to be rather specialized, although that will change with time. Since the x64 version of Vista has a slightly higher memory overhead, I don't see a point in using it with just 4 GB, which is why I have the x64 version with 8 GB installed. I love the fact that I can load a 1 GB picture into Photoshop and work with it without waiting for the hard-drive to stop swapping after every single operation.

In fact, my advice for building a new computer would be to choose the hardware that is later than the OS installed and is fully optimized for that operating system, load motherboard with as much RAM as it takes and then use it as long as the applications you need work smoothly and fast enough for comfort.

 

[dclive]

Is Photoshop a 64 bit application? Otherwise, IIRC, it's just going to give 2GB to Photoshop, and Photoshop will have to page the rest, so there's not much of a benefit (assuming - big asterisk here - that you aren't otherwise memory starved on a, say, 3.2GB system running 32 bit OS).

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: dclive
Is Photoshop a 64 bit application? Otherwise, IIRC, it's just going to give 2GB to Photoshop, and Photoshop will have to page the rest, so there's not much of a benefit (assuming - big asterisk here - that you aren't otherwise memory starved on a, say, 3.2GB system running 32 bit OS).

A person who owns Photoshop probably has some other heavy-hitting apps they might want to run at the same time, such as Premiere or whatnot. With a quad-core system within reach of nearly anyone nowdays, one might as well have an adequate amount of RAM to keep them in use, IMO, at the price RAM is at nowdays. 8GB for under $200, easily. I could live with that

 

[Magumi]

64-bit systems give applications up to 4 GB's. Photoshop can use up to 3 GB for the picture, using the remaining RAM within the 4 GB-limit for itself and for the plugins. It is also able to use the rest of the RAM for caching (instead of the hard drive), which makes a big difference in large pictures.

 

[dclive]

Only if it's LARGEADDRESSAWARE:
An important consideration in the short term is that even 32-bit applications will benefit from increased virtual memory address space when they are running in Windows x64 Editions. Applications that are compiled with the /LARGEADDRESSAWARE option, as would be required to take advantage of the /3GB switch in 32-bit Windows, will automatically be able to address 4 GB of virtual memory without any boot time switches or changes to x64 Windows. Plus, of course, the operating system does not have to share that 4 GB of space. Therefore, it is not constrained at all.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294418

So is PS large address aware? If not, the benefit isn't there:

"32-bit programs still use the 4-GB tuning model (2 GB User and 2 GB Kernel). This means that 32-bit processes that run on 64-bit versions of Windows run in a 4-GB tuning model (2 GB User and 2GB Kernel)."

So, for the lion's share of apps, running in 64 bit Windows, running a 32 bit task, the 2GB limit (per task) is still present.

 

[Magumi]

Photoshop CS2 and CS3 is. Look here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservic...t.do?externalId=320005

"When you run Photoshop CS2 on a computer with a 64-bit processor (such as a G5, Intel Xeon processor with EM64T, AMD Athlon 64, or Opteron processor), and running a 64-bit version of the operating system (Mac OS v10.3 or higher, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition), that has 4 GB or more of RAM, Photoshop will use 3 GB for it's image data. You can see the actual amount of RAM Photoshop can use in the Maximum Used By Photoshop number when you set the Maximum Used by Photoshop slider in the Memory & Image Cache preference to 100%. The RAM above the 100% used by Photoshop, which is from approximately 3 GB to 3.7 GB, can be used directly by Photoshop plug-ins (some plug-ins need large chunks of contiguous RAM), filters, actions, etc. If you have more than 4 GB (to 6 GB (Windows) or 8 GB (Mac OS)), the RAM above 4 GB is used by the operating system as a cache for the Photoshop scratch disk data. Data that previously was written directly to the hard disk by Photoshop, is now cached in this high RAM before being written to the hard disk by the operating system. If you are working with files large enough to take advantage of these extra 2 GB of RAM, the RAM cache can speed performance of Photoshop."

 

[mechBgon]

Aside from that, if SuperFetch has plenty of RAM on tap in which to cache Photoshop (or Crysis, Supreme Commander or whatever), that's a possible benefit to having "too much" RAM as well. I understand PS launches from disk in a rather "stately" fashion?