Vista 32 or 64 with 4 gig of RAM for gaming

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dukefanmu

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Aug 1, 2009
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I can only use 4 gigs of ram with my motherboard and am wondering if it would be worth it to upgrade from Vista 32 bit to 64 bit. I really only care about gaming, but do not want to upgrade my entire system. I have a q6600 that is still getting the job done and I am thinking about upgrading to a 4890 one gig vid card. Should I upgrade to 64 bit?
 
It really depends on the genre you typically play, although with companies like Valve making quad friendly games that's becoming less of an issue.

Also, I would personally suggest a custom XP 64 os with DX10 instead of the Vista 64.
 
^don't do that, bad idea, XP 64bit wasn't very good with the driver support and was a bit unstable

upgrade to vista 64 bit (it will require a fresh install, can't go from 32 bit to 64 bit), really since SP1 its been fine and really with SP2 it works as good as Windows 7

though if you can still download windows 7, get the 64 bit and you have a free OS until march
 
I have q6600, 32-bit vista ultimate genuine os, GB ram. I know that i can use only 3.25 GB ram but most of the old games are to be played on 32-bit.Most of them dont work on 64-bit.So i am getting another system and take this 1GB and add it to that one.
I really dont recommend 64 bit for now.But in future i believe that all will be 64-bit.
 


Notice I said custom . If you are visually impaired in some fashion please refer to http://mw1.m-w.com/cgi-bin/audio.pl?custom01.wav=custom

In my own personal experience I've never had a problem with the modernized versions of 64 bit XP despite the fact that many of there features are not officially supported by microsoft. Vista 64 on the other hand has been, for me, a BSOD factory.


>>teja92
The 92 in you sig apparently refers to the last time you purchased a game.
 
If you plan on doing any mods for gaming, go 64bit, and stay away from xp, its a dead end, and offers way less, especially with the advent of DX11, which will be available on Vista, and not XP
 
i have vista 32... i have 4 gigz of ram (installed)... i never ever have problems with ram... i can tab in and out between l4d and bf2142 and pretty much play both at the same time(not too demanding games i know, but just an example)... i believe there as an article that you don't need more then 3 gigs of ram for gaming... 64bit gaming is not here yet
 


Are you saying 64 bit just for gaming is useless??

and does PunkBuster really matter
( I'm really not sure what it is, I think it is about preventing people from hacking games?)
 
Win 7 32 bit supports full 4gb ram.......Support upto 8gb.....Get it..much better for gaming....

Iam using 32 bit with vista with 4gb ram.....Will upgrade to Windows 7...this october...
 
Read

Windows 7 32 Bit accepts more RAM!

One of the most astonishing things about Vista, the modern operating system the Microsoft claims it to be, still can only use up to 3GB of your installed RAM in the 32Bit versions of the OS. So at the moment Vista can only use 3 of the 4GB of ram installed in my new MacBook Pro which sucks, at the moment Mac OS X can handle around 32GB with snow leopard introducing support for 16 terabytes of RAM!!!. The screenshot below was taken from Paul Thurrott's Win Super site preview of Windows 7 M3, notice how the windows rating section indicates 4GB of ram just above the 32 Bit Operating System notification.


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_nEeIAMPyejQ/SQh2vInHcMI/AAAAAAAAAGw/WLgOdeiE_1U/s1600-h/Win7+Ram-1.jpg


see 😀
 
It uses a large amount for memory mapping and drivers etc, the more you have on your rig, the more it "pre-prepares" for all your hardware and you OS.
The thing is, W7 no longer uses your vid card memory against you, making it run twice, or using twice as much, so it isnt deducted from the entire amount.
Read up on memory allocation, some good stuff there, helps you understand the workings of your system and hardware
 
A better explanation for W7 and video ram is, since it already accounts for it, because it has to be sent from your card to system memory, it would then deduct it again while in use. W7 no longer does that
 

I am saying that there is no 64-bit Punkbuster. Go try and play Crysis multiplayer and see what it's like when no servers run Punkbuster. Why don't they? Because the majority of people play in 64-bit mode so Punkbuster on servers must be disabled as there's no 64-bit client.


As I said above, there's no 64-bit client. It will work on a 64-bit OS but only in 32-bit games.


Amazing little trick that isn't it? Microsoft put it in there after Vista SP1.



To prevent so many "why doesn't Windows see my RAM???!!!!!" type questions flooding their support channels. System Information shows the amount of installed RAM, not the amount of usable RAM. The 4GB address range limitation still exists, then you have Memory-Mapped I/O taking up 750-1GB of RAM on most systems, and more if you have a vide card with alot of VRAM. The only solution to using all this "wasted" RAM is to install a Windows Server OS and enable Physical Address Extension, which increases the address range to 36 bits or the equivalent of 64GB of RAM. Note that many 32-bit drivers don't like running with PAE because they are handed a 36-bit address range while expecting a 32-bit address range. This is why Microsoft disabled PAE's effects in desktop OSs since XP SP2.

EDIT: @jdj: I don't follow what you're saying exactly (although I do vaguely remember something on this topic being announced a while ago). Wouldn't there still be address space taken up for the VRAM? The CPU still needs addresses available to read/write to the VRAM...
 
I don't know why you're saying that Punkbuster isn't working 64-bit compatible because I just came from a 2 hour gaming session of Call of Duty 4 which does use PunkBuster and I am running W7 64-bit. I have also been able to play with Vista 64-bit..
 
Eventually, 32-bit will be phased out, as 16-bit has slowing been phased out of modern operating systems. Years from now, 8GB/12GB/16GB of RAM will probably be standard for multitaskers and gamers while 4GB will be the "minimal" memory required for a mainstream system. Eventually, a 32-bit OS won't exist.

As of now though, it all depends on the amount of memory you want to use and the software you use with that memory...Also, you would have to make sure your hardware had 64-bit drivers...32-bit drivers != 64-bit drivers. Most hardware nowadays has x64 drivers but you always have to make sure beforehand.

I wouldn't recommend Vista 64-bit though...It runs slow as molasses and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 runs lightspeeds faster (at least, that was so in my first-hand experience with my competent ThinkPad T61p). It's still available for download for another week or so if you want to try it out. Your product key won't expire until March 2010.
 
I use vista 64bit for two years now and I have NEVER experiences any problems.
All games work perfectly well even old game from 1997 work with no problems.
Also Punkbuster works in vista 64bit with no problems.
 
@ Dukefanmu: If it's a cheap upgrade, yes, it'll release all the memory to Windows, very handy for those resource hogging games (yes, I'm looking at YOU GTA IV! And stop sniggering at the back Crysis!).
If you have to pay full price, then no, just ignore it.
Better still, if it's still possible, why not try Win 7 for free?
 
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