Win 7 32 or 64 bit for running these particular games?

[Ronin13]

Thanks for your replies, good to hear that (with some work) I should be able to run most of those old games in a 64 bit OS.

Also, as far as I can figure, the (less than) 4 GB RAM allowed by a 32 bit OS has to be shared with the video card's RAM, so a 2 GB card would actually leave me with *less* than 2 GB available system memory?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks for your replies, good to hear that (with some work) I should be able to run most of those old games in a 64 bit OS.

Also, as far as I can figure, the (less than) 4 GB RAM allowed by a 32 bit OS has to be shared with the video card's RAM, so a 2 GB card would actually leave me with *less* than 2 GB available system memory?

No, because only a window into the card is used not all of it.

I think a typical 32-bit Windows setup will have around 3.5 GB available regardless of how much RAM your card has.

It is true for newer games the 32-bit build has a process size limit of 2 GB per process, while a 64-bit game EXE can address all 4 GB.

 

[Ronin13]

Thanks. There does seem to be some confusion on this issue, with different sources having conflicting information.

One place I found was this:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/32-bit-vs-64-bit-how-it-relates-to-video-cards.91260/

You're saying that (as far as you know) that explanation isn't entirely accurate?

edit: It seems the explanation in post #47 in that thread is close to what you're saying.