Gaming on Windows Xp 32bit

[classicx]

my dad is building a new rig for my bro its gonna have a 3.0 ghz c2d (e8400) and a radeon 4850. however, he wants to stick to 32 bit windows xp. would this hurt gaming or anything else?

1)would lack of Directx 10 severely handicap newer games?
2)would 32bit OS severely handicap newer games?
3)is 64bit vista the ideal OS for gaming nowadays?
4)how much better performance wise is 4gb ram vs. 2gb ram?

Thanks.

 

[msi1337]

1)NO, they arent out yet (well very few)
2) No, you can play everything fine.. I do!
3) No, 64bit support is not needed for gaming at this time
4) maybe 20% depending on what kind of games you are talking about.. I did not notice a difference at all..but with memory prices, why not get 4gb

I use XP Pro 32bit on all of my machines..since SP1 for vista, I am almost ready to upgrade..but all of my games work perfectly on XP, so I see no reason to upgrade

 

[lupi]

Needing DX10/64bit OS probably won't be big till after the next windows version comes out. Not really losing anything by using XP32 now other than unable to play a couple MS dx10 games.

 

[SneakyStuff]

It won't hurt him, he can still use up to 3GB of RAM, and he can always upgrade in the future. I'm using XP 32bit at the moment and it works perfectly with every game I own.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
It won't hurt him, he can still use up to 3.5GB of RAM, and he can always upgrade in the future. I'm using XP 32bit at the moment and it works perfectly with every game I own.

fixed.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Originally posted by: ViviTheMage

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
It won't hurt him, he can still use up to 3.5GB of RAM, and he can always upgrade in the future. I'm using XP 32bit at the moment and it works perfectly with every game I own.

fixed.

I thought it depended on how the system allocated the RAM, I've heard 3, 3.2, and 3.5.

 

[msi1337]

my system showed 3.25gb..it depends on the motherboard

 

[ochadd]

XP 32 bit is still the king. It's an advantage and don't let anyone tell you different.

It's proven, efficient, reliable, and works fine with any user level application out there. One of the Halos being the single exception.

I've been gaming w/ 2GB of memory for years without an issue. I want 4Gb just to have it but it's not needed for any major release to date on XP @ 1920x1200.

 

[sticks435]

It depends on how much vram you have. The memory allocation is combined. I believe the hard limit is 3.5 total. So if you have 512 vram, you can only have 3 gigs of usuable system ram.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff

I thought it depended on how the system allocated the RAM, I've heard 3, 3.2, and 3.5.

And the rest goes to support kernel-level processes.

 

[AzN]

Why not use vista x86? I do it for couple of reasons. Dx10 and compatibility.