64-bit OS with 2GB RAM

[TripleDesi]

I understand that if I have 4GB+ RAM then a 32-bit OS likely will not be able to see all the RAM. Therefore, one should install a 64-bit OS. My question however is a little different.

I have 2GB RAM right now in my computer. But someday I hope to be able to go to 4GB. So my question is should I install 64-bit OS right now with the 2GB RAM I have? I'm sure it will install, but I wanted to know if my computer will run slower.

Just trying to figure out if I should wait and reinstall 64-bit OS after I upgrade to 4GB or save myself the trouble right now.

Thanks in advance.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

XP x64, sure. Vista/Windows 7, I would only do it if you're going to get the memory soon. Vista and Windows 7 will use over a GiB of RAM by themselves which leaves little to the user. XP x64 on the other hand uses about 400-500 MiB of RAM. 1.5 GiB of user space is a tight fit but for the most part, it will work.

 

[A Cheese Danish]

I agree with FordGT. XP x64 doesn't use much off the bat and would probably be good for now until your get you memory in.
However, Vista/7 use a tad bit more than one would like. I know I have a few extra processes, but nonetheless, on my laptop
I'm using 7 x64 and it is using 1.1GB of my 3GB of ram I have. Granted it's not all the time, and it isn't making my computer
sluggish. Just something to take into consideration.

 

[EviLZeD]

I remember my cousin had vista on his laptop with 1gb ram my pc had 4 at the time and vista used around 1.3gb of my ram but I think vista recognizes if you computer lacks memory and somehow lowers its usage because he could play few games fine on his laptop like fear and wow even with 1gb ram.

I don't remember if it was vista x64 or x86 tho but I don think it would use up much more...

 

[Rexter]

No, no, no, no! Never XP x64! If you want an OS not supported by microsoft any longer, and shit driver and hardware support, fine.

If you want to roll a 64bit OS, use windows 7, and it will work just perfectly fine with 2gb ram, heck you wouldnt feel a difference between xp, xp x64, win7 32bit and win7 64bit.

If you know you are going to get 4gig ram soon'ish, just install windows 7 64bit now. Even if you dont have 4gb ram yet, you can still enjoy the wonders of 64bit computing, like crysis in 64bit, insane speeds in 64bit winrar, or super smooth performance in photoshop cs4 64bit etc.

Anyway, dont get scared by windows' ram usage, windows 7 uses ram just like vista does, just not as aggresive. (turbofetch and what have you).
If i had a computer with 2gb ram, heck even 1gb ram, i would STILL install a 64bit OS if possible.

 

[Mussels]

Just to clarify what these guys are saying:

If you plan to upgrade the ram, definitely go x64 now. 64 bit doesn't have any real downside over 32 bit, so go x64 from the start.

However, be aware that 2GB is the minimum you want to run with vista (its decent for 7). So try and do the upgrade to 4GB ASAP

Also, XP 64 is basically unsupported and has many issues with games. Despite its lower memory footprint, you'll definitely run into hardware and software compatibility problems.

 

[Sensi Karate]

I think you should just get Windows 7 x64 for future proof. You don't want an old OS that wont be supported in the coming months. Windows 7 is the now and the future and you'll just be holding yourself back and seriously waste money on a old product. 2GB of ram should be able to run on a x64 bit system. I had 2GB of ram on a Windows 7 x64 before I upgraded to 6GB of ram. It wasn't absolutely 'smooth' but it will work just fine until you get your 4GB of ram.

 

[somebody]

What sort of HW do you have? If your running with something like a 945 you'll still be limited to less than 4GB of RAM.

You shouldn't notice any speed difference running 32-bit on x64 unless perhaps your running benchmarks.

 

[Frick]

I have 2GB and I don't really understand why it's supposed to be minimum. I don't think I've seen RAM stutterings once.

It's still good to have more (because you can never have to much of it) though.

 

[btarunr]

Gotta agree that Microsoft screwed up with its x86-64 implementation. 64-bit Windows kernels can't natively run x86 applications (like 32-bit kernels could run old 16-bit applications), and rely on the "Windows on Windows 64" (WOW64) translation layer. Useless latency in translating x86 calls to an x86-64 kernel.

 

[Black Panther]

Install 7 x64 for the same reasons Sensi Karate posted above.

I have Vista x64 on my desktop, originally had 6GB DDR2 RAM. Now that I've ended up with only 2GB (gave some to brother, put some at work pc etc) I feel the difference. Not that you'd be seeing a slow computer far from it, but compared to what it was before it takes longer to load the OS and probably games would suffer too compared to before.

If (I assume?) you never had more than 2GB in your pc you wouldn't see it as slow, especially if you do get 7 and not Vista.

 

[DaveK]

I'm using Windows 7 64bit with 2GB RAM and it runs fine for me.

 

[TripleDesi]

More details on my question

I think you should just get Windows 7 x64 for future proof. You don't want an old OS that wont be supported in the coming months. Windows 7 is the now and the future and you'll just be holding yourself back and seriously waste money on a old product. 2GB of ram should be able to run on a x64 bit system. I had 2GB of ram on a Windows 7 x64 before I upgraded to 6GB of ram. It wasn't absolutely 'smooth' but it will work just fine until you get your 4GB of ram.

First of all, thanks to all of you. If I had known of this forum before I would have more hair on my head today.

I didn't think to provide more details before. Rectifying that problem now.

I have an Athlon 2.01GHz sitting on a ASUS A8N SLI with 2GB RAM and a 128MB NVidia 7800 video card with a Windows 7 recommended resolution of 1650 x 1050 (or something like that) on a 20inch Flat Panel Monitor. I am running Windows 7 32-bit on it right now. I am not sure when I'll go to 4GB RAM; I want to but it could be 3-4 months till I wrangle up the money. I am already in possession of both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 OS so that's not an issue.

If I understand correctly, one opinion is that 64-bit Windows 7 takes up a lot of RAM right of the bat and therefore one shouldn't install it with just 2GB RAM unless the change to 4GB+ RAM is impending. That means stick with 32-bit and re-install with 64-bit only AFTER 4GB+ RAM is available in the computer.

Another opinion which I like is I will not experience any perceptible slowness if I install 64-bit OS right away. This I'm hoping will also be the final conclusion subject to more information I'm providing below.

I guess part of the answer depends on the rest of my hardware - details on which I provided above - and part on how I'm going to use the computer. I definitely expect to use the computer for audio/video encoding / processing. Creating home videos, encoding to different formats to play on different devices etc. However, I am no Gamer. In fact I don't even expect to install any game whatsoever on this computer.

So with this information, would those recommending I do not go 64-bit Windows 7 right now, change their opinion? As an aside, does 64-bit OS make the computer heat up more or something? Sorry if this is stupid question.

Thanks much.

 

[Deleted member 3]

Gotta agree that Microsoft screwed up with its x86-64 implementation. 64-bit Windows kernels can't natively run x86 applications (like 32-bit kernels could run old 16-bit applications), and rely on the "Windows on Windows 64" (WOW64) translation layer. Useless latency in translating x86 calls to an x86-64 kernel.

You don't want 16 bit legacy crap running in your kernel. You want a reliable and fast kernel. Removing legacy support can help a lot there, handling backward compatibility via emulation is a great solution. That way you don't get a BSOD when your crappy Win 3.11 application tries to destroy the internet and force satellites to build lasers on the moon. If you really must have full compatibility to play ms pacman, don't upgrade to the latest OS, use DOS instead. The solution is quite simple. The extra latency in your ms pacman code is worth it to get an improved overall performance and reliability.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

No, no, no, no! Never XP x64! If you want an OS not supported by microsoft any longer, and shit driver and hardware support, fine.

XP x64 is on the same update cycle as Server 2003. They both still get updates rather frquently (was one today).

If you want to roll a 64bit OS, use windows 7, and it will work just perfectly fine with 2gb ram, heck you wouldnt feel a difference between xp, xp x64, win7 32bit and win7 64bit.

If you got the RAM, XP x64 is the fastest of those four in most tasks.

Also, XP 64 is basically unsupported and has many issues with games. Despite its lower memory footprint, you'll definitely run into hardware and software compatibility problems.

There's only three reasons why a game won't work on XP x64:

1) The game installs drivers (namely, Star-Force) which are not 64-bit compatible so it errors. It doesn't matter it is XP x64, Vista 64-bit, or 7 64-bit, install wll fail on all. Examples: Beyond Good & Evil, XIII, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. This is infrequent and unheard of for new/recent titles.

2) The game only has a Direct3D 10 render path. XP x64 does not have D3D 10 support so they obviously will fail to run. Examples: Stormrise and Dirt 2. Not many major titles fit here but a trend may be starting.

3) Blacklists where, for whatever reason, the developer forbids the application to be installed on any OS except a select few. Examples: Shadowrun and Halo 2. Very rare.

 

[btarunr]

You don't want 16 bit legacy crap running in your kernel. You want a reliable and fast kernel. Removing legacy support can help a lot there, handling backward compatibility via emulation is a great solution.

32-bit applications are far from being legacy crap. So the argument is that x86-64 Windows kernels should have supported 32-bit applications natively, just like 32-bit kernels could handle 16-bit ones. I'm not saying that today's kernels should be able to run 16-bit.

 

[Deleted member 3]

32-bit applications are far from being legacy crap. So the argument is that x86-64 Windows kernels should have supported 32-bit applications natively, just like 32-bit kernels could handle 16-bit ones. I'm not saying that today's kernels should be able to run 16-bit.

Why exactly? I have no problems running 32 bit software.

 

[btarunr]

Why exactly? I have no problems running 32 bit software.

Of course you don't. But WOW64 uses resources, and should add latency in being what it is - a translation layer.

 

[Super XP]

4GB (2GB x 2) is the safest bet for Win x64 OS's.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

x64:
system = 16-bit
sysWOW64 = 32-bit
system32 = 64-bit

x86:
system = 16-bit
system32 = 32-bit


64-bit shoves double the bits through all the pipes meaning bigger DLLs to load, more memory to reserve for addresses, etc. This so called "latency" is the tiny decrease in performance caused by allowing access to more data and larger values. This difference is almost always less than 1% in benchmarks and is completely negligible.

 

[frankie827]

If you want to future proof, I would go with 7 x64. I went with the x86 version of Vista Home Premium when I got it 2 years ago, and I regret it completely. Now that I have 4gb of ram, I need Windows to utilize all of it, which it won't do in x86. I honestly wish Microsoft had only produced 7 in x64. -.-

 

[newtekie1]

Go with x64 now, you've already got the copy so just use it.

Despite what some say, it does not take up a huge amount of memory off the bat. A fresh install of Win7 x64 w/ AVG Anti-virus and Aero enabled only uses about 650MB of RAM. Thats without any tweaks to lower memory usage, just a plain install of Win7 Pro.

I don't know where people are getting that it will use over 1GB of RAM right off the bat, it won't. Maybe some of the copies from OEMs like Dell and HP will use 1GB+, but those are bloated right from the beginning with crapware.

To give you an idea, the machine I'm typing this on right now is a Pentium D w/ 2GB of RAM, and Win7 x64 runs extremely smooth on it.

 

[psyko12]

Running W7 x64 on a dated machine with 2 gb, doing fine and does what I want it to do.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I don't know where people are getting that it will use over 1GB of RAM right off the bat, it won't. Maybe some of the copies from OEMs like Dell and HP will use 1GB+, but those are bloated right from the beginning with crapware.

My install is one week old today. Basically I only have drivers and a few games installed. Right now, it is sitting around 1.2 GiB. There's 38 processes running. This is a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

 

[TripleDesi]

We may have a winner

Go with x64 now, you've already got the copy so just use it.

Despite what some say, it does not take up a huge amount of memory off the bat. A fresh install of Win7 x64 w/ AVG Anti-virus and Aero enabled only uses about 650MB of RAM. Thats without any tweaks to lower memory usage, just a plain install of Win7 Pro.

I don't know where people are getting that it will use over 1GB of RAM right off the bat, it won't. Maybe some of the copies from OEMs like Dell and HP will use 1GB+, but those are bloated right from the beginning with crapware.

To give you an idea, the machine I'm typing this on right now is a Pentium D w/ 2GB of RAM, and Win7 x64 runs extremely smooth on it.

I'm going to take your advice since there does not seem to be a clear conclusion to draw. It will always depend on hardware / usage to a large extent I guess.

FWIW, Microsoft Security Essentials Antivirus (MSEA) runs better than AVG which I recently dropped after 4 years of Happiness on both Windows Vista and Windows 7. On the computer in question I have MSEA and works good.

The only way I'm going to really "know" is to go 64-bit now. I posed the question here because I didn't want to setup EVERYTHING on 32-bit, only to have to do it again with 64-bit.

One final thing I will note - and will need to take care off - is the onboard sound card driver. This was the only trouble I had with my Windows 7 install. After hunting on the net, I finally managed the courage to take the suggestion of trying Windows XP driver on Windows 7. It does work. Now after I put 64-bit Windows 7 on the machine, I will have to go find the 64-bit XP driver for the sound card. If that does not work, then I'll have to go back to 32-bit for all the wrong reasons. Surely cannot live with sound not working.

Thank you, one and all.