Vista 64? come on... is it really something to consider?!

[ssp]

I am building my computer Friday, and because I'm buying the OEM version of vista I have to choose... 32 or 64 bits?
But from what I understood, the 64 bit version is only good to address more than 4 GB of memory (2 GB on app). I am buying 2 GB of memory with the option to upgrade to 4 somewhere down the life expectancy of my new pc. Why would I want to get myself in trouble with 64bits if I will not conceivably use more than 4 GB of memory??
And please don’t say it’s the future, the future is a new pc in 3/4/5 years time. And the argument of helping the industry move to 64 bits... really, be serious, we will move to 64 bits when it is inevitable, 4 years from now the memory requirements will be much greater, and its not by putting 16gb of ram, on my then 4 years old computer, that I am going to avoid having to buy a new one.
(The security factor is the only argument I can think of being valid, but for me it is not enough to offset the hassle).
Prove me wrong, because I am tired of picking my brains in an agonizing choice that's really not worth it.

 

[MowTin]

I am buying 2 GB of memory with the option to upgrade to 4 somewhere down the life expectancy of my new pc.

Just a warning. Some motherboards just won't boot with 4 sticks. I tried to upgrade for 512x2 to 512x4 and my Asus A8N-E would not post. After trying EVERYTHING and reading about others in the same boat, I gave up and bought 2x1G.

So, don't just assume 4 sticks will work and sometimes when it does work, your memory id downgraded to a lower bus speed.

That whole episode really pissed me off. 4 slots but only 2 really work properly.

 

[Zoron]

Truth is, Vista x64 has much more support right now out-of-the-box than XP Pro x64 has after what... 2 years on the market? Going 64-bit with Vista will not be as nightmarish as it was with XP Pro.

Even Logitech has proper Vista x64 support for their webcams... and they dragged their feet forever with XP Pro x64.

 

[ikjadoon]

I am buying 2 GB of memory with the option to upgrade to 4 somewhere down the life expectancy of my new pc.

Just a warning. Some motherboards just won't boot with 4 sticks. I tried to upgrade for 512x2 to 512x4 and my Asus A8N-E would not post. After trying EVERYTHING and reading about others in the same boat, I gave up and bought 2x1G.

So, don't just assume 4 sticks will work and sometimes when it does work, your memory id downgraded to a lower bus speed.

That whole episode really pissed me off. 4 slots but only 2 really work properly.

That is an AMD-isolated problem. Chipset issue. nForce 4, particularly.

Sorry for your luck, though!

~Ibrahim~

 

[lappy]

Ok time for some professional views here
#1 vista start menu is really stupid,high resolutions make it almost impossible to see.this will push people to even create more desktop shortcuts which is going to look lame.
#2 productivity gains in vista is what??????where???
#3 photo import is crap
#4 taxing your video card during heavy 3D games and using the 3D card all the time the computer is running will shorten the life of the card,then when the fan dies or the GPU blows up you will need to replace the 600 dollar card and after that you will need to reactivate your product only if MS will let you
#4 if using the 64bit version,there are thousands of compatability problems because most software companies havent moved up to the 64bit age as of today.
#5 Internet explorer 7 blocks a ton of safe internet content,which developers like me ,really want to create scripts for internet content that will never be seen.
See the big picture is not hardware upgrading arguments,its the whole thing that Vista has just made computing more complex.
ive seen the birth and death of all the os listed here ,i am all for moving ahead but the point is Microsoft needs to get a clue
Dos
Geoworks
Unix
Linux
ms3.0,3.1,3.11
win95,win98&SE,,winME,Winw2k,winxp,pro&home&vista
MSServer 2003
ive programmed all of these thousands of times except vista
vista ive installed vista least 50 times beta and retail.and it didnt get any better,xp was crap as far as security went but in time it was pretty much fixed,we are talking about security heree with vista we are talking about the os core and the way it is user interface and friendliness and usability,
this os just really sucks all the way around.to many major i think it looks good to the MS programmers so lets spoon feed this up to the public and force this half baked upgrade down there throats.an os should be easy to use .

 

[KwyjiboNL77]

Yes, sure, some real 'professional' views there...

If you are really that much of a professional, I wonder why you have trouble with how to use the Vista GUI (you say it is not easy to use). And for some reason I get the feeling that you WEREN'T around when any of these OS where introduced, because, these rant keep comming back, and back, and back...everytime people get çonfused'by a new OS... And really, if you hate it...why install Vista 50 TIMES!!?? I would have guessed after the first time you would have been cured...

 

[BobaFettm]

Yes, sure, some real 'professional' views there...

:lol:

I'm running vista ultimate 64 bit and its running perfect for me... hell I even see a difference between the 64 bit and 32 bit IE for me... yes the 64 bit doesnt get a lot of plugins... so i keep both on the quick bar for when im just hittin digg 64 bit and if it needs a player like finetune then i hit up the 32 bit

The 64 bit works great for HL2 and the far cry 64 bit... Wow is playing smooth and everything else I've encountered has had no problems except my G15 logitech keyboard errors on start up... you close the box and it runs perfectly till the vista drivers come out

Boo to hating on vista... it may feel slower on some games... but im running a 8800gtx what the hell am I worried about? :lol:

 

[sanjiwatsuki]

Hm. How long can we expect the wait to be before 64-bit operating systems become more standard?

 

[KwyjiboNL77]

Hm. How long can we expect the wait to be before 64-bit operating systems become more standard?

I don't know, but I do know that I'm not gonna wait for it to happen. When it's time it is time, but in the meantime I'm not going through all the frustration of half-assed drivers and incompatible programs again. Only when there is a clear benefit, and 32bit has reached the end of the line, will I go 64bit, even if it will cost me some more to get a new OS...

 

[sanjiwatsuki]

So let me get this straight.

Pros to Vista 64:
1. Can use 4 gigs or more of RAM.
Conclusion: The 32-bit software cannot use it under almost any circumstances. Most likely, you'll only be able to use ~3GB. It really depends on your video card and such.

2. Stability
Conclusion: I've heard some good things about the stability of Vista 64.

3. Security
Conclusion: Improved kernel security.
Rebuttal: If drivers don't get signed then they arn't going to work.

4. Speed
Conclusion: Benchmarks say that it runs faster.
Rebuttal: I've also heard that it runs faster when using 64-bit software which is hard to find. Any confirmation?

5. It's the Future!
Conclusion: 64-bit is the future, not 32-bit.

Cons to Vista 64:
1. Drivers (and lack thereof)
Conclusion: Drivers are going to be tough to find. You can use XP 64-bit drivers sometimes. Also any driver that is not properly signed will not be able to enter the kernel. Expect loading failure there.

2. Compatibility
Conclusion: Don't expect 16bit things to work 🙁.

3. Lack of 64-bit software
Conclusion: As of now, there is virtually no 64-bit software. If you find one though, it'll run faster.

Am I on the dot? Am I misinformed?

 

[KwyjiboNL77]

Thing is, I have run XP64 for nearly 2 years, and while most worked, it didn't do anything BETTER on my PC than XP. I didn't dee a clear improvement in Farcry when they switched to 64bit, a newer GFX card would have seen a much more dramatic improvement, nor has Halflife 2 been very convincing in getting the 64bit fever spread, or UT 64bit for that matter. I've tested Maya 64bit, same story. I did however have plenty of small programs that would simply fail to install or run, games using certain Copyprotection wouldn't pass cd tests etc. So now, with Vista, I am waiting before jumping on the 64bit bandwagon again... Maybe a year from now, it will be the way to go, maybe 18 motnhs, maybe more, but by that time I will already be looking at a new PC...If you are now upgrading a PC to Vista, there has to be a very good reason to go 64bit, because programs are still mainly developed for 32bit, driver are still hard to get and existing (1-2 year old) systems will even struggle to support more than 4gb on their mainboards...

 

[fmfantasy]

Well Microsoft needs to get on board and make sure everything it releases is 64 bit also- having live one care adn office in 64 bit for one thing- I dont care if you think the programs suck or gain no benefit by being 64 bit- if we truly want to get to all 64 bit programs on our computers then this is the way it has to be.


Also Microsoft has to get a game or two out that are 64 bit vista only- Sure they migth lose a ton of sales by releasing Halo 3 that way but would make up for it in vista sales I am sure.

Best case is get intel and MS to team up with Blizzard and relese Starcraft 2 or Diable 3 or something like that for 64 bit vista dx10 only - that would start the snowball and would really accelerate 64 bit adoption. a pipe dream to be sure but would benefit all the big tech companies in the future.

 

[KwyjiboNL77]

Again, I think you're wrong. The only way 64bit will gain momentum is if there is a real need for it. Releasing games and Apps as 64bit only may force some people to buying 64bit OSes but for the love of god, why? If it's not necessery, there is no reason to accelerate adoption. I think once there is no other way around it, then the market will be ready for 64bit, not before, not after. With the amount of 32bit only hardware around now, making stuff 64bit only will be just plain stupid and lock millions of bussinesses in a situation where they can not upgrade without replacing all their hardware, and for what reason? An office box (even with Vista) won't require more than 1gb for at least 1-2 more years (if not more), and then there is 2.5gb headroom to exntend if needed.

Again, 64bit atm may show some marginal performance improvements over 32bit, but name one reason why average (cubicle) Joe (still 95% of the PC market) needs 64bit, or over 4GB of RAM? 64bit computing has been around for years (IA64 Windows XP, well before XP64) but the market has shown that there is no need for it (yet).

 

[fmfantasy]

Well the average cubicle joe would be just fine with a 700 mhz proc running windows 95- but then where is the money in that??? MS intel etc need to push the envelope to keep people upgrading.

You get a killer game out in 64 bit vista dx10 only and it will pull a couple million easy- then all these companies sititing on their ass will step up cause they got alot more people posting for a 64 bit driver or demand for a 64 bit version of their program.

By your theory there was no need to ever go past 16 bit- I bet if we look back to 1996 we can find a million "who will ever need 1 GB of ram or a 10 GB hard drive" posts. Once the 64 bit is mainstream the software and hardware to take huge advantage of it will be made.

 

[Digitalfiends]

Ok time for some professional views here
#1 vista start menu is really stupid,high resolutions make it almost impossible to see.this will push people to even create more desktop shortcuts which is going to look lame.

I think you need glasses.

#4 taxing your video card during heavy 3D games and using the 3D card all the time the computer is running will shorten the life of the card,then when the fan dies or the GPU blows up you will need to replace the 600 dollar card and after that you will need to reactivate your product only if MS will let you

The type of work the Vista UI subsystem & DWM does is very minimal. Most current video cards won't even break a sweat. My X1900XT idles in Vista at 45C, which is the same as XP. I guess your "theory" is wrong...

#5 Internet explorer 7 blocks a ton of safe internet content,which developers like me ,really want to create scripts for internet content that will never be seen.

The learn to use scripts the right way. IE7 is perfectly fine for development of scripts. Our Web developers have had very good feedback on developing with ASP.NET and IE7.

See the big picture is not hardware upgrading arguments,its the whole thing that Vista has just made computing more complex.
ive seen the birth and death of all the os listed here ,i am all for moving ahead but the point is Microsoft needs to get a clue

How has it made computing more complex? If anything one thing that all anti-Vista people seem to agree on is that Vista has at least improved the end user-experience. Factor in XAML, WPF, .NET 3.0, better security, etc and as a developer myself, I welcome Vista with open arms.

an os should be easy to use .

So you don't find Vista easy to use but include Unix/Linux in your list of easy to use OSes? I really wonder what you actually develop...

 

[rlshky]

Nevermind... This is just misinformation. I just tried ordering the media using the product key from an OEM 32-bit edition and the order can't be processed. It is rejected with the error: "No Offer Found".

Lies/talking-out-as*... thx.

This is the reason why I would go with the Premium Upgrade (at least with the way I understand things). At a place like costco it can be had for only $25 more than the OEM.

You can do a clean install on a new system using the "upgrade trick" installing the 32-bit version and at the same time order the 64 bit disk.

Then in a year or whenever 64-bit become the norm you'll have that 64-bit disk and be able to switch over to 64-bit Vista.

 

[JohnMD]

Not a hard core gamer or anything...just an occasional if not rare builder from the 286 days...😀

Purchased Vista Ultimate upgrade....from a B&M store like a dumbarse....and paid too much! XP pro fresh install w/o service pack on one partition. The VU64 installed as a fresh install on second partition/drive. Running dual boot of VU64 and XPPro.

The VU Upgrade retail version includes both 32 and 64 bit discs....same key for both.

The core of my build:
MSI 7100 platinum (nforce4 sli chipset) 939 board with updated bios
4 gig kinston ddr 400
fx 60
2 x 7900gs in sli
2 x maxtor sata II 320 gb...not using raid.

Issues noted with the upgrade....
several old components are not going to be supported. Modems..tv cards...etc. It was all old stuff anyway....but I hate dropping a dime on a modem that I never use.
some drivers little more of a pain to find...i.e. on motherboard sound blaster 24bit live was interesting...but found a beta that is working fine.
Don't think she is running in sli yet. Nvidia does have drivers out for the chipset but I haven't proved to myself that it is working.

The upgrade has gone fairly smooth. Biggest hurdle was finding my motherboard discs for the xp install so it would recognize the drive size correctly. I am having to purchase new accessories like modems and TV cards that are current (old ones were like 5+ years old). No surprise there. Haven't got sissandra to run for some reason.

Differences between the XP pro (32) and Vista Ultimate (64):
XP does only see 3 of the 4 GB of DDR
Vista sees it all. You need a different antivirus. Vista also more intensive about polling you if this is ok...do you authorize this...etc. XP Pro seemed like a king of stability compared to 95 or 98 or any of the ones before (remember the 3.5 floppys!). Likewise Vista seems as stable...maybe a little better than XP. I have noticed Vista hanging at times on some programs and some installs. Program compatibility...have office 2000 installed on the VU64 without issue. Also loaded Flight Sim X and it worked without bugs. One big advantage I see with Vista is the quickness it opens programs compared to XP Pro. With some programs...its almost like its cached.

I am going to run both systems for now. XP Pro for gaming. VU64 for video editing and surfing and work.

Best Regards,
JohnMD

 

[KwyjiboNL77]

Well the average cubicle joe would be just fine with a 700 mhz proc running windows 95- but then where is the money in that??? MS intel etc need to push the envelope to keep people upgrading.

You get a killer game out in 64 bit vista dx10 only and it will pull a couple million easy- then all these companies sititing on their ass will step up cause they got alot more people posting for a 64 bit driver or demand for a 64 bit version of their program.

By your theory there was no need to ever go past 16 bit- I bet if we look back to 1996 we can find a million "who will ever need 1 GB of ram or a 10 GB hard drive" posts. Once the 64 bit is mainstream the software and hardware to take huge advantage of it will be made.

I think you have a hard time understanding my comments. I never said that there will NEVER be a need for 64bit. I only said that FOR ME now is not the time yet. My current PC has 2gb, looking at going to 3gb. All current programs (including resource intensive 3D apps like Maya) run well on Vista with 2-3GB of RAM, and more RAM will only very marginally improve performance (at the expense of compatibility). The current market doesn't demand 64bit any more than it demands 32 core processors. It sounds cool but is it really necessery (there is a big show-off factor there)? No apps support it yet, no developer wants to spend extra time and resources to program something that makes things more complex, without a real need.

My theory (if I have one...) is that 64bit will make sense in due time when the real need arises. Pushing for a new standard when the benefits are still marginal, and the needs are more psychological than technical isn't the way to go.

My point is, if you are a real PC enthusiast, you change PC's at such a fast rate, that you have the flexibility to not have to look ahead 2 years to figure what you think (or hope) the standard will be then. 2 years from now, this PC I'm using now will be demoted to fileserver or Mediacenter, when my next high-end PC will take over as a 3D workstation/Gaming platform. And since I will be using both, I will need an extra license anyway, so if it needs to be 64bit by then, 64bit it will be.

Similar discussions can be had about AV standards like HDTV. When the first HDTV's came on the market, some people where saying that there was no way around it and you might as well buy them now, since it was going to be the future. These people often find themselves now with obsolete 1080i TVs, without HDMI, without support for HDCP and they have spent 4 times as much money for a TV in a time when HD content wasn't even available. They have to spend money again on a TV that will actually play HD-DVD/Blueray. If they where patient enough to wait what the market was going to do, they could have saved themselves a lot of money, and a lot of headaches.

And 'because it's the future!' isn't a good enough reason for me to change to a new standard...'because it will improve your PC's performance by 25+%' and 'this program will run sooooo much better with 4gb+ of RAM, thus needs 64bit', or '6gb of RAM are only € 200 now', or 'every program is written in 64bit anyway nowadays' on the other hand are good enough reasons.

AMD has pushed 64bit on us with the promise of enormous performance gains (or, as I see it to differentiate themselves and put Intel in a trend-following, rather than trend-setting situation). But with the Core architecture Intel has proved once again that 64bit isn't the performance multiplier we needed so bad, but multithreading and good processor design was. And if 64bit can help to improve that even more, than that's even better...But 64bits on its own won't do anything until the limits of 32bits are reached (which may be within the next 18-24 months...or not). I've been following this industry long enough to know Moore's Law still applies, and with 1-2GB RAM being the sweetspot for most users now (with the OS the main decider on what amount of RAM makes sense), it will be at least another 18 months before we reach that magic barrier of 4GB...

 

[Twisted_Sister]

Can someone confirm the statement made that you can't use Flash websites with 64?

If so, is there a way to easily run internet browsers in 32 bit mode... without reboots or having a seperate windows partition?

Thanks

 

[JohnMD]

Vista 64bit has both 32 and 64 bit IE.

Best Regards
JohnMD

 

[fazers_on_stun]

I installed Vista 64 OEM clean on a new build - QX6700, eVGA 680i mobo, 4 gigs Crucial PC2-8000, single eVGA 8800GTX, 2 Raptor 150s in RAID0, X-Fi Gamer Fatality - and after installing BIOS updates, 64-bit drivers, etc. finally had to install XP Media Center because Vista would lock up too frequently. I plan to reinstall and dual-boot so that I can find out what the problem is when I have some time to play with it. No oc as of yet so that ain't the problem .

However I noted that I had the full 4 gigs with Vista and 2.75 gigs with XP (probably due to the 768MB on the GTX card). Also, DVDShrink 3.2 ran flawlessly on Vista - some 15 threads spread out over all 4 cores - during a recoding to ~60% original size, in about 1/5th the time it took the same movie on my old P4-2.6MHz machine. I'll bench it in both Vista and XP after I get the dual-boot setup, although since it is 32-bit I dunno how much difference if any I'll see.

Vista didn't think too highly of the Crucial memory however - only gave it a 5.3 on the "experience" scale, whereas the other components got a 5.8 or 5.9. Didn't play with the timings however since I was doing good to run Vista a few hours to a day without a lockup. No problems with XP at all so I'm thinking a driver or BIOS issue.

As for unsigned drivers, I installed Creative's beta 64-bit driver (which sux by the way) with no problem. Creative devotes more effort explaining how MS broke their EAX driver by taking it out of the kernel, than fixing it. But I can confirm the couple of ancient 16-bit games I tried wouldn't run...

In short, my conclusion is that when Vista 64 runs, and when it runs well-written apps, it looks and performs beautifully. But most people are probably gonna want to wait until SP1 comes out

 

[Digitalfiends]

Vista didn't think too highly of the Crucial memory however - only gave it a 5.3 on the "experience" scale, whereas the other components got a 5.8 or 5.9. Didn't play with the timings however since I was doing good to run Vista a few hours to a day without a lockup. No problems with XP at all so I'm thinking a driver or BIOS issue.

Don't feel too bad. My Corsair TWINX1024 2-2-2-5 T1 memory running at 208MHz only scored 4.5. 5.9 is the highest score right now btw, according to MS.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Don't feel too bad. My Corsair TWINX1024 2-2-2-5 T1 memory running at 208MHz only scored 4.5. 5.9 is the highest score right now btw, according to MS.

Right - makes you wonder what the hell MS used as the benchmark memory . However, a rating of 5.3 (Vista uses the lowest component score as system score) is a lot better than the 1.0 that I got before I installed the GTX driver - Vista saw it as a plain vanilla VGA compatible, hence no Aeroglass until I did the board BIOS update and loaded a 64-bit driver.

 

[speedyquad]

Hmm. Maybe he's right...

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

Has anyone tried to order the 64 bit version on an OEM key?

Confirmed, I just installed OEM 64bit vista ultimate, by borrowing a 64bit version dvd from a friend, then installed 64 using my OEM 32bit Vista Ultimate Keycode. Success! Authenticated and everything.

No 7.99 shipping for me

Hope this response to a old thread helps someone.