Vista 64bit/Installation, Ram and gaming Question

[TechShark]

I'm Currently Running Windows Xp pro 32bit, I'm Intersted in getting vista 64bit, So i can up my Ram to 4gb, and use it to its full potential.

As far as installing vista 64bit, is it as easy as putting the cd in and a simple install?
or is it more complicated being that im running a 32 bit version currently?

also, If/when i do install vista 64bit, Since it can be able to read a full 4gb of ram, compared to my 3gb now. Will i notice a better gaming experience?

or is my CPU and GPU pretty much controlling how my games will run now?
i know ram is big factor, i have 3gb now. so im wondering if 4gb will be usefull or will it bottleneck?

 

[PC eye]

The actual need for 4gb on a desktop isn't there unless you are running large applications like CAD or some graphics design where those tend to be memory hungry. A quick leap from 3-4gb wouldn't hardly notice anything. Memory wise a leap up from 1-2gb however sees a large improvement in both XP and Vista alike 32 or 64bit makes no difference there.

There are installation errors seen at time with the 64bit editions of Vista where the MS advice is simply reducing the total amount of 4gb or more down to 2gb until Windows is up and running. As far as games those are still 32bit and the basics on 64bit over 32bit is not any performance gain but simply a more efficient form of Windows.

I have a 64bit version of ubuntu running here that runs identical in many ways to the now 32bit no longer 24bit Linux releases. The cpu, video card to some degree despite a lot of hoo rah about one model over another, and having a little extra ram available as long as no impeding background services are the main factor for gaming performance. SP1 now allows the 32bit editions of Vista to report the full amount over 3-3.12gb installed.

 

[fanhan]

Even if you don't use that much ram, superfetch will. Sometimes it is nice to have things preloaded in ram.

SP1 will do nothing about the missing ram people so often see in their 32bit Vista. This is just a display-trick.

About seeing all 4GB in 64bit Vista. For this memory remapping is needed. I've seen several people write that their benchmark hurts by enabling this feature in bios.

 

[PC eye]

SP1 doesn't make more ram available in the 32bit editions. It simply allows Windows to report the full amount of memory installed on the system itself. You are still going to be limited by the 32bit kernel there.

The main thing to remember is that 64bit OSs are still relatively in their infancy with Vista now starting to see 3rd device driver support that suffered greatly with the 2005 release of XP Pro64. The transition to 64bit is considerably slow when looking back at how fast things went from 16 to 32bit in just a few versions of Windows. NT 3.1 to 4.0 were already 32bit while 95 to 98 saw the desktop move up there.