Gaming Whats Wrong with 64 bit?

[Pizzaroo]

Hi everyone. I have yet another question. What's bad about 64 bit Vista? I'm thinking of getting a really nice laptop, but it has 64 bit Vista. I read in a lot of places that it is completely unreliable and won't run half the programs you want it you. Is this true? Should I buy a low-end laptop with 32 bit Vista instead of a meaty laptop with 64 bit? Thanks!

 

[hacker07]

Nothing is wrong with 64bit vista it is just that most applications are not written for 64bit. You can buy that laptop and just install 32bit vista on it.

 

[da_head]

i have home premium 64 bit, and i've had zero problems with it.

 

[Satangel]

I have it for a year now, and nothing is wrong.
Not a lot of programs are made for 64bit, that's all. They still work though.

But if you plan to game a lot on your laptop, be very weary of 64bit. A lot of older games (2006 and before) have problems with 64bit, and some won't even run.

 

[Pizzaroo]

Oh, thanks a ton everyone! I'll hang on to this laptop, and going to buy a 64 bit one. My brother must use a lot of old programs

. Also, I have another question does dual-booting windows 7 work with a 64 bit laptop? I mean, are all/most of the drivers going to work? Thanks again!

 

[da_head]

i dual booted with windows 7 64 bit, and had no driver issues.

 

[Banger]

You may have been thinking of the unreliability of that of 64bit xp, which had a lot of issues for a lot of people. As far as I know vista 64bit is fine.

 

[Foxle]

The problems with 64bit usually boil down to weird driver issues. Like, on 64-bit Vista, you can't use Microsoft Office OneNote's "Print to OneNote" feature for importing documents. It's generally really oddly specific problems like that. For the most part, 64-bit Vista runs fine. Somewhere down the road you might run into an annoying issue or two, but it's usually not as bad as say, "iTunes won't run on 64-bit Vista".

 

[Banger]

The problems with 64bit usually boil down to weird driver issues. Like, on 64-bit Vista, you can't use Microsoft Office OneNote's "Print to OneNote" feature for importing documents. It's generally really oddly specific problems like that. For the most part, 64-bit Vista runs fine. Somewhere down the road you might run into an annoying issue or two, but it's usually not as bad as say, "iTunes won't run on 64-bit Vista".

Wouldn't that be a good thing?

 

[da_head]

The problems with 64bit usually boil down to weird driver issues. Like, on 64-bit Vista, you can't use Microsoft Office OneNote's "Print to OneNote" feature for importing documents. It's generally really oddly specific problems like that. For the most part, 64-bit Vista runs fine. Somewhere down the road you might run into an annoying issue or two, but it's usually not as bad as say, "iTunes won't run on 64-bit Vista".

Wouldn't that be a good thing?

+1

 

[Jiggah]

A 64-bit OS is only really worth it if you have 4 gb or more of RAM. There aren't 64-bit laptops, 64-bit refers to the OS. You can dual boot any combination of OSes.

Vista x64 works well because MS forces the user to use only signed drivers. This means there will be issues with older hardware that either don't have 64-bit drivers or have 64-bit drivers that are unsigned. Most laptop users won't find this an issue if they are buying the laptop preinstalled with Vista x64.

Microsoft allows the user to install into two different program folders for this issue, known as WOW64, for backwards compatibility with 32-bit programs.

 

[Pizzaroo]

Hm, I think there is a 64 bit version of iTunes (I use it because I need the app store). Thanks da_head, Now I'm going to dual-boot 7 when I get the laptop! No more questions, thanks!

 

[Scorpei]

Hm, I think there is a 64 bit version of iTunes (I use it because I need the app store). Thanks da_head, Now I'm going to dual-boot 7 when I get the laptop! No more questions, thanks!

Why? Just dual boot XP, as I assume you are going to use it with older games and apps anyway. You could however go with 7 if you are unable to find XP drivers for the hardware though, but all in all I'd go for XP SP2 for the proven system it is and the beta that is windows 7.

Mostly though I have very little problem with 64bit Vista (aside from it being Vista), then again I only use it for games and cubase. ZoneAlarm only works with the payed version though (as do some other programns).

 

[pandas0nic]

Getting straight to the point, and i'm taking this from a non gaming perspective... a 64bit OS really only comes into its own if you are using apps that rely on alot of math heavy functions, high end audio processing and graphics work, especialy 3d work will see a speed increase from running their 64bit versions. I use both every day, with Vista 64bit as the OS, and have barely any problems atall with it. As already mentioned XP64 was a whole other issue and it was highly unusable from my pov.

Even as a basic desktop os i would recommend vista64 or a 64bit linux equivalent as the functionality these days is not impaired so much that you'll be hindered that much, if atall. But if all you want is games compatability with older software then i guess maybe 32bit is the way to go, but i wouldn't know much about that as i dont play games on my PC

But if you do happen to have some specialist hardware, like graphics tablets, asio soundcards, then do check first that 64bit driver versions are available, common sense really.

 

[sweenish]

if you've really got the need to run ancient software (only games, really), you can set compatibility, run it in dosbox or other vmware.

other than that, vista64 is plenty good.

pro audio might still be behind, but that's vista's retool of the audio system, and not a 64 bit limitation.

 

[Pizzaroo]

Well, I've already got the laptop, and it runs great! I got HOtD 2+3 to run great! Thanks everyone!