64Bit Vista ready for gamers?

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phusnikn

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I recently built a new system Quad core, 8 gigs of memory, 8800GTX, 24" Widescreen; yeah a pretty beefy system I built specifically for Crysis, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Unreal 2k7, and TFT2 and it ran me a little under 3k but now here's my question; What OS should I go with 64 Bit Vista, 32 Bit Vista, or Windows XP? I dont mind taking a slight performance degregation while playing 32bit games on a 64bit OS, but I really dont want to run into a situation where games wont even run and have instability problems.

Please advise on what to do thanks.


You can view my new system here http://www.rodrickbrown.com/newrig.html
 
well, if you have 8GB of RAM, you have no choice but to use 64 bit anyway. for what it's worth, i'd take the 64bit Vista over the 32 bit regardless.

oh and if you built it specifically for Star Wars Force Unleashed, be disappointed. There's no plans for that game to make it to the PC as of now.
 
LOL is this a serious question or did you just feel like wagging your dick around? Yes for god's sake if you really bought all that RAM you better be running a 64-bit OS, be it Vista or XP. For what it's worth I've had no (gaming-related) problems with Vista x64 that were related to the 64-bit aspect, so I'd say you'd be fine with x64 if you want to use Vista. The Ultimate version comes with both 32 and 64 bit discs anyway, so it's not like you can't switch if you have problems.
 
64-bit Vista is almost exactly the same as 32-bit Vista in almost every aspect. Things for Vista need to be certified for both.

No problems here, I love it.
 
8GB?! You could create a RAM drive and store your favourite game in there. I wonder what the load times would be like.
 
So you bought a system for games that NO ONE knows how they will perform yet.... think you jumped the gun a little and will laugh if your 8800GTX barely makes they games playable.

should of saved on the 8g of ram and bought an 8800 Ultra
 
MrGuvernment said:
So you bought a system for games that NO ONE knows how they will perform yet.... think you jumped the gun a little and will laugh if your 8800GTX barely makes they games playable.

should of saved on the 8g of ram and bought an 8800 Ultra
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I've been waiting to build a new system since the 7900GT came out and it seems the longer I wait better and better hardware keeps coming out, I just couldnt wait anymore I kinda feel silly for buying the 4GB of mem and not using the money for an 8800 Ultra o'h well such is life.
 
No issues here either, (though only running on a meer 4GB of RAM). ;)

TF2 Beta
World in Conflict
Bioshock
Lord of the Rings Online
StrangleHold Demo, (ran fine but the game...meh...)
Company of Heroes

haven't tried to many older games as of yet... was thiking of reloading CoD2 to give that another whirl to see perofrmance... just don't have time ;)

all run very well... I'll be testing out ET:QW this weekend but I don't anticipate any issues based on what I've experienced thus far, (honestly I haven't been back into my XP partition in quite some time... should prolly go back to update drivers etc...
 
If you havent bought the system yet. PLEASE reconsider your motherboard choice. The ASUS boards have been having lots of issues lately.
 
Be aware that when EA Sports says Vista is supported, they only mean x86. The offer no guarantees for x64, and quite a few people are having crashing issues with their games. I'm planning on pulling 2 GB of my memory and loading Vista x86 just to see if my 08 games are stable on the x86 platform.
 
Ironic how this topic popped up again. Just recently, the memory addressing issue has been fixed. I was able to play Fakefactory 4.0 for HL2 and Ep1 under Vista
 
Even though I found no problems in some games Counter-Strike Source runs like shit.

On my Windows XP x64 I constantly get >150fps at 1920x1200 and with the exact same settings I get 30-150fps with Vista x64. If I lower my settings to 1280x800 and put every settings to low I still get the exact same fps.

So something is wrong with that game.

Don't tell me it's my system. Don't come up with it's your memory I got 4GB. Don't tell me it's some options in the BIOS because it ain't.
 
I just bought a system that runs Vista 64, tears every game I throw at it a new one.

No problems whatsoever!

HOWEVER, Vista has a bit of a learning curve. Several key things about XP's interface are skewed in Vista (for the better IMO). But you can always run it in the old mode anyway...
 
It's pretty stupid to buy a 32bit OS when you're trying to run 8Gb of RAM, you'll only find ~2.5Gb of that actually useable.

If it's a choice between 64bit Vista and 64Bit XP then go for Vista, I would suggest Vista because it's just plain better, but 64bit XP in comparison to even 32bit XP is fairly poor.

64bit Vista has as much support as 32bit from all the major players, but you may find with Vista that really old stuff lacks support, it's quite often the same for XP as well however.

8Gb of RAM was probably overkill, I'm running 4Gb and thats sufficient, Vista will quite happily use ~2Gb of that normally but no game seems to use over 2Gb on it's own, and even when they do Vista has a brilliant memory management system.
 
You know what, everyone complains about how bad vista is...well let me say something..

I was having issues with my headset, sound card driver, and 5.1 sound in certain games...

Come to find out it was a driver confliction issue with Windows XP...

I installed Vista Ultimate 64bit, and not only fixed my problem, my audio quality was better than before...

Also, I have YET to run into the same error's or crashes with games as I did 3 months earlier with Vista...

IMO, it is 100% ready for the switch, but I recommend you have at least 2GB's of ram, as it is a memory whore. (I know he said he has 8GB's of ram)...
 
curious why my xp sees 3.25gb of ram. I had vista 64bit installed with my 4gb of ram and it did run fine overal (occasional non explained unresponsiveness in windows, then would continue on like normal) but it crashed when I installed logitech g25 drivers and had to format.. so I put xp back on. Not sure what the official memory limit is in xp but my xp pro x86 sees 3.25gb.
 
I've seen quite a few discussions on this recently, but that's because you are running a 32-bit OS. If you want full access to all 4 GB of memory, and you want to run XP, then XP x64 is your only option.
 
running vista x64,no problems for gaming so far :) just test drive unlimited but I think its fixed now =p
 
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/

There is no longer any difference ;).

I have run Vista Ult. x64, a GTX, 4GB RAM, an X-Fi, and P5W DH Deluxe motherboard with a Q6600 quad-core overclocked for months just fine. Performance is equal, compatibility is good, features are nicer, and overall usage is just plain easier.

Not sure if this post was an effort to wave your system around as though anyone cares :p or if this was a real question.
 
GoldenTiger said:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/

There is no longer any difference ;).

I have run Vista Ult. x64, a GTX, 4GB RAM, an X-Fi, and P5W DH Deluxe motherboard with a Q6600 quad-core overclocked for months just fine. Performance is equal, compatibility is good, features are nicer, and overall usage is just plain easier.

Not sure if this post was an effort to wave your system around as though anyone cares :p or if this was a real question.
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Fine. It's about the same but can you tell me why Counter-Strike Source runs 50% slower in fps on my Vista x64?
 
Vista 64bit...I haven't had a problem yet. Star Wars Force Unleashed is for ps3, xbox360, ps2, ds, psp, and the WII....not the PC.
 
syntx said:
Fine. It's about the same but can you tell me why Counter-Strike Source runs 50% slower in fps on my Vista x64?
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Mine doesn't... nor does most anyone else's. Probably something you're running in the background, spyware/malware/virus, or something you've got set wrong. The in-game bench with fps_max set to 999 spits out about the same number within a percent or two for me.
 
I've been running Vista Ultimate x64 for about the last 4 months or so and I've had very few problems with it. Most of the problems I have experienced are with older software. Anything designed for Windows Vista, or even XP for the most part has worked flawlessly. Out of the five running systems at my house Vista x64 is on two, and another runs the 32 bit version. That leaves only two legacy XP systems. (One I need to remain XP, and the other I haven't gotten around to changing over just yet.)

I think Vista has been more solid out of the gate than XP was. At least that's been my experience.
 
VISTA + 8800 = display drivers stops working for me in most games.

XP + 8800 works perfectly but you lose DX10 effects.
 
dopefishzzz said:
VISTA + 8800 = display drivers stops working for me in most games.

XP + 8800 works perfectly but you lose DX10 effects.
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I had the problems with the drivers crashing all the time and recovering with some versions of the drivers but not all of them. Most of the problematic ones did this with SLI enabled but not when only one video card was running. With the most current driver off of http://www.nzone.com I haven't had any such problems and the drivers have been stable in all my games.
 
doox00 said:
curious why my xp sees 3.25gb of ram. I had vista 64bit installed with my 4gb of ram and it did run fine overal (occasional non explained unresponsiveness in windows, then would continue on like normal) but it crashed when I installed logitech g25 drivers and had to format.. so I put xp back on. Not sure what the official memory limit is in xp but my xp pro x86 sees 3.25gb.
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32bit (x86) OS's can only address 4Gb of Physical memory total, but that's not just system RAM, that's all memory on all hardware in your PC which needs to be addressable by the OS. With graphics cards which have lots of onboard memory they can take a lot of the addressable memory space up, whatever is left the RAM is assigned to.

I had a 1024Mb 7950GX2 in my last rig and the total addressable RAM was only about 2.5Gb
 
There still is a performance hit when going form XP 32bit to Vista 32, and more issues prop up once you move to 64-bit, hence Epic games isn't creating a 64-bit version of Unreal Tournament 3 since basically no one uses it.
 
DeaconFrost said:
Be aware that when EA Sports says Vista is supported, they only mean x86. The offer no guarantees for x64, and quite a few people are having crashing issues with their games. I'm planning on pulling 2 GB of my memory and loading Vista x86 just to see if my 08 games are stable on the x86 platform.
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I'm updating my post, because after switching out my older 7900 GS for a new 8600GTS, my problems with VIsta x64 and EA Sports games have disappeared. At this point, I have no issues with any games I've tried on Vista x64.
 
Spoudazo said:
There still is a performance hit when going form XP 32bit to Vista 32, and more issues prop up once you move to 64-bit, hence Epic games isn't creating a 64-bit version of Unreal Tournament 3 since basically no one uses it.
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They're not making a 64-bit version because there's no reason to performance-wise for that game, not because of anything else. Read about what you're trying to claim first, next time.
 
GoldenTiger said:
They're not making a 64-bit version because there's no reason to performance-wise for that game, not because of anything else. Read about what you're trying to claim first, next time.
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*cough* follow your own advice?

PCGH: Do UT 3 gamers profit from a 64 Bit environment? Will there be a 64 Bit version? What are the advantages of the 64 Bit version? Are there any differences as far as visuals or performance is concerned?

Tim Sweeney: We're testing Unreal Tournament 3 with Windows Vista 64-bit to assure compatibility, but we're planning to wait for the OS and application base to mature before doing anything further to really exploit 64-bit.

We were the first developer to port to the 64-bit environment back in 2004, with 64-bit Windows XP and Unreal Tournament 2004. We were very eager to embrace Windows Vista 64-bit also, and hoped to have moved all of our development machines over to it by now. Unfortunately, the software and driver compatibility still isn't quite there. The base OS is very stable, and it's a joy to work with in isolation. But, then, you need to print something, or run Max or Maya along with a collection of third-party plug-ins, and it all unravels. I'm sure the issues will be worked out with service packs and app updates within the Windows Vista generation, as machines with 4-8GB are finally becoming economical, and could be mainstream in the next 12 months.
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http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=602522
 
l3ender said:
That article is from May 31...
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So? Do they have to restate their stance every month just to make it true?

And its still true about 64bit OS's, their drivers aren't nearly as complete or hassle free as 32bit.

GoldenTiger stated that Epic was doing it because there was no performance benefit, when they clearly stated that they are doing it because 64bit OS's aren't as compatible as 32bit OS's most of the time.
 
Bit of a hijack, but just curious-- do you all use 4x 1GB modules or 2x 2GB? I have been thinking about vista 64 since I can buy it for 30 bucks. I already have 2 x 1GB.
 
gorilla show said:
Bit of a hijack, but just curious-- do you all use 4x 1GB modules or 2x 2GB? I have been thinking about vista 64 since I can buy it for 30 bucks. I already have 2 x 1GB.
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I use 1GBx4. 2x2 Configurations won't matter unless you plan on upgrading to 6-8GB in the future (which is a overkill right now) there won't be a performance difference, as all the modern motherboards run Ram in Dual Channel regardless of how they are installed.

personally, with Forceware 163.69 I am happy with the performance. The 3Dmark scores are still few hundred points lower than what they were in XP. but oh well, I play games, not benchmarks:)
 
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