WinXP 64-bit

[doanster]

I'm just completing my PC build and I can't decide what OS to put on it. It's an Athlon 64 Clawhammer, NF3 based computer. If I was to install WinXP 64-bit, would the drivers for the devices, designed for WinXP 32-bit, work? How about software compatibility, and gaming experience on WinXP 64-bit? Thanks!

 

[Nothinman]

32-bit drivers will not work, you need 64-bit drivers. As for apps, most should work but the only way to know for sure is to try them.

 

[ProviaFan]

Even if things would work, unless you have some serious application that gets major performance gains from using a recompiled 64 bit version, you're better off with XP Pro. XP x64 is only worthwhile if you have more than 3GB of RAM.

 

[pkme2]

Stay with Win XP 32bit until Vista is available. If everything goes well, I hope to upgrade next year with Vista.

 

[dguy6789]

I suggest you stay away from Windows XP 64 bit for now. Windows XP 32 bit will be fine for now.

 

[xtknight]

I don't understand the bashing of XP64. I have hardware just like everyone else on here pretty much (your typical gamer system on AT: nForce4, Athlon 64, Audigy2 (X-Fi works on 64 as well), Logitech MX518/G5 mouse, Radeon/GeForce video card). The only thing I couldn't get working was my ATI USB TV tuner (because it has no drivers). But there are 64-bit drivers for both brands of video cards (ATI and NVIDIA), and there are 64-bit platform drivers for the nForce MCP and ATI SB480 south bridge/IGP. There are even 64-bit drivers for the ATI TV Wonder Elite TV tuner. There's a 64-bit driver package for the nForce3 platform as well: http://www.nvidia.com/object/nforce_udp_winxp64_6.25.html

Logitech has 64-bit drivers and configuration tools for most of their recent mice (I know they do for the G5). Creative now has official drivers on their main site for various SoundBlasters (Live/Audigy/X-Fi) on XP X64 platforms. Both of the onboard gigabit NICs on my A8N-SLI Deluxe have 64-bit drivers.

Yes, some of the drivers are beta and/or not WHQL-certified, but does that mean much? We have all had crashes with WHQL drivers and/or "final" drivers anyway. My philosophy is that there is no such thing as a "final" product in drivers. There are always bugs or features that need to be corrected/added.

The sole application that failed to work was Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, because of a PunkBuster problem, and I only bothered trying one server. PB may have fixed it since. Battlefield 2 with PunkBuster works great (fast if not faster than XP32). XP64 has always feeled much faster to me than XP32. For AntiVirus, there is NOD32 for 64-bit platforms, and I'm sure there are others that work with 64 as well.

I don't know, maybe I'm just lucky or something. The speed advantage was enough for me to add it to my Big O' list of OSes.

 

[Lord Banshee]

The only time i used WinXP 64 bit was when i built a computer for a customer of mine.

It was a dual dual core Opteron (2.2Ghz i think) with 3 WD 250GB 16MB Hard Drives and a nForce4 Tyan mobo with 4GB of RAM.. And i agree the system just felt so damn fast and responsive. Even my current dualcore machine with winXP 32-bit doesn't feel that great even at 2.6GHz...

I am more than likely going to just upgrade to Vista 64-Bit and hope i get that same feel.

 

[ND40oz]

I had problems getting games to run correctly on my X2 3800+ with 64bit installed. They don't seem to have the dual core windows patch out for it that I use under the 32 bit install. I even called Microsoft and tried to get them to email the 64bit patch, but the one they sent was just the 32 bit one, so I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.

I do run it on my workstation rig, runs great with Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 beta running on top of it. I haven't had to use the dual core patch on my 930 system, it runs fine without it.