X64 Gaming?

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SwitchFC

Weaksauce
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Feb 22, 2008
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I've installed 32 ultimate on my HTPC and XP-32 Home on my gaming rig so now I'm lookin to install X-64 and try to do my part to bring it mainstream.

Been a loyal AMD buyer for a while, however with Q6600's and Ram being at what I call a decent price point, I'm getting ready to build a new system. Moving from a 939 X-2 4400+. I don't use really any apps other than games, one particular is Supreme Commander (which will utilize all 4 cores).

Currently I play:
BF2, SupCom/FA, CnC3, AoE3, Bioshock.

What are the upsides to having X64? I know there'll probably be more con's than pro's but I'd like to utilize as much ram as possible for SupCom and a few other games coming out.


Switch
 
There is a ton of information on this, just search the forums. The major upside to running a 64bit OS is the ability to run more than 4GB of ram. There is also a slight performance boost with 64bit OS and a 64bit compatible chip such as your Athlon or Q6600. Im running Vista 64bit Ultimate and all my old 32bit games work fine.
 
my gaming machine uses 64 bit vista, so far I managed to get every game I tried to work. I would say there is more cons then pros. But one nice benefit is that since i can use 8gb of ram I'm able to setup a large ramdisk and play a lot of the games from ramdisk which makes for some killer loading times.
 
I don't think there are any cons, to be honest, unless you know specifically that one of those games will not run on x64, which is unlikely. The vast majority of people who have switch to an x64 platform have stayed there. As mentioned above, you can find more info than you'd care to read through the search.
 
SwitchFC said:
thanks gents anyone got some con's?

So far I've gotten the Pro's I like
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There are some games and appls that won't play nice with Vista 64-bit, but I think the list is relatively small. The only games I've had trouble getting to function in Vista are the two Max Payne games. I've also had a problem with Dreamfall crashing occasionally, but it seems to be a driver issue, which isn't Vista's fault.
 
Besides the OS just being Vista, which can be a pain sometimes, I have Home Premium x64 and every game I play has run without a problem; be it DX 10 or DX 9.

I have had no problem with drivers, no problem with SLi.:D
 
just make sure not to mix dated hardware with your new 64-bit OS. I used an older 7900GT with my Vista Home Premium 64-bit and my 64 bit drivers didn't play nicely with the 7900GT. I ended up RMA'ing the 7900GT and got a 8600GTS in return. Will be upgrading to a 9600GT anyway.

far cry 64-bit is supposed to be nice, I am still playing x86 on my computer though.
 
I did an upgrade similar to you this weekend (moved from a 939 AMD system) I installed Vista 64 Ultimate, and the only Cons I've runned into so far is that Guitar Hero 3 (for the PC) isn't compatible with Vista 64. I don't know if there's a patch to fix this though haven't checked.
 
So I just installed vista 64 ult, everything works... which was my first happy moment with the system.

But when I game, I get ridiculously low frame rates ( I lost at least half the frames I used to get in BF2 from High 80-90's to now the measly 20's and 30's)

Specs are stock, no over clocks (yet)

Cpu: Q6600 G0 SLACR
Ram: PC6400 DDR2 8gb (no pagefile) (4gigs of readyboost on a memory stick)
Video Card: XFX Geforce 9600Gt
HDD: Raptor 150Gb
Audio Card: Razer Barracuda AC-1


yesterday during a game I heard the Hdd going crazy during a game, so I minimized, and I think Super-fetch or just index was going through an .exe install file. So I stopped that by deleting the .exe (over 2gig BF2 mod install file)

SupCom and CoH have rates of like 10fps... utterly ridiculous (considering my old setup of XP home and 939 Cpu and chipset did far better), is this normal during the first week? Or should I get rid of the ready boost and super-fetch? should I have a page file maybe?
 
SwitchFC said:
So I just installed vista 64 ult, everything works... which was my first happy moment with the system.

But when I game, I get ridiculously low frame rates ( I lost at least half the frames I used to get in BF2 from High 80-90's to now the measly 20's and 30's)

Specs are stock, no over clocks (yet)

Cpu: Q6600 G0 SLACR
Ram: PC6400 DDR2 8gb (no pagefile) (4gigs of readyboost on a memory stick)
Video Card: XFX Geforce 9600Gt
HDD: Raptor 150Gb
Audio Card: Razer Barracuda AC-1


yesterday during a game I heard the Hdd going crazy during a game, so I minimized, and I think Super-fetch or just index was going through an .exe install file. So I stopped that by deleting the .exe (over 2gig BF2 mod install file)

SupCom and CoH have rates of like 10fps... utterly ridiculous (considering my old setup of XP home and 939 Cpu and chipset did far better), is this normal during the first week? Or should I get rid of the ready boost and super-fetch? should I have a page file maybe?
Click to expand...

Dunno about the page file. I do have one with my setup (I have 4 Gigs of RAM only).

Are you running the same settings from your previous rig on your video card?

I was blown away from the difference between my old 939 system and this.
 
SwitchFC said:
SupCom and CoH have rates of like 10fps... utterly ridiculous (considering my old setup of XP home and 939 Cpu and chipset did far better), is this normal during the first week? Or should I get rid of the ready boost and super-fetch? should I have a page file maybe?
Click to expand...
I would say this isn't normal. I was gaming with the box in my signature and was soaring the first week (it was a huge difference from my old setup). I would try ridding of ready boot, then super-fetch, if for no other reason to eliminate them as possible causes.
 
ok... well i'm an idiot. I forgot to plug-in the PCI-E power cable, so my card wasn't powered, XP gave that message but I didn't get it on Vista. I'm back up to 100fps(from 30) in BF2 yay!
 
There is virtually no downside to x64 that I've noticed. I have noticed a good performance boost in gaming and OS with 4gb of ram over the 2gb that I had in 32 bit.
 
I've been running Vista Ultimate x64 for some time on my gaming computer without any issues. I'm also running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 on my HTPC and that has been problem free as well. Now playing some games in Windows XP Professional x64 Edition was a pain in the ass at times. When it worked I generally noticed improved or equal performance when compared to Windows XP Professional (32bit), but there were some fairly mainstream games that didn't work right. Basically Vista x64 is VASTLY superior to Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.
 
I don't have any experience with XP64, the company I support (I know its sad when I forget to plug in a cable in my own machine but work for a company and never miss anything there) utilizes XP-32 bit.

So coming into Vista, I knew I'd take a performance hit I just thought what I was getting was ridiculous of course I found it to be user error later. Funny thing is I set the cable aside during my cable management portion, and even looked at it for a while, and didn't notice it until I really dug in.
 
SuperFetch is definately something I would NOT turn off for gaming.
The first time you load a map, it might be slightly slower then the XP guys, but the second time, it flat out FLIES!
Friends and I do Kane's Wrath, and they always have me host now. If it's amap I've loaded before, I end up twiddling my fingers waiting for them to load up.
 
ethos11 said:
I did an upgrade similar to you this weekend (moved from a 939 AMD system) I installed Vista 64 Ultimate, and the only Cons I've runned into so far is that Guitar Hero 3 (for the PC) isn't compatible with Vista 64. I don't know if there's a patch to fix this though haven't checked.
Click to expand...


Hmmm, Interesting seeing as how I have played it on my Vista x64 machine
 
NickM said:
SuperFetch is definately something I would NOT turn off for gaming.
The first time you load a map, it might be slightly slower then the XP guys, but the second time, it flat out FLIES!
Friends and I do Kane's Wrath, and they always have me host now. If it's amap I've loaded before, I end up twiddling my fingers waiting for them to load up.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I've been playing Oblivion lately and have to restart it pretty often, as it's rather crash-prone (which is murdering my Reliability score, hardly fair!). Vista's memory management means that the game loads in seconds. It's so fast that the game crashing is only a minor nuisance provided I save regularly.

Still wish I could stop it affecting my Reliability score though, for all it's not important.
 
It sounds like ready boost.. when ever I have a ready boost drive enabled it brings my system to a crawl..
 
well I installed a new HSF for the Quad, and another for the NB HSF..... at the time I was thinkin go big or go home, so I got the Thermalright stuff. IFX 14, with the IFX10 mobo backside cooler, and for the NB, got the IFX 5... after about 2 hours of struggling with fitment placement ( I swear I need 4 hands to hold the screw and other things in place, might have just been too excited as well) place it in the Case and BAM! Herpes!.... goes into a loop, reseat things, make sure everything is fitting right, jiggle a thing here, jiggle something there, and it starts booting. (of course power was off when I was jiggling it)

So I took off readyboost, powered everything up (Video Card included) things are running remarkably now. So tonight I'll throw readyboost (4 gig Cruzer) back on and check if it help or hinders performance
 
No issues with 64bit here. For the careless, the 64bit version has some security features that aren't present in the 32bit version of Windows. Two that come to mind is the fact that the kernel is loaded in random memory locations and IE protected mode works a bit differently and is more secure in the 64bit version.
 
anybody got Anti-Virus suggestions? I usually utilize Norton Systemworks, however I'm not sure if its compatible.
 
SwitchFC said:
anybody got Anti-Virus suggestions? I usually utilize Norton Systemworks, however I'm not sure if its compatible.
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Ugh, there are quite a few free alternatives that are much better than Norton's home line of products. AVG and Avast would be better for AV, and so is NOD32, if you wish to pay for something.
 
sanitarium16 said:
There is a ton of information on this, just search the forums. The major upside to running a 64bit OS is the ability to run more than 4GB of ram. There is also a slight performance boost with 64bit OS and a 64bit compatible chip such as your Athlon or Q6600. Im running Vista 64bit Ultimate and all my old 32bit games work fine.
Click to expand...

Slight performance boost may be understating things a bit depending on the hardware.

True story (in fact, it happened less than thirty minutes ago): I have a Celeron-D-based PC from ZT Systems in for a partition blanking and OS changeover. Among the operating systems I keep around is XP Pro x64 Edition. Since I knew that this particular Celeron was x64-ready, I wondered exactly how well XP64 would run on this mouse-powered (64-bit, but still a mouse) CPU.

ZOMG this Celeron is *fast*!

Right next to this shocker of a Celeron is my own daily beater (specs at the bottom). Note that it's not 64-bit capable. And this Celeron is flat-out embarrassing it.

Additional Information: I have since replaced XP64 with Vista Ultimate x64 with SP1 (NOTE: the system originally came with Vista Home Basic x86). It *still* runs like the proverbial Scalded Kitty (in other words, fast as blazes). Apparently, you *should* run a 64-bit OS whenever possible if you have a 64-bit CPU.
 
I recently decided to dual boot (XP home x32 and Vista Ultimate x64) when I received my Vista copies from the WFP program. Man, I'm glad I chose Ultimate. It was super-easy to set up the dual-boot and install the OS. Only problem I had was upgrading from the Dec. 2007 Vista x64 8800 gts drivers to the latest, but after I got it worked out, its been smooth sailing. In the next month or so, I'm really considering just taking away the XP partition altogether and going with Ultimate.

On a small side note: did anyone have trouble with Driver Cleaner Pro running forever (or at least taking a lot longer) in Ultimate safe mode than in XP safe mode? When I used to run DCP in XP safe mode, it would be finished in about 20 seconds. I let it run in Ultimate safe mode for at least 3-4 minutes, and it didn't finish :confused: That was the only problem I ran into when installing Ultimate
 
DeaconFrost said:
Ugh, there are quite a few free alternatives that are much better than Norton's home line of products. AVG and Avast would be better for AV, and so is NOD32, if you wish to pay for something.
Click to expand...

The current version of Avast Personal (4.8) is 64-bit Vista-ready (still free, too). I have it installed on this Ultimate x64-powered Celeron. (That still causes me to smirk, even though I did the install: 64-bit and *Celeron*.)
 
I have been gaming on Vista x64 for more than a year now. The biggest source of headaches was drivers not working with SLI, but that's long gone. Not to say drivers are perfect (*cough digital vibrance NVIDIA cough*) but they work. I really don't see any of these "cons" that people mention unless you're trying to play X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (I use VMWare and XP for that).
 
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