64bit v 32bit

[jaymc]

I posted a tread here yesterday and it has been deleted was wondering why ??

anyway was wondering what are the benefits if any of 64bit gaming or even just 64bit windows... in theory the processor is dealing with 64bit chunks of data instead of 32 so it should be faster, but is this true in reality ?

I had asked this in my post yesterday but it was deleted frustrating.

edit: now the post is back... it was defo gone i did a search an eventually found it, but when i tried to open it i was told it was a deleted post. but just after i posted again it came back... weird !

 

[notherdude]

No idea what happened to your post.

The main advantage to using a 64 bit OS at this time is that (coupled with a 64 bit cpu and a supporting motherboard) it allows you to actually use 4 gig of RAM or more. A 32 bit OS (XP or Vista) will only let you use about 3 gig +/- even if you have 4 gig installed.

In theory 64 bit computing should be faster for the reason you mentioned. To actually process the 64 bit chunks the applications must be written for it. At this time I do not think there is enough consumer level stuff written for 64 to make 64 bit desktop computing that much faster than 32. I have Vista 64 and 4 gigs of RAM and it runs very well. I have the feeling at least that I'm getting some help in basic OS functions from the 64 bits. But I really don't know this for certain.

Perhaps someone who knows more about the finer points of 64 bit computing can answer your question in more detail.

 

[jaymc]

well thanks for your input mate...

again it would be nice for someone who may know in great detail to enlighten us !!!

if i install a 64bit app or game (i know there is not a great deal at this time) then i should see the benefits, or do i ??

I'm sure crysis comes in a 64bit version as far as i know far cry did !

until more 64bit software comes out we could always just dual boot with the 32bit version of windows... and use whatever is best for what we are running.

 

[Scotteq]

In theory 64 bit computing should be faster for the reason you mentioned. To actually process the 64 bit chunks the applications must be written for it. At this time I do not think there is enough consumer level stuff written for 64 to make 64 bit desktop computing that much faster than 32. I have Vista 64 and 4 gigs of RAM and it runs very well. I have the feeling at least that I'm getting some help in basic OS functions from the 64 bits. But I really don't know this for certain.

I'm sure we have people who will be happy to correct me, but my general understanding is:

Vista 64 is a 64 bit OS, which contains the libraries necessary to run 32 bit code. 16 bit code is not supported to my knowledge, though it may simply be depricated. - (Think of 'Depricate' as being the software equivalent to what your family does about the embarrasing cousin who lives in a place "beyond~where~the~buses~run"... It's there. But nobody talks about it. Nobody helps it. They'd rather it didn't exist. They will tell you about how foolish you are for playing with it. And they will only blame you for the bad things that happen if you do.) :lol:

Anyways - In and of itself, Vista 64 runs in 64 bits. If you installed 64 bit applications, they'd run natively. But 32 bit applications run using a set of DLL's (libraries) to do the work of translating between the two. There is obviously going to be some performance overhead, since you're running your 32 bit apps inside what amounts to a container/translation layer. But many of the common commands which are less than 32 bits in total instruction length can be grouped to run in pairs. The rule being that there has to be enough space within a 64 bit command for both 32 bit instructions plus the necessary tags needed to differentiate the two. Actual performance will obviously vary depending on exactly what you are doing, but to a great extent the added efficiency of grouping instructions offsets the performance penalty of having to run a translation layer.


As far as gaming - I don't have any troubles running recent games on Vista 64 (Bioshock, NWN2/MoTB, The Witcher, WoW, etc...) I haven't tempted fate with anything really old, though...

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

From my experience, if you have Windows XP then might as well stick with your original OS in 32-bit - not worth upgrading for now since XP is not as memory hungry as his big brother Vista.

If you upgrade OS from XP to Vista and you have the money to buy a full 4 gigs of RAM then it is in your best interest to buy Vista 64-bit. A few reasons as mentioned above...such has access to more RAM, processes 64-bit coding slightly faster than 32-bit coding.

Honestly, because Vista is an OS taking already a big chunck of your RAM, it might be a good idea to get more than 2 gigs if you're a gamer.

However, I have yet to see a big difference in 32-bit coding vs 64-bit coding. The emulator for 32-bit coding doesn't seem to slow the application all that much and 64-bit coding doesn't seem that much faster. If you look at the benchmarks between Crysis 32-bit vs 64-bit, you'll see no difference. Personnaly, I only saw a difference in multiplayer when I upgraded to 4 gigs...there was less stutterings (loading from hard drive) but framerates were about the same.

Crysis might make 64-bit faster in a future patch but until they bring us a fix, 64-bit Crysis is about equivalent to its 32-bit version.

 

[jaymc]

thanks lads that was interesting stuff.

 

[lasseht]

Hi I have used Vista 64bit with 4Gb memory on a E6600 CPU and a 8800GTX card for about a year now.

I went for Vista becasue of Direct X10, but it runs slower than when I first had XP 32 bit running on my system.

Crysis will only run in 32bit mode for me but I hope a patch or two will sort it out

I don't think the actual games runs much faster or slower on Vista 32 or 64 bit, so basicly too little difference to notice in normal day use. If you have 4Gb of memory install 64bit, if you have 2Gb stick with 32bit would be my advice.

The days of staying with XP are fading away fast now, with more games using Direct X10 like Crysis that despid not being fast at least has mindblowing great graphics imho there is little you can do but accept that Microsoft will force you into Vista. It is worth knowing that when you but a game and it has the "Games for Windows" logo it must work with both 32 and 64 bit versions of Vista as well as other things like supporting wide screen LCD's etc.

Do I think Vista is great, no I don't, but I don't see another option that overall is going to give me better PC gaming.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

If you have 4Gb of memory install 64bit, if you have 2Gb stick with 32bit would be my advice.

Unless you're a gamer. For the same price, you can get 64-bit and you'll be OS futureproof.

 

[julesjt]

All I know is that my vista 64 ran crysis fine with 2gb but when I went to 4gb I saw noticeable improvements making it worth going with 64-bit to fully utilize 4gb of mem.

 

[Ararat]

I kinda have to disagree with the guy who said get 32-bit if u only have 2 gigs of ram. What if he gets more later, is he to buy Windows again? RAM has got to be one of the most upgraded items in a computer, and to the best of my knowledge, you don't get both discs when you buy Windows (at least, not with the OEM version, haven't seen retail versions). So I'd get 64-bit either way, as there aren't many disadvantages (and btw, I was under the impression that Vista 64 was a hybrid OS and natively supported 32-bit code?), there are a few applications (esp Intel TAT) that won't work under 64-bit, but there will almost always be alternatives, and in general, if there's a Vista32 driver for ur hardware, there will be be a Vista64 driver as well.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

I kinda have to disagree with the guy who said get 32-bit if u only have 2 gigs of ram. What if he gets more later, is he to buy Windows again? RAM has got to be one of the most upgraded items in a computer, and to the best of my knowledge, you don't get both discs when you buy Windows (at least, not with the OEM version, haven't seen retail versions). So I'd get 64-bit either way, as there aren't many disadvantages (and btw, I was under the impression that Vista 64 was a hybrid OS and natively supported 32-bit code?), there are a few applications (esp Intel TAT) that won't work under 64-bit, but there will almost always be alternatives, and in general, if there's a Vista32 driver for ur hardware, there will be be a Vista64 driver as well.

Ararat: That's right. Vista 64-bit will run 32-bit applications...and 32-bit drivers. There are odd exceptions but I have yet to see problems running 32-bit software.

However, jumping from XP 32-bit to Vista 64-bit is not always a free ride. I still recommend it if you have 4 gigs. I have been using Vista 64-bit for months now... and its a very good OS but there are the occasional problems, especially for gamers. I have had issues with the Crysis demo but it was fixed by the time the full version came up. I have been and still does have issues with Hellgate London when trying to run the game. All of these are easily fixed up by running the "other" executable files from the game directory but you may not be able to run the game at its best potential sometimes: in this case running the 64-bit DX10 executables for whatever game you play.

But other than DX10 issues, I haven't seen any other issues with Vista. Its a very solid OS!

 

[ikso]

I use Vista 64bit w/4GB of 800Mhz DDR2 memory. I have run into some problems with titles in 64bit Vista. I never used XP 64 bit, so it's hard for me to judge whether the occasionally incompatibility glitches I run into are due to Vista or 64 bit.

The main advantage of 64bit is clearly the ability to address more system memory. 32 bit system can address 4GB, but the problem is that some of that space is occupied by graphics memory and OS overhead. For example in my system 2x768MB or 1.5GB is reserved for graphics memory alone. There's no way a 32bit app is gonna see more than 2GB for its purposes.

I have a sneaking suspicion that XP 64bit would actually be the best platform for gaming - no Vista overhead and the benfits of 64bit address space, but it seems that driver support for that platform is somewhat weaker than for 64bit Vista. Certainly new hardware that comes out is going to target Vista drivers first, 32bit XP drivers a close second and maybe....maybe...eventually get to 64bit XP drivers.

One thing I'd like to see more testing on from game review sites (like Tom's) is how systems perform with 4GB of system memory. Most of the time a game title is reviewed, or hardware benchmarked comparing Vista to XP with both having 2GB of memory. I've even seen a lot of sites going out of their way to make sure the Vista version is 64bit Vista Ultimate. And then they still only give it 2GB of memory. Doh! I understand why testing with 2GB is informative. But then let's test again with 4GB, can we? And I don't mean XP 64 bit w/4GB vs. Vista 64bit w/4GB. I mean XP 32bit w/4GB (this is the platform most people can readily, easily and cheaply upgrade to), vs. Vista 64bit w/4GB (which is the more controversial upgrade). Because isn't the question really, "Is upgrading to Vista worthwhile, not if I purposely cripple Vista with 2GB, but is it worthwhile if I allow Vista to spread its wings?". I think the answer to that question remains largely unanswered.