32 or 64 bit Vista

[Existence.]

Hey, Existence here.

I currently have 32 bit XP. I used to have Windows Vista, but due to various issues, I formatted and switched back to XP. I loved Vista, I had absolutely no driver problems, no slowdowns, etc.

Recently, I have been thinking about switching back to Vista. My friend absolutely loves the 64 bit version of Vista Ultimate, and want's me to get 64 bit as well. Since I haven't heard much about it, I don't really know if I should get 32 bit or 64 bit.

What's your opinion?

 

[Hidden_Question]

If I were you, I'd stick to 32 bit. Here's why:

Not long ago I had a lan party, and everyone there including me had a 32 bit operating system, except one guy. Now, on 80% of the games we played, he got some kind of incompatibility error.

one game I know you probably cna't play is Half-life 2 deathmatch (don't know about other source games). Everyone was playing it fine, except he kept getting and "out of memory" error, even though he had a monster rig (quad core, 4 gb ram, 8800gt, 500 gb harddrive, etc)

Other games just ran unplayably slow, such as AoE3. Also, other games, the smoke and other particle effects were reduced to fugly, white, blocky, 2d textures, even though we just updated his drivers before the LAN party.

So if I were you, I'd get the 32 bit, unless you don't intend to play games on it.

 

[Existence.]

Thanks for the input.

 

[MikeV]

Well i have the 32 bit version of vista but my friend got the 64 bit and he said he likes it a lot better. Based on how intelligent he is about computers and formatting, i would tell you to go with the 64 bit version of vista. He is home premium though.

 

[el diablo]

I have played TF2, CSS, and COD4 on 32bit and 64bit Vista, and actually got framerate improvement with the 64bit system!

Honestly I say 64 because that is the way things are going to be headed

 

[RickJS]

64bit, for one it reads all 4gigs of my ram. Second, I got a FPS improvement. Third, everything else seems faster. Fourth, I need to stop talking like this, =].

 

[Visa[changeme]]

May depend on what types of software you use as to whether there are 64bit drivers available. I would first research the drivers for the programs/games you plan on installing.

I would imagine most hardware would have drivers but it wouldn't hurt to double check those also.

 

[Jubei]

I have Vista Ultimate 64 and I can play HL2DM just fine. But please, please, please, PLEASE make sure your hardware has 64 bit vista drivers available for download. It would royally stink to install Vista 64 only to find that your sound card or tv tuner didn't work - or worse, no NIC drivers! My printer, for instance doesn't work in Vista 64. The other thing I would say is to not bother with 64 if you have 2GB or less ram.

 

[Dryft]

I'm running Vista 64 Ultimate and haven't had any compatibility issues at all. If I was going to use a 32bit OS, I'd stay with XP, but if you're wanting to move back to Vista, 64bit is the only way IMHO. It's also great because you can address more than ~3GB RAM. I'll be maxing my motherboard to 8GB sometime in the near future (before people start chiming in on how that's overkill, I run many many apps at once and SolidWorks assemblies devour RAM)

 

[Flippy the Squirrel]

You know, that "addressing more RAM" bit is pretty irritating. It seems as though (once again) Microsoft has crippled features in one version of the OS to encourage sales in another. Windows XP is capable of addressing up to 4 GB of RAM without a problem - in fact, there were 32 bit versions of Windows 2000 that could address up to 32 GB of memory.

From Microsoft's site:
[blockquote]Windows 2000 Memory Support. With Windows 2000 Professional and Server, the maximum amount of memory that can be supported is 4 GB (identical to Windows NT 4.0, as described later in this section). However, Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports 8 GB of physical RAM and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server supports 32 GB of physical RAM using the PAE feature of the IA-32 processor family, beginning with Intel Pentium Pro and later.[/blockquote]

Okay, I'm done ranting about stupid Microsoft.

 

[OODA Loop]

one big difference is that 64 bit is able to read more than 3 gigs (around 3.3) it can read up to 32 gigs i think

but, its harder to find apps that come in 64 bit, if you use high end apps like photoshop and whatnot then you will be fine, but most open source and other apps only come in 32m just another thing to pounder

 

[HaloRacer]

If your computer has the 64 bit capability, I'd just go ahead and get the 64 bit Vista. The Vista 64 is much more stable, advanced, and compatible than the Windows XP version. The XP version was terrible, but now more and companies are releasing drivers for these operating systems. Every time I go to download all my drivers, I always see a 64 bit choice now.

 

[Nemo]

Unfortunately I was stupid and bought the OEM of Vista 32, so now I'm stuck with it and can't sell it unless it goes with my motherboard... But I think I may just go ahead and put down the money and run Vista 64. I have XP 64 and it's great, so I dunno if I should run that or Vista...

 

[/dev/null]

I just did a fresh system build a few months back. Got an MSDN universal subscription for work, so I had my choice of operating systems. Bumped the new rig up to 8 gig of RAM, so I was going 64-bit this time. Vista (ultimate) was just flaky on my 780i mainboard. Many years back I had the same experience with XP-64, when its drivers were in the 1.0.x state. Gave XP-64 another try, and I am impressed. Same codebase as Server 2003, drivers solid, and so far, just about everything I throw at it just works like it did in a 32-bit environment - except they are all running at the same time now...

 

[-nocturne=-]

As far as games go (at least modern ones), I've never heard of any problems on 64bit that didn't specifically involve drivers. More often, you'd have problems with compatibility with various other apps you might use, such as media encoders or AV programs.

Keep in mind also that the retail DVD's of Vista have both the 32bit and 64bit installations, so you can always use 32bit now for compatibility, and then switch to 64bit when it gains the support you need.

 

[Existence.]

Well, I installed 64 bit Vista, but my wireless card (WG311v2) wasn't compatible. When I tried to install the drivers for it, it was apparently "Up to date". So, I went ahead and installed 32 bit Vista. Turns out my wireless card didn't work with it either. The drivers installed, but no access points were detected.
It's funny, because a while ago when I had 32 bit Vista my wireless card worked fine, but now it doesn't :/

 

[Glitch]

I have also had software compatibility issues with 64bit Vista. I used to work for a software company and we would outright refuse a project proposed by a company running 64bit Vista. We made the mistake of actually doing it once and, even up till the day I left, we had not worked out all the kinks.

 

[Ryael]

Ok...I have to do this. I've spent a lot of time with XP Pro 32 and 64, and Vista Ultimate 32 and 64. For now I say stick with XP 32. As a gamer, we're taught that we're supposed to be on the curve, get the newest and greatest stuff out there. That works with everything EXCEPT operating systems.

First my rant on Vista:

Microsoft isn't fully backing their new workhorse, Vista, which is a bad sign for users. They've extended support for XP (realize that this is jawdropping news in the computer world) and are already in the Alpha stages of their next OS release, Microsoft Seven (2010). It's normal for Microsoft to start it's next OS soon after the public release of it's current model, but work on "Seven" has already been underway for over a year...scary. Even the developers of Vista put up videos on youtube, which of course were deleted soon after, complaining about how it clumsily worked. If you're worried about DirectX 10 over 9.0c, don't. There is a lot of motion to crack 10 so it effectively works on XP. I've used Vista, and some of it's new features are really neat and good to have, but the fact that it will absolutely drain your hardware is a terrible, terrible thing. We're gamers. We crave speed and efficiency. Vista is not efficient, XP is kinda. XP 32 is hindered by the 3.333Gigs of RAM cap, but it's worth it because the system itself doesn't need nearly as much to get off the ground.

32 or 64?:

The idea of 64-bit processors is a great one. The potential there is incredible compared to 32. The unfortunate thing is that companies have been hesitant to move to 64-bit because we live in a 32-bit world. It really sucks. I'd love to have a 64-bit OS with some amazing capabilities but that's just not happening. If you're looking to play games, most issues can be resolved with updating drivers and tweaking the system, but the benefits really don't outweigh the bad notes.

What it really comes down to is "computing friction." With more processes running at once, you're computer will be slowed down dramatically. Vista has A LOT of processes that it runs in the background, and if you try to shut them down your system will become unstable. I'm an IT and IS major, Microsoft is my life in a manner of speaking. I have to say, without a doubt, stick with XP 32 and hope that Microsoft Seven works better.

Edit: You're right Lafinass, crack is the wrong word. There are people still working, or at least pressing, on 9.0c to raise its capabilities. Sry =).

 

[Lafinass]

There will be no 'cracking' of DX10 to work on XP. The way Vista and XP handle the calls to the devices are night and day.

It would be like trying to feed diesel into a gasoline engine.

 

[Existence.]

Alright everyone, thanks for your input. I'm the kinda guy that HAS to have the latest of everything, so I will probably just stick with 64 bit Vista.
I used to have 32 bit Vista, and absolutely loved it. It was as fast as XP, and I didn't notice a slowdown in games. They are both about the same efficiency in my book.

I have to stick with XP, because as I stated before, my wireless adapter doesn't work in any Vista. But if it did work, let me assure you that I would be on 64 bit Vista right now.