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Vista: To 64-bit or not to 64-bit?

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imported_Septimus

Member
I'm building a Vista machine in a week or so to be my main computer (used for development, gaming, email, etc).

I played around with XP 64-bit a while back and it was pretty speedy, though some major applications (like iTunes) didn't work for it.

My question is: What, if any, is the advantage of going to 64-bit with Vista? The machine will have 4 GB RAM and I have no specific need for 64-bit applications, so my feeling is that it's not at all necessary, but I haven't really been following the 64-bit craze.
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
I'm building a Vista machine in a week or so to be my main computer (used for development, gaming, email, etc).

I played around with XP 64-bit a while back and it was pretty speedy, though some major applications (like iTunes) didn't work for it.

My question is: What, if any, is the advantage of going to 64-bit with Vista? The machine will have 4 GB RAM and I have no specific need for 64-bit applications, so my feeling is that it's not at all necessary, but I haven't really been following the 64-bit craze.
Click to expand...

At a minimum you'll have full access to the 4gig and the ability to add more later (I tend to think of dev machines as running lots of VM's so I like to put 4+ gig on em).

That said, you'll still be an early adopter and are going to run into a few things that don't work. Vista will improve this dramatically (IMHO) with lots of real 64bit systems going out the big oem's doors. But, if you do it now, your still on the bleeding edge (but hey, your a developer, so you should be used to it 😉)
 
I think the 32-bit editions of vista support up to 8 gigs of RAM, though.

I'm willing to go bleeding edge if there's a very real benefit, but at the moment all I see are the bleeding edge penalties.
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
I think the 32-bit editions of vista support up to 8 gigs of RAM, though.
I'm willing to go bleeding edge if there's a very real benefit, but at the moment all I see are the bleeding edge penalties.
Click to expand...

They do with a slight peformance penalty vs <= 4gig of memory (and you'll still lose some to the PCI hole just not as much)
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
I think the 32-bit editions of vista support up to 8 gigs of RAM, though.
Click to expand...
I assume that's with PAE mode enabled?

Btw, is there a legit way to get a copy of XP 64-bit (rather than Vista 64-bit)? Or is an MSDN sub nearly the only way?

Is 32-bit application compatibility really bad with either 64-bit version of Windows? (XP or Vista?)
 
My copy of XP 64-bit came with my Action Pack subscription (as a partner - don't have an MSDN or Technet subscription).

And application compatibility was decent but not great. Some drivers don't exist for 64-bit. It was enough that I went back to 32-bit.
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
I think the 32-bit editions of vista support up to 8 gigs of RAM, though.

I'm willing to go bleeding edge if there's a very real benefit, but at the moment all I see are the bleeding edge penalties.
Click to expand...

I'll need to check, I think stash is right and your thinking of the 8gig maximum allowed by Xp Home Basic 64.
 
PAE will be enabled regardless for DEP support, but the physical memory will still be limited to 4GB.
 
Will 64-bit OSes work with standard partitions, or do some of them require that new GUID partition layout? It would be nice to dual-boot to try them out, but not if they are going to screw over my existing partitions.
 
I am dual-booting with XP Pro 32 bit and Vista Ultimate 64 right now. I haven't dared putting them on the same drive, but it works fine with seperate installation drives.
 
OK, I read some of the other thread but it seems to be a lot of, ahem, you-know-what waving as well as some technical stuff.

Let me re-ask this question in a more specific manner. Here's the system:

E6600 on a Asus P5N-E SLI | Arctic Cooler 7
4x1GB Crucial Ballistix (the most expensive part by far - remember when memory was cheap?)
2x250GB WD SATA 3GB/sec in RAID 0
eVGA 7900 GT KO Superclocked
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro

The system is used for two things: development (database/coldfusion) and gaming.

The choice is either Vista 32-bit and get 3.5 gigs of RAM (or enable PAE, which apparently has other issues, to get all 4?) or else go 64-bit and get all 4 gigs.

Can those of you running 64-bit Vista on gaming rigs tell me what problems you've encountered? I loaded 64 bit XP about 7 months ago and got most, but not all of what I need running; iTunes didn't have a 64-bit release yet (do they now?)

I honestly don't care about having the most l33t cutting edge stuff - I'm fine with x86/32-bit as this system is still a nice bump up from the AMD rig I've got now. But 64-bit does seem inevitable and I'm just curious how much difficulty I'd have trying to adopt it now.

Thanks!
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
OK, I read some of the other thread but it seems to be a lot of, ahem, you-know-what waving as well as some technical stuff.

Let me re-ask this question in a more specific manner. Here's the system:

E6600 on a Asus P5N-E SLI | Arctic Cooler 7
4x1GB Crucial Ballistix (the most expensive part by far - remember when memory was cheap?)
2x250GB WD SATA 3GB/sec in RAID 0
eVGA 7900 GT KO Superclocked
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro

The system is used for two things: development (database/coldfusion) and gaming.

The choice is either Vista 32-bit and get 3.5 gigs of RAM (or enable PAE, which apparently has other issues, to get all 4?) or else go 64-bit and get all 4 gigs.

Can those of you running 64-bit Vista on gaming rigs tell me what problems you've encountered? I loaded 64 bit XP about 7 months ago and got most, but not all of what I need running; iTunes didn't have a 64-bit release yet (do they now?)

I honestly don't care about having the most l33t cutting edge stuff - I'm fine with x86/32-bit as this system is still a nice bump up from the AMD rig I've got now. But 64-bit does seem inevitable and I'm just curious how much difficulty I'd have trying to adopt it now.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

forgive me if I sound like an ass, but that "WD... 3.0GB/s" statement about drives simply hurts eyes... who cares what their theoretical peak is? You wrote it like "my drives have sequential read of 3.0GB/s.

As for your question:

Drivers wise, seems that both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are being developed for your hardware simultaneously. And drivers are pretty much only concern.

I don't think anybody will write drivers that are not signed, that seems major futility... of course if they have to be signed by MS it may make some delay, but all releases I've seen from nvdia, ati, creative, etc, had 32 and 64 bit driver at same time.
 
>> forgive me if I sound like an ass, but that "WD... 3.0GB/s" statement about drives simply hurts eyes... who cares what their theoretical peak is? You wrote it like "my drives have sequential read of 3.0GB/s.

You do, in fact, sound just as you say. I could care less what the manufacturer calls it; I only put it there to distinguish it from the (equally nonsensical) 1.5 GB/sec variety. 'SATA 2' or whatever you want to call it, it's all the same and it's all garbage. They're system specs, not a pissing contest.

>> Drivers wise, seems that both 32-bit and 64-bit drivers are being developed for your hardware simultaneously. And drivers are pretty much only concern.

So there's no issue with application compatbility? It's just drivers? That's pretty nice. Thanks.
 
in XP 64-bit, all apps ran in very efficient 32-bit wrapper. And I haven't noticed any problems with any of them, but I didn't use it for long time.
 
Originally posted by: Septimus
I'm building a Vista machine in a week or so to be my main computer (used for development, gaming, email, etc).

I played around with XP 64-bit a while back and it was pretty speedy, though some major applications (like iTunes) didn't work for it.

My question is: What, if any, is the advantage of going to 64-bit with Vista? The machine will have 4 GB RAM and I have no specific need for 64-bit applications, so my feeling is that it's not at all necessary, but I haven't really been following the 64-bit craze.
Click to expand...

I just spec'd out a dual-quad core 32gig workstation to replace my now aging workstation. Definately going Vista 64. My plan for a couple of items (such as my two scanners and a USB Homer Simpson that I don't think I'll ever see drivers for and am much too lazy to write myself) is to run Vista32 in a virtual machine. With USB passthru, I can access a few things there (when needed) but keep the main box 64 24/7

Bill

 
Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Originally posted by: bsobel
...a USB Homer Simpson that I don't think I'll ever see drivers for....
Click to expand...
That'd make x64 a "No-Go" for me. 😉
Click to expand...

Its a tought one, home was worth a few gig of ram to me. But jumping from 4 to 32 is just too much to have Homer keep holding me back 🙂
 
Originally posted by: bsobel
Its a tought one, home was worth a few gig of ram to me. But jumping from 4 to 32 is just too much to have Homer keep holding me back 🙂
Click to expand...
Heck. Maybe you can virtualize him. Does Virtual PC 2007 support USB?

Anyway, don't give up. With Microsoft pushing so hard for 64-bit drivers, those 64-bit WHQL signed drivers for USB Homer Simpson could be released right after Jan. 30.
 
After reading everything, let me ask a question...

With only 2gigs of memory, is there any point/benefit to going vista 64 vs. vista 32?

I'm putting a new core 2 system together at the end of the month but it will just be for regular office work and some gaming.

cheers all!
 
I guess if you want to take the long-term solution (where you might feasibly run pure 64-bit apps or have >4 gigs of RAM) then it's worth the time to at last try the 64 bit edition, and if things don't run well now, it's probably not worth keeping it.

I'm going to give 64-bit Vista a shot soon as my board comes back this week, but if it causes more problems than I care to deal with, I'll wait and either suffer through 3.5 gigs of RAM or else use PAE and see what other problems that causes.
 
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