PC gaming on Win XP pro 64 bit

[Trexian]

Does anyone know if the 64 bit windows is stable and working good with all of todays games?

I'm a gamer my pc is rigged in that fashion, I currently have windows XP pro 32 bit.

Is it worth for me to make the switch to 64 bit or just wait for windows 7?

And no I do not want to hear vista at all in this thread

 

[strpdgato]

short answer: yes, is just as stable as XP x86 (from my experience).
Had issuses w/ some betas though, mostly 'cause the installer refused to execute under x64, but there are workarounds.

In any case i recommend XP x64 over XP x86 even if you're not planning on using 4gigs ram

 

[rayzor]

VISTA VISTA!!

I don't know...if were you, I'd just hold out for a little while. There aren't really many games that take advantage of 64 bit processors. Even those rare titles that do aren't necessarily much better performance wise (Crysis for example). Factoring in the cost/hassle might just be enough to convince you to wait.

 

[yay]

X64 is awesome. I do recomend 4gb ram tho, just because you can.

 

[crom]

I'd wait for Windows 7. XP64 seemed to be more of a tech demo for Vista than anything else.

 

[olin9]

XP 64 works great for games, Vista sucks, crashes and slow proformance with Q6600@3.2 8800GT OC 512 with 4GB ram.

 

[rayzor]

XP 64 works great for games, Vista sucks, crashes and slow proformance with Q6600@3.2 8800GT OC 512 with 4GB ram.

i'm happy to report excellent success with vista 64. however, i won't deny that others have had problems. Whether this is attributable to user error (i was EXTREMELY thorough in ensuring all my components had positive reviews from 64 bit system builders) or not is another question.

Anyway, my point still stands, what benefit will you see from upgrading to 64 bit now? Really none...yet! I think widespread adoption of 64 bit tech is still a couple of years (and a new operating system release) away.

 

[Luke69]

Same Rig (q6600, 4gb ram, 8800gt OC ed) as olin none of his problems using Vista 64!

you updated your drivers olin? For me when I updated my Mobo (P5n32 SLI Plus) stuff improved alot!

 

[crom]

I'm skipping 64 bit this time around for a gaming rig for that same reason. You don't really see any performance benefits, and in most cases XP 32 bit outperforms all of the other builds of Windows, especially Vista 64. 64 bit is great for linux, or a server environment, but as a gaming OS, it's still quite a ways off.

 

[San Pedro]

I use xp pro 64bit and works good for games. I like 64bit editions of Far Cry, Crysis, and Half Life 2. I will say that sometimes I have to try multiple time to open crysis 64 because the DRM protection crashes.

 

[rayzor]

I use xp pro 64bit and works good for games. I like 64bit editions of Far Cry, Crysis, and Half Life 2. I will say that sometimes I have to try multiple time to open crysis 64 because the DRM protection crashes.

wait, there is a 64 bit version of half life 2?? Why didn't i know this first of all?? and second of all, does steam automatically install the 64 bit version for you or should i go and look for it?

 

[jtstepan]

Windows XP x64 ships with the Windows 2003 Server SP1 kernel. It is an excellent gaming O/S, very stable and compatibility is very good with modern games (circa 2003 or later).

It was my primary O/S for over a year until I moved to Vista x64.

 

[BigMac]

I'm skipping 64 bit this time around for a gaming rig for that same reason. You don't really see any performance benefits, and in most cases XP 32 bit outperforms all of the other builds of Windows, especially Vista 64. 64 bit is great for linux, or a server environment, but as a gaming OS, it's still quite a ways off.

I think you are wrong, benefits will start becoming visible sooner. The main reason being for that is more memory intensive games, going over the 4Gb (3Gb effectively taking the OS into account) boundary. Take games with huge playgrounds, the more they can preemptively load into memory the less loading times you will experience when going (seamlessly) through the gameworld. It does not mean that the game won't be playable, but it will perform better on a 64bit platform, if you did not cut back on the memory.

Performance benefits due to using 64bit instead of 32bit registers is going to be neglectable for a long while, also because programmers will have to make sure their stuf works on both architectures for a long time to come. Btw that kind of performance gain does not scale well (basically a one time event, until we go to 128bit), other gains scale better (smaller processors/higher frequencies, multi core) but have their own issues at the moment (especially reducing cpu size further).

 

[olin9]

My problems with Vista was with the 32 bit ultimate version before SP1. The frame rates were lower than 64 XP for Crysis and Battlefield 2142, and COD4 would crash after 5 min so I went back to XP.

I had all of the lastest drivers. and my motherboard was MSI P35 Neo2-FR.

 

[bcmalloy]

Had all sorts of weird problems with vista 64, seemed OK at first sp1 has made it much better stuck with it for 2 months. I noticed when you try to install something there is a weird long delay before anything happens and games were not very stable, namely world at war took all sorts of tweaks and hassle just to get working multilayer online. After much tweaking and optimization it was still
having the odd random freeze.

Went back to windows xp x64 it was like a breath of fresh air, so fast and stable started gaming with world at war no problems higher frame rates and more responsive looking back I have to admit there is absolutely no benefit in using vista 64 at all, loss of stability and performance for what? direct x 10 ? a new search function and a pointless face lift that merely causes more problems and incompatibility.

Windows xp x64 IS the way to go for gaming, just tried empire world at war, it's also faster and more stable than vista in the real world. Seems to be allot of vista fan boys full of shit around the net it's slower and still has massive problems I had hoped it had come good my advice is go with what appears to be Microsoft best kept secret windows xp x64

rig:core duo 3.00ghz e8400 cpu
ausus p5ql-em mainboard
inno 3d 9800gtx+
4gb ddr2 800 corsair ram