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186
 
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 20/04/2008 18:27:08
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Hello my first mag suggestion, born out of frustration at paying alot of money for error messages, as my 32bit friends walk past me using any piece of software that they wish to choose.
But first my story which made me come here,
Iv just formatted and re installed windows xp professional 64bit which i bought at great expense over a year ago for over a hundred pounds. As i was installing some of my programs back on or at least the latest versions of them, on more then one occasion i was still getting the"this software doesn't support windows server 2003 or x64 based operating systems" message. If i goto the microsoft web site to see what software updates i have for my operating system and let it auto detect what OS i am running it still thinks iv got some form of windows server a small but annoying problem. I know there are a few features that aren't supported in windows xp 64bit like the new msn wont work and if you minimise media player you cant make the buttons appear for track forward play etc in the start menu. Again small but annoying.
Any how...
In the need to get DirectX 10 and to install all my software first time i thought i had found a reason to upgrade!!! So i hunted down a copy of Vista ultimate 64bit to make my life easier but its around the £150 mark still and i don't really want to pay that much for a load of software errors and incompatibility issues, again!
So i was wondering...
Is it worth getting a 64bit operating system? It doesn't cost any more, but with vista are there still compatibility issues 64bit wise, is there a true performance gain? The fact is really that there are a lot of 64bit processors in peoples homes now, and are software vender's making the full use out of 64bit hardware if they are not just 32bit ports anyway. Being a bit of a gamer i know that valve made a massive fuss about the 64bit patch for half life 2 so are all games running on 64bit pieces of software i expect so but what of photo shop too win rar. I was wondering if you thought that the industry had embraced the 64bit revolution or just moved on to the next one as all we seen to hear about these days is intel and AMD adding another 2 cores on here and there  . Maybe a test of load times on 64bit and 32bit operating systems maybe with 2 cores and 4 cores as well.
Perhaps some of these questions could be answered in an topic of some kind! I'm not sure if there are any ideas that you may want. All i do know is that when i am trying to find out this kind of stuff Micromart normally hits me with the article just as i needed it.
Thanks
stu
"Im PS3 Till I Die."
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186
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 20/04/2008 18:27:08
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Sorry should be in magazine article suggestions. Doh!
"Im PS3 Till I Die."
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Pentium
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Today @ 02:15:08
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Just to add my twopence worth:
I've installed XP and Vista 64 at some time. Not had many issues at all. Maybe the odd program, but there are many an alternative out (are you using specific programs that you can't just switch to alternatives as that may be one of your issues).
If your hardware is supported then there are very few issues really. As to performance benefits, the program has to be enabled to do so. If your running 32-bit software then you will actually take a small hit on performance as WOW64 has to run it (Windows on Windows 64) which is a sort of emulation of windows 32-bit.
When you get programs that do take advantage of 64-bit though, they do help. For example, with 64-bit you gain access to more RAM (32-bit is limited to 4Gb) so programs like Photoshop (which will soon have a 64-bit variant released) will be able to gobble up all the ram it wants.
The only other advantage I have seen to 64-bit is the Far-Cry 64-bit patch. The difference in graphics was huge and really made it look beautiful (rivals Crysis as it is actually playable!). However, this has been hacked to run on 32bit windows. I haven't done it myself, but it sounds like the whole improvement is there.
I know there are a few forumites on here that are running 64-bit just fine. If you have specific incompatibilites (either lack of hardware drivers or older software that isn't happy to make that switch) then you may want to play safe with 32-bit.
Why not just stick with XP64 and maybe us lot can try and help out and find what's going wrong?
If you'd have been here before you paid for XP64, I could have pointed you to the 3/6 month trial that is freely downloadable off Microsoft themselves.
Disclaimer: Any advice I provide is only applicable in my reality and may need altering to fit yours There is no place like 127.0.0.1
Best Video Evar! UPDATED
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Octo-core Atom @ 233GHz (ES)
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The only other advantage I have seen to 64-bit is the Far-Cry 64-bit patch. The difference in graphics was huge and really made it look beautiful (rivals Crysis as it is actually playable!). However, this has been hacked to run on 32bit windows. I haven't done it myself, but it sounds like the whole improvement is there.
A 64-bit CPU can't do anything more than a 32-bit CPU. It doesn't magically mean that things that weren't possible before are now suddenly possible. Far Cry (or even Crysis) could have been written for and run on an 8-bit CPU -- and still look the same as it does now. It's just that the 8-bit CPU would have to have a huge address bus (to access all the necessary RAM) and would have to be incredibly fast -- 100GHz, anyone?
It was always possible to have the 64-bit Far Cry extension on a 32-bit platform. The reason why they were limited to 64-bit was because AMD was using it to showcase its 64-bit CPUs. The limitation was entirely artificial (which is why it's probably been hacked).
Classic PCs
Original IBM PC (4.77MHz 8088, 256KB RAM, monochrome) · Original IBM PC XT (4.77MHz 8088, 512KB, 10MB HDD, monochrome) · Original Compaq Deskpro (7.14MHz 8086, 640KB, 20MB HDD, CGA graphics)
Home Computers
Commodore VIC-20 · C64 original · C64 Terminator edition · C16 · Amiga 500 · Amiga 600 · Amiga 600 HD · Amiga 1200 Acorn Electron · A3010 (Archimedes) · A4000 (Archimedes) Others Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K · Dragon 32
Consoles
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286
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 03/11/2008 23:57:37
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| The point of 64-bit is made perfectly by the current low price of DDR2 memory. If you want more than 3GB, then you'll need the memory addressing offered by 64-bit operating systems.
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Octo-core Atom @ 233GHz (ES)
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Last Login: Today @ 01:30:08
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It's interesting that being able to address more memory could have been achieved on existing 32-bit CPUs by simply widening the address bus. I wonder why that approach wasn't considered? The address bus on 64-bit CPUs is "only" 40-bit, and that could have been bolted onto 32-bit CPUs without much difficulty. Either way, a new version of Windows would have been needed, even so.
Classic PCs
Original IBM PC (4.77MHz 8088, 256KB RAM, monochrome) · Original IBM PC XT (4.77MHz 8088, 512KB, 10MB HDD, monochrome) · Original Compaq Deskpro (7.14MHz 8086, 640KB, 20MB HDD, CGA graphics)
Home Computers
Commodore VIC-20 · C64 original · C64 Terminator edition · C16 · Amiga 500 · Amiga 600 · Amiga 600 HD · Amiga 1200 Acorn Electron · A3010 (Archimedes) · A4000 (Archimedes) Others Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K · Dragon 32
Consoles
Nintendo Wii · GameCube purple (x 2) · GameCube black · N64 black (x 2) · N64 clear blue · SNES (x 2) · NES (x 2) · DS silver (x 3) · GBA SP silver · GBA purple · GBA clear · Game Boy Color clear · Game Boy Sega Dreamcast x 3 · Saturn · Mega Drive II · Mega Drive · Master System Atari 10-in-1 · Jaguar (x 2) · 7800 · 2600 wood-grain Microsoft Xbox 360 · Xbox Others Mattel Intellivision · MB Vectrex · GoldStar 3DO · Sony PlayStation (original)
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286
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 03/11/2008 23:57:37
Posts: 414,
Visits: 1,551
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It was considered. And it was done.
That's why Server 2003, built on XP 32-bit, can address 128GB.
But this wasn't translated into the 32-bit versions of Vista, so it's 64-bit if you want more than 4GB of address space in Windows unless you punt for a Server version.
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Pentium
Group: Forum Members
Last Login: Today @ 02:15:08
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So.....What exactly is the benefit of 64-bit computing?
Disclaimer: Any advice I provide is only applicable in my reality and may need altering to fit yours There is no place like 127.0.0.1
Best Video Evar! UPDATED
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