windows vista 32/64 bit

Soldato
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What a load of cack vOn. 64bit is faster for os related stuff as it's 64bit and everything deisgned in the OS is also 64bit. Thats pretty much all the processes at launch.. 32bit software will run just as fast as on a 32bit operating system. And some of them will run faster due to using q-words.

Again your sprouting rubbish and looking at it the wrong way.

Why stay with 32bit? what advantages does 32bit give? 64bit gives lots of advatages with next to no drawback. The same can't be aid about 32bit.
If we were at the 16Bit to 32Bit stage then Von would be doing just the same.
With the same arguments.
 
Soldato
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I wasn't blinded by MS marketing :)

I first decided to try out XP x64 since I got an A64 (which is now in another PC) before I started building my C2D system, and it was fine, no slowdown whatsoever, just a couple of compatibility issues due to old old hardware (therefore both 32-bit AND 64-bit were now unsupported).

Honestly, you have hardly anything to lose by switching to x64, and the more support and widely-known it becomes, the more product developers will take notice so it eventually ends up mainstream.
 
Associate
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Again, besides testing procedure being slightly funny, as they used signed drivers for both Vistas thus proving nothing beside drivers being equally limiting to the point of benchmarking differences being at error margin levels - I still don't see the advantage - take the 8800 card in 1600x1200:
Bioshock - x64 is 0.6 frames slower
Oblivion - x64 is 0.2 frames faster
Stalker - x64 is 0.7 frames slower
CoH - x64 is 0.5 frames slower
FEAR - x64 is 1 frame slower
ET:QW - x64 is 0.2 frames faster

Firing squad conclusion being - x64 is mostly as fast as 32bit Vista. Is that supposed to be advantage? That kind of stuff is where you take first set of 32 bit beta drivers and bash x64 back under rock. Obviously it's still running 32bit binary, but hell - 64bit system should be much faster from kernel level up. In this case, it is clearly not working. If "as good as" or "as fast as" is the best it can do then why even bother?
Running the same benchmark 2 times on an identical system can give that small of a difference. The only reason there is even a 32 bit vista is because of semprons/p4s/athlon xps/other old processors, the next version of windows will be 64 bit only.
 
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Man of Honour
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And that pretty much sums it up really. It's wierd how so many people against progress? :confused:

It seems as though MS almost shot themselves in the foot. By making Windows XP x86 so good compared to 2000/98/ME, people don't like change and will hold on until they are literally forced to change. And then it's immediatly the best thing since sliced bread.

It's amazing how much criticism there was for both x86 and x64 versions of XP when they were first released, yet now it's totally different.

Change frightens people, it always has, but that's no defence against progress.

Burnsy
 
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Trying out Vista 64 now, is there 64 bit anti-virus? AVG seems to be 32 bit (running TM has *32) as are Creative X-Fi drivers.
 
Associate
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Oh guys please dont stop this argument!

I have to say after doing a few days research i'm going to go with 64bit vista, i'm currently running 32bit vista for 30 day trial. If i'm gonna spend £120+ on an OS then i'd like it to be future proof for a good 5 years till the next OS comes out. Within that 5 years i'm guessing (hoping now) more and more apps and even more importantly games will require more ram and so most user will have to break into 4gb+ in order to get best results.

Just a point on these drivers; i've noticed that nvidia have been releasing there latest drivers to both 32bit and 64bit parties. And from what i gather these drivers have been coming out hot and fast to point where its a joke to have to install the latest driver each week! However I would assume these graphics drivers are the most important for your system in order to see performance increases in games. If the 64bit drivers were taking ages to come out then its so obvious that 32bit would be the only sensible gamers options... but its not.

So often is the case that people stick witht he tried and trusted... i remember going from win 3.1 to wins 95 and then win 98 to 2000 and then xp and it was exactly the same thing as todays xp to vista. We now have the extra confusion of which is better 32bit or 64bit. In every case we should get on the latest technology, we need to, technology in its nature evolves to something that is always better, well for the most case.

It honestly seems 64bit is the way that Microsoft are pushing us and we cannot stop them and why should we.
 
Soldato
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As previously mentioned, there's very little difference in the source code between 32-bit and 64-bit environments, just a few extra defines that the compiler interprets depending on which platform you want to compile it for. The drivers, for example, will share the same codebase, so in theory very little developer time is spent on catering to a particular platform. Various Linux distros have multi-platform support, and they're open source, so anyone is welcome to look into the code to see the specifics :)
 
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Yes they have. Vista codec pack with the x64 component pack.

I have that downloaded and have spent a lot of time on a MCE forum, but still get the WMC dreaded green screen. I run a Hauppage MCE TV card.

To fix WMC it I have to uninstall the drivers reboot and let windows reintall the drivers to get it to work.

Replies I get say at the moment there are codec problems with WMC on Vista64 which will be fixed shortly.

The WinTV program works, it's just WMC live TV that green screens.
 
Soldato
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humm not sure then. plenty of us are running it fine. perhaps it's to do more with drivers for certain hardware?
Sounds it - the codec needed to watch TV/DVD (MPEG-2) is bundled in Vista, so you don't need to install anything else. I've had no problems watching Live TV (but I don't have a Hauppauge card!).
 
Associate
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Yep, a tad annoying having to reboot, but not the end of the world.

I'm going to ask a question, that I think I know the answer to, but not 100% sure.

When you buy Vista retail you get both 32/64 bit OS disk (MS will send you the 64bit version by post if it's not included). If you install the 32bit now and later decide to change to 64bit can you under the same licence?

I am under the impression you can as long as long as you only have the OS intalled on one PC, am I correct?

If I am, buying a Vista retail may be more cost effective in this instance.
 
Soldato
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When you buy Vista retail you get both 32/64 bit OS disk (MS will send you the 64bit version by post if it's not included). If you install the 32bit now and later decide to change to 64bit can you under the same licence?

I am under the impression you can as long as long as you only have the OS intalled on one PC, am I correct?
Yep - and you can on OEM (although not on only one PC at a time, just the original PC).

Basically you buy a license to use Vista, not a 32/64 bit version of Vista. You can install whichever you like, and change whenever you like. The restrictions of OEM/Retail still apply though.

i.e.
Retail - One PC at a time.
OEM - Only on the original PC (along with elaborate definitions of when the original PC ceases to be the original PC when you're upgrading).
 
Soldato
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There was a link posted by Burnsy at some point on how to obtain alternative media for OEM. Can't remember it off hand. You could just borrow the 64-bit media off a friend (or download it... but that's a bit of a grey area. The legality of it is you're allowed to download it, but not upload it... or something!)

EDIT: Link is http://support.microsoft.com/kb/326246 from this thread
 
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