64bit OS ?

[Raven]

I was wondering if somebody who knows better than me could explain this to me since I'm kinda shady on this subject. But what is the main differences (in plain english) between 32bit Windows or 64bit Windows ? (mainly with Vista...prejudices aside lol)

The reason I ask is because I have a decent spec system and I have Vista 32bit operating system and I was wondering what advantages 64bit would give me in terms of gaming and general performance vs stability compared to 32bit.

Keep in mind that I have 2 gb ram at the moment and a dual core cpu.

Any takers ?

[chuminis]

OS`s 64 bbits only processors 64 bits, but very conflicts

[Raven]

Structure mate structure!

So from what I gather on your comment the 64bit OS's are for 64bit cpu's....I thought all dual core cpu's were 64bit by nature ? in any case my dual core cpu is 64bit.

As for the other part about conflicts, I'd heard about it....that's why I asked about performance gains vs stability.

So what kind of conflicts do 64bit OS's induce then ?

I heard some games don't work so well with 64bit OS's but not heard about much else.

[techquest]

One of the big differences is that XP for instance has a 3GB memory limitation. The biggest issue though is that although there are lots of CPU's capable of 64bit and Vista and Linux will handle 64 bit natively, there is not much software around that is capable of running on the 64bit CPU's. This will change over time. Vista is capable of handling both.

You might think 64 v 32 is double the speed but that however would be an incorrect assumption. 32 bit is really more than we generally need to handle the kinds of things we use PC's for for some time to come yet.

[Raven]

Cheers pal. So 64bit ain't worth bothering with for a long while yet then.

I suppose it's similar with quad-core CPU's lol.

[techquest]

That's about the correct assumption on 64 bit but also the final issue is what it is you would want to use 64bit for. But my guess on that would be not a lot. Best wait until the software guys have caught up with the hardware guys on that one.

On the quad CPU's though that is a different issue all together as 32 bit and 64 bit will run on them. Instead of a single core to do all your processing you could have a dual core or quad core that the OS will make use of and will add significant speed to your PC.

Well worth investing in a dual or quad but if you are not in a hurry just hang on for a while because the price of them is going down all the time.

[sherlock]

well i,m running vista ultimate 64 on laptop best of all vista no probs no conflicts with any thing that i run.

running xp 64 on spare machine only prob with that is windows live nothing else, and this is used for my card reader and lots more.

Had a prob with web cam on 64 xp too.

so if your using vist go 64 nothing to lose.

Oh i do have another 2 pcs as backup on 32 vista and xp you never know.

[mickeyf]

If your machine is capable of running 64bit and therefore you have all the drivers. You should really load the 64bit software and see how it goes.


There should be a difference between 64bit and 32bit depending on your hardware although you may not notice it. One good test would be to run some performance tests to really see if you stand to gain. (Easily downloadable)