# 32bit or 64bit???



## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

ok so im building a new sys but cant decide on witch version of windows to run.
on my current rig i have 32bit and works fine except the memory issue, but i was really leaning towards a 64bit, would like some opinions, only reason im asking is ive currently read allot of things about the 64bit not working or having compatibility issues... need to know if its true.
thanks everyone!


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## Kursah (Feb 29, 2008)

Doesn't hurt to try out 64-bit, I tried XP Pro X64, it was pretty stable. But SP3 RC2 32bit is snappier at least in my experience, 64 also takes more memory due to how it allocates, so when I get 4GB I will go with 64 bit because it's better at allocating and more stable than 32-bit.

I had no real compatability issues in 64-bit, a couple small issues here and there that are either fine to live without or a patch to fix for use. Don't expect all of the newest released betas and stuff to be supported necessarily, but it's better than years' past. Definately worth a shot.

I'll stick with 32-bit for now, but may jump on 64-bit when I do a new build!


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

yea thats bout the only reason i want to upgrade to 64 is because ill prob be doing 4 or more gigs of mem on my new build


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## Kursah (Feb 29, 2008)

Well if you want to see more than 3-3.2GB of that memory than 64-bit is your only option. I haven't tried Vista 64, but I'm sure it's decent, I've heard 50-50 with it.

I have no real reason to go 4 gigs yet, unless I find a irresistable deal somewhere! There's place you can read about 64-bit vs 32-bit OS's, just google and you can read up a tad more and better educate yourself to see if that's the right path for you to take.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

thanks again but i want to go 4 or more because im tired of having to constantly upgrade my sys to keep up with games and what not...so im just trying to future proof my self thats all going to do a build log of my new sys, going to be pretty BA...


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## beyond_amusia (Feb 29, 2008)

x64... but make sure your hardware supports it; all of mine did except my wireless card.


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## farlex85 (Feb 29, 2008)

Its in some ways a shot in the dark. I think most things now work just fine w/ 64 bit, probably the only incompatible things are very minor. However, there is always a chance, your hardware looks like it should be solid though.


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## candle_86 (Feb 29, 2008)

Kursah said:


> Doesn't hurt to try out 64-bit, I tried XP Pro X64, it was pretty stable. But SP3 RC2 32bit is snappier at least in my experience, 64 also takes more memory due to how it allocates, so when I get 4GB I will go with 64 bit because it's better at allocating and more stable than 32-bit.
> 
> I had no real compatability issues in 64-bit, a couple small issues here and there that are either fine to live without or a patch to fix for use. Don't expect all of the newest released betas and stuff to be supported necessarily, but it's better than years' past. Definately worth a shot.
> 
> I'll stick with 32-bit for now, but may jump on 64-bit when I do a new build!



I ran into a few that required certain windows DLL's. TGSoft really needs to update Style XP, i bought it and can't use it untill they update, i went back to XP 32bit


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## warhammer (Feb 29, 2008)

Just to let you know VISTA 64 works well.
If you have VISTA 32bit on your system you will need to do a reformat of your hard disc, for some reason VISTA 64bit does not install over 32bit OS.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

thanks everyone, but i wont be using the hardware on my sys specs, im using it for my new build, and i spent some time making sure that everything worked with 64bit last night...all is good, going with 64bit!


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## AphexDreamer (Feb 29, 2008)

Well I just recntly moved to 64 Bit Vista from 32 Bit and I have got to say it feels pretty much the same. If anything it is faster and more stable and a deffent plus is the 4GB of RAM I'll have next week.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

good call now all i have to do is decide if i want 4gb or 8gb or ram, i would think that 8 might be a little harder on the proc but im not really all that sure?


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## Triprift (Feb 29, 2008)

Id say go for 4gig and the only prob i had with vista 64bit was itunes not working properly found drivers online now working fine.


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## VulkanBros (Feb 29, 2008)

Well...I had a tiny problem when I went to Vista 64 bit......
Vista crashed every time I tried installing it....

That was with 4 GB mem......
It turned out, that with 2 GB mem installed there was no problem....
After installing I installed all 4GB of mem....and voila....no problems...

BUT...if it was my hardware (motherboard) or Vista that caused that problem is a bit unclear...

but never-the-less.....Vista 64 runs great....go for it....


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

thanks ill keep that in mind when installing if i have the same prob


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## lemonadesoda (Feb 29, 2008)

Just a thought... if we are moving away from parallel interfaces to serial interfaces, e.g. Parallel port and PCMCIA to USB, IDE to SATA, AGP to PCIe, then should we expect at some point in the future a radically different CPU architecture operating, not at 64 or 128 bits, but at 1bit with a non-linear address space? Multiple core, 1000s of 1bit cores on a single processor.

It would be TERRIBLE at single threaded applications... but would RIP through serious work.


PS: 64-bit (x86) computing is NOT faster than 32-bit computing. It only allows for larger memory space. But why that? Shouldm't 64-bit design applications be faster than their 32-bit equivalent? Well in theory yes, but in practice, 90% of processing is quite happy with 16-bit registers, and for the other 10% even 64bit isnt optimal, which is why x86 has SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4, SSE4.1 extensions. What are they? They are a set of 128-bit registers and instructions. So, in practice, for number crunching, whether your OS is 32bit or 64bit, the calcs are being accelerated by the SAME 128bit registers.


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## Nitro-Max (Feb 29, 2008)

This is also somthing im unsure about too.I have 4gig installed but i still use xp 32bit because for one it runs faster even though it doesnt use all my ram.

So why would moving to vista which uses more ram be a smart choice? especially as the 64bit versions have lots of driver issues and software issues.

The only thing vista has to offer me is dx10. I dont really care about the rest.
Im really not majorly concerned about making the move yet until all the games i want to play  are dx10 and they stop supporting dx9.


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## KBD (Feb 29, 2008)

Nitro-Max said:


> Im really not majorly concerned about making the move yet until all the games i want to play  are dx10 and they stop supporting dx9.



Or until MS stops supporting Win XP, i hear it's going to happen around 2010, is that true?


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

I'm VERY happy with 64bit, its perfectly fine as long as you don't have any goofy stuff like some TV cards have driver issues still...

But other than that its great, I see no sense in wasting money on 32bit OS's anymore being they are next to obsolete.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

KBD said:


> Or until MS stops supporting Win XP, i hear it's going to happen around 2010, is that true?



yes its true but they keep pushing the cutoff date back because to many people are still using xp...go figure, but it is going to happen sooner or later...and i was also wondering the same thing about 128bit proc or os, 64 has been around for a while and there is still not allot of software and hard where designed to work on 64bit but im sure it will happen someday... i often wonder if computing will ever reach a plateau to where it just cant be improved anymore...?


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## beyond_amusia (Feb 29, 2008)

I'm holding onto XP until Windows 7 if it's any good. If Windows 7 is worse than Vista, I may be forced to use another OS.


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## KBD (Feb 29, 2008)

That's unlikely, there will always be innovations in any tech, including computers.


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

beyond_amusia said:


> I'm holding onto XP until Windows 7 if it's any good. If Windows 7 is worse than Vista, I may be forced to use another OS.



Mac OSX  or OS-XI 

I am still debating dropping my Vista install and installing OSX


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## Nitro-Max (Feb 29, 2008)

I think people are panicing too much over this ms stopping support stuff i mean theres nothing wrong with xp just save all your service packs for the  future.

Even when they stopped support for win 98 / me hardware drivers were still been brought out a good long while after for these operating systems.

Granted this will stop eventually but it will be a few years after ms support stops.

By that time vista will probably be on its way out because alot of people like it and theres equally alot that hates it. 

I think the whole directx 10 not backwards compatable for xp things a load of rubbish tbh.
Its just another way to force vista on everyone.
Service packs can change support and how things operate.And its not impossible for microsoft to do. Its just not a good move finacially. Especially as lots of money was lost through xp piracy.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Mac OSX  or OS-XI
> 
> I am still debating dropping my Vista install and installing OSX



whats wrong with vista i love it!


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> whats wrong with vista i love it!



Nothing is really "wrong" with it...

But the only dx10 game I play is Crysis and it doesn't matter to me if I play dx9 or dx10. For the rest of my stuff I don't run in vista because vista is slower *not a ton being its tweaked* but enough to bug me, therefore I never really load vista unless I'm benching under dx10.

Windows 7.... I hope is the Microsoft equivalent to what Apple did to OSx over Os9.


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## wiak (Feb 29, 2008)

niko084 said:


> I'm VERY happy with 64bit, its perfectly fine as long as you don't have any goofy stuff like some TV cards have driver issues still...
> 
> But other than that its great, I see no sense in wasting money on 32bit OS's anymore being they are next to obsolete.


agreed, everyone should go 64-bit and FORCE companys to get 64-bit drivers out, that is the only way

btw vista x64 is a LOOOOOOOOOOOT better than a year ago
so it improved a lot


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

i see i think i read somewhere that windows 7 is scheduled for 2012


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

wiak said:


> agreed, everyone should go 64-bit and FORCE companys to get 64-bit drivers out, that is the only way
> 
> btw vista x64 is a LOOOOOOOOOOOT better than a year ago
> so it improved a lot



thats good to know! ive already made the decision going to get vista ultimate 64 bit


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> thats good to know! ive already made the decision going to get vista ultimate 64 bit



Its great obviously its installed on 6 of my 8 machines.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

dang thats allot of comps, got one for each room?


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> dang thats allot of comps, got one for each room?



Not exactly, 2 servers, 3 desktops, and 3 sitting not connected.
3 not connected all have vista, 2 of my desktops and 1 of my servers, but the server is getting it removed because I'm putting Server '03 back
on it. Other server runs Redhat. My 3rd desktop is my production system that has Xp 64bit on it.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

oh ok i see! reminds me of my dad, his house is like a computer store...haha theres computers and parts all over the place, prob enough scrap computer parts to build 5 or 6 whole computers


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## niko084 (Feb 29, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> house is like a computer store...haha theres computers and parts all over the place



Exactly my case. I build systems and servers for businesses, setup networks, vpn's etc. Also do the occasional build for the home user but I try to keep that to a minimum due to lack of profit and incredible headaches.


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## jbunch07 (Feb 29, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Exactly my case. I build systems and servers for businesses, setup networks, vpn's etc. Also do the occasional build for the home user but I try to keep that to a minimum due to lack of profit and incredible headaches.



sounds good, not in my dad case though he is just a pack rat! would u believe he still uses a pentium2 266mhz computer,:shadedshu that thing as ancient! well no t that old compared to his old older comp that he still has, it ran windows 3.1 but yea i used some of his stuff for my old sys he had a 7600gt and couple sata hd's just laying around not being used, so i kinda "borrowed" them. 

but know what u mean...i work at circuit city firedog pc tech and people are just anyoing sometimes...but i try my best to be nice!


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## Triprift (Feb 29, 2008)

jbunch07 said:


> i see i think i read somewhere that windows 7 is scheduled for 2012



I heard next year but im sure it will be 2010 instead and good too see your going 64bit


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## UrbanShark (Mar 1, 2008)

*64bit*

I installed 32bit XP Pro, started playing Crysis as was not running as well as I through it would. I installed 64bit XP Pro and run Crysis by the 64bit.exe. The improvement was mad!!!!


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## jbunch07 (Mar 1, 2008)

Triprift said:


> I heard next year but im sure it will be 2010 instead and good too see your going 64bit



dang if it was next year than that would make vista prob the os with the shortest life span...not counting ME of course, i dont think that could be considered an actual os
but yea im pretty sure ill like the 64bit!


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