will i notice a difference with 64bit?

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will i notice a difference if i upgrade to vista 64bit, i am currently using vista 32bit with 4gb ram,q6600-2.4ghz and 8800gtx stock, i am currently achieving 11k 3dmark06 score with everything set to performance
 
will i notice a difference if i upgrade to vista 64bit, i am currently using vista 32bit with 4gb ram,q6600-2.4ghz and 8800gtx stock, i am currently achieving 11k 3dmark06 score with everything set to performance

AFAIK Vista 32 can only recognise 2.5gb (or something) of ram so at the moment you are wasting some of your 4gb. Having Vista 64 will enable all 4gb (and more) to be utilised.
 
The 32Bit OS will see 3GB at least.

Many will see either 3.2 or 3.5... Depends it seems on the Motherboard.

In my DS3 Board I see 3.5GB on both XP and Vista 32 and the 4GB on 64Bits

On 3 of my other PCs, I see 3.2 on 2 and 3.5 on the other.
 
Hey winngames, If you have a processor that is capable of handling 64-bit instructions then their is no reason not to get the 64-bit edition. You won't see a massive performance increase going from a 32-bit to a 64-bit operating system as of yet since many programs have been written for 32-bit architectures. However this will be changing in the future because with 64bit being more recognized, more and more programs will be written under 64-bit architectures. When programs are released that are written specifically for 64-bit, you will then start to see a performance increase from 32-bit applications.

As far as the support goes for Windows Vista 64-bit, The support for Windows Vista 64-bit is now excellent and the majority of the hardware and software out their now work absolutely fine under Windows Vista. However please take into account that Windows Vista 64-bit cannot run 16-bit coded applications and also some decidedly 32-bit applications actually have an inclusion of 16-bit code in the installers. Now that's very far and few between and really isn't something you need to worry about unless you specifically know of anything that you use that is 16-bit encoded in any way.

Now the most apparent thing that comes to mind is if you do decide to move to Windows Vista 64-bit, you will be able to take advantage of all 4GB of memory that you have. Now the performance side of things, in the Windows Vista environment, because of the way Vista utilises memory (This is a good thing :p), you should notice a performance increase in application loading times and general usage around the desktop. Now in games, this may not be so apparent. In the vast majority of games currently out their, there is a good chance that adding the extra 2GB of memory to your system will have very little affect on the performance in games. Obviously this is not to say that you won’t notice any such increase.

64-bit is certainly the way to go. :)
 
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Wahey, Im back on after my holiday.

For what its worth, I went to XP64 some time ago, and I cannot for the life of me, understand why people are still bothering with the stock XP?

Sure, the decision to go from XP to Vista is a big one, but not whether to go 32 or 64bit surely?

Even with XP, the differences are quite shocking for me. Games play smoother, overall everythign plays smoother actually, and there is not a single game that I have that does not run just perfectly fine in XP64 and a few have 64Bit versions or at the very least, they update with X64 code and the X64 code makes them much better... People seem to have been ranting on about DX10 v DX9 but if you check out some X64 games vs their X32 counterparts, you will see that the X64 versions are visually superior ( HL2, FarCry etc ).

And as for whether people should go with 32Bit or 64Bit Vista, I find this pathetic and rather tedious now. Vista is 64Bit, there is no arguements on that... The 32Bit version was as far as I care, only brought out purely to let ******* who have a celeron and who have gone along the cheap and nasty path, to upgrade to Vista. No other reason.

The support for 64Bit is the same as it is for 32Bit and probably better actually. It has been a stupid reason to avoid 64Bit for over a year now, so people who seem to worry about that one, need to really get with the program.

Just dont argue.

If you want to stick with XP, use XP64
If you want to upgrade ( or downgrade ) to Vista, go With 64Bit.

Anythign else is ridiculously lame.
 
I really see no point in going vista until the retail vista is less expensive, if you upgrade and change hardware frequently as most seem to do your oem vista is limited to 3 motherboards? correct me if i am wrong or is it even one motherboard?.
 
I'm just about to move form an xp2500 to a c2d system. Not all of my hardware, in particular my DVB-S card has 64-bit drivers. Can I still use 32-bit drivers and apps in 64-bit Vista?
 
I really see no point in going vista until the retail vista is less expensive, if you upgrade and change hardware frequently as most seem to do your oem vista is limited to 3 motherboards? correct me if i am wrong or is it even one motherboard?.

Hello C64, you will be waiting a very long time then. :p The Retail version of Windows Vista is specifically more expensive because you are able to install it on as many systems as you like as long as you only have it installed on one machine at a time. Now their are many debates about the Microsoft licensing terms and many people disagree with it and feel that Microsoft should change these terms.

Regarding the OEM licensing terms. OEM stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer and these versions usually come with pre-built systems or can be ordered from most online retailers. They are much cheaper than their Retail cousins since they are limited in some respects. The operating system itself is exactly the same as the retail version but the difference being is the licensing terms. Once Vista is installed, it is then linked to that particular system so if you install it on any other system you will be violating the EULA. You can upgrade any system component apart from your motherboard and your license will still be intact. If you change the motherboard in your system I am afraid you will have to purchase a new copy of Windows Vista. This is why the OEM versions are much cheaper than the Retail versions.

The only exception to this rule is if your motherboard becomes faulty, if this happens and you can not get the exact same motherboard replacement due to various reasons you are still legal to install and activate your current copy of Windows Vista when your new motherboard arrives due to this being no fault of your own. If and when this happens, you will have to ring up Microsoft for them to re-activate your copy of Windows Vista (They will have no problem re-activating your copy of Windows for you due to the circumstances) for you since online activation will most likely fail.

Hope that clears it up for you. :)
 
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Very true.

XP Retail is still selling for around £150 for home, and £250 for Pro in some places

I paid £280 for my licence for XP PRo a few years back, and found no benefits at all.

In fact, I am on a constant upgrade path with all my PCs and I have had hassles reactivating that edition, and I have a few "Sticker-lifted" licences that I have upgraded and resinatlled every 2 minutes and have never had any issues at all.

So, I have no intention of Ever owning retail edition of Windows again.

I personally feel, that the best version of any Windows I have, in regards to the licence and what can and cannot be done to it, must be with Vista Ultimate Upgrade.

The freedom you get with that, is beyond belief.

Because its an upgrade, I have total freedom to upgarde any of my PCs, whether they are 2K, XP Home, Pro, or 64, and whether they are OEM or RETAIL.
And, since its an upgrade, I can also freely downgrade back to the original Licence on that PC too ( Thats only right ) and I can then have total freedom, to move this Vista licence to any other PC. Since I have both 32 and 64 Bit discs, I can chose at any time to have either 32 or 64 bit editions on the PC, and guess what??? At any time, I can always go back to the previous version of Windows...

The benefits are great, and of course, this only means that I can have Vista installed on one PC at a time, but thats obvious but at least I have the added bonus that I can go back at any time to 2K/XP and that will free up the licence of Vista for use with another PC. You dont have that with other versions.

Oh, and for what its worth, you do not need to have another version of Windows to install an upgrade version of Vista.

I have worked out a couple of tricks.

1 - Part install Vista and then switch it off during the install. Go through the jnk again, and this time it sees an install of windows, but you can then go over it with a fresh install of Vista, and it will wipe the buggered install and start fresh.

2 - Just grab another HD with any version of Windows on it, and chuck it onto the Mobo, alongside your HD that Vista will be going onto, and it see the windows on the other HD and then proceeds to install Vista onto the normal HD

Funkily enough, grab a USB Flash drive and start chucking some files off another PCs C:\ and try that... It can often work even with a crappy pile of files, as it does not always seem to care whether its a good install, it just seems to look for a few files thats all... If they are there then thats fine as far as things go.

Sod it... Im waffling.

Dont bother waiting for the retail of anything to drop in price, because it just aint going to happen... hasnt dropped for anything so far, why would Vista be any different.
 
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