Is there any Realistic Benefit Using Vista 64 vs 32?

W

whyteo

Power User
I don't see any.

It does not seem faster.

Vista never uses more than 2 GB on my System, for all the 4 GB+ talk.
The virtual memory/page file is as big as ever.

Drivers take for ever to come out, and are usually last.

You'd need an electron microscope to notice the additional features in 64 bit editions of games versus their 32 bit counter parts.

Am I completely missing the point of 64-bit Vista?

What percentage of Vista installed today is the 64-bit edition? Is it increasing?

Hmmm....
 

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For me,the 64-bit version just Felt that little faster than the 32-bit Version.

If you are using 4GB RAM then u have to use X64 to make sure Vista uses all 4GB (Even if its not using it currently,with newer apps taking lots and lots of RAM,4GB will become a standard sooner rather than later).

Driver problems are more Vista Related (i.e both 32 and 64 bit) ,than only X64.
Yes the percentage of people using Vista X64 is increasing,In fact most people jumping onto Vista are getting the X64 version.
 

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Regarding RAM, I'd say later than that sooner! We'll see what Crysis does with the RAM - that should be a good stress test.

I have devices where the company produced 32 bit Vista drivers, but not 64 bit.

you say most people are going Vista 64 - Do you mean more than 50% of people installing Vista today are installing the 64 bit edition? I would be suprised by that.

Comparing 32 v 64 bit applicartions in Vista now. Is Media Player 64 faster than 32? Can it decode video files faster? Does it index media library faster? Load faster?

It would seem the benefits are in the future, and the primary advantage is the management of large RAM systems. I really don't know alot about programming and code, but I would assume 64 bit coding whould be more powerful at number crunching than its 32 bit predecessor? 64 bit workstations were used by Silicon Graphics from the early 90s.

I just found this like which explains some issues, but the conclusion is still a bit vague - Possibly that software programming has to actually take advantage of 64 bit for us to get the benefit.

64 bits. What does it offer what does it not

I notice that the OS after Vista will be both 32 and 64 bit also - 32 will be around for a long time yet....


Asky said:
For me,the 64-bit version just Felt that little faster than the 32-bit Version.

If you are using 4GB RAM then u have to use X64 to make sure Vista uses all 4GB (Even if its not using it currently,with newer apps taking lots and lots of RAM,4GB will become a standard sooner rather than later).

Driver problems are more Vista Related (i.e both 32 and 64 bit) ,than only X64.
Yes the percentage of people using Vista X64 is increasing,In fact most people jumping onto Vista are getting the X64 version.
Click to expand...
 
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Comparing 32 v 64 bit applicartions in Vista now. Is Media Player 64 faster than 32? Can it decode video files faster? Does it index media library faster? Load faster?
Click to expand...
Not sure about faster but i dont think its slower either.

As of Today,there arent many Applications out there that take advantage of 64-bit.But i am sure future apps would take advantage and that'd make X64 a better option then.
So,
a)If you have all the drivers for you Hardware.
b)MOST of the softwares you use run on it.
Then i see no reason in not goin the X64 way.
If not then u can stick with the X86 version till both' 'a and 'b' get sorted out.
:)
 

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I think the most concise answer to your question is: No, not yet.

But the transition is underway, just as there was transition between 8-bit and 16-bit, and 16-bit and 32-bit. In those days however, the industry as a whole was smaller and primarily industrial/mathematical in application, and so large-scale rapid change was easier. Now, computers are everywhere, and to most, just an appliance. I think in this case the transition will be a bit slower because 32-bit is so established and prevalent. As with all things computing, it will change, but the curve may look a bit different.

I'm not a huge HDTV buff, but I hear the same things about 1080p and 1080i (I think that's the latest). There are very few, if any, broadcasts at that resolution, so what's the point? The point is, there will be.

Most of the people I know using 64 at home right now are just geeks wanting the latest technology, and I fit into that category. Because of the vast evil 32-bit empire, I think resource demand will ultimately be the driving force to 64-bit tolerance. Remember, it wasn't too long ago I was buying a hard drive and the dude told me to just get the 540MB (that's mega with an m) because it is all I'd ever need and I wouldn't fill it in a million years. I bought that and 8MB of RAM for $1000.

Just wear the badge of "bleeding-edge technologist" with pride.
 
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I did it for geek factor. I don't see any performance improvements. Not even with newsbin 64-bit.

It is a little bit of future-proofing.

I also use 64-bit IE. Not for any real reason, I just like that I have it :)
 

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I too am am attracted to the future. 32-bit will fall just like 8- and 16-bit did. As software becomes available to take advantage of a 64-bit, you will see multi-core 64-bit systems run circles around single core 32-bit systems, even though those 32-bit cores might have much higher clocks.

Yes, drivers are an issue and probably the reason 64-bit XP never really took hold. However, there are plenty of HW manufactures that are delivering stable, certified drivers for Vista 64, just look before you leap.
 

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Maybe I'm wrong but I thought I read somewhere that the requirement for making a driver for Vista 32 says that you must also have a driver for Vista 64... even if you don't get it signed??

Seems MS is trying to push the 64-bit switch along with Vista upgrading.

yes, 32bit will fall and that the biggest reason I started running 64bit. (I also upgraded to 4GB of RAM)... but when 64bit will really take off????? It could be during Vista and before the next OS... or it might be after the next OS. Either way, I don't want to run into a spot where I have to switch to 64bit and redo my PC later on... Since I'm running 64bit now, when it takes off, I'm all ready set.
 

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Concerning chess computing the 64 bit Vista is 2x as fast as 32 bit Vista. If, of coarse, the chess engine has separate 64 bit version like most stronger engines do. So there are some fields where performance improvement is significant when 64 bit version is used.
 

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Good performance of 64bit computing of chess is related with 64bit bitboard architecture of modern chess engines. 64-bit system can do one bitwise operation per cycle with one bitboard. 32-bit system needs several cycles to do the same. See Bitboard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for additional information.

BTW. The Vista chess has bad chess knowledge. Microsoft should better do something with it! I am hobby chess player with ELO rating below 2000 but Vista chess is even worse player than me. At level 9 I won 8 games from 10, +1 stalemate by mistake from clear winning position for me. Highest level, 10 makes computer to think too long and I can not wait so mutch.
 
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The benefit you get is that you stay in tune with developments. One day your 32 bit computer will be out dated.

If 128 bit was here, i would go for it immediatly, providing i needed to buy a new pc.

François
 

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I too did it mostly for the geek factor, but also because it kind of makes me part of the solution. 64 bit computing will provide many cools options we don't have now and I would rather throw my support behind what comes next instead of promoting what we have lived with for a long time.
 

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64bit Vista meant I could play Half-Life 2 in 64bit mode which on my old computer meant I could put all the max settings on with a decent frame rate. In 32bit I had to turn off some of the nice options.
 

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Do IBM have a 64 bit chess program? What bit rate was big blue?


Sulev Svilponis said:
Good performance of 64bit computing of chess is related with 64bit bitboard architecture of modern chess engines. 64-bit system can do one bitwise operation per cycle with one bitboard. 32-bit system needs several cycles to do the same. See Bitboard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for additional information.

BTW. The Vista chess has bad chess knowledge. Microsoft should better do something with it! I am hobby chess player with ELO rating below 2000 but Vista chess is even worse player than me. At level 9 I won 8 games from 10, +1 stalemate by mistake from clear winning position for me. Highest level, 10 makes computer to think too long and I can not wait so mutch.
Click to expand...
 

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whyteo said:
Do IBM have a 64 bit chess program? What bit rate was big blue?
Click to expand...

Deep Blue had 32 x 32bit CPU.
I don't know if IBM has a 64 bit chess program, but majority of strong engines available for PC today have 64-bit engines (Rybka, Zappa, Naum, Loop, Shredder, Glaurung etc).

Rybka for instance has both 64 bit and 32 bit engines. The 64 bit version runs at least 70% faster on the same hardware.

You can download demo versions (both 64 bit and 32 bit) of Rybka engine from
Rybka - for the serious chess player. [ #Rybka engine ] [ Download demo ] - worlds strongest UCI chess engine software!
Even the old demo version is extremely strong.

If you don't have any UCI compatible chess GUI, then you need something like Arena too: Arena Downloads ...
 

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I have 8GB of DDR2. I also have a 3.6GHz 64-bit quad-core processor. I want to be able to take full advantage of both, and an x64 OS is the only way to accomplish that. Since all of my hardware is new I have fully-compatible drivers for everything in my system. I don't want an active full-system virus scan to slow my system down. If I'm ripping some h264 1080p video I want to be able to use Photoshop CS3 and surf the web at the same time. I don't want to have to walk away from my machine while it crunches away, or for it to become so unresponsive as to make it effectively useless.

My machine scores 5.9 across the board in WEI, and it could probably do that with two cores tied behind its back.

Admittedly, there is a paucity of native x64 applications, but that has not caused any problems for me -- yet, anyway.

Lastly, there are notable security benefits to the x64 version that are not found in the x32 version of the same OS.
 

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I'm just a technophile :) I like to be on the new stuff. Maybe its just me but I loathe 32bit vista and 64bit runs WAY better on my PC. I dont know if it's psychological or not but i went Ultimate64 and had trouble finding drivers for some hardware so i went to 32bit and ran that for like 3 months and felt it just ran like crap compared to the 64 bit version and switched back to 64 when i found the drivers i needed. Havent looked back. I am not talking about gains on running software but just OS responsiveness in general. Windows opening faster etc.

EDIT:
As far as software and gaming I havent noticed a difference in performance for the same application/game on either 32/64bit. This is of course because all the software/games i have are written in 32bit code :)
 

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