Market transition to 4gb to take alot longer due to 64bit OS?

[poohbear]

im about to upgrade my gaming comp & was considering how much total ram a mobo could support as a factor when purchasing (eg, 8gb or 16gb max support). but i realized that due to the slow adoption of 64bit OS, its gonna take a whole lot longer for recommended settings for games to say "4gb". Last i saw on Steam's survey of their users (mostly gamers) only 10% have 64bit OS, so i can't imagine the transition to 4gb to be anywhere near as quick as 512mb->1gb & 1gb->2gb due to the added costs of aquiring a 64bit OS. if 10% of gamers have 64bit OS, then i imagine the general population that has 64bit OS to be even lower, and hence the transition to 4gb of ram can actually take years. Developers would be well aware of this when making games.

I know "years" in computer years is like decades in other fields, but despite the cheap cost of ddr2 the added cost of a 64bit OS will considerably slow the adoption rate of 4gb. what do u guys think?

 

[M0RPH]

There is no added cost when you buy a new computer with a 64-bit OS. It's very common now to see computers being sold with 4GB+ ram and 64-bit Vista. Just browse Dell and HP offerings and you will see probably half of their base configurations are coming with 4GB+ and 64-bit Vista. Same for what's being sold at Best Buy as well. It won't be as slow as you think.

 

[alcoholbob]

As video card memory goes up you will need to go 64 bit. With a 1GB video card I'm only showing 2GB of RAM in Vista 32 bit (I have 6 gigs).

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: M0RPH
There is no added cost when you buy a new computer with a 64-bit OS. It's very common now to see computers being sold with 4GB+ ram and 64-bit Vista. Just browse Dell and HP offerings and you will see probably half of their base configurations are coming with 4GB+ and 64-bit Vista. Same for what's being sold at Best Buy as well. It won't be as slow as you think.

sure but how often do consumers buy new computers? every 3-4 years? my post is directed towards gamers who usually dont buy new computers but are knowledgable enough to upgrade. upgrading won't be as simple as popping in the extra 2gb ram when the OS doesnt support it.

 

[magreen]

We can thank microsoft idiots who introduced a vista 32 bit, when it anyway required EVERY hardware manufacturer to completely rewrite their drivers for vista. If they had had one teensie tiny drop of foresight they'd have never let vista 32bit seen the light of day.

But who can expect foresight from the company that brought us the 640kb limitation?

 

[poohbear]

640kb limitation was IBM was'nt it? they created the PC. and at the time 640kb was a huge amount of memory, kinda like 4gb is now (software at the time simply didnt need more).

regardless u can hardly blame MS, if they didnt make vista32bit they'd be isolating a huge portion of the market. most businesses dont need more than 1gb let alone 2gb & 4gb for spreadsheets, wordprocessing, and internet access.

 

[alcoholbob]

Well technically it is IBMs their fault because they selected the subcontractors to build the PC (Microsoft for the OS, Intel for the CPU). They had in-house solutions that were superior in both hardware and software but this was a classic case of bureaucracy (like companies paying for consultants when they already have a better answer).

 

[Eureka]

Thing is, IIRC if you have a 32bit Vista serial you can use a 64-bit image to utilize the extra memory without having to pay extra, while still keeping the image. So what added cost is there?

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Thing is, IIRC if you have a 32bit Vista serial you can use a 64-bit image to utilize the extra memory without having to pay extra, while still keeping the image. So what added cost is there?

true, but the majority of ppl still are'nt on vista, they're on XP. and im not sure how easy it is for the avg user to make an image of vista 64. im jsut saying there's a bit of headache involved is all.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: poohbear

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Thing is, IIRC if you have a 32bit Vista serial you can use a 64-bit image to utilize the extra memory without having to pay extra, while still keeping the image. So what added cost is there?

true, but the majority of ppl still are'nt on vista, they're on XP. and im not sure how easy it is for the avg user to make an image of vista 64. im jsut saying there's a bit of headache involved is all.

If we're talking about gamers, then they could do it without thinking.

If we're talking about the average user, the average user doesn't upgrade their ram. They'd get a system with 4gb of ram and a 64-bit OS included.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Thing is, IIRC if you have a 32bit Vista serial you can use a 64-bit image to utilize the extra memory without having to pay extra, while still keeping the image. So what added cost is there?

OEM copies are locked to 32 or 64 bit versions. Full retail products are either/or for 32 and 64 bit (although for every version except Vista Ultimate, only the 32bit version is included in the retail package).

 

[magreen]

Originally posted by: poohbear
640kb limitation was IBM was'nt it? they created the PC. and at the time 640kb was a huge amount of memory, kinda like 4gb is now (software at the time simply didnt need more).

Nope, it was MS. There's nothing in the IBM PC hardware that limited it to 640k. It's microsoft that decided they'd give you 10 times 2^16 in addressable memory, because who could ever use more than that?

And anyone who'd ever heard of Moore's law knew it was idiotic for them to do that.

Now, whether Bill Gates actually said the infamous 1981 quote, "640k ought to be enough for anybody," which has been attributed to him for decades, is in dispute. He denied it in 1996, saying, "I?ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Of course in '86 he said, "It [640K] was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within ? oh five or six years people were complaining." Text

Yet here we see Microsoft doing it again. The whole reason to not transition the market to 64-bit was so legacy hardware would work without rewriting all the drivers. Yet they forced the entire market to rewrite all their drivers with Vista's new driver model, and they STILL didn't move to 64 bit. That's just bat$#!t stupid.

regardless u can hardly blame MS, if they didnt make vista32bit they'd be isolating a huge portion of the market. most businesses dont need more than 1gb let alone 2gb & 4gb for spreadsheets, wordprocessing, and internet access.

Yeah right. Isolating them how? They had to redo everything for vista anyway.

 

[Eureka]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: cevilgenius
Thing is, IIRC if you have a 32bit Vista serial you can use a 64-bit image to utilize the extra memory without having to pay extra, while still keeping the image. So what added cost is there?

OEM copies are locked to 32 or 64 bit versions. Full retail products are either/or for 32 and 64 bit (although for every version except Vista Ultimate, only the 32bit version is included in the retail package).

From what I've read people have been doing fine using 32-bit keys with 64-bit images. That or calling up MS will get you a 64-bit serial if you have a valid 32-bit key.

Right now I just installed a 64-bit image of Vista using my 32-bit Ultimate OEM key, I'll see if it activates properly.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: magreen
We can thank microsoft idiots who introduced a vista 32 bit, when it anyway required EVERY hardware manufacturer to completely rewrite their drivers for vista. If they had had one teensie tiny drop of foresight they'd have never let vista 32bit seen the light of day.

But who can expect foresight from the company that brought us the 640kb limitation?

magreen I thought the purpose of 32bit vista was to enable intrinsic product differentiation for microsoft's revenue model and marketing strategy.

 

[magreen]

LOL. :laugh: You win, IDC. I see that vista 32 was a brilliant piece of design and engineering. :beer:

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: magreen
We can thank microsoft idiots who introduced a vista 32 bit, when it anyway required EVERY hardware manufacturer to completely rewrite their drivers for vista. If they had had one teensie tiny drop of foresight they'd have never let vista 32bit seen the light of day.

But who can expect foresight from the company that brought us the 640kb limitation?

magreen I thought the purpose of 32bit vista was to enable intrinsic product differentiation for microsoft's revenue model and marketing strategy.

but it costs the same!

 

[Nathelion]

lol. Now that I think about it, what is the reason for vista 32bit? All the drivers are FUBARED anyway, and Vista has 32bit emulation that works excellently at the application layer. To enable Vista to run on Pentium 4s? But surely, not even business users would be dumb enough to do that?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: magreen

Originally posted by: poohbear
640kb limitation was IBM was'nt it? they created the PC. and at the time 640kb was a huge amount of memory, kinda like 4gb is now (software at the time simply didnt need more).

Nope, it was MS. There's nothing in the IBM PC hardware that limited it to 640k. It's microsoft that decided they'd give you 10 times 2^16 in addressable memory, because who could ever use more than that?

No, Intel's 8086 20-bit external address bus was limited to 1MB addressable memory. This wasn't an MS thing, it was a CPU design limit.

And anyone who'd ever heard of Moore's law knew it was idiotic for them to do that.

Moore's law has nothing to do with useful or convenient memory address space resources. It has to do with transistor or gate counts in integrated circuits, which can be (and typically are) dedicated to computational or execution (i.e. processing), I/O, and other resources just as well as memory address bus circuits or logic. In fact, memory address space does NOT follow Moore's law at all. There are several generations of processors released that dedicate all growth in transistors to processing resources or other features before the memory address bus width changes, at which point memory address space increases by orders of magnitude, not a mere doubling.

Now, whether Bill Gates actually said the infamous 1981 quote, "640k ought to be enough for anybody," which has been attributed to him for decades, is in dispute. He denied it in 1996, saying, "I?ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Of course in '86 he said, "It [640K] was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within ? oh five or six years people were complaining." Text

There is a big difference between "I figured 640KB would carry us for about 10 years but it ended-up being only about five or six" and "I figured 640KB would carry us until the end of times".

Yet here we see Microsoft doing it again. The whole reason to not transition the market to 64-bit was so legacy hardware would work without rewriting all the drivers. Yet they forced the entire market to rewrite all their drivers with Vista's new driver model, and they STILL didn't move to 64 bit.

No, they didn't. The only devices that needed a substantial architectural rewrite were graphics and audio. All other device drivers built or compliant with WDK/DDK and other relevant OS specifications for Windows XP/2003 that was current in 2006 could qualify for Vista WHQL with revision or changes to only minor portions of code. This is why a large number of XP drivers can be used on Vista 32-bit just fine if manually installed instead of using the installer executable. Many XP/2003 64-bit drivers would work on Vista 64-bit if it weren't for MS strict enforcement of driver signing that is unique to Vista.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: magreen
We can thank microsoft idiots who introduced a vista 32 bit, when it anyway required EVERY hardware manufacturer to completely rewrite their drivers for vista. If they had had one teensie tiny drop of foresight they'd have never let vista 32bit seen the light of day.

But who can expect foresight from the company that brought us the 640kb limitation?

magreen I thought the purpose of 32bit vista was to enable intrinsic product differentiation for microsoft's revenue model and marketing strategy.

but it costs the same!

What does? My 32bit vista home basic cost a lot less than 64bit vista ultimate...is there such a thing as 64bit vista home basic?

Seriously, inquiring minds (hint: me) want to know because if true then we are prolly gonna make the switch.

 

[taltamir]

vista home basic OEM 32bit 89$ + free shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116480

vista home basic OEM 64bit 89$ + free shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116483

vista home basic retail (both 32bit AND 64bit license and disk):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116468

vista home basic upgrade (both 32bit and 64bit license + disk):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116468

Microsoft has ALWAYS, from the day vista was released, priced 32bit and 64bit OEM the same. and the retail version always included BOTH 32bit and 64bit to allow people to install either (or dual boot)

the 4x4+2 versions of windows vista are:
From cheapest to most expensive: home basic < home premium < business < ultimate.
Each one of them comes in: OEM32bit = OEM64bit < upgrade edition edition (both 32bit and 64bit) < retail (both 32 and 64) and.

and for each and every one of them the 32bit and 64bit cost the same.
business and ultimate also come in VLK flavor.

Releasing a 32bit version of windows vista was the stupidest thing Microsoft did in the last decade. and it put world technology back YEARS. we would be 100% 64bit today if it wasn't for that retarded choice.

PS. there is a chance you could install 64bit vista home basic using your 32bit license, or if not, ask MS to swap it for you.

 

[poohbear]

Originally posted by: magreen

Originally posted by: poohbear
640kb limitation was IBM was'nt it? they created the PC. and at the time 640kb was a huge amount of memory, kinda like 4gb is now (software at the time simply didnt need more).

Nope, it was MS. There's nothing in the IBM PC hardware that limited it to 640k. It's microsoft that decided they'd give you 10 times 2^16 in addressable memory, because who could ever use more than that?

And anyone who'd ever heard of Moore's law knew it was idiotic for them to do that.

Now, whether Bill Gates actually said the infamous 1981 quote, "640k ought to be enough for anybody," which has been attributed to him for decades, is in dispute. He denied it in 1996, saying, "I?ve said some stupid things and some wrong things, but not that. No one involved in computers would ever say that a certain amount of memory is enough for all time." Of course in '86 he said, "It [640K] was ten times what we had before. But to my surprise, we ran out of that address base for applications within ? oh five or six years people were complaining." Text

Yet here we see Microsoft doing it again. The whole reason to not transition the market to 64-bit was so legacy hardware would work without rewriting all the drivers. Yet they forced the entire market to rewrite all their drivers with Vista's new driver model, and they STILL didn't move to 64 bit. That's just bat$#!t stupid.

regardless u can hardly blame MS, if they didnt make vista32bit they'd be isolating a huge portion of the market. most businesses dont need more than 1gb let alone 2gb & 4gb for spreadsheets, wordprocessing, and internet access.

Yeah right. Isolating them how? They had to redo everything for vista anyway.

The quote that 640kb is enough for anybody was true at the time, but when u take it out of context and conclude the person saying was talking about forever, it looks silly. If i said "nobody needs more than 4gb" it's understood that i'd be talking about nowadays, not forever, and if somebody interprets and takes it out of context that i meant forever it'd be their fault.

At anyrate, going back to the topic, im glad to see so many ppl feeling that the transition wont take any added time despite requiring a 64bit OS and despite the small number of ppl having 64bit OS.

Most gamers that i know wouldnt know how to upgrade or make an image of a 64bit OS, some are assuming gamers= enthusiasts, but most gamers i know dont know the difference between an 8800gt/285 gtx. at least the forums i go to. Dawn of War 2 and Empire Total war are 2 forums i frequent & when somebody asks for hardware i advice i cringe at what people recommend. "anything intel & anything Nvidia" is one piece of advice i remember somebody posting, or "get dd3 because it's faster!" which were both just completely false.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: magreen

Originally posted by: poohbear
640kb limitation was IBM was'nt it? they created the PC. and at the time 640kb was a huge amount of memory, kinda like 4gb is now (software at the time simply didnt need more).

Nope, it was MS. There's nothing in the IBM PC hardware that limited it to 640k. It's microsoft that decided they'd give you 10 times 2^16 in addressable memory, because who could ever use more than that?

No, Intel's 8086 20-bit external address bus was limited to 1MB addressable memory. This wasn't an MS thing, it was a CPU design limit.

and it was IBM that decided that 640k and up would be reserved for hardware, creating the 640k user RAM limit.

if you ran mono text only, QEMM would allow 704k base memory with a CGA (EGA?) card.

why would MS write an OS that could address memory that didnt exist? 20 bits is 20 bits. the original IBM PC was a compromise. it needed to be cheap and out the door fast.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir
vista home basic OEM 32bit 89$ + free shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116480

vista home basic OEM 64bit 89$ + free shipping:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116483

vista home basic retail (both 32bit AND 64bit license and disk):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116468

vista home basic upgrade (both 32bit and 64bit license + disk):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16832116468

Microsoft has ALWAYS, from the day vista was released, priced 32bit and 64bit OEM the same. and the retail version always included BOTH 32bit and 64bit to allow people to install either (or dual boot)

the 4x4+2 versions of windows vista are:
From cheapest to most expensive: home basic < home premium < business < ultimate.
Each one of them comes in: OEM32bit = OEM64bit < upgrade edition edition (both 32bit and 64bit) < retail (both 32 and 64) and.

and for each and every one of them the 32bit and 64bit cost the same.
business and ultimate also come in VLK flavor.

Releasing a 32bit version of windows vista was the stupidest thing Microsoft did in the last decade. and it put world technology back YEARS. we would be 100% 64bit today if it wasn't for that retarded choice.

PS. there is a chance you could install 64bit vista home basic using your 32bit license, or if not, ask MS to swap it for you.

Wow, I'm flabberghasted, I had absolutely no clue. Thank you!

So yeah, WTF is up with 32bit vista existing then? My marketing excuse clearly fails.

 

[aka1nas]

They didn't want to give businesses even more compatibility reasons to stay with XP. Unfortunately, because that didn't quite work they are going to have to do it again with Windows 7.

Hopefully Windows 8 will be 64-bit only.

 

[Rifter]

you do know that MS will ship you a 64 bit DVD for the cost of shipping right? as long as you have a retail vista key???? i bought Vista home basic which only comes with 32 bit and paid MS 13 bucks to ship me a 64 bit DVD, well worth it IMO. There is no reason at all to be running 32bit.

http://www.microsoft.com/windo...rdermedia/default.mspx