Vista 32bit and vista 64bit, my experiance

[JWade]

I have my computer set to dual boot. Vista 32bit and Vista 64bit. I have a Q6600 with 8gb of ram 8800GTS, all current drivers/patches.

To me, 32bit seems alot faster/snappier than 64bit, even though the 32bit can only use 3.3gb of the 8gb of ram installed. I have the widgets running, same software running/installed on both versions. The 32bit seems alot more responsive, I am greatly dissapointed by the 64bit version, I thought with 8gb of ram it would be alot quicker.

 

[Crusty]

How long has the ram been in your system? It's going to take superfetch longer to fill all of that 8GB up compared to the 3.3GB in 32-bit world.

It very well could be a driver problem too though 🙁

 

[Mwing]

could that be the 32bit emulation slows it down?

im thinking to switch to 64bit since i dont use any legacy hardware nor 16bit application anymore.

oh btw Crusty, i joined at 1 day earlier than you did =)

 

[Pabster]

So obviously this was a purely subjective measurement. Vista x86 "felt" smoother.

I always have the exact opposite experience. x64 feels snappier right off the bat.

 

[JWade]

I have been running x64 now for 6 months, every other day. By felt smoother, programs open faster in x32. Even internet explorer opens alot faster in x32 than x64. If the program has a 64bit version I have it for 64bit (ie my photo viewing program has both a 64bit and 32bit version, so naturally i use the 64bit version for Vista 64bit, and under Vista 32bit it alos opens alot faster and switches between photos faster).

I have 3 hard drives in my system, all identical, so its not the drive issue, Vista 32bit is on one drive, Vista 64bit is on the 2nd, and documents/photos/saved stuff is on the 3rd.

Pabster, if you really want I can try and get a stop watch and time the opening and closing of programs if you would like.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: JWade
I have my computer set to dual boot. Vista 32bit and Vista 64bit. I have a Q6600 with 8gb of ram 8800GTS, all current drivers/patches.

To me, 32bit seems alot faster/snappier than 64bit, even though the 32bit can only use 3.3gb of the 8gb of ram installed. I have the widgets running, same software running/installed on both versions. The 32bit seems alot more responsive, I am greatly dissapointed by the 64bit version, I thought with 8gb of ram it would be alot quicker.

I would say something wrong somewhere( especiallly with 8GB v 3.3GB),I have two Vista PCs,one with Vista x64 and one with Vista x86,true they have different hardware, however my Vista x64 previously had WinXP on it(32 bit version) and personally I would say my Vista x64 is snappier then either my Vista x86 or the previously installed WinXP.

I guess its all subjective depending on what hardware /software you have and also providing everything is setup right,however I would be troubleshooting if I had your hardware.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Mwing
could that be the 32bit emulation slows it down?

im thinking to switch to 64bit since i dont use any legacy hardware nor 16bit application anymore.

oh btw Crusty, i joined at 1 day earlier than you did =)

Technically speaking executing 32bit applications on a 64bit OS will always be slower than under a 32bit OS due to the addition of a third page table in the x86-64 design, but in reality there's no measurable difference thanks to efficient hardware and predictors. If you wanted to be a real fink you could write a program that always takes a worst case route and find a difference, but real programs don't run like that.

His x64 installation should be just as fast as x32, if not a bit faster due to Superfetch getting more memory to play with.

 

[Nothinman]

could that be the 32bit emulation slows it down?

There's no emulation, 32-bit code executes just as natively in long-mode as 64-bit code. Windows has some environment logic to make sure the proper shared libraries are used depending on whether the launched binary is 32-bit or 64-bit but that's about it.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

could that be the 32bit emulation slows it down?

There's no emulation, 32-bit code executes just as natively in long-mode as 64-bit code. Windows has some environment logic to make sure the proper shared libraries are used depending on whether the launched binary is 32-bit or 64-bit but that's about it.

Not really, it uses WOW64 emulation using wow64.dll and WOW64win.dll- there is a slight drop in speed during conversion and processing of stack memory also it has to create threads with a virtual wrapper of 32bit environment (memory addressing and such).

 

[Nothinman]

Not really, it uses WOW64 emulation using wow64.dll and WOW64win.dll- there is a slight drop in speed during conversion and processing of stack memory also it has to create threads with a virtual wrapper of 32bit environment (memory addressing and such).

But it's not emulation, there's some translation of function calls, registry and system32/syswow64 lookups and WOW64 has to setup the 32-bit environment but that's about it.

 

[Scotteq]

OP - Obviously the consensus is that your x64 installation should be as fast or faster than your x86 one. This is also my own experience with the two.

Somethings you can do to troubleshoot:


How to generate a system health report:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutori...tem-health-report.html

checking the Reliability Monitor for errors:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutori...eliabilty-monitor.html

How to check system files in Vista:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutori...files-sfc-command.html

How to perform a Startup repair:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutori...67-startup-repair.html

How to perform a full system repair:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutori...air-install-vista.html

 

[JWade]

well i checked everythign software wise, drivers, programs, etc. no issues there. did the stuff in your links Scotteq (thanks by the way) still didt fix it, so because i was bored i took the computer apart and checked the drives, what I thought were the same model wasnt. The vista x64 even though the same manufacturer and same size, is a slower drive with less cache, so i am going to attribute the slower performance to that

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Not really, it uses WOW64 emulation using wow64.dll and WOW64win.dll- there is a slight drop in speed during conversion and processing of stack memory also it has to create threads with a virtual wrapper of 32bit environment (memory addressing and such).

But it's not emulation, there's some translation of function calls, registry and system32/syswow64 lookups and WOW64 has to setup the 32-bit environment but that's about it.

Exactly, this isn't like with IA64 where its true emulation. The difference in speed isn't going to be anything significant.


Sounds to me that the OP either has some hardware/software problem, he's making it up, or perhaps its even placebo effect. With my Vista x64 install I'll click on a program such as FireFox or Word and it'll open up instantaneous. Of course there's no reason x86 Vista should be any slower (or faster for that matter) unless you're truly accessing more than ~3.3GB of RAM...


IMO, if anyone ends up being disappointed with the 64bit version they simply don't need it. If you don't need 4+ GB of RAM then of course you're going to be disappointed because the difference between the x86 and x64 version isn't otherwise going to be that different.

 

[Eric62]

I've yet to directly compare XP 32 against Vista 64.
I have compared XP 32 against Vista 32 (dual boot - Q6600/9600GT/4gb PC6400), and XP wins hands down.
Crysis plays faster at a higher resolution on XP, and uses less RAM with more programs installed.

Kind of wish I had read the Vista start up repair tutorial before I deleted my Vista partition. Tuesday night I downloaded and installed 9 Vista updates which hosed my OS. Explorer, Desktop Manager, Media Player, ect, all became inoperable. I doubt if I'll give Vista a second try - XP just works better on my system.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Originally posted by: JWade
well i checked everythign software wise, drivers, programs, etc. no issues there. did the stuff in your links Scotteq (thanks by the way) still didt fix it, so because i was bored i took the computer apart and checked the drives, what I thought were the same model wasnt. The vista x64 even though the same manufacturer and same size, is a slower drive with less cache, so i am going to attribute the slower performance to that

simplest solution is always the best.