Octopuss Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Well, I was thinking about giving this thing another shot after those infamous 10 minutes last year.Are there any noticeable differences between 64 and 32 bit versions? Performance-wise, mostly. On 64bit I assume most of my programs wouldn't work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Well, most of your programs technically should work, unless they use 32bit drivers, require AWE API access (can't imagine most userland apps will), or have specific requirements for an OS check or will completely fail the new security or registry/file virtualization model in Vista. There are a few games I'm aware of that won't work, along with potential issues with some Adobe apps. What kinds of apps are you thinking about using? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 15, 2008 Author Share Posted May 15, 2008 Hm.. That's hard to tell!From the regular stuff - antivirus (NOD32), some kind of firewall (still using that ooold Kerio PF 2.1.5 and loving it), media player (Winamp and BSP), Office, browser (Opera)...I sometimes rip DVDs and encode them into something else, sometimes I play a bit of games, but not much. When I do, it's mostly some older goodies. Dungeon Master atm LOL Seriously I cannot think of anything "special". If you say "regular" applications should work just as well, I assume there wouldn't be that much of a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 Hm.. That's hard to tell!From the regular stuff - antivirus (NOD32), some kind of firewall (still using that ooold Kerio PF 2.1.5 and loving it), media player (Winamp and BSP), Office, browser (Opera)...I sometimes rip DVDs and encode them into something else, sometimes I play a bit of games, but not much. When I do, it's mostly some older goodies. Dungeon Master atm LOL Seriously I cannot think of anything "special". If you say "regular" applications should work just as well, I assume there wouldn't be that much of a problem.There really shouldn't be. If you want to continue using NOD32 or Kerio PF, you'll need 64bit versions (they use filter drivers, and you have to use 64bit filter drivers on an x64 box) - however, I don't see anything else there that would suggest fail on x64 from your list, and anything that truly fails can always be run in a VM . Seriously, other than antivirus and firewall needing to be x64, the others should work just fine as 32bit apps under Wow64. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 15, 2008 Author Share Posted May 15, 2008 So "normal applications" will run pretty much the same as on XP, at least performance-wise? There's no degrading of speed or functionality caused by different environment?How about real old stuff? Like very old games for example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Mulder Posted May 15, 2008 Share Posted May 15, 2008 (edited) "Since the X86-64 architecture includes hardware-level support for 32-bit instructions, WOW64 switches the process between 32- and 64-bit modes. As a result, X86-64 architecture microprocessors incur no performance loss when executing 32-bit Windows applications."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Pr...e_compatibility"64-bit versions of Windows do not support 16-bit components, 16-bit processes, or 16-bit applications"http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896458/en-us/"Any 16-bit programs will not run (32-bit software with 16-bit installers based on ACME Setup versions 2.6, 3.0, 3.01, and 3.1 and InstallShield versions 5.x will run correctly)"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Pr...on#Known_issuesI think it applies to Vista x64 too. Edited May 15, 2008 by Fox Mulder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 16, 2008 Author Share Posted May 16, 2008 Looks like I'll need DOSBox a lot more Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sithtiger Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Well, I was thinking about giving this thing another shot after those infamous 10 minutes last year.Are there any noticeable differences between 64 and 32 bit versions? Performance-wise, mostly. On 64bit I assume most of my programs wouldn't work.Not true...I have Vista HP x64 and I'm able to 85%+ of my programs. The only programs I can't run are 16-bit programs or games like the original DOOM or Quake...I can run games as old as Quake II for example. What's more is in office apps 64-bit is usually faster and of course 64-bit apps are allot faster than 32-bit apps on a 32-bit OS, but then they're aren't that many 64-bit apps. That's OK though because Vista x64 has something called WoW64 (Windows on Windows) which is basically emulation software, but this allows it to perform just as fast as XP does in it's native 32-bit state!Now, as far as performance goes that you can see, I doubt you'd be able to see any differences between Vista x86 and x64. Something you can see is that 32-bit OS's can only see up to 3GB of RAM while 64-bit can see up to 8GB and over depending on which Vista version you have. I think Vista Home Premium like I have can see up to 8GB, while the Ultimate version can see up to something like 64GB of RAM. I'm not sure about that last big but I am sure that every 32-bit OS has a memory limitation of 3 gigabytes!I have both Vista x64 on my desktop that I built and Vista 32-bit on my Dell Inspiron E1505 laptop. I think my desktop runs a bit better with Vista x64, but then it's pretty powerful too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 19, 2008 Author Share Posted May 19, 2008 One more thing - 64 and 32bit versions are sold separately? I though you start the installation and you can choose. This makes no sense... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sithtiger Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 One more thing - 64 and 32bit versions are sold separately? I though you start the installation and you can choose. This makes no sense...They are actually packaged together if you buy Vista Ultimate, but anything else they are separate. That would be really cool if all versions had both x86 and x64 together! I like Vista x64 better than Vista x86 though, if for but only one reason. On my desktop I have 4GB of RAM and if I had Vista x86 or XP Pro (x86 of course) I could only use 3GB of RAM. Of course for XP, you really don't need 3GB of RAM in most cases, but still....if you've got it, you don't want to waste it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S.SubZero Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 Note that only retail Ultimate comes with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. If you buy the cheaper OEM discs they do not come with both.MS doesn't put both on one DVD (it would have to be a dual layer) presumably because they assume the user doesn't know which they need, and they wanted to avoid confusion. MS has been sending mixed signals about 64-bit Windows for a while (see: XP64) so this isn't too surprising. The sad thing is it makes it complicated to get the 64-bit disc for the other editions of Vista. I will say that for retail Vista, the key for a particular edition (Home, Business, Ultimate, etc.) will work for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.As far as compatibility and usability, I have a desktop and a laptop. The desktop has been on XP64 since January 2007. It has run everything I have thrown at it. It's my gaming rig, and while I tend to play just one game (Final Fantasy XI) I have other games like Tribes 2 and the Orange Box stuff and Unreal Tournament 2004 (64-bit edition) and there's no problems with any of it. I know Starcraft also runs fine. My laptop was on XP64 from November 2006 and I also ran Vista x64 for most of 2007. I had no problems with it.People seem to think 64-bit Windows is some strange, new thing when it's really not. There are considerations with regards to certain types of apps and poorly written ones, but the vast majority of 32-bit apps and games will run.I recommend people interested in 64-bit Windows to check out www.start64.com. Just glance through a few pages of apps and see what's out there. It's a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 19, 2008 Author Share Posted May 19, 2008 So I installed somewhat "vLited" Vista (sadly only 32bit) on my work PC... OUCH!! I was right back then. This is not even remotely close to getting used to in this decade. It's working this time, though. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 So I installed somewhat "vLited" Vista (sadly only 32bit) on my work PC... OUCH!! I was right back then. This is not even remotely close to getting used to in this decade. It's working this time, though. lolWhat kinds of issues are you running into? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Octopuss Posted May 19, 2008 Author Share Posted May 19, 2008 It's simply too different from XP. I miss half dozen things I was used to. Makes work very uncomfortable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluberti Posted May 19, 2008 Share Posted May 19, 2008 It's simply too different from XP. I miss half dozen things I was used to. Makes work very uncomfortable.Understood - I didn't understand your initial post. XP will be supported, at least for security fixes, until 2014, although I cannot guarantee vendor support for drivers or software to that point . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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