Do all games benift from being installed on Windows XP 64?

WatchTower · 10 Apr 2006 at 19:14

Do all games benift from being installed on Windows XP 64? I read someone saying they got a performance increase in a flight sim and wondered if all games get a perfoemance increase?

Locrian · 10 Apr 2006 at 19:38

I have no idea, i do know a load of games are incompatible however.

XPE · 10 Apr 2006 at 19:46

Depends on the game, games like farcry and HL2 both have 64bit upgrades that help.

the only games i know that dont work with it are starforce game becuase starforce doesnt work with xp64

NathanE · 10 Apr 2006 at 20:39

WatchTower said:
Do all games benift from being installed on Windows XP 64? I read someone saying they got a performance increase in a flight sim and wondered if all games get a perfoemance increase?

Yes all software receives a benefit of a small degree. If the software has been compiled or, better yet, optimised specially for X64 then the benefit will increase, possibly by a substantial amount.

Roduga · 10 Apr 2006 at 20:44

XPE said:
Depends on the game, games like farcry and HL2 both have 64bit upgrades that help.

the only games i know that dont work with it are starforce game becuase starforce doesnt work with xp64

Starforce doesn't work with me. Full stop.

m4cc45 · 10 Apr 2006 at 21:55

NathanE said:
Yes all software receives a benefit of a small degree. If the software has been compiled or, better yet, optimised specially for X64 then the benefit will increase, possibly by a substantial amount.

Actually not quite true - depends on the application the majority of games are 32-bit which means no increase what-so-ever (other than the obligatory speed of processor increase which is negliable compared to graphics card).

Need to look for 64 bit compatible games - which the majority of games being made now are.

Macca

kdd · 10 Apr 2006 at 22:25

Roduga said:
Starforce doesn't work with me. Full stop.

Starforce sucks!!!111

Nieldo · 10 Apr 2006 at 22:32

I really hope that by the time Vista is out that games have seen the light and start making 64bit versions because Ive got a 64bit processor and its just sitting around running a 32bit OS.

I plan to get the 64bit edition of Vista, but it will suck if non of my games work on it.

Bes · 10 Apr 2006 at 22:52

Nieldo said:
I really hope that by the time Vista is out that games have seen the light and start making 64bit versions because Ive got a 64bit processor and its just sitting around running a 32bit OS.

I plan to get the 64bit edition of Vista, but it will suck if non of my games work on it.

Normally there is no problem switching down to 32 bit from 64. i.e. my Solaris box here has a 64bit OS and runs 32bit applications with no probs.

Sleepery · 11 Apr 2006 at 09:20

I wouldn't install x64 in the hopes of getting better performance in games. Even in the ones specifically enhanced for 64bit processors, I was hard pressed to see a difference. Chronicles of Riddick actually ran slower :confused:

Combine that with the fact that driver support for x64 is abysmal and it's more trouble than it's worth. Spent ages getting it to work a few weeks back, hunting down drivers for the motherboard and onboard sound, getting games installed and tweaking the installers with Orca to get them loaded, only to find there are no 64bit drivers for iPods. Their workaround is to use a 32bit o/s :mad:

Beast698 · 11 Apr 2006 at 09:24

Does anyone know of any articles that actually test FPS on x64 games?

PinkPig · 11 Apr 2006 at 09:33

Nieldo said:
I really hope that by the time Vista is out that games have seen the light and start making 64bit versions because Ive got a 64bit processor and its just sitting around running a 32bit OS.

I plan to get the 64bit edition of Vista, but it will suck if non of my games work on it.

Thing is, your 64 bit processor is also a very good 32 bit processor, there is very little point in making 64 bit versions of games for the sake of it, the performance difference is often tiny. 64 bit doesn't necessarily mean any performance increase at all, it needs more memory, and a 32-bit version of the software will run on anything.

WatchTower · 11 Apr 2006 at 10:55

I put XP pro and XP 64 on my PC and if I want to play games I boot up in XP 64 and if I want to go online I boot up in XP Pro.

Sleepery · 11 Apr 2006 at 11:00

What do you do if you want to play a game online :confused:

WatchTower · 11 Apr 2006 at 11:06

I'll use XP Pro I gave it 30Gb of space so I'll be fine adding an mmorpg or two.

Sleepery · 11 Apr 2006 at 12:34

Actually that reminds me of the other crappy thing about x64 - try finding a decent virus checker or firewall for it :rolleyes:

WatchTower · 11 Apr 2006 at 13:24

I use AVG and love it. Is it worth paying for AVG I've used it for a long time and feel I should give something back.

The Running Man · 11 Apr 2006 at 18:16

so... like 3 years after the Athlon - 64!!!!- push pc vendors are still not shipping win xp 64 bit, games are not shipping 64 bit ready

infact what was the point of 64 bit if it was to be implemented soo poorly?

m4cc45 · 11 Apr 2006 at 18:25

You've got to remember that 64 bit is primarily for applications and not games.

Items such as 3D renderers, etc. do benefit a lot from a 64 bit processor.

Macca

FatRakoon · 11 Apr 2006 at 20:20

Actually I know 2 people who bought their LapTops with XP64 running and they are great.

XP64 does not NEED more RAM... It is written to make more use of the RAM, and so in theory, it should run sweet as a nut with 2GB over 1GB, but to be honest, I found this to be untrue on my P4... or at least I saw no difference at all in performance comparing XP Pro 32 & 64 with both 1GB and 2GB of RAM.

AntiVirus / Firewalls on XP64?
I use NOD32, its perfect and as has already been mentioned, AVG also runs great and I have heard that AVAST also runs perfectly well to, but I have not tried it myself.
As for a firewall, I cannot comment as I use a hardware one, but the built-in one is very capable.

As for speed, this is something that has been bugging the hell out of me, but the first time I tried XP64, I ran it on my MSI Neo2 Platinum, with a Winchester3200 & 1GB RAM... At the time I could not run the USB Modem ( BT Voyager 100 ) and the IDE Card ( I like lots of HDs ) and so I could not get it fully running right, and I found it to be much, much quicker than plaing old XP32... So, I decided that I would upgrade to XP64 ASAP, and in the mean time, I have gone to a router, and found drivers for the IDE Card ( ITE 8212 ) and my printer etc, and I went back to XP64 and found no speed increase at all???

I put the trial back on and it was quicker???

Hows that for annoying!

Anyway, bottom line is that XP64 and XP32 for 99% of what you do with it, is no different in terms of speed, whether for gaming or for general apps.

I myself have only found a few thigns that are not fully working.

PageDeFrag

Partition Magic 8 - Works fine, but if it needs to restart to alter anything, it wont work, so resizing partition that dont have a page file on, are fine, but you cannot shrink C: only make it bigger, but other than that its ok

O&O Defrag - There is a Beta of v8 and it works, but there is a few inconsistencies when compared to the 32Bit version, other than that it works 100% fine.

Thats pretty much it really, all my games work just fine, and yes, HL2 and FarCry have 64Bit updates but to be honest, HL2 takes long enough as it is to install and update without having to wait another day or two for it to alos do the 64 bit stuff too! - I hate steam.