Poll: If You Don’t Have 64-Bit Windows in 2013, You’ll be Missing Out

32 or 64bit Windows?

  • 32bit

    Votes: 3 1.4%

  • 64bit

    Votes: 210 98.6%
  • Total voters
    213
A lot of games aren't even using close to the 2GB limit and also a lot of games are far far from optimal in their memory use these days either so I don't really see a pressing need for it gaming wise yet, the only game I've really seen pushing close to the limit is eve online and thats mostly because its less agressive with its memory management if you have more memory free.

New consoles aren't going to change anything - they might have 8GB or so of RAM but thats split between system, video and other sub-systems and not used like system RAM is on a PC even with the new consoles being closer to a PC than previous ones.

That said I'm rocking 16GB of RAM (or more) in my systems and 64bit OS and not looking back :D

EDIT: Except my gaming PC ironically which is still on 4GB as its using Blade ULV for stupidly high bandwidth (but still 64bit OS).
 
Gimpymoo said:
Yes, I read that after looking it up a little more.

It is a situation which means the PS4 could be easier for developers to program than the next Xbox which is an odd situation indeed.
Click to expand...

Why? The next Xbox is using pretty much the same CPU as the PS4, though the GPU's appear to be different.
 
Gimpymoo said:
I was not aware specifications were known for next Xbox.
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They were leaked by vgleaks.com. AFAIK they didn't state where the specifications were sourced from.

durango_arq.jpg


http://www.vgleaks.com/world-exclusive-durango-unveiled-2/
 
valkynaz said:
4GB really is all you need though. I ran a few games and these are the results I got:

So as you can see, at no point does my memory usage exceed 4GB, even if you take an unrealistic value of 2GB memory needed for OS.
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Perhaps if you're a lightweight user who closes everything and likes loading times, in ''idle'' mode my pc uses 4.7 gb ram, and nearly 5.9gb is used by superfetch. Only 1.6 gb out of 12 is truly ''wasted'' and not used when I'm idling.

Any user who does not want to waste time waiting on things because of closing/opening apps while gaming, needs at least a decent quadcore, 8gb ram, and an SSD...
 
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BaDBoY_uK said:
+1 but the above post is also true. Not many games use more than 4GB, if anything close... some games use more than 2GB VRAM though but pls don't debate that here haha
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No, you are missing the point, as is the OP.
We have to debate and include that.
The ram limit is addressable ram, of all types, so if our little 32bit OS is ju,ped on and uses 2gb of vram, then it can only address whats left in its bank, leaving windows with an effective 2gb left of ram to work with, for everything, multitasking, the os, the game you are playing.

Thats why everyone should be on 64 bit, so the 4gb of ram you plug in is all addressable and available for the os to access and use, in games and in everything else.
 
Broken Hope said:
Why? The next Xbox is using pretty much the same CPU as the PS4, though the GPU's appear to be different.
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Is one ati and the other nvidia?
Whos running with what equipment, and to what level, isnt a ps4 like an ati 7850, or a 7870 downclocked to a 7850? I thought i heard that, what about xbox, what are they utilising?
 
snowdog said:
Perhaps if you're a lightweight user who closes everything and likes loading times, in ''idle'' mode my pc uses 4.7 gb ram, and nearly 5.9gb is used by superfetch. Only 1.6 gb out of 12 is truly ''wasted'' and not used when I'm idling.

Any user who does not want to waste time waiting on things because of closing/opening apps while gaming, needs at least a decent quadcore, 8gb ram, and an SSD...
Click to expand...

If you're using an SSD you shouldn't have superfetch enabled.
 
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Omaeka said:
Well does anyone on here not have a 64-bit OS? I'd take a shot at no. :p
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I don't. I ordered the 32-bit version of Win7 from OCUK by mistake and haven't been bothered to upgrade it yet. I do plan to when I have the time, but it's really buggering awkward to make the change so I keep putting it off.
 
Dauthi said:
No he is right windows can only see 3.5GB of system memory (GPU+RAM).
so as GPU Ram increses you can't address an increaseing amount of RAM

I doubt it would just address VRam thou.
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Then why can my work machine fill 3.5gb of ram with a 1gb GPU installed?

It's not as simple as 32 bit means 4GB total max.
 
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Here's some fun for you all!

Calculate the addressable space of a 32bit OS;

2^32 = 4294967296, which is the value in bytes, divide by 1024 for a while and you get eventually 4GB :D
Same is done with 64bit, just do 2^64, which boils down to about 16EB's xD

Obviously it also boils down to physical and limitations implemented into the OS. The other thing to note, when compiling for 32bit, typically a pointer will be a 4byte integer or variable, which is 32bits... ;D compiling for 64bit will typically give you a 8byte pointer :)

I assume that Windows does some trickery when running 32bit on a 64bit OS as the pointers obviously cannot see past the 4GB value because it cannot store that high. Maybe Windows does crazy memory emulation (which I think it does anyway when running 32bit process on 64bit!?). Great, now I gotta go read this up!

Now I'll just wait for someone with much more experience to come along and correct me or add to it, which is fine as that's my current understanding and I'll be more than happy to learn!
 
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