Which vrsion of Vista is a better choice for gaming? 32bit or 64bit?

Manoj

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Which version will be better? 32bit or 64 bit?

Which version of Vista have you guys installed?

I am using a Conroe E6600 system.
 
At this precise moment common opinion is 32 bit. But as 64 bit has more ability to run code per processor cycle... then the reality will be 64 bit in the future. How far? Who knows.
 
32 bit if you like regular driver updates from NVIDIA/ATi/Creative. (yes, they are slow getting out their final Vista 32 bit drivers... but they will be much slower getting out finalized 64 bit drivers.

Regular driver updates (when new games come out, etc) will be much less frequent for 64 bit driver releases.
 
So i bought a 32bit version cause it was cheap and has far more drivers now.

I have a few rigs so I will save it to move onto an older rig once my main rig needs 64 bit. The question is.....when would be the optimal time to get the 64 bit version? 3 months....6 months a year??
 
How much RAM do you have? If 3GiB or less, use the 32bit version, else go 64-bit.
 
How much RAM do you have? If 3GiB or less, use the 32bit version, else go 64-bit.

physicaly RAM isn't the only thing...
The main reason I use 64bit linux is memory-mapping files (files getting dropped out of a sim-program I use can be 10gig)

being able to mem-map the file makes life alot easier.

The same is true for windows
 
Buy the 32-bit version, get a 64-bit ISO from a friend/work/P2P/whatever, try them both, use the one you like. You key will work with either version just fine, and Microsoft gets their money either way.
 
You can use the 32 bit version now and get the 64 bit migration DVD from MS for $10 bucks. When the driver scene is a bit more friendly, you can make the transition.
 
which drivers are you guys talking about? nvidia has 64bit and so does ati. if u don't find drivers for one component, demand they make some...:)
 
Actually there are 32bit drivers and 64 bit drivers for everything now.
 
32 bit if you like regular driver updates from NVIDIA/ATi/Creative. (yes, they are slow getting out their final Vista 32 bit drivers... but they will be much slower getting out finalized 64 bit drivers.

Regular driver updates (when new games come out, etc) will be much less frequent for 64 bit driver releases.


If im not mistaken, to get finalized 32-bit drivers you must also have 64-bit drivers.
 
Just remember that in all likleyhood, you will still be running a 32-bit aplication (game) that doesnt take advatage of the 64-bit adress space nor 64-bit instructions. Im guestimating a bit here but the app would also be interfacing to a 32 to 64 bit api translation library for system calls.
 
physicaly RAM isn't the only thing...
The main reason I use 64bit linux is memory-mapping files (files getting dropped out of a sim-program I use can be 10gig)

being able to mem-map the file makes life alot easier.

The same is true for windows
The thread starter asked for ``gaming'' specifically.

The lack of Win64 driver support leads me to believe that any x64 windows version does not have a lot of market penetration at this time. As such, it would make little sense to game developers to reply on x64 specific advantages for their games. With that in mind, I see little reason for a gamer to move to a x64 OS at this point, unless he or she ``loses'' memory due to address space crowding.

Surely I could recommend that a 64-bit OS is ``the way of the future'', but advising him to use a 32-bit OS will minimize the amount of support the OP will require in the future.

ps.: I do not disagree with you in principle.
 
Actually it would be making 32 bit api calls... but they would be ran in real time.Meaning. Even though the call is made to 32 bit it still runs in native hardware mode on the processor. Just you can ALSO run in 64bit mode.
 
The thread starter asked for ``gaming'' specifically.

The lack of Win64 driver support leads me to believe that any x64 windows version does not have a lot of market penetration at this time. As such, it would make little sense to game developers to reply on x64 specific advantages for their games. With that in mind, I see little reason for a gamer to move to a x64 OS at this point, unless he or she ``loses'' memory due to address space crowding.

Surely I could recommend that a 64-bit OS is ``the way of the future'', but advising him to use a 32-bit OS will minimize the amount of support the OP will require in the future.

ps.: I do not disagree with you in principle.

doesn't need to. Look at the size of HL2/CSS data files, a good gig or two.
Being able to have 2gig of memory AND also having these two files (and more) as a memory-map enabled some serious advantage in data-accessing (in this case you have already exceeding the 4gig limit)

I also mention HL2 cause they released 64bit compatibility quite a while ago
 
I agree with the above on the reasons to point the OP to the 32 bit version. You are likely to have slightly less issues with the "more" mainstream 32 bit. However, let me point out that in several games, BF2 and WoW, we found early on that there was a need for 2gb for the smoothest runs. It wasn't an end all or be all, so I'm not painting a "desperate need" here, but do bear in mind that what may actually drive gaming to offer 64 bit models may be the "enhanced" things in the next year or two, and more simply, just the memory footprint that will be on mainstream machines (2gb is not uncommon and now 4gb is starting to become the cutting edge machine) which will become standard over the next coming year.

So what I think we are at is the crossover point, if you will. Games may well come out over the course of 1 year from now as 32 bit with some 64 bit crossover, but I'm strongly of the mind that after Q2 2008 the tide will switch and it will be 64 bit with 32 bit downgraded versions for compatibility.

I'll call that a pretty good hunch and just throw it into the opinion pool here. Others will agree or disagree and give the OP a good pool of opinions to base a decision on.
 
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