Vista 64 Bit?

[arisythila]

Hey guys, I have all Athlon 64 processors, I was told that Vista 64 bit was buggy as hell.. I'd really like to grab 64 bit instead of the 32 bit. Anybody have any insight on this?

Thanks

~Mike

[cx323]

I've been using it for 2 weeks and besides a few problems with vs2005 it's been pretty smooth

[gr8golf]

I've been using it for 2 weeks and besides a few problems with vs2005 it's been pretty smooth

Is that Virtual Server 2005? I didn't think Vista supported it. Good news if it does.

[Anemone]

1 week and just fine :)

[lopri]

64-bit here also with 4GB of RAM. Love the SuperFetch - It's able to use all 4 GB. Oblivion loads without accessing hard disk. Amazing. Now I wish I had 8 GB. :D

[arisythila]

wow nice... I ordered 9 copies of the 64 bit.. Thanks for the input.

~Mike

[joek71]

Yeh I love my Vista x64 Ultimate, got Opteron 175, Oc to 11*250 = 2750, runs great no problems, except for my Treo 650 wont sync, Palm does not support x64 systems.

[oshox]

I have an athlon64 3000+ and I wouldn't be able to run Vista well at all if it weren't for the performance boost I get from 64 bit.
Unfortunalely, I haven't been able to DO much in Vista except browse the web. Linux does it better, I have to admit. And I've been running 64-bit Linux for a while.

This isn't meant to be another "Vista Sucks, Linux Rules" post, I just wanted to point out that there's not really a, well, *point* to installing Vista at this time. It's driver and application support is still a little hazy, and the cheeky new interface isn't life-changing or anything. This won't necessarily spell the death of Vista, but it's probably a good idea to put off any kind of serious update until SP1.

[Jinxxed]

Hey guys, I have all Athlon 64 processors, I was told that Vista 64 bit was buggy as hell.. I'd really like to grab 64 bit instead of the 32 bit. Anybody have any insight on this?

Thanks

~Mike

Vista in itself is very stable, it's when you try to mix code that it turns to crap.

Remember that unless you have MORE than 4GB of memory there is no reason, no reason what so ever, run a 64 bit OS. It isn't faster and it's less reliable considering that most plugins and programs you'll install will require their own 32 bit versions of shared libraries and not all installation programs get that right, not all programs use $ver yet.

[Jinxxed]

I have an athlon64 3000+ and I wouldn't be able to run Vista well at all if it weren't for the performance boost I get from 64 bit.
Unfortunalely, I haven't been able to DO much in Vista except browse the web. Linux does it better, I have to admit. And I've been running 64-bit Linux for a while.

This isn't meant to be another "Vista Sucks, Linux Rules" post, I just wanted to point out that there's not really a, well, *point* to installing Vista at this time. It's driver and application support is still a little hazy, and the cheeky new interface isn't life-changing or anything. This won't necessarily spell the death of Vista, but it's probably a good idea to put off any kind of serious update until SP1.


64 bits does not mean CRAP when it comes to performance, it's not one tiny bit faster to run 64 bit code than it is to run 32 bit code (unless you have +4GB of memory and aren't running a server (which effectively makes it 36 bit with a 64GB adress space, but who knows that except the people who work with it?)).

Claiming that 64 bit code is faster than 32 bit code only shows that you have no idea of what you are talking about, in fact, it's the opposite for 99.99% or all users.

There is no more magic to 64 bits code than there was to 32 bits when W95 and the whole debate about "it's not a TRUE 32 bit OS" which really didn't matter because it could adress memory like a 32 bit OS and that was all that mattered in reality.

Same thing goes for Vista32, it can adress up to 34GB in server versions but it isn't "a real 64 bit OS".

[Anemone]

Ok couple of things:

At or above 4gb, 64 bit starts to make some sense. Why? Because if you have 4 now, it's pretty possible your next serious mobo upgrade might have that or more. When that happens it might be nice if you didn't have to reinstall the OS, because you took the 32 bit option.

Certain kinds of programs "can" run in 64 bit mode, with additional registers, faster than in 32 bit mode. BUT, it's not a lot faster. In the lab Nvidia and ATI both mentioned in the range of 10-15%, which while it sounds like a large %, is about 1 chip grade of upgrade. Again, there are a lot of if's here.

AT 4gb you have slightly more available memory if you are running 64 bit vs 32. I don't know about others here, but I really can fill 4gb. In a year it might not be me alone that can fill it. And given the number of power users in here, I'll bet I'm not alone.

As memory gets cheaper, you'll see even larger figures.

You've so far seen next to zero 64 bit optimized code. That will slowly begin to change.

[Jinxxed]

Ok couple of things:

At or above 4gb, 64 bit starts to make some sense. Why? Because if you have 4 now, it's pretty possible your next serious mobo upgrade might have that or more. When that happens it might be nice if you didn't have to reinstall the OS, because you took the 32 bit option.

Certain kinds of programs "can" run in 64 bit mode, with additional registers, faster than in 32 bit mode. BUT, it's not a lot faster. In the lab Nvidia and ATI both mentioned in the range of 10-15%, which while it sounds like a large %, is about 1 chip grade of upgrade. Again, there are a lot of if's here.

AT 4gb you have slightly more available memory if you are running 64 bit vs 32. I don't know about others here, but I really can fill 4gb. In a year it might not be me alone that can fill it. And given the number of power users in here, I'll bet I'm not alone.

As memory gets cheaper, you'll see even larger figures.

You've so far seen next to zero 64 bit optimized code. That will slowly begin to change.

OK, a couple of things, with a change of MOBO a reinstallation isn't NECCESSARY but it's most certainly warranted.

At 4GB you will have less memory available with a 64 bit OS than a 32 bit, you know why? Of course you don't, you have proven that you don't really have a clue about even the basics of memory management on the kernel level. But i'll tell you just to be nice, it's because of the hardware adressing, it doesn't take a genious to figure out that 64 bit adress space takes more mem than 32 bit adress space. Not that it matters at all in reality because it will be paged out long before you reach the need to use it.

And no, certain programs either run in 64 bit or they don't, there is no in between, you can't have portions of a program that is written for 64 bits and other portsions that are written for 32 bits, if you try that then you have two separate portions of the program running in different adress space and they CANNOT communicate with eachother (this is why you can't use flash with a 64 bit build of FF, it doesn't understand the implementation because it wasn't written for it), it's like trying to run a 32 bit text based app on DOS, it simply doesn't work because the kernel doesn't understand the instructions. If it's written for 64 bit execution it will not even bluescreen on an 32bit os, it will just be a click and nothing will happen.

Show me the tests that showed that 64 bit code was faster on a 32/64 bit CPU of today (and no, Itanium and the emulation projects do not count) than 32 bit code using the same software and carrying the same other load on the same hardware.

[joek71]

That is true, the apps have to take advantage of the 64 bit code.

[shawn1998]

At 4GB you will have less memory available with a 64 bit OS than a 32 bit

Huh? I run Vista Ultimate 64bit on one of my machines and Home Premium 32bit on another. They both have 4gig of ram. The 32bit install sees 3.25gig. The 64bit install sees all 4gig. What in the hell are you even talking about? So when Vista 64bit tells me that I have 4gig of ram installed, you're saying that I actually have less than that? What does "hardware addressing" have to do with it?

4gig > 3.25gig.

Your math skills really stink.

[Anemone]

Ok.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/windows_vista_nvidia_forceware_performance/

Have a read through that, or just skip the graphs if you care, and see the number of places that X64 runs faster than X86. Is it guaranteed? No. Can it happen? Yes. Could it be variables? Yes. But you simply asked to be shown a single case where X64 runs faster.

Done.

[Anemone]

Oh and exchanging information between a 32 bit program and a 64 bit one on the same machine? Guess you've never transferred anything from a X86 program to a 64 bit driver, correct? Information exchange between 32 bit and 64 bit programs, or modules if you will, is quite possible.