Almost the Mother of All Questions

[Forevermore1337]

This isn't a thread about whether or not to buy vista (which, in fact, is the mother of all questions). I already have decided that if my XP won't work for whatever reason (drivers, CD key, etc.) i'm going to upgrade to vista. This is mainly to ask about 64 bit. It is a waste of my money not to buy 64 bit, it is the future. But, compatibility is a big issue. Is Vista 64 really that bad with compatibility, or will i still be able to play games like one of my favorite RTS's ever produced, Homeworld 2?

Thanks.

 

[PC eye]

You wouldn't want the 64bit 2005 edition of XP Pro for sure since that sadly lacked any real support there. But many have already rushed at buying the 64bit editions separately unless they bought the retail versions of the 32bit editions seeing the second 64bit version added in. Why do you think Ultimate was priced at $399.99?!

The driver support is far more available for Vista then XP 64 at this time and many 32bit games will run on the 64bit editions due to MS seeing to it that's there's a degree of backward compatibility between versions as well as different OS kernels like was seen to some small extent with 98 running 95 apps being 32bit and running 16bit games and apps.

Note that Windows 7 will see a 64bit not 32bit edition run here for various reasons. But that will likely be the last version seeing any 32bit editions as well. Hopefully you might just happen to see some 64bit games and apps actually become available by the time or shortly after 7 is finally out.

The rest is strictly upto you there since I usually end up multibooting anyways seeing a 64bit release of ubuntu 8.10 along with Vista and XP. Others jump at the 64bit editions simply due to the 3gb barrier seen with the 32bit kernel expecting an increase in gaming performance by simply adding in more memory(usually 4gb with some adding upto 6-8gb).