Vista 64-Bit....really worth it?

[nichrf36]

I am going to make the upgrade to vista...decked my new build out with core duo cpu and 8800gt sli. Mainly for gaming....be honest is vista 64 bit worth the hassle over 32 bit? I ran xp 64 bit for a month or so and had nothing but problems.

Further distressing....i have yet to see any performance increase with 64 bit vista?

 

[KeithTalent]

If you are going XP, go with 32 bit, if you are going with Vista, go with 64 bit. End of story.

KT

 

[TC91]

with some current and likely more new upcoming games starting to push the 2gb ram barrier in x86, that alone should warrant getting a x64 os, especially with an sli setup where u aare likely to use high resolutions. xp64 had problems due to lack of support, but vista is the newest windows os out there and can only get better. dont expect to see a performance gain in vista x64 for the time being tho.

 

[Cabages]

I havent had a single problem with it. Everything runs fine. The driver signing is a little annoying, but nothing to stop you from using it.

 

[CaptainJackSwallows]

vista = 4gb ram = 64bit

plus i havent had a single problem yet! (besides not being able to run a few old and obsolete programs like an old mathcad )

 

[wrangler]

I bowed down and prayed, hit C to continue with writing zero's to my hardrive, a copy of Vista 64 Ultimate in my shaking and sweaty hands. After about 35 minutes of zen-like meditation the hardrive was prepared and I inserted the disc into the drive and rebooted, the installation had started. All was going well until Vista was preparing to boot for the first time and...........gah.........gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth and cursing ensued followed by repeated bouts of self recrimination and physical punishment to remind myself never to wipe out a perfectly working system.

Luckily I had my trusty laptop and a quick search of the web revealed that you cannot install Vista 64 with 4Gb of ram installed. WTF!!!! Stupidest damn thing I've EVER heard of in my life. So I remove one of my sticks and the installation completes without issue. So I put my other stick back in and ...........gah.............gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth etc. etc.

Back to the trusty laptop and it is revealed that many hotfix and updates are required before you can successfully install 4Gb of ram. So I do those and stick my ram in and....................I have never looked back. I love it. It is the smoothest most bestest Windows OS yet and I have not had any problem getting any game I wanted to run. There are certain things you have to run as admin and other little differences but a little looking around usually gets you an answer to any problem you run into.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: wrangler
I bowed down and prayed, hit C to continue with writing zero's to my hardrive, a copy of Vista 64 Ultimate in my shaking and sweaty hands. After about 35 minutes of zen-like meditation the hardrive was prepared and I inserted the disc into the drive and rebooted, the installation had started. All was going well until Vista was preparing to boot for the first time and...........gah.........gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth and cursing ensued followed by repeated bouts of self recrimination and physical punishment to remind myself never to wipe out a perfectly working system.

Luckily I had my trusty laptop and a quick search of the web revealed that you cannot install Vista 64 with 4Gb of ram installed. WTF!!!! Stupidest damn thing I've EVER heard of in my life. So I remove one of my sticks and the installation completes without issue. So I put my other stick back in and ...........gah.............gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth etc. etc.

Back to the trusty laptop and it is revealed that many hotfix and updates are required before you can successfully install 4Gb of ram. So I do those and stick my ram in and....................I have never looked back. I love it. It is the smoothest most bestest Windows OS yet and I have not had any problem getting any game I wanted to run. There are certain things you have to run as admin and other little differences but a little looking around usually gets you an answer to any problem you run into.

Umm... my x64 Vista Home Premium install was completely painless with 4x1gb RAM. Not sure what was wrong with your system... all I did was pop in the disc, hit Next a few times, then wait a while and voila, my first OS install on my first personal machine.

 

[biostud]

AFAIK Vista 64 is the same or better than 32, since it has better security and support for >4Gb memory. And the driver/software issues are minimal in vista 64.

for winXP the 64-bit version has a limited driver support, and should only be used if you really have to.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: nichrf36
I am going to make the upgrade to vista...decked my new build out with core duo cpu and 8800gt sli. Mainly for gaming....be honest is vista 64 bit worth the hassle over 32 bit? I ran xp 64 bit for a month or so and had nothing but problems.

Further distressing....i have yet to see any performance increase with 64 bit vista?

Gaming wise down the road,4GB of ram will be handy so Vista x64 and its 4GB+ memory handling will give you a nice memory upgrade path.

To be honest main reasons for going Vista x64 for gaming is memory,just remember very old 16 bit games won't run due to no 16 bit legacy support in Vista x64(not a problem for most gamers).
Performance wise its hard to say ,FPS are about the same compared to Vista x68 within a few FPS eitherway,some people say Vista x64 feels more snappier but that's just a personal opinion.



Looking at your setup with SLI cards well you are going to lose at least 1GB with Vista x68(32 bit version) if you went with 4GB so are down to a least 3GB memory limit with your hardware,my recommendation is go with Vista x64 then you won't have to worry about memory limitations with your hardware(apart from obvious memory limit your motherboard can handle).


Btw I'm using 4x1GB in Vista x64,installation took less then 30 mins,smooth install all the way in my case.

 

[Zahriya]

Originally posted by: wrangler
I bowed down and prayed, hit C to continue with writing zero's to my hardrive, a copy of Vista 64 Ultimate in my shaking and sweaty hands. After about 35 minutes of zen-like meditation the hardrive was prepared and I inserted the disc into the drive and rebooted, the installation had started. All was going well until Vista was preparing to boot for the first time and...........gah.........gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth and cursing ensued followed by repeated bouts of self recrimination and physical punishment to remind myself never to wipe out a perfectly working system.

Luckily I had my trusty laptop and a quick search of the web revealed that you cannot install Vista 64 with 4Gb of ram installed. WTF!!!! Stupidest damn thing I've EVER heard of in my life. So I remove one of my sticks and the installation completes without issue. So I put my other stick back in and ...........gah.............gasp..........blue screen. Much gnashing of teeth etc. etc.

Back to the trusty laptop and it is revealed that many hotfix and updates are required before you can successfully install 4Gb of ram. So I do those and stick my ram in and....................I have never looked back. I love it. It is the smoothest most bestest Windows OS yet and I have not had any problem getting any game I wanted to run. There are certain things you have to run as admin and other little differences but a little looking around usually gets you an answer to any problem you run into.

LOL. The same thing happened to me. Good thing I had my laptop as well. Ive had a few issues with Vista in the beginning, but now everything seems to run nice and smooth.

 

[livingsacrifice]

I was under the same impression on Vista 64 before I installed mine so I told myself, dual boot for a while with xp and vista 64. After 3 weeks later I never booted XP again ended up formatting that drive. I say if you got a new computer you might as well, 64bit support and supports 4gb of ram there's no reason to stay XP for me besides the sometimes lacking of ceirtain program support but that builds with time.

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: Aflac
Umm... my x64 Vista Home Premium install was completely painless with 4x1gb RAM. Not sure what was wrong with your system... all I did was pop in the disc, hit Next a few times, then wait a while and voila, my first OS install on my first personal machine.

I believe I also installed Vista Ultimate x64 with 4x1GB of RAM in my machine. I know I used to have 4GB in it when I was running Vista Ultimate 32-bit, which I then upgraded to 64-bit... so I'd assume I kept it in while upgrading as I still have 4GB of RAM .

It is a nice OS though and it's a bit sad to see that it gets so much hate from idiots that have never even used it and cite sources that are almost 1 year old.

 

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Aflac
Umm... my x64 Vista Home Premium install was completely painless with 4x1gb RAM. Not sure what was wrong with your system... all I did was pop in the disc, hit Next a few times, then wait a while and voila, my first OS install on my first personal machine.

I believe I also installed Vista Ultimate x64 with 4x1GB of RAM in my machine. I know I used to have 4GB in it when I was running Vista Ultimate 32-bit, which I then upgraded to 64-bit... so I'd assume I kept it in while upgrading as I still have 4GB of RAM .

It is a nice OS though and it's a bit sad to see that it gets so much hate from idiots that have never even used it and cite sources that are almost 1 year old.

Yep, same here. I installed Vista Ultimate 64 with 4GB og Ram installed...no problems whatsoever.

KT

 

[ZappDogg]

Installed with 4gb of ram installed as well. Haven't run into any huge issues (besides having my optical disks disappear, but a quick regedit fixed that).

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Aflac
Umm... my x64 Vista Home Premium install was completely painless with 4x1gb RAM. Not sure what was wrong with your system... all I did was pop in the disc, hit Next a few times, then wait a while and voila, my first OS install on my first personal machine.

I believe I also installed Vista Ultimate x64 with 4x1GB of RAM in my machine. I know I used to have 4GB in it when I was running Vista Ultimate 32-bit, which I then upgraded to 64-bit... so I'd assume I kept it in while upgrading as I still have 4GB of RAM .

It is a nice OS though and it's a bit sad to see that it gets so much hate from idiots that have never even used it and cite sources that are almost 1 year old.

QFT :thumbsup:

 

[Xavier434]

It's worth it if you are a gamer. The latest and greatest games work best on a 64 bit system due to memory requirements for max settings. I think there was a good article posted on the Anandtech home page on this topic recently?

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: Aflac
Umm... my x64 Vista Home Premium install was completely painless with 4x1gb RAM. Not sure what was wrong with your system... all I did was pop in the disc, hit Next a few times, then wait a while and voila, my first OS install on my first personal machine.

I believe I also installed Vista Ultimate x64 with 4x1GB of RAM in my machine. I know I used to have 4GB in it when I was running Vista Ultimate 32-bit, which I then upgraded to 64-bit... so I'd assume I kept it in while upgrading as I still have 4GB of RAM .

It is a nice OS though and it's a bit sad to see that it gets so much hate from idiots that have never even used it and cite sources that are almost 1 year old.

It's only certain chipsets that have the BSOD bug with 4GB+ RAM installed on Vista 64. As they already hotfixed it Vista SP1 discs won't have the issue. If you have a current Vista install disc, you can probably make a slip-streamed version with SP1 integrated once it's out.

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: Xavier434
It's worth it if you are a gamer. The latest and greatest games work best on a 64 bit system due to memory requirements for max settings. I think there was a good article posted on the Anandtech home page on this topic recently?

XP is still the best for gaming. I've yet to see a review that shows Vista getting better performance.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
If you are going XP, go with 32 bit, if you are going with Vista, go with 64 bit. End of story.

KT

What he said... most folks I know, including myself, who are running vista 64 on the lastest and greatest hardware have had virtually no problems.

And 64 bit apps, when and where available, are actually getting good now.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: biostud
AFAIK Vista 64 is the same or better than 32, since it has better security and support for >4Gb memory. And the driver/software issues are minimal in vista 64.

for winXP the 64-bit version has a limited driver support, and should only be used if you really have to.

In some cases, the 64 bit drivers are actually better because they are 'new' code written for vista 64, not 5-10 year ports from 98 or NT to 2000 to XP.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Xavier434
It's worth it if you are a gamer. The latest and greatest games work best on a 64 bit system due to memory requirements for max settings. I think there was a good article posted on the Anandtech home page on this topic recently?

XP is still the best for gaming. I've yet to see a review that shows Vista getting better performance.

Btw going Vista x64 he has DX10 and even DX10.1 down the road(he has DX10 cards),also no worries of memory limitation since we all know games need more memory as time moves on,also Vista x64 has a better future then XP.

Latest benchmarks put Vista equal with XP,check firingSquad for more info on benchmarks.

As a gamer myself I have over 40 games installed in Vista x64 all working great,to be honest I never needed to go back to XP for gaming.

 

[miniMUNCH]

Originally posted by: BladeVenom

Originally posted by: Xavier434
It's worth it if you are a gamer. The latest and greatest games work best on a 64 bit system due to memory requirements for max settings. I think there was a good article posted on the Anandtech home page on this topic recently?

XP is still the best for gaming. I've yet to see a review that shows Vista getting better performance.

From what I have gathered, 64 bit DX9 crysis on vista runs faster than 32bit DX9 crysis on XP or vista... not completely sure however as I have not tested this myself.

This sort of thing (64 bit faster than 32 bit) is going to be happening a lot as the game industry moves forward.

 

[videopho]

64 bit all the way.
32 bit is quick becoming a dinosaur (within a year or so).
(I hope to see 128 bit OS, say 10 years from now)

 

[Fistandantilis]

OK so I am a bit confused, I only have 2g of RAM the rest of my rig is in my sig. I just got Vista 64 but I havent installed it yet thinking that 2g of RAM would be a crippling factor, I am a gamer so should I install the 64 bit flavor of vista or not?

Thanks

 

[ZappDogg]

2gb of ram is fine for either x86 or x64 vista. 4 is gravy.