XP64 vs XP32 vs Vista64 vs Vista32

[CoffeeFiend]

Actually, 8GB for 250$ is friggin cheap considering people pay up to 800$ for video cards or worst, people that buy lolExtremeCPU.

Everything's cheap if you put it that way. Back in 1995, 8MB of EDO RAM was 800$. Or back in 1980, a 18MB hard drive was 5G's. That still doesn't make it cheap (not everyone has nearly that much $ to spend on RAM nowadays -- at least I don't).

The advantage? 100% removal of swap file. It makes the system holy snappy it's mind boggling. I haven't ran into a single problem yet, and I do casual AV encoding, Photoshop

Paging already isn't an issue at 4GB with fairly intensive use. With Vista only stuff that really isn't necessary to keep in RAM gets paged to disk. Actually, it even pre-caches stuff you might need later on in the free memory. It's not like XP, it doesn't just dump it all to the page file to have it all free (i.e. unused). Page file usage, looking at any perf counter is already quite low. There's just not much gain to make from having 8GB there for the vast majority of people.

I can already have dozens of apps open at once (including firefox, photoshop, etc) and not have paging problems, even on a system with only 2GB RAM. And encoding isn't memory intensive at all, it's 100% a CPU-bound process (try encoding high def stuff with x264, you'll see VERY easily... Low mem usage overall, very low disk I/O, but all cores pegged to 100% solid, and it still crawls)

It might be different when it comes to games, no idea there, I don't play any.

Edited July 4, 2008 by crahak

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Paging already isn't an issue at 4GB with fairly intensive use. With Vista only stuff that really isn't necessary to keep in RAM gets paged to disk. Actually, it even pre-caches stuff you might need later on in the free memory. It's not like XP, it doesn't just dump it all to the page file to have it all free (i.e. unused). Page file usage, looking at any perf counter is already quite low. There's just not much gain to make from having 8GB there for the vast majority of people.

I can already have dozens of apps open at once (including firefox, photoshop, etc) and not have paging problems, even on a system with only 2GB RAM. And encoding isn't memory intensive at all, it's 100% a CPU-bound process (try encoding high def stuff with x264, you'll see VERY easily... Low mem usage overall, very low disk I/O, but all cores pegged to 100% solid, and it still crawls)

It might be different when it comes to games, no idea there, I don't play any.

Uh... Low page file usage? Answer this.

It uses 1.3GB RAM with nothing but Opera, the task manager and IrfanView (to make the screenshot). And it uses 1.5GB page file!!! That's with the page file "disabled"... System is lightly tweaked, just UAC, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall and Security Center disabled, no AV is running, and any extra processes are from the ATi drivers, nothing more.

On XP i was used to the feeling of "instantaneous computing" even with only 2GB RAM. Now i have 6GB, so WHY THE HECK does Vista have to churn my hard drive like crazy after i close Opera? For the love of God, it only takes about 100MB RAM with 15 tabs open.

It's NOT about the benchmarks. It's NOT about resource demanding games. It's about the system's general "feeling", and its responsiveness in doing everyday tasks. And it's about minor issues that drive people like me crazy.

For example, they screwed up the ADPCM codec so bad that older games that worked in XP will not work in Vista even if i install the codec from XP. Then the Explorer bugs like the "doubling filesize". Then still chewing up a whole CPU core for smooth scrolling (i always keep it off for that reason) and still not supporting the mouse wheel during setup. The new navigation system is confusing, the old one was good enough and there since Win95. The control panel has been scrambled. The display properties applet has been broken into tabbed windows with only one tab, which look like s***. It's all these little things that make people hate Vista. Oh, and i want a XP style start menu, just with that search box added. We're not running 800x600, you know? Also, the sidebar is useless if you don't have your system locale set to English.

My point is that they fixed what wasn't broken and didn't fix what was. And if you turn all the GUI eye candy off, you'll end up with Windows 2000 with DX10 and a whole lotta more bugs.

Edited July 4, 2008 by Th3_uN1Qu3

[CoffeeFiend]

Uh... Low page file usage? Answer this.

(snip)

It uses 1.3GB RAM with nothing but Opera, the task manager and IrfanView (to make the screenshot). And it uses 1.5GB page file!!! That's with the page file "disabled"... System is lightly tweaked, just UAC, Windows Defender, Windows Firewall and Security Center disabled, no AV is running, and any extra processes are from the ATi drivers, nothing more.

That's both easy and hard to explain.

Your ram usage is quite high, not sure why (that's the hard part). Hard to say why, without being on the box and looking around.

Page file wise, it's a misunderstanding on your behalf. The windows task manager has long been labeling things in stupid ways, like actual RAM usage of a process on XP isn't the default column, it's actually called "VM Size" (so you can't really blame people for not getting it right). Similarly, "Page File" isn't actually the page file usage at all, but rather the commit size! That's the total amount of memory used, physical and virtual combined. Long story short, you don't have a 1.5GB page file...

Here's a screenshot of a vista box (with only 2GB), done with process explorer (and I think there was a couple extra processes even, like the realtek mixer). Commit charge is only 382MB, 17 of which is used by process explorer, so 365MB used TOTAL. And that's not using vLite or anything. Same tweaks you've done, plus turning off some unnecessary services, nothing special. Don't ask me what the hell your box is doing with that extra 1.2GB of RAM, because I have no idea...

Most people don't quite understand Windows memory management, or are fooled by all the mislabeled stuff, and often make comments based on wrong numbers and such (it's extremely common actually). I recommend a GREAT tool that's part of the Sysinternals Suite: process explorer. All their apps are he very best, and extremely useful actually (process monitor, autoruns, etc). The Sysinternals Video Library (with Mark Russinovich himself) is a must-watch too. They specifically talk about Windows management on one of the DVDs. It's $400 admittedly, but most IT training/courses will run you a lot more than that, even for simple things.

Dunno about the ADPCM and old games, as I don't play old games. Yes, the status bar file size bug is known, that's certainly an issue. I don't have issues with it "chewing a core" though, navigation works great once you get used to it (much stuff is going this way regardless, and eventually you have to change some things -- not all change is bad). Control panel being shuffled around? They basically did that with every version or just about. As for display properties, they opted for different icons for different tasks, instead of cramming it all in one screen. It's not that hard to find stuff actually. Just why should themes be in the same screen as resolution and all that anyways? Just because it used to be? And the sidebar works just fine in the other language I've tried/used (i.e. french). Some things change with every version, and some people resist to change more than others...

And if you turn all the GUI eye candy off, you'll end up with Windows 2000 with DX10 and a whole lotta more bugs.

That's so far from the truth that I wouldn't know where to start...

Edited July 4, 2008 by crahak

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Your ram usage is quite high, not sure why (that's the hard part). Hard to say why, without being on the box and looking around.

Page file wise, it's a misunderstanding on your behalf. The windows task manager has long been labeling things in stupid ways, like actual RAM usage of a process on XP isn't the default column, it's actually called "VM Size" (so you can't really blame people for not getting it right). Similarly, "Page File" isn't actually the page file usage at all, but rather the commit size! That's the total amount of memory used, physical and virtual combined. Long story short, you don't have a 1.5GB page file...

Here's a screenshot of a vista box (with only 2GB), done with process explorer (and I think there was a couple extra processes even, like the realtek mixer). Commit charge is only 382MB, 17 of which is used by process explorer, so 365MB used TOTAL. And that's not using vLite or anything. Same tweaks you've done, plus turning off some unnecessary services, nothing special. Don't ask me what the hell your box is doing with that extra 1.2GB of RAM, because I have no idea...

Most people don't quite understand Windows memory management, or are fooled by all the mislabeled stuff, and often make comments based on wrong numbers and such (it's extremely common actually). I recommend a GREAT tool that's part of the Sysinternals Suite: process explorer. All their apps are he very best, and extremely useful actually (process monitor, autoruns, etc). The Sysinternals Video Library (with Mark Russinovich himself) is a must-watch too. They specifically talk about Windows management on one of the DVDs. It's $400 admittedly, but most IT training/courses will run you a lot more than that, even for simple things.

And the sidebar works just fine in the other language I've tried/used (i.e. french).

I know Process Explorer, i used it all the time in XP. I forgot it works on Vista too, getting it now. Thanks for the tip on memory management, i knew those numbers couldn't be true. I was at 1.3GB because i had quite a lot of stuff running that i closed afterwards, it's probably Superfetch keeping some things in memory. With some additional service tweaking (still left Superfetch on though, just to see if it really makes a difference over time), i'm at this now:

But honestly, do you think i care about that since i have 6GB RAM? The extra usage may be because it's 64-bit. And oh, i got it. On XP it would say Commit Charge. I remember that... So that there means Windows really doesn't use the page file and has everything in RAM. That makes sense now.

As about the sidebar, it does work, but in their infinite stupidity (quoted from Volatus) M$ made the gadgets language dependent, so you'll have to do some lengthy and dirty renaming of the files to get English gadgets on a Romanian system locale, coz M$ only provides two gadgets for Romanian locale, and they have something to do with Office, therefore useless as i don't use Office.

Edited July 4, 2008 by Th3_uN1Qu3

[eyeball]

Crahak, your presence lately on msfn has been great

You are obviously a really knowlegable person and just reading through this thread has been an insight into that knowlege.

As for the people who "Bash Vista".....shame on you, pickup the Windows Vista Resource Kit book and read it cover to cover, it will COMPLETELY change the way you think about vista

Cheers

[CoffeeFiend]

Thanks

That's actually a great book you're recommending (I started reading it a couple months ago), but reading it cover to cover might be a bit much as it's 1568 pages long I might be done reading it by the time windows 7 is out...

[eyeball]

yeah its huge and i havent read the lot either .....BUT you see my point, i was dubious at first especially since the first couple of Beta releases were nothing but a pain in the arse! However after the RTM and reading a lot of that book my view has changed entirely and i can see that everything was done with a **** good reason.

[S.SubZero]

[Memory gains on systems with 4GB are pretty much negated by the extra memory usage of processes (due to double sized pointers & such things -- it even makes your cpu cache hold less instructions)

It's not fair to say this. Of course 64-bit code is going to take more RAM. The amount of extra RAM it takes is not twice as much or anywhere near it.

Gains made from the handful of extra CPU registers are pretty much negated when you're pretty much running everything under WOW64 (again, the excel 2007 example, twice the CPU usage under WOW64)

I haven't experienced this personally. Excel's resource usage on my Vista x64 work PC has never been strikingly high.

And then, you get all the quirks from not so mature drivers like seen here... Add to that the many devices without any drivers, the lack of crucial codecs for AV playback on x64 (e.g. CoreAVC, Haali splitter, etc) resulting in much higher resource usage or lack of functionality, and the overall lack of x64 apps in the first place (no point running everything under WOW64)...

Again, unfair. You make it sound like 64-bit drivers have a monopoly on bugs. Oh believe me they don't. It doesn't take more than a casual glance at the "fixes" part of any nVidia 32-bit driver documentation to see that. Given the vast numbers of people out there now running 64-bit Vista, it can be safely deduced that 64-bit drivers have reached a satisfactory maturity level. I use Vista x64 at work in a production environment with a variety of hardware and peripherals and everything works and works well. I never complain.

As for codecs, I typically use Windows Media Player 11 32-bit (since it is the default player in Vista x64, and XP64 does not have 64-bit WMP) and for the most part it works. 64-bit codecs are getting better all the time, but for the most part a 64-bit media player won't provide much benefit over a 32-bit one. Videos just aren't math-intensive enough. Codec writers aren't exactly bending over backwards to get their stuff up-ported, and I don't blame them.

I can't think of a single reason to move to x64, there's just no advantages yet (any potential advantage is outweighed), unless you have like 8GB of RAM, which is definitely NOT cheap yet (~$250 for quality fast DDR2), and most people wouldn't have a use for that much in desktop in the first place.

I'm not someone to do frequent reinstalls anyway, but with Windows requiring activation on every install it makes sense for me to install my OS as little as possible. The Vista Business x64 I installed two weeks ago on my new rig is the OS I intend to still be using a year or two or three from now. As such, I do not want to be forced to reinstall simply to run an app that is 64-bit only. I'm no future teller, but given how practically every mainstream processor sold today not only has x64 instructions but has multiple cores, the idea of a "64-bit only, multi-core only" killer app sometime in the next couple of years isn't too far-fetched. Microsoft *did* toy with the idea of a 64-bit Office during the Office 2007 development process.

Vista x64 isn't some hobby development thing. It's mature, stable, and runs very well. It works as a gaming OS, it works as a production OS.

oh, and..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146731

Mushkin 4GB for $90 but with a rebate, $65. 8GB would be $130. I ended up getting this myself.

[MrCobra]

I can't think of a single reason to move to x64, there's just no advantages yet (any potential advantage is outweighed), unless you have like 8GB of RAM, which is definitely NOT cheap yet (~$250 for quality fast DDR2), and most people wouldn't have a use for that much in desktop in the first place.

I moved to (XP)x64 for a few reasons.

• 8GB+ of RAM
  
• The removal of the 16bit subsystem
  
• The support that it will get far and beyond that of the general consumer version of XP
  
• Software developement
  
• Photography (64bit version of PS is in the works)
  

Luckilly, every piece of H/W that I have has 64bit drivers. I do think that MSFT should abandon 32bit at some point and focus solely on 64bit developement. H/W is advancing rapidly and yet the software (thanks to 20 year old compatability layers and lazy developers) continues to hold it back.

Nice posts you've made, btw. Also, thanks for the Screensaver Powertoy. Works fine in XP.

Edited July 7, 2008 by MrCobra

[CoffeeFiend]

It's not fair to say this. Of course 64-bit code is going to take more RAM. The amount of extra RAM it takes is not twice as much or anywhere near it.

I didn't say its use doubled, I said 15% overall. So if you have 4GB and only see 3.5 of it, and install x64 to see the last 512MB, then you don't actually gain anything! (3.5GB + 15% = 4.025GB so in theory you might be losing a tiny bit)

I haven't experienced this personally. Excel's resource usage on my Vista x64 work PC has never been strikingly high.

It's not the idle resource usage that's high. It's the actual CPU cycles used to do the calculations, like someone else said "it marshals memory access back and forth to adjust pointer sizes", and that makes the CPU usage considerably higher (several other office tasks have the problem, like animations in powerpoint). And nevermind a 64 bit copy of Office will likely never have VBA (like Office 2008 for the Mac), likely won't work with old 32 bit ActiveX controls, etc. And again, it's just one example. *All* apps have extra overhead running under WOW64. Your apps don't get any performance advantages until they are native x64 versions.

As for codecs, I typically use Windows Media Player 11 32-bit (since it is the default player in Vista x64, and XP64 does not have 64-bit WMP) and for the most part it works. 64-bit codecs are getting better all the time, but for the most part a 64-bit media player won't provide much benefit over a 32-bit one. Videos just aren't math-intensive enough. Codec writers aren't exactly bending over backwards to get their stuff up-ported, and I don't blame them.

Then trying playing H.264 in a mkv container for example. Right, no CoreAVC, no Haali splitter. It's very problematic IMO. And videos ARE very math intensive -- perhaps the most math-intensive most people do on their PCs actually (besides games). Codecs are just that -- a LOT of complicated math, and it's VERY demanding on the CPU (just try encoding HD videos with x264). Running codecs and media players (for HD videos at least) under WOW64 sounds like a nightmare.

[CoffeeFiend]

[*] The removal of the 16bit subsystem

That's more of a side effect than anything. And it's not like the presence of NTVDM on your box lowered performance or anything.

[*] Software developement

It doesn't really work any better than the x86 version for that (unless you wanna try running x64 compiles). I'm perfectly happy with Vista x86 for that (and VS2008 is perhaps the app I spend the most time in)

[*] Photography (64bit version of PS is in the works)

That's a reason in itself to have waited some more. There isn't a x64 version yet (it's due for next year), and meanwhile running PS under WOW64, adding extra overhead, doesn't make much sense either. And once it's out, it just might need new x64 versions of your plugins and such too. Adobe themselves last time said there was no point going with a x64 version, because it wouldn't have helped at all (it's memory bound, and x64 doesn't make memory access any faster). You're only going to get some benefits, when you work on a few GB worth of images at once (100+ megapixel HDR pano shots? ) And again, most people will need to buy more RAM for it to make use of it in the first place.

I do think that MSFT should abandon 32bit at some point and focus solely on 64bit developement. H/W is advancing rapidly and yet the software (thanks to 20 year old compatability layers and lazy developers) continues to hold it back.

Yes, I totally agree there. They seriously have to. Windows 7 shouldn't even come in a x86 version. It's not like anyone's going to run it on an old P4 or an Athlon XP, and by then 8GB of RAM will be quite cheap and getting close to mainstream.

[S.SubZero]

It's not the idle resource usage that's high. It's the actual CPU cycles used to do the calculations, like someone else said "it marshals memory access back and forth to adjust pointer sizes", and that makes the CPU usage considerably higher (several other office tasks have the problem, like animations in powerpoint). And nevermind a 64 bit copy of Office will likely never have VBA (like Office 2008 for the Mac), likely won't work with old 32 bit ActiveX controls, etc. And again, it's just one example. *All* apps have extra overhead running under WOW64. Your apps don't get any performance advantages until they are native x64 versions.

I have been scouring Google and have not seen one single reference to Excel taking more CPU cycles to do calculations under a 64-bit OS. Can you provide me with some links?

Then trying playing H.264 in a mkv container for example. Right, no CoreAVC, no Haali splitter. It's very problematic IMO. And videos ARE very math intensive -- perhaps the most math-intensive most people do on their PCs actually (besides games). Codecs are just that -- a LOT of complicated math, and it's VERY demanding on the CPU (just try encoding HD videos with x264). Running codecs and media players (for HD videos at least) under WOW64 sounds like a nightmare.

You want an H.264 video in an MKV container? You got it. Screenshot attached. Vista x64, WMP11 64-bit.

"[Minori-Osu!] Zero no Tsukaima - Princess no Rondo - 01 (h264 848x480) [9EA0CE55].mkv"

I have also been scouring Google for any references to unsatisfactory playback of HD content in Vista x64, but have been unable to find anything.

Edited July 8, 2008 by S.SubZero

[CoffeeFiend]

I have been scouring Google and have not seen one single reference to Excel taking more CPU cycles to do calculations under a 64-bit OS. Can you provide me with some links?

Quickest ref to find, by Stéphane Rodriguez, is on the "OOXML is defective by design" blog here. He's a specialist in the subject matter, and he's documented the excel 2007 format extensively as you can see here. Again, it's just one example, to show WOW64 does add extra overhead.

You want an H.264 video in an MKV container? You got it. Screenshot attached. Vista x64, WMP11 64-bit.

Well, perhaps you're using different codecs instead of CoreAVC and the Haali splitter (or running those under WOW64) but again that's not exactly optimal (higher resource usage for sure).

[MrCobra]

[*] The removal of the 16bit subsystem

That's more of a side effect than anything. And it's not like the presence of NTVDM on your box lowered performance or anything.

It may be a side effect of the 64bit architecture, but the removal of the 16bit subsystem is a good thing. It's that much less legacy code that needs to be supported and less code problems to deal with on MSFTs part. The more legacy code that is removed from Windows the better. Instead of maintaining legacy code for old apps, they [MSFT] can put more effort into other aspects of Windows.

[*] Software developement

It doesn't really work any better than the x86 version for that (unless you wanna try running x64 compiles). I'm perfectly happy with Vista x86 for that (and VS2008 is perhaps the app I spend the most time in)

It does when you need to build 64bit binaries and need access to larger sets of RAM.

[*] Photography (64bit version of PS is in the works)

That's a reason in itself to have waited some more. There isn't a x64 version yet (it's due for next year), and meanwhile running PS under WOW64, adding extra overhead, doesn't make much sense either. And once it's out, it just might need new x64 versions of your plugins and such too. Adobe themselves last time said there was no point going with a x64 version, because it wouldn't have helped at all (it's memory bound, and x64 doesn't make memory access any faster). You're only going to get some benefits, when you work on a few GB worth of images at once (100+ megapixel HDR pano shots? ) And again, most people will need to buy more RAM for it to make use of it in the first place.

I didn't need to wait longer. I needed/wanted 64bit now, not later. When 64bit versions of my favorite programs comes along, I will already have the capability to take advantage of them. I like to future proof my PC parts purchases for at least a little while.

I do think that MSFT should abandon 32bit at some point and focus solely on 64bit developement. H/W is advancing rapidly and yet the software (thanks to 20 year old compatability layers and lazy developers) continues to hold it back.

Yes, I totally agree there. They seriously have to. Windows 7 shouldn't even come in a x86 version. It's not like anyone's going to run it on an old P4 or an Athlon XP, and by then 8GB of RAM will be quite cheap and getting close to mainstream.

By that time (hopefully), with Nehalem, memory configurations of at least 12GB will be (somewhat) common. I have 8GB in my box now and sometimes it does get constrained a bit. DDR3 prices will be dropping sometime mid next year.

Then trying playing H.264 in a mkv container for example. Right, no CoreAVC, no Haali splitter. It's very problematic IMO. And videos ARE very math intensive -- perhaps the most math-intensive most people do on their PCs actually (besides games). Codecs are just that -- a LOT of complicated math, and it's VERY demanding on the CPU (just try encoding HD videos with x264). Running codecs and media players (for HD videos at least) under WOW64 sounds like a nightmare.

I use CorAVC and Haali, Xvid, QT and others almost on a daily basis under 64bit XP. Absolutely no problems whatsoever. Video playback in XP64 is a lot smoother than in 32bit XP.

Edited July 8, 2008 by MrCobra

[S.SubZero]

Quickest ref to find, by Stéphane Rodriguez, is on the "OOXML is defective by design" blog here. He's a specialist in the subject matter, and he's documented the excel 2007 format extensively as you can see here. Again, it's just one example, to show WOW64 does add extra overhead.

In the link you provide, there is neither any reference to 64-bit nor "defective" as a word, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at. It's a lot of code from an 18 month old article.

Well, perhaps you're using different codecs instead of CoreAVC and the Haali splitter (or running those under WOW64) but again that's not exactly optimal (higher resource usage for sure).

The player, when running that video, uses about 46MB of RAM. It uses 64-bit codecs provided from the x64 components pack, a codec pack that's been posted on these very forums since it's creation. WMP11 64-bit can't use 32-bit codecs, WOW64 or otherwise.

Edited July 9, 2008 by S.SubZero