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32-bit or 64-bit gaming

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Last response: in Windows 7
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Hi.

Im going to get strait to the point.

I recently purchased a system which came pre-installed with Win7 Ultimate X64. Now i was getting good frame rates during games however i decided maybe if i install XP home 32-bit i might get better frame rates. However i did not, it was basically the same. Which drawed my attention because XP was 32-bit and my previous Win7 was 64-bit. I did not have a Win7 x64 disc lying around however i had a Win7 32-bit disc. So i installed Win7 Pro 32-bit and my frames have been better than all previous installations. The games i were playing were Crysis 1, COD4 & COD MW3.

In Win7 Pro 32-bit i can max out crysis @ 1600x900 with an average of 45 FPS. With Win7 Ultimate 64-bit i could Max Crysis out but only get an average of 25-30 FPS.
So whats going on here??

My friend said it could also simply be that the GTX 285 drivers are poorly optimized for 64-bit?

So basically the question here is, is Windows 7 64-bit really better than Windows 7 32-bit for gaming?

My System:

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.8GHz
XFX 780i 3-way SLI mobo
XFX GTX 285 1GB GPU
4GB DDR2 800MHz Ram
500GB Sata HDD
650w Thermaltake Toughpower PSU.

More about : bit bit gaming

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Anonymous

i suspect you benefited more from doing a clean install more so than 32/64 OS difference.

since *most* games are 32 bit it really doesn't matter but 64 bit will have you covered :) 

and nvidia drivers are perfectly optimized for 64 bit however the newest drivers are . . well that card is older and got left in the dust. might not make much sense updating after ver. 191.xx but keep the physX updated separately.
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I think he should update to 301.42, as all cards receive Adaptive Vsync and FXAA, and some other tweaks. Just stay with the newest possible.

To be on the safe side, use 64-bit. The performance gain is unnoticeable, but at least you can use more than 4gb ram (you loose 500mb ram by using 32-bit). That should be reason enough to use 64-bit :) .

Today's 64-bit games are scarce, but the future is the future. If you don't mind a "planned" reinstall (as in not because of malware) later (1/2 year, 1 year) to benefit from 64-bit games, then by all means, stay 32-bit. That 500MB of lost RAM is really not noticeable (unless you photoshop, convert videos and play, all at once). 3GB is more than enough for today's gaming. So as long as a game will not be made for 64-bit, 3GB is enough.

PS: the games themselves are limited to 2GB of RAM usage....unless you activate a switch manually (which could make other apps unstable and requires some knowledge to do it) and raise it to 3. What the game does not use directly can be used as cache. There are ways to make 32-bit "packages" (as in 2 separate processes) use more than 2GB RAM, but communication and syncing between them would offset the RAM benefits.
Windows 7 Expert

The very small performance hit is offset with the availability of extra ram and with a modern rig, nobody would even notice.

Plus the first generation of x64 games are about to make the debut.
Anonymous

salihb said:
I think he should update to 301.42, as all cards receive Adaptive Vsync and FXAA, and some other tweaks. Just stay with the newest possible.

To be on the safe side, use 64-bit. The performance gain is unnoticeable, but at least you can use more than 4gb ram (you loose 500mb ram by using 32-bit). That should be reason enough to use 64-bit :) .

oh i tried, though i know your posting to the OP, and again like the beta drivers; the V-sync causes massive stuttering with my 550ti :( 

its like when the 400 series came out, any time i updated drivers for my 9600gt i ended up rolling back from the problems it caused.
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