To 64 or not to 64, that is the question....

Alty · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:21

So here I am thinking about computers and games when it dawned on me.... if you were to have a 64bit OS installed to make use of 4GB+ of DDR, how many games are out there that actually have 64bit incarnations?

Presumably a game running on a 64bit OS under 32bit emulation wont have any benefits to it whatsoever...

Can someone actually enlighten me as to what benefits a 64bit OS has specifically to playing games?

Strife212 · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:32

Nothing, but it lets you use 4GB and more of RAM.

I'm on 64 bit and everything works, a lot of people I know are as well.

ic1male · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:50

Far Cry from days of old. Has there really never been any 64-bit executables since then?

Kezmo · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:53

If you want loss in performance, issues with drivers and a os that has to emulate/wrap to use 4 gig of ram that, is'nt needed then yes go 64 bit.

Darkwave · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:54

ic1male said:
Far Cry from days of old. Has there really never been any 64-bit executables since then?

Crysis has a 64-bit client, Warhead should too.

Strife212 · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:55

Drivers HAVE to work on 64 bit or they won't get WHQL.

32Bit is rapidly becoming outdated, 4GB is really low these days, and apps can only use 3GB at most, normally 2GB.

Leebone · 20 Sep 2008 at 19:59

I`d class 4gb ram as a must for gaming on vista.

Kezmo · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:02

Leebone said:
I`d class 4gb ram as a must for gaming on vista.

How so ? i play everything windowed(1680x1050) and have a gadget that shows all four cores and mem usage, i have yet to see anything that uses all my 2 gig ram.
Crysis sits around 60%

Strife212 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:04

It would take an age to tab out of games if you played fullscreen

Leebone · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:05

Pop in another 2 gigs and you will know what i mean

Margaret · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:05

Leebone said:
I`d class 4gb ram as a must for gaming on vista.

Having over 2Gb ram is becoming a must no matter what OS you are using, obviously XP is limited at 3.xGb.

dbmzk1 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:07

4GB is not needed or a must for Vista (or any OS) but it can help in a few select situations. Though if Crysis is only using 60% of 2GB then I'd suggest something is wrong somewhere as that is one of the situations where more ram would help!

As for the 64/32 bit argument, there is no reason not to go 64!

marc2003 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:15

i had task manager open earlier and had 2.8gb physical ram in use playing warhead. windows was using 1.1gb before i started the game.....

Darkwave · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:16

marc2003 said:
1.1gb before i started the game.....

Luckily it would've free that up for Warhead as it's just caching.

You probably knew that though, lol.

Kezmo · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:19

Strife212 said:
It would take an age to tab out of games if you played fullscreen

playing windowed uses more resources than full screen.

Alty · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:35

so can games without 64bit executables still make use of the 4GB+?

XeNoN89 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:37

Vista 64 is the way to go, anybody who says there are lots of issues and it runs crap etc either havnt used vista since launch, havnt used it at all or just have a crappy old pc.

chronic86 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:37

Leebone said:
I`d class 4gb ram as a must for gaming on vista.

i also use 2gb of ram on vista 64 and never had a problem, with bf2142,bf2,css etc yet to try crysis i've just picked it up today but havent installed it yet

so thats utter tosh, its allways nice to have the extra 2gb sitting there IF you need it though

XeNoN89 said:
Vista 64 is the way to go, anybody who says there are lots of issues and it runs crap etc either havnt used vista since launch, havnt used it at all or just have a crappy old pc.

only thing i dont like about vista is the level of security its just not needed for some 1 who knows about computers, trying to network an external hard drive on vista caused me a good few hours of anger... untill i searched about it on the internet. also for people with dual displays vista doesnt support horizontal span mode which is a pain in the ass!

OpenToSuggestions · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:38

I upgraded from 2gb to 4gb recently. I had to change OS to 64bit vista from 32bit in order to see the full 4gb.

Alt tabing out of a game is now quicker, and windows is generally a bit quicker, event hough when I had 2gb ram there was loads free when on the desktop.

chronic86 · 20 Sep 2008 at 20:44

i noticed windows being much quicker just upgrading from xppro to vistaU64.. 4gb is oin my upgrade list i'm pretty sure most gamers will need it by the end of 09!