Will older games made for XP work on 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate?

[subaru41]

Hello,

I just built a brand new machine for primarily gaming and was wondering if I should install 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate. Will older games made for XP work on 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate?
Would I benefit on gaming by increasing my ram from 4gb(DDR3 1600) to 8gb?
I am not worried about Drives, I have check on my printer, etc. All 64bit compatible.

I have alot of Win XP games that I still love to play, and wish to continue to play and I don't know if 32bit or 64bit matters. TOCA Race Driver 3 is one. For example my friend installed TOCA 3 on his Win 7 32 bit, and the only problem he ran into is he had to use a NO-CD patch to get the game to work. Which I prefer to do on games I own anyways. I also noticed he is maxed out on ram with Crysis; It uses all of the 2.75GB ram out of 4GB available on 32 bit. I have 4GB DDR3 1600 right now and wouldn't mind buying another 4gb if it is beneficial for gaming; which this machines 90% of it use will be. If it comes down to it I rather install 32 bit, if 64 bit is not compatible or has issues with older games.

Thank you.

 

[subaru41]

bump

 

[Herr_Koos]

Hi,

In my experience, you should be able to get most XP-era games running under Windows 7 x64. The built-in compatibility settings work pretty well. Also, Microsoft are busy rolling out patches to fix program compatibility, so if something doesn't work now, they could fix it in future.

 

[Beckham7]

windows7 is better than XP,but most games are not available in Windows 7, so disappointed!

 

[Herr_Koos]

windows7 is better than XP,but most games are not available in Windows 7, so disappointed!

What do you mean, not available? All my XP games work in Windows 7, so I don't quite understand what you are talking about.

 

[amnotanoobie]

I also noticed he is maxed out on ram with Crysis; It uses all of the 2.75GB ram out of 4GB available on 32 bit. I have 4GB DDR3 1600 right now and wouldn't mind buying another 4gb if it is beneficial for gaming; which this machines 90% of it use will be.

The games that you run on XP would most likely be 32-bit applications, and as such, they could only access less than 4GB of RAM. If you plan to run more than one 32-bit game then the memory upgrade might be worth it, otherwise it may provide no perceivable difference.

 

[isamuelson]

Only things that won't work are 32-bit games using 16-bit installers or 16-bit games.