Printable View
Would there be any good reason to switch to a 64bit version of Windows? Are there downsides, like program incompatibility etc? If I will see performance gains, and a fix to this "windows doesn't like all that ram you have" problem it might be worth the trouble as I have been thinking of reformatting here anyways.
Thanks in advance
-butta
The main benefit is that you can address > 4 GB of RAM, which means that if you have 4+ GB installed you don't lose any of it to legacy crap that steals the addresses. The downside is that device driver and other compatability for 64-bit can be spotty. I'm personally happy with what I get from the 64-bit nVidia drivers, but I do have some lingering issues with multiple GPUs that might go away if I reverted back to Vista x32.
You have to make sure there's 64-bit drivers for all your hardware. If it's all fairly new kit they should be available. The major brands have them available...if you have some old crappy no-brand cheap scanner you might run into problems though.
I haven't run into any issues with programs not wanting to run so far. They'll just run in 32-bit mode.
Not having played with Vista64 since its first release I was pleasantly surprised when I was forced to install Vista64 on my new System... all the chipset drivers worked, my ATI 1950XT, G15 and X-keys etc all have decent drivers
I'm running Vista Ultimate 64bit on my new system and it runs flawlessly. And just for clarification, it's not MORE than 4 gigs, its even if you want to run 4 gigs period, you need to have 64 bit to utilize all of it. With my latest system, a 512MB video card, and everything else, my 32bit OS would only recognize 2.75GB out of my 4. So actually if you're running more than 3GB, you're better off with a 64 bit setup to utilize all of your RAM.
My 32 bit windows xp recognizes 3.5 gig of my 4.
You see the full 4 GB on a 64-bit system because physical RAM can be assigned to adresses that do not conflict with legacy devices. So it really is important that you can address > 4 GB on a 64-bit system, even if you only have 4 GB installed.
Yeah my dual Xeon 2.8GHz machine with a 512MB AGP card sees 3.5 as well. For some reason something no my new system is taking up more that throttled me back to 2.75GB when I had 32-bit installed. ?(Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Maxion',index.php?page=Thread&postID=54630#post54 630
If you want a 64 bit operating system get vista.
Driver issues etc, are going to be addressed in VISTA first, windows 64bit second.
Suvega just got a bonus ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Suvega',index.php?page=Thread&postID=54804#post54 804
But seriously, what hes saying is right, Manufacturers are far more likely to address driver issues in Vista before they address them in other OS's
For whatever its worth, I'm building a new rig and I'm going straight to 8gb RAM and Vista Ultimate 64-bit from day one.
I bought a pair of 2Gbs so I have room to update in the future ;)