Wanna ditch XP Pro and get XP64.. anything I should be aware of?

[MDesigner]

I'm looking at possibly ditching XP32 (Pro) and getting XP64. I can see a lot of the drivers for my hardware have 64-bit support now. A few things don't, though.. they still are 32-bit only. So will they not work at all on XP64?

Also, what about software and games. Will they work OK on XP64? I've heard basically that mostly everything works fine on XP64, except some drivers that don't exist in 64-bit format.

Let me know..thanks!

 

[Rubycon]

Printers by far seem to be the biggest headache with Win64 now.

 

[DBSX]

Most things will work fine as far as software. Utilities (especially anti-virus) may not work properly if they are not specifically for x64. Most other software should run fine, so long as it doesn't use any 16-bit code, which will not work on x64.

As for hardware, there may be generic driver support for your "not listed" hardware, so maybe it'll function at a base level.

I thought about going with x64 for my new system, but decided to pass. I don't want to spend for an OS now and again in a year or so. I also didn't see a real benefit to switching at this point. 32-bit works for me, so why change it?

\Dan

 

[domllama]

I currently use XP64 for an AMD 3500+ setup..I would not reccommend it lol..There is not a whole lot of security software supporting it ATM...I use my Nforce4 firewall--I personally would stick with 32-bit until more support is available for X64..I just wanted to take advantage of the X64 support for various software I use..

 

[MDesigner]

Interesting. Well, Canon has XP64 drivers for my PIXMA IP4000.. nice. But none for my CanoScan scanner.

Everything else I have, has 64-bit drivers available. Now, how stable they are is another story. It's nice to see XP64 drivers for most of my stuff though. Heck, there are even 64-bit drivers for my Razer Copperhead mouse. But I think for now I'll stick with regular XP Pro. I don't want to take the risk of some crucial piece of software not working.

 

[RebateMonger]

Far be it for me to tell anybody what to use....

But, unless you have a SPECIFIC need for x64, I'd just wait for Vista. You'll see a LOT better x64 support once Vista hits the ground.

 

[MDesigner]

Sounds good. I'll wait.

Now I'm actually reconsidering my Athlon64 X2 4200+ upgrade.. dual core sounds good, but I currently have an Athlon64 3500+. I checked out some Anandtech benchmarks, and it looks like the A64 3800+ performs pretty closely to the A64 X2 4200+, unless I'm reading the benchmarks wrong.

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: MDesigner
Sounds good. I'll wait.

Now I'm actually reconsidering my Athlon64 X2 4200+ upgrade.. dual core sounds good, but I currently have an Athlon64 3500+. I checked out some Anandtech benchmarks, and it looks like the A64 3800+ performs pretty closely to the A64 X2 4200+, unless I'm reading the benchmarks wrong.

Dual core makes a tremendous benefit in multitasking or multithreaded applications. For the normal stuff, I don't know how much of a difference you'd see if you only did one thing at a time and never stressed your system. If you're much of a power user, though, I think you could probably feel some difference even in "everyday" usage with a dual core upgrade.

For what it's worth, I run XP64 because normal XP can not recognize more than 3GB of RAM, and I happen to have 4GB (and I want to use all of it, #$%^&!). However, I would recommend that unless you have custom software that runs tremendously better with access to the larger and more plentiful 64 bit registers of the CPU, or unless you have anything that needs more than 2GB of RAM per process, that you stay away from x64 variants until Vista appears, at which point you should re-evaluate to see how driver and application support is at that time.

 

[Pr0phetX]

if you use bluetooth drivers do not upgrade. That was the killer for me. i couldnt get my logitech di nova media desktop working.