Vista Ultimate 32-bit or 64-bit?

[zaroba]

"The reference to minimum requirements refers to being able to run some program where there is only 512mb installed not how high various settings in a game are"
thats correct, its only enough to get the game running, not necisarily playable unless you don't mind having less then 5fps and long load times. so you shoulden't act like there is no need to have more then a program requires

the vista i had was the released version. not a beta.

"If you install 100gb of memory and have a crap video and sound setup the games you have will still run like..."
so what, you think ram will have nothing to do with how well a game runs?
but you just agreed that it does boost pc performance.
might i add that i did say i can play ALL games with the highest settings now.

even slightly older games such as GTA San Andreas. when i had 64bit xp and 1gb ram in this pc i had to limit the drawdist and it got laggy occasionally. 64bit vista, 5gb ram, highest detail settings, fluid appearence in graphics.

FarCry is another example. i was playing farcry last night with the highest detail settings. didn't play it before the change, but i can honestly say i don't remember it looking so beutiful.


a video card alone wont make graphics good. even if you get 2 8800GTXs and SLI them together. if you only have the minimum ram a game needs, it will lag. you need the ram to load all the textures, character/npc animations, videos etc that the game uses. a video card just processes them and displays them on your screen. its the ram that there stored in, along with info on the npcs for ai calculation by the cpu. which brings us back to more ram = faster performance due to less pageing file access because it can store more info in it.

 

[Geoff]

Dude, don't get Ultimate. I hear 95% of the stuff you get compared to using home premium you wont even use. If its for gaming, get the home premium.

Some of the stuff you get you most likely wont even use, but in addition to that stuff, you can use up to 128GB of RAM with the 64-bit version of Ultimate.

 

[The Purple Champ]

Some of the stuff you get you most likely wont even use, but in addition to that stuff, you can use up to 128GB of RAM with the 64-bit version of Ultimate.

it will save you from buying a new os in the future

 

[PC eye]

The one thing that the 64bit version of any OS offers(XP, Vista, Linux even has one) in the difference in structure to allow that increase of physical memory on a system. But you have to remember that most programs and games alike are only going to see a gain to a certain point only when the actual amount is increased? Why? They are designed to run primarily on systems with far less then 100gb or even the more common 8gb and 16gb boards now seen available.

With many games and programs geared for a 512mb minimum with the exception of a few newer ones looking for slightly more like 768mb in XP and 1gb for Vista you won't see any real gain after you reach a certain amount there. Large engineering apps, CAD, Graphics design, and other programs intended to use any and all memory available are the ones that would see the benefit at this time. Boosting over 2gb mainly sees some improvement when multitasking over running just one program or game.

The leap from 512mb to 2gb even in Vista is a much larger jump then the slight gain when going from 2gb to 4gb total. When 64bot games finally start coming out in the eventual progression then the key word will be "memory"! The demands there as you can imagine will be incomparible.

 

[zaroba]

are you STILL crying that having more then a few gb is useless? have you tried gaming on a pc with 5gb of ram or more and on a pc with 1gb and then on a pc with 3gb to see the differences? have you tested all these theorys that your saying? if not then you really need to stop assuming that having 5gb of ram will only benifit a few programs.

how many times do i have to say it before you read my post?
I HAVE SEEN A GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN ALL GAMES DUE TO HAVING 5GB OF RAM.
stop acting like i'm lieing.


why does the thought of having over 4gb of ram bother you so much when it comes to gaming?
it is a benifit to gaming. it doesen't matter if a game wont use it all, it still helps the pc perform better. why would you be against somebody making there computer experience better?

 

[Geoff]

are you STILL crying that having more then a few gb is useless? have you tried gaming on a pc with 5gb of ram or more and on a pc with 1gb and then on a pc with 3gb to see the differences? have you tested all these theorys that your saying? if not then you really need to stop assuming that having 5gb of ram will only benifit a few programs.

You wont notice any difference in gaming having 3-5GB of RAM.

In fact having 5GB of RAM over 2GB of RAM is worse, since you can not run your RAM in dual-channel mode.

And again, if you have 2GB of RAM and you dont have a PF, while still having over a gig of free RAM, then anything over that is useless.

 

[PC eye]

The very structure of XP and VIsta alike at this point(32bit) has the obvious problems with seeing 2.5gb to 3.5gb only while having 4gb installed. Boosting the overall system performance by adding memory has to coincide with the OS installed as well as the softwares/games you install. The games currenly out and soon to come out are geared around the average user's machine often prebuilt with no large amount of memory installed. For CAD and other engineering, calculus, graphics design type applications you are working a totally different platform where things can go on and on and on....

On the old build here the idea of going from 1gb of performance memory to 2gb of note "Value Ram" saw improvement overall while still having the dual channel available. Many boards will automatically default to single channel when all dimm slots are filled. That can be a performance loss right there. By going to 4gb here I wouldn't see any real gain with games while maybe seeing some improvement more with video capturing and editing and certainly when running WMP! That chews up more ram then even most new games out as well as the increased load on other things like cpu time and of course video memory where a 512mb card would only then be an investment to consider.

OMEGA also touched on a few good points there as well. CRYING ABOUT MEMORY? Not likely here. I usually the first one looking to grab more for a work horse build. The drawbacks surround the software environment geared around systems generally seeing less. If you are a software designer you have to look at what is seen most often for hardwares in prebuilt systems that are the most common type sold. Some of us simply want to build our own for the options we then can choose from. But software is still wrapped around it's own limits there. Softwares fall behind hardwares however. simply look over the last 5yrs. to see which sees the most changes. It won't be MS! Likewise it won't be EA Games or Activision or even Steam: Source there. But you know are staring at quad core cpus and boards that can run 16gb of ram? Hardwares keaving softwares in the dust there.

 

[StrangleHold]

are you STILL crying that having more then a few gb is useless? have you tried gaming on a pc with 5gb of ram or more and on a pc with 1gb and then on a pc with 3gb to see the differences? have you tested all these theorys that your saying? if not then you really need to stop assuming that having 5gb of ram will only benifit a few programs.

I,m one of the first ones to say the more the better but that only goes so far. If you have 2gbs and never use more than 2gbs upgrading to 4 is pointless. It really depends on what you do with your computer, but 5gbs is alittle overboard. 4gbs would be better because you could get it to run in dual channel on most boards. I dont know what you would be doing to eat up more than even 4gbs, like running a huge program in the background, burning a DVD, encoding another one and playing a game all at the same time!
But like I say unless your using up all the ram you have, adding more will not make any difference.

 

[PC eye]

You lose effeciency after a certain point. This is obvious when the OS fails to fully detect the full amount of ram installed. Some have been getting by 3gb seeing no problems while not seeing any great benefit over simply having 2gb for an even dual channel configuration. Vista sees better performance with the simple increase from 1gb to 2gb due to new features added being loaded up along with Windows there.

Those are loaded into ram just like Windows or any other OS. The system takes a small piece and the primary still remains available for your games or apps you decide on running. The simple idea with two channels is to drive the background services seen in XP as well as Vista seeing more added there while the main apps run out in front in that sense.

To start off with having more then 4gb max is worthless unless seen on a 64bit not 32bit system. The only 32bit version of Windows that can utiliize a larger amount of ram is the Windows 2003 server edition upto some 32gb there. At least there was a tweak for the older Fat32 versions to see over 512mb then. So far nothing has been found for XP and now Vista. Sooner or later you will probably see 100gb boards out but no support seen for 32bit OSs or softwares. No gain there. And after 64bit eventually 128 followed by 256 to be followed by 512bit and then ...?

 

[zaroba]

You wont notice any difference in gaming having 3-5GB of RAM.

funny, i sure did. games were runing at 5fps with max settings when i had 3gb of ram. with the full 5gb available games run smoothly.
i do believe i said that a few times already in this topic.

In fact having 5GB of RAM over 2GB of RAM is worse, since you can not run your RAM in dual-channel mode.

i'm guessing that you say that because 5 is an odd number
while true that for ddr2 you do need matching sized sticks that does not mean it can't equal 5gb with 4 sticks of ram. 2x 2gb sticks and 2x 512mb sticks = 5gb and both sizes are matched pairs. so yes, it can be run in dual channel mode. this is even confirmed by CPU-Z telling me my 5120 Mbytes of ram is runing in dual channel mode.

like i said several times already.
games use textures, models, videos, animations, sounds, music, etc which all need to be loaded into your ram before they can be used. if you have enough ram, then your os will NEVER need to access the hard drive to get these things while your gaming. thus your games will run smoother and faster.


like i said a few posts ago. if none of you have actually compaired having 1gb, 3gb, and 5gb ram in a pc with gaming, then you probably shouldn't be assuming that things are the way you think they are (its ok to not know, nobody can know everything about computers). with 64bit OSs released, and everybody still used to the old 32bit limitation of 4gb of ram, its not a suprise many will think that having 5gb is useless. but then, thats probably what they said about having 1gb of ram 10 years ago

hey look, my computer is currently useing %50 of my ram even though its just sitting here with 2 small internat game clients running, internet explorer, trillian, and utorrent running. why? simply because it now has the ram to eliminate accessing the hard drive for anything except loading programs.

if you think that its useless to have enough ram to speed up your computer by eliminateing the need to access a paging file on the hard drive, then you've gotta also think it would be useless to have a 10k rpm hard drive to speed up loading times

 

[PC eye]

what you seem to be missing is that the market along with the games are all 32bit. Windows Server 2003 can run upto 32gb of ram and that is a 32bit server type OS there. Increasing memory on a system depends primarily on the type of OS run. The increase of ram on any system will see prorams run "smoother" while not necessarily seeing any performance gain past a certain point. While running 98 on a system with 1gb of ram no gain was seen there.

For the 32bit versions of XP and Vista alike no one has tweaked past the 4gb barrier like a simply line added to the autoexec.bat batch file in 98 saw double the 512mb barrier there. Even while the 64bit structure is an improvement there the OSs are still falling behind the advances in hardwares and memory capacity seen on newer boards.

 

[zaroba]

what you seem to be missing is that the market along with the games are all 32bit

no, i know that. but you seem to think that it matters. the games still need ram.

Windows Server 2003 can run upto 32gb of ram and that is a 32bit server type OS there

what does that have to do with the worthfulness of having more then 4gb of ram for gaming?

Increasing memory on a system depends primarily on the type of OS run.

nawww, really? hence why i said back on the first page of this topic that if the guy wanted vista and wanted to have more then 4gb of ram he would need the 64bit version.

The increase of ram on any system will see prorams run "smoother" while not necessarily seeing any performance gain past a certain point.

exactly, the computer will run smoother. finally you see what i've been telling you for the past 3 pages.

While running 98 on a system with 1gb of ram no gain was seen there. For the 32bit versions of XP and Vista alike no one has tweaked past the 4gb barrier like a simply line added to the autoexec.bat batch file in 98 saw double the 512mb barrier there.

uhh...why are you even bringing this up? it has nothing to do with vista, gaming, or the usefulness of having over 4gb of ram.

Even while the 64bit structure is an improvement there the OSs are still falling behind the advances in hardwares and memory capacity seen on newer boards.

just because hardware has advanced beyond software is no reason to think that maving more then 2 gigs of ram is useless.



my god, i feel like i'm talking to a tech support person via e-mails and having to repeat stuff over and over since they don't read any other posts and can't even directly reply to stuff

 

[StrangleHold]

my god, i feel like i'm talking to a tech support person via e-mails and having to repeat stuff over and over since they don't read any other posts and can't even directly reply to stuff

Live and learn, he will start talking about socket As and and Windows 3.1 next! But (I) would drop 1 gb and run 4gb in dual channel. I dont really see what you would be running to eat up all 4gbs

 

[Geoff]

what you seem to be missing is that the market along with the games are all 32bit. Windows Server 2003 can run upto 32gb of ram and that is a 32bit server type OS there.

Right now the market is for 32-bit games, since thats what the majority of people had for processors and OS's. Now with Vista and every new CPU being 64-bit, very soon games will be made for 64-Bit OS's.

And Windows Server may support 32GB of RAM (if thats true), but a 32-bit processor can only access up to 4GB.

 

[PC eye]

Right now the market is for 32-bit games, since thats what the majority of people had for processors and OS's. Now with Vista and every new CPU being 64-bit, very soon games will be made for 64-Bit OS's.

And Windows Server may support 32GB of RAM (if thats true), but a 32-bit processor can only access up to 4GB.

The only way to see how Windows Server 2003 could work with that much ram onboard is to look at multiple cpus on one board there to get past the limitations of a 32bit cpu. But you are missing one thing there. For 4yrs. there have been 64bit server type cpus out as well as desktop models. Opteron 940s are one quick example there. As far as Windows 64bit will still take some years before it becomes the desktop standard. Being that the market is loaded with 32bit you can see where all that has to fade away while introducing the newer 64bit versions of anything.

You first have to develop tthe market for 64bit OSs to see game manufacturers shift focus there. The transition from 16bit to 32bit was far more rapid since NT was already 32bit to join up with 98-ME(MS flop there) to merge all as NTFS NT Cored and still have a Multimedia/gaming friendly OS as well as NT based. Instead of putting XP Pro on the first sata I could have grabbed the 64bit OEM version for $50 to run a second experiment like Vista is currently seeing here. If they had a 64bit version of DOSBOX you would then see... Duke Nukem on a 64bit version of Windows?

 

[PC eye]

Right now the market is for 32-bit games, since thats what the majority of people had for processors and OS's. Now with Vista and every new CPU being 64-bit, very soon games will be made for 64-Bit OS's.

And Windows Server may support 32GB of RAM (if thats true), but a 32-bit processor can only access up to 4GB.

And why wouldn't you see 64bit cpu in servver cases or 32gb on a multi-cpu server board that got by that limitation? 98 was tweaked past 512mb. While everyone now is running a 64bit model cpu the market for making the 64bit versions of Windows the standard is still far off. As a second OS the gamer will still make out now with the 32bit market.

For simply running a most likely more stable OS for the limited amount of programs available the 64bit OSs make their entry. Presently the 64bit version of XP Pro can be found for $50. If DOSBox ran there then you would see... "it can't be!" Duke on the 64bit version of Vista?

 

[Supercool]

Best to keep to 32bit for now, upgarde later in future when more software available.

 

[Geoff]

Best to keep to 32bit for now, upgarde later in future when more software available.

Even the 64-Bit version of Vista can use 32-Bit apps, it just runs in compatibility mode. Besides, 9f your spending $200-$400 for an OS, why not get one that will last, and not one that you will have to replace for another $200-$400 ina year or less?

 

[PC eye]

Even the 64-Bit version of Vista can use 32-Bit apps, it just runs in compatibility mode. Besides, 9f your spending $200-$400 for an OS, why not get one that will last, and not one that you will have to replace for another $200-$400 ina year or less?

Gee you better not run XP as a first or second OS then. What happens when Vienna or another newer version of Windows comes out and it's still 32bit?

 

[zaroba]

Presently the 64bit version of XP Pro can be found for $50. If DOSBox ran there then you would see... "it can't be!" Duke on the 64bit version of Vista?

the latest version of dosbox (0.70) works on 64bit vista.


i can't imagine another OS being 32bit.
i don't think they should have even released a 32bit version of vista when 64bit hardware has been out for more then a year.