Upgrading OS Question

[mrscopey]

atm ive got

4gig ram
8800 gtx
win xp pro

im gonna be getting another 8800 gtx and upgrading to vista. but since ive got 4 gig ram, will i need vista 64 bit? because atm im using a normal win xp pro so it only recognizes 3 gig.

thanks

 

[Nik_I]

you don't need x64 vista. all it will allow you to do is to see the other 1GB of your ram, but it will potentially use up more, so it comes out to about the same thing, based on what i've heard anyway.

 

[jay2tall]

32bit has less issues especially with older apps but you will still loose that 1GB. Maybe more with a second GTX. 64bit will take up more memory but you will see more, but can always upgrade to 8GB, memory is cheap.

Personally if I go to Vista I will dual boot to XP and get Vista 64bit. Everything will be 64 bit anyways and in 2 years you will need 8GB anyways. When Xp came out you could run it on 128MB ofr RAM. Now you NEED 512 for it to work well.

 

[mrscopey]

so....
for better performance, cause i use my pc for games, what should i get?

 

[jay2tall]

My buddy has Vista 64bit and had Windows XP Pro 64-bit prior to that. He has had less issues with Vista than XP and those were minimal. Some games that came with both 32 and 64 bit modes sometimes ran better with the 32bit runing 32bit mode in 64. Other than that no issues. I think he had more problems with actuall old applications more than games.

 

[mrscopey]

ok thanks

 

[vangvace]

if I'm not mistaken, you would be down to between 2 and 2.5GB of your 4G of installed ram because of the 32bit addressing limitation. I'm not saying x64 is the answer, that depends on your needs and software.

Edit: but then again I made the jump to x64 and really like it. Switching to Vista keeps my wife off the computer. She's not big on change.

 

[jay2tall]

I say do 64bit. you may have a few issues but you know what it will all be 64 bit in 5 years anyways

 

[JackNaylorPE]

so....
for better performance, cause i use my pc for games, what should i get?

Get both. MS apparently offers a free downgrade to XP for unsatisfied Vista users.

http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2007/09/24/downgrade-your-vista-to-xp/

If you do by Vista buy the upgrade version, then go read this:


http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/02/01/hack-and-workaround-to-clean-or-fresh-install-windows-vista-with-upgrade-license-dvd/
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/02/05/buy-upgrade-copy-of-windows-vista-key-and-use-it-as-full-retail-version/