May 30, 200718 yr Well, the title speaks for itself. My current specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Abit AB9 Pro motherboard 2GB DDR2 RAM GeForce 7900 GTO 512MB Onboard HD Audio, using DD 5.1 to an external decoder 80GB ATA HDD 250GB SATA HDD I just bought some more ram (2GB for a mere 70 bucks, i just had to) and i wondered about the compability and performance gain by switching from 32-bit to 64-bit (Apparantly, XP pro doesn't use 4GB of RAM that well, thus the reason for an OS-upgrade). I still have some older games such as Fallout 2, Unreal 1, Unreal Tournament, SS 2, Deus Ex and PS:T, that i might play again in the future, but will those be playable at all? Or should i just stick with my regular 32-bit WinXP Pro? Oh, and no Vista recommendations please. I will not touch that one until there's a service pack or two out. Edited May 30, 200718 yr by Meshugger "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
May 30, 200718 yr Take this with a grain of salt, but I dont believe there are any 64-bit applications out yet for mainstream consumers. What that means, AFAIK, is you wont realize any performance gain but you will be future proof.
May 30, 200718 yr In my ever so humble opinion you would be better off sticking to XP Pro til you are ready or need to jump to Vista then get a 64 bit version of either Home Premium or Ultimate. Murphy's Law of Computer Gaming: The listed minimum specifications written on the box by the publisher are not the minimum specifications of the game set by the developer. @\NightandtheShape/@ - "Because you're a bizzare strange deranged human?" Walsingham- "Sand - always rushing around, stirring up apathy." Joseph Bulock - "Another headache, courtesy of Sand"
May 31, 200718 yr Take this with a grain of salt, but I dont believe there are any 64-bit applications out yet for mainstream consumers. What that means, AFAIK, is you wont realize any performance gain but you will be future proof. OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT
May 31, 200718 yr Author Alrighty then, it seems like i'm gonna stick with WinXP Pro for a while then. Nevermind having 3.25GB of memory, or whatever the explorer is going to show. "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
May 31, 200718 yr Author 3079276 KB in my window. taks What happens to the extra 1GB then? Is it reserved for I/O-interrupts or is just sitting there, doing nothing? "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
May 31, 200718 yr Take this with a grain of salt, but I dont believe there are any 64-bit applications out yet for mainstream consumers. What that means, AFAIK, is you wont realize any performance gain but you will be future proof. There are a few, but typically not the ones that pushes your computer enough to warrant the change.
May 31, 200718 yr 3079276 KB in my window. taks What happens to the extra 1GB then? Is it reserved for I/O-interrupts or is just sitting there, doing nothing? i've read that winders actually uses it, though i cannot fathom why or how. it would seem to me that if the memory is being used by winders, than a similar amount must also be used even when you have less than 3 GB total. however, in such cases, winders reports the entire amount, which leads me to believe that either a) what i've read is hand-waving to throw suspicion off of a bug or b) when winders sees that you've gone that far with extra RAM, it chooses to use that in addition to its normal paging file, so you're still getting some gain. the conspiracy theorist in me says "a," but i really don't know. either way, my system definitely runs fast now, but that's also a result of the E6600, 8800GTS and 7200.10 SATA drive (parallel read) as my system components. taks comrade taks... just because.
May 31, 200718 yr Author 3079276 KB in my window. taks What happens to the extra 1GB then? Is it reserved for I/O-interrupts or is just sitting there, doing nothing? i've read that winders actually uses it, though i cannot fathom why or how. it would seem to me that if the memory is being used by winders, than a similar amount must also be used even when you have less than 3 GB total. however, in such cases, winders reports the entire amount, which leads me to believe that either a) what i've read is hand-waving to throw suspicion off of a bug or b) when winders sees that you've gone that far with extra RAM, it chooses to use that in addition to its normal paging file, so you're still getting some gain. the conspiracy theorist in me says "a," but i really don't know. either way, my system definitely runs fast now, but that's also a result of the E6600, 8800GTS and 7200.10 SATA drive (parallel read) as my system components. taks Hehe, sounds like a definite 'a' Edited May 31, 200718 yr by Meshugger "Some men see things as they are and say why?""I dream things that never were and say why not?"- George Bernard Shaw"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man."- Friedrich Nietzsche "The amount of energy necessary to refute bull**** is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." - Some guy
June 2, 200718 yr btw, my dell system at the office, with 4 GB, reports about 3.3 GB. the only difference i can think of is the fact that it is doing two dual-channel kits, each with 2x1GB, but my home system has 2x2GB, dual-channel. taks comrade taks... just because.
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