XP64 game performance

[deadmantyping]

has 32-bit game performance improved since the AnandTech review of x64 Edition in 2004. How well are games running on current release? was the loss of fps in the Anandtech review due to drivers? Would it be beneficial for me to run games in XP64 or should i run all my games on XP Pro 32-bit?

 

[Schadenfroh]

I doubt that windows xp 64 edition has much to do with 32bit game performance, the xp64 drivers have more to do with it.

 

[HerrWolf]

I cannot recognize difference in game performance. While file system is faster and memory management seems to be much better my feeling is exactly oposite. Alt-Tabbing is smoother on same pc, i have less issues with USB and so on. Overall looks for me more smooth and fast than 32bit...

 

[Valkerie]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I doubt that windows xp 64 edition has much to do with 32bit game performance, the xp64 drivers have more to do with it.

you'll get lucky if you see extra performance increases on x64 with 32-bit software. most likely, you need the software to take advantage of the x64 OS environment, like Farcry x64 edition, which is free if you already bought the game.

 

[deadmantyping]

I'm not really looking for a performance boost in 32-bit games, i'm just trying to make sure that the performance of 32-bit games in x64 is virtually the same as on 32bit windows. because as i mentioned, in the review that anandtech did the performance drop in 32-bit games was considerable, and i was just wondering if the newer x64 drivers where better optimized for games now

 

[dguy6789]

Windows XP x64 is a bit faster than Windows XP in games as of right now.

General desktop use is MUCH better in x64 than in the 32 bit one though.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Windows XP x64 is a bit faster than Windows XP in games as of right now.

General desktop use is MUCH better in x64 than in the 32 bit one though.

It's tangibly better? Benchmarks?! Come on, at least throw in a Pcmark 05 bench.
How's it compare to Mac OS?

 

[yukichigai]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
I doubt that windows xp 64 edition has much to do with 32bit game performance, the xp64 drivers have more to do with it.

Bingo.

But yes, I've noticed that most of my 32-bit games run slightly better on x64. I've certainly not noticed any performance drop.

The 64-bit games -- right now, FarCry -- run a lot better. I wish more companies would release 64-bit patches. Is it too late to hope for an HL2 64-bit patch? Maybe with the forthcoming expansions or something.

 

[dukdukgoos]

Interesting... I was also under the impression that 64 bit XP and its drivers weren't ready for prime time. May have to reconsider. Anyone finding problems with 64 bit gaming at this point?

 

[Brentx]

I did a heavy comparison on my machine between the 2 OS's. Here are my specs:

Athlon 64 3000+
1.5 GB of Mushkin Basic Ram
x800Pro AGP Video Card
2 Seagate 80Gb SATA Drives in RAID 0
nVidia nForce 3 250 Chipset

The OS's were both installed the same way and the drivers wereinstalled in the same order to prevent weird little quirks with the system.

Here are the comparisons: (The First set is the XP 32bit score, the second set is x64)

Sisoft Sandra:

• Drhystone ALU - 8420 MIPS - 9935 MIPS

• Whetstone FPU - 3181 MFLOPS - 3624 MFLOPS

• Ram Bandwidth INT - 2222MB/s - 2230MB/s

• Ram Bandwidth Float - 2213MB/s - 2231MB/s

• Drive Index (HDD) - 92MB/s - 91MB/s

HD Tach:

• Random Access Time - 13ms - 13.6ms

• Read Burst Speed - 149.5MB/s - 147.3MB/s

• Read Speed Avg - 50.9MB/s - 50.3MB/s

• CPU Utilization - 27.5% - 34.6%

Super Pi:

• 1M Calculation - 49s - 50s

PCMark '05:

• PCMarks - 3420 - 3441

3DMark 2001 SE:

• 3DMarks - 18636 - 18978

3DMark '05:

• 3DMarks - 4832 - 4817

There you have it. The HDD access times went up, but that is the only thing. I beleive that is due to the drivers for my chipset and RAID are in BETA, and if nVidia would ever get off their arses we would see some better HDD performance. But the HDD performance scores are so little in difference, you will not notice... and when it comes to games, HDD access does not really matter. Over all, XP x64's 32bit performance is better that Windows XP 32bit .

BTW: I originally did these tests for some people in the Planetside community, but have been posting them around when they have been asked. They were done about 3 weeks ago.

 

[ViRGE]

I agree with everything that's been posted here so far, XP64 performance is at the very least on-par with XP32 performance, so unless there's an incompatibility with other software, it's not usually detrimental to use it.

 

[yukichigai]

64-bit drivers are currently somewhat spotty. I'm enjoying a relatively pleasant experience because I have an nForce-based motherboard and an ATI video card. nVidia and ATI have had 64-bit drivers for quite some time, and it shows.

If you're using devices from not-so-major brands you really need to look into driver availability before you upgrade. But if they have them, I highly recommend it.

 

[JackMDS]

In addition IE6 for x64 yields faster Internet experience.

Networking is smoother (x64 Networking is based on Win2003).

:sun:

 

[Drag0nfly]

This is good to know. I recently read a few reviews for XP64 and noticed they were somewhat old. They showed performance drops of 5% - 30% in gaming. No doubt due to drivers. With more drivers coming out that seems to have changed.