[Advice] The 32/64bit question, and my specific needs?

[Poolboy]

Hey peeps, so much great advice here, and always specific to our style of gaming. So thanks in advance.

Here's me ~


New rig being built, Q6600, 8800GT card, all the other standard goodness that comes with that level build. But then... when it comes to OS, and how much RAM, etc it's a bit foggy.

I will be playing 5x WoW on this single computer (i dont use maximizer at the moment). My monitor, for now, is an average crt, sigh. On to lcd ws as soon as i can. I want to be able to play stuff like Age of Conan when released, etc etc.

So, am I to understand that 64 Vista is basically redundant at this point? Nothing is truly written games-wise to utilize all of it's features and capabilities?

Basically, I've heard most of you say that XP 32bit is more than fine for WoW, but will I be behind the 8 ball with other games that hold my interest? I dunno, what's a current 'benchmark'? CoD4, Bioshock, Crysis? Like I said... Age of Conan is a big one it looks so awesome that it makes my pants fit funny, the wait for this game has been killing me for years LOL.

Thoughts?

Cheers
PB.

(sorry for being a nub.)

[Wilbur]

If your machine is going to have >3GB of RAM then you need a 64 bit OS otherwise you won't be using all your RAM.

Ideally for a 5-character machine you'll want 4GB RAM so 64 bit WinXP is probably your best bet.

Enjoy.

[Remote]

I can't speak for other games, but for WoW, running 5 copies at once tends to be mostly CPU heavy. I have a similar machine, and I never see much RAM used up, and the graphic is never really strained. However my CPU is always at least 90 percent...on a quad core 2.4ghz.

[Wilbur]

Overclock your CPU then nub. a Q6600 can easily jump to 3.0GHz even with stock cooling.

[Remote]

Overclock your CPU then nub. a Q6600 can easily jump to 3.0GHz even with stock cooling.
It is overclocked now you condescending bastard!

<3

[Wilbur]

Muha! :-)

[aetherg]

There is no real difference between 32-bit and 64-bit when playing WoW.

DO NOT get 64-bit Windows XP. I use it (I keep meaning to reformat but am too busy leveling) and it is absolutely awful. It is incredibly difficult to install due to poor support for SATA drives out of the box. It continually blue-screened after installation (during OS startup), and took me about 30 hours of hacking at it, doing partial installs and manually replacing files with copies from the install CD to get it to work.

Once it's running, it works decently, although it still has bad hardware support (due to poorly-tested 64-bit drivers, even from major companies like Creative), and absolutely does not run any faster for most apps.

Stick with 32-bit Win XP until Vista SP1 or SP2 are out, then switch.

[Remote]

I'm very pleased with the SP1 beta for Vista. Without it, Vista is a huge pain in the ass...32 or 64.

[Wilbur]

There is no real difference between 32-bit and 64-bit when playing WoW.

You mean aside the maximam RAM that a 32 bit install can read?

On newer components a 64 bit install is fine. Its just the older kit that no devs can be arsed to write drivers for that has problems.

[aetherg]

No, my machine had very recent stuff when I built it a year ago. XP 64 had major problems with the SATA 10K Raptor HDD; the biggest pain was just installing it.

Even now, I have to reboot once a day to fix my sound card (SB X-Fi, not some old junk), which randomly stops recording (kind of a problem when I'm leading raids) and/or starts inserting really loud pops/crackles into my output. According to forums, it's mainly a 64-bit driver problem.

[Wilbur]

I find this extremely hard to believe.

I have never had a single problem with XP 64 bit.

My kit isn't exactly recent.

[Remote]

I heard a lot of horror stories when it first came out. Haven't used it myself.

[aetherg]

I think you may have just gotten lucky; if you google you can easily find tons of pages about people getting blue screens installing XP 64 due to SATA drive and motherboard driver support.

I'm not saying the OS is totally unusable; I've been using it for a year. It's just not worth the potential trouble unless you absolutely must have 4GB of RAM instead of 3GB. And in that case you'd be better off just getting Vista and hoping SP1 releases soon.

[thyrm]

You can use all 4gb of RAM in Windows XP without installing the 64bit version. If you have all the RAM installed when installing Windows XP, it should recognize and use all of it without manipulation. If you installed Windows XP with less than 4gb of RAM and then upgraded, you will need to use the /pae switch on your boot.ini file. Here is more detailed information:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

[Gallo]

If you're willing to spend ~$100 more than the q6600, intel is releasing their new line of quad cores on January 20th, and they are an entirely new technology. The Q9450 is going to be the mid-range one, and it has a 12mb cache on it (as opposed to 6mb on the Q6600) and is apparently going to be an overclockers dream.

I'm going to buy one of these puppies when they come out.

[Vos]

You can use all 4gb of RAM in Windows XP without installing the 64bit version.

This is incredibly misleading, and is only true if you have no devices in your system with Ram. Unfortunately any system that can play wow at all, let alone multibox will need a video card with some form of ram addressed that will take away from your total available Ram... and there are tons of other devices that allocate ram in a typical home/game system....

[Bollwerk]

I use 64-bit Vista and have no problems with any games or drivers. I don't even have SP1 yet. So IMHO, go ahead and get 64-bit Vista. Especially if you plan to play any of the newer DX10 games.

[banksie]

I recently installed XP x64, installation went fine on a new SATA drive. Probs came with older 3com ethernet card, no drivers for it. Also Creative can't make proper drivers for their soundcards, so i sold my x-fi to my friend. Now using integrated realtek sound and nic :cry:

I think i need to research abit and get a soundcard that works with x64.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I use win2K and see 3.66 Gig of ram, which is close enough to 4 gig that I dont really see a big edge to moving to 64 bit.

M2N32-SLI Premium Vista Edition I have that and it has 512MB of flash ram on the motherboard. And I have 4 gig ram in the machine.

[Kilh]

I use 64-bit Vista and have no problems with any games or drivers. I don't even have SP1 yet. So IMHO, go ahead and get 64-bit Vista.

I agree with this, I'm running it on two newly built Q6600 machines with no issues whatsoever.

[twobztwop]

I installed 64bit vista a few weeks ago when I upgraded my ram to 4gb. As far as drivers go, pretty much everything worked and the system is stable. Only problem I ran into was with the iphone. There are no iphone drivers (or itunes) for vista 64... figures.

I have no experience with xp 64, but I've heard most hardware companies didn't bother writing drivers for it (and they all need to be signed by ms or something?) If your going with 4gig of ram, your best option is 64bit vista I'm afraid.

[Phate]

I've had the odd 64 bit related problem, and I can't get Crysis to work, and a few minor stumbling blocks with Vista related compatibility, but nothing else.

[Bollwerk]

I've had the odd 64 bit related problem, and I can't get Crysis to work, and a few minor stumbling blocks with Vista related compatibility, but nothing else.Strange. I have Crysis and it runs perfectly fine on my 64-bit Vista straight out of the box (I don't think they have even patched it yet .. seems stable as is).