Settle a debate: how many of you use a 64-bit OS or >=4 GB RAM?

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Click the button that corresponds to your most powerful machine:

  • 32 bit CPU, 32 bit OS, less than 4 GB RAM.

    Votes: 93 16.1%

  • 32 bit CPU, 32 bit OS, 4 or more GB RAM.

    Votes: 28 4.8%

  • 64 bit CPU, 32 bit OS, less than 4 GB RAM.

    Votes: 113 19.5%

  • 64 bit CPU, 32 bit OS, 4 or more GB RAM.

    Votes: 46 7.9%

  • 64 bit CPU, 64 bit Windows, less than 4 GB RAM.

    Votes: 37 6.4%

  • 64 bit CPU, 64 bit Linux or UNIX, less than 4 GB RAM.

    Votes: 6 1.0%

  • 64 bit CPU, 64 bit Windows, 4 or more GB RAM.

    Votes: 237 40.9%

  • 64 bit CPU, 64 bit Linux or UNIX, 4 or more GB RAM.

    Votes: 19 3.3%
  • Total voters
    579
I know that the Linksys WRT54G and WRT54GS both work with my Vista 64. ...but now I use a Linksys 802.11g SRX (mimo) access point with my Gigabit D-Link Router and that works fine too.
 
Attempted to run Vista Ultimate 64bit with 4GB of ram but it is not stable, I blame Abit however, not Microsoft for that one.

Vista 64bit has lots of bugs, IE crashes constantly, even the 32 bit edition of IE crashes in the same places. Switched to Firefox which runs great. Windows Media Player is also very buggy.

The 32 bit edition seems much more stable in comparison, which is a shame since 64 bit OSes are the future. Vista 64 bit needs more cowbell, it is too frustrating for everyday use. I am switching back to XP this weekend. 🙁
 


I wonder if its the drivers you have. I've had nothing but good luck with Vista 64. I love the way it allows me to virtualize and its not as ugly to look at as XP. Despite that I have a little bit of RAM installed I don't typically see it rise over 3.5GB RAM usage (which means at least on virtual machine with 2GB RAM assigned to it) and I've never taken it to the full 8GB. It's been fast and stable with 2 virtual Win2K3 domain controllers and 4 clients running, editing in Photoshop, video editing...the basic stuff.

Yes, my iPhone and games don't work in Vista64...so I keep XP32 around to entertain them. Vista will mature but I do remember having some issues with XP when it was a child too. It was a very whiny child as I recall. Vista's been much better behaved, in my experience.

I think
 


I use a netgear router with the wpn111 wireless usb dongle. no problems vista 64 bit
I can check later for the router model just be aware that it doesn't work very well with higher than 5mbit connections
 
Update on the Vista 64 - wireless issue: I picked up a Belkin Wireless N USB adapter and it works... with some problems. Namely, I can't load any videos and can't initiate an RDP session (with an ActiveX or Citrix box). Not being able to RDP is a major drawback for me since I work from home from time to time. Downloads and games (BF2, Crysis) work fine at 802.11b - I top out at 800kb/s which is about the ceiling for my cable.

I was hesitant to go with a USB adapter at first since it uses an extra USB port, and has an external dongle. However, a USB adapter was probably the best solution since I'm running 8800 GTX SLI and the only slot is between the two, increasing heat.

On a related note, I got the Belkin adapter at CompUSA (NYC - 58th/Broadway). They are closing doors next week and still have a ridiculous amount of inventory: adapters, routers, PSUs, media, cables, peripherals etc. Most stuff is 30% off now.
 


It is because the actual wireless transceiver chip inside has Vista drivers and others do not. Wireless adapters use a WIDE variety of chips from many different vendors, with various levels of quality and OS support. The vendors are also very reluctant to make new drivers for old parts, so if you have an older unit, you either have to see if somebody will reverse-engineer a driver for it (which is where a lot of Linux/UNIX wireless drivers come from) or get yourself another unit with known-good-for-Vista 64 drivers. I don't pay all that much attention to third-party Windows driver development, so there may or may not be people that do reverse-engineering work for WLAN cards for Windows Vista.
 
It is because the actual wireless transceiver chip inside has Vista drivers and others do not
Click to expand...

get yourself another unit withnown-good-for-Vista 64 drivers
Click to expand...

K. Thanks for that. Off the subject of V64 capable wireless adapters, but I have Vista 32 running since week one and now Vista 64 for a couple of months. Maybe there is a simple answer to this. I went to buy a new scanner the other day and the specs said 'Vista ready' or 'works with Vista'. Does this means works with V32 AND V64? I find many products say VISTA Ready or list Vista as a compatible OS for their product. I suppose the product still needs specific Vista 64 drivers to work on the 64bit OS? Vista has a 32 bit library though? I'm confused slightly by this. BTW, I went online to the scanner product page and seperate VISTA 64 drivers were included on the download page and I'm sure the enclosed software/driver CD. Thanks again. I will likey shop wireless routers/wireless adapters VISTA (64) capable soon.
 
Here's updated poll results for those unable to see them:
capture1hf1.jpg

 


I wonder why routers would not work correctly as they are stand-alone devices. All of the routers I have used have had a Web interface for configuration as well as a program-on-a-CD-based version. I've used the Web interface with machines that are not officially supported, ranging from my old PDA that ran Windows CE 4.x to various flavors of *nix on desktops and laptops. It's worked like a charm every time. The only router I've heard of that does not have a Web interface is Apple's AirPort series, and I've seen rather few people that are not Macintosh users have these.
 
I searched Microsoft's site, and it seems to be a DHCP issue:


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928233


The above link has a possible regedit fix.
 
I've got two x64 3700's with 2GB and X1800's both with Vista Enterprise X64. Both run great, maxed on Oblivion, CoD 4, etc at 1680x1050.

One laptop with core2duo and 32bit xp and 1.5gb. Another laptop with pentium dual core and 32bit vista home premium with 1.5gb. Funny thing, the cheap acer with pentium dual is faster than the lenovo r60, $570 acer vs $2000 lenovo, acer wins, too bad it will fall apart sooner :) both used heavily for Photoshop CS2 and AVCHD NLE.

My media center pc's are only p4 2.4-2.8 with 512-1 gig running ubuntu and mythtv and they rarely touch swap, and play anything I throw at them except true HD of course.
 


This has been a source of frustration for me as well. In my experience, when a device is deemed "Vista Certified" or "Made for Vista", it means it's certified for Vista 32, and 64-bit support is an afterthought. This was the same case with XP 64 - many devices marked "certified for XP" are not usable on XP 64. The distinction should be made, otherwise it's borderline false advertisement imo.

Back to my wireless adapter issues, my Belkin N is working, but I a) cannot load videos, or videos stutter (Flash issue?) b) cannot log into an RDP session. Downloads are fast and stable however...

 


On a lot of wireless adapter or wireless network cards they say Vista Certified or like you said Made for Vista and also as you said are only garneted to work with Vista 32bit. I have not seen one box that says it is Vista 64bit compatible but only Vista Certified. I have bought Liknsys, Netgear, Belkin, and other wireless adapters and none of them have work (all returned) because of those companies failure to be able to create drivers for Vista 64bit.

I do not remember what models I bought as it was months ago and I just ran a cable because it works. I use Opera as my Internet browser and I used to have the shuttering during videos with that, but since they have updated their program, I shutter no more. I have not ever shuttered or had video load failure in IE7 or Firefox with Vista 64.
 
Two Systems: 64-bit Windows 7, 8GB RAM, Core 2 Quad Q6600 (on home machine), Core 2 Quad 9450 (on office machine).

Yes, I have a Windows 7 system in production. Some minor issues that require restarting more often than I should have to, but the network stack is well worth it. 110MB/s transfer speeds, even from Server 2003 boxes.

Server farm includes 25+ servers, 14 of those are VMs. All 64-bit Server 2003 or later. 8GB or more RAM each. Dual Quad Xeon Dell Poweredge 1950 or 2950. VM hosts are Dell PE1950 with Dual Quad Xeon 3.0Ghz, 32GB RAM, running VMWare ESX Infrastructure.

No Server 2008 R2 boxes in production yet. 3 in Test Lab.
 



Vista Home Premium 64 with 4 gigs of RAM. I've noticed a difference over Vista Home Premium 32. I have XP Professional 64 with two identical hard drives to upgrade my wife's system too. We were getting bogged down with 32 bit Windows and 4 gigs of RAM that weren't recognized.

Since a 32 bit OS is supposed to recognize up to 16 gigs (am I remembering right) the fault with Windows 32 bit lies with Microsoft deciding what everyone needs as opposed to implementing the technologically feasible.

Would I benefit from going to 8 gigs? My wife might, because of her modding but I'm not sure I would until games start needing the extra memory.




I just went over to 64 bit Windows two weeks ago. What decided it for me was that there are finally decent driver support and all the major review sites are using Vista 64 for their benchmarks with 4 gigs of RAM.

My elementary school age kid still has XP Home, so it's 32 bit.

Really didn't want to buy more copies of Windows XP or Vista since W7 is coming out this year, but having 4 physical gigs of RAM in two sticks just didn't make a difference with regular XP or Vista. It's probably a plot by Microsoft to sell more copies. I'm sure they could have ditched 32 bit with Vista (and looks like they won't with W7 either), but forcing people to upgrade when they need more RAM they can actually use is quite a cash cow.



It may or may not be an OS issue with all routers. A coworker couldn't get his new wireless router to work with his AT&T DSL and their tech support just gave him a list of routers they recommended. He's not using a 64 bit OS either.

I have a cheap Airlink AR504 and it worked fine with both 32 and 64 bit Windows. Sometimes it just seems like 10/100 is still the way to go, despite the hassles of having most PC's in the same room, or at least fairly close.
 
Yeah, I'm surprised the poll still works (I never voted when this was originally out, I guess, but I thought they stopped working after a while). I read the first post and for some reason thought it was from a month ago, not a year and a month ago. Oh well, it would be interesting to see a thread like this (but current).
 


The number is actually 64 GB since PAE is 36-bit addressing, but yeah, MS turns it off in any XP/Vista non-server product and gradually re-enables some of it as you buy increasingly-expensive versions of Windows Server. PAE was actually working in Windows XP RTM to some extent but MS killed it with SP1 or SP2, I cannot remember which. I seem to remember their reasoning was that it broke DMA or something hideous like that.
 


LOL - well I missed all the buttons and accidently clicked on a pr0n link, and now I have a virus! :)

Just kiddin'..

There's no dual-boot option in the poll - I have a QX6700 and 4 GB, but usually boot into 32-bit XP for games, and 64-bit Vista for other stuff like ripping/encoding since it's faster with 2 or more instances.
 


LOL - from UAEZone:

by BaronMatrix on Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:01 pm

Yes, you heard it right. I have finally ordered my LONG overdue upgrade from Socket 939. I think that's a testament to how much the K8 is STILL worth but anyway here's the specs:

...

I will still probably get dual Opty's at some point. The only real need for it is hosting sites and I need to pick up a T1 first.
Click to expand...

So much for the vaunted "megatasking" :)
 
Core i7 D920 proc. on an MSI Eclipse Mobo, Vista: Ultimate 64, 12gig tri-chanel DDR3 RAM, 2x Nvidia GTX 280's in SLI, 2x WD 1 TB drives in Raid-0. Rig is two monts old and running stabily so far..
 
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