Vista64 questions.

[jobmitsuo]

So i've heard a good deal of horror stories about how unstable and incompatible it is but that's it. horror stories, nothing else. A few supposedly legit articles that make reference to it being less stable than 32. How problematic is it really? I've been considering 64vista for my next build so i can fully support 4gb ram but i want to make sure that i'm not going to be just giving my self a headache. I don't mind having to do a little one time tweaking to get stuff to work but if it's kind of thing where i'll have to be changing settings and crud every week to keep it stable i'd rather not.

Basically what i want to know is whether it's more trouble than it's worth?

Also i heard there is a problem with creative sound cards and vista64. i plan on getting an x-fi in the next build so if thats gonna be a problem with vista64 then ill just skip the 64.

 

[Akubane]

ive got vista 64. the only problems i have with it are:
The security is too tight, its AGGRIVATING. you can't disable half of it. Signed driver checking is a nuissance. UAC can be turned off at least. DEP (data execution prevention) gives me migranes if I don't manually disable it for every single program i want to use.
It's so bloody secure it doesn't even let you do things how you want half the time, without having to find workarounds.

But other then those 2 things i've no problems with it. Just make sure you download all your vista x64 drivers from the official websites. I can't run drivers off any driver discs that come with purchased hardware. it never runs. So just download new drivers before installing.

I've got a creative x-fi xtrememusic and it runs beautifully. never an issue.

As far as changing stuff every week, other than adding programs to the DEP ignore list and ignoring programs that have driver signing problems theres no issues/maintenance.
theres an easy workaround for coretemp and vista 64 if you google it. that was one of the main bothers. ati tool doesnt work either but i can use rivatuner to OC and ati tool is still able to stress test for artifacts/heat.

I dunno if you don't mind a bunch of annoying security then go for it.

 

[atomic tofu]

it's less stable if you make it less stable...
ie., you can want to build a brick house, so you start using bricks...then half way through once you laid down 90% of the bricks, you decide you can finish it off with hay bails....

does that make sense?

A lot of "legit" sources aren't really legit if they don't offer up the complete scenario to you...if they don't offer the full info...they are just posers

just take common sense and logic with you...
going 64bit drivers, make sure your hardware vendors have 64bit Vista drivers...and just check to see if any apps you have that aren't 64bit are 64bit friendly

 

[jobmitsuo]

How about games? Older ones as well, there are still quite a few older game i still play fairly often. Are they gonna be problematic with a 64bit OS?

My initial assumption is to think it wont be a problem but i feel i'd better ask rather then get burned. But would doing a duel boot with 32bit xp and 64bit vista be a problem? Separate drives and such.

And jsut a quick question, i forget but what is the max ram supported for 32bit? 3.7 something or what?

 

[Akubane]

i think that depends on how much memory your video card has. 32bit only recognized 3.2gb for me due to the 768ram on my 8800ultra.
not too sure about older games. diablo and diablo 2 both run fine for me, unreal tournament (original) runs fine. dark mesiah of might and magic wont run for crap. can't go 4 min without crashing and they aren't goign to fix it. i can't run the old command and conquer red alert.

dual booting shouldnt be a problem, lots of people do it.

 

[wafflehammer]

i think that depends on how much memory your video card has. 32bit only recognized 3.2gb for me due to the 768ram on my 8800ultra.

so if your card only using 512mb vista 32bit will pick up 3.5gb of ram if you have 4gb in?

 

[Akubane]

*i think.
I know I read it somewhere but dont have a link to where. And a couple people on these forums have mentioned it. And thats just my personal experience.
I had vista 32 when I put 4gb in. And it recognized what was left over after video card memory was subtracted from the 4gb.

 

[jobmitsuo]

Would there be any performance hits or stability issues of simply sticking 4gb in and letting 32bit os sort out what it recognizes?

or in another set up would there be any weird performance hits from setting up 2x 1gb and 2x 512 both in duel channel for total of 3gb? not too sure of the details on performance with duel channel, i just remember it needs to be same speed/size for the two channels or something [correct me if im wrong]. But would there be a performance hit for that kind of set up?

 

[Akubane]

well if by performance hit you mean by it not using the rest of the ram you paid for yeah. but it wont cause any problems. it'll run just like having 3.5 or whatever GB. just pretend the rest isnt there, far as I know.

to your second question nope. I run 6gb for vista. 2x2gb and 2x1gb. works great. you're right about dual channel.

the only way youd see a performance 'hit' would be running single channel. like 3x1gb.

if you really don't want to run x64 just getting 3gb in the way you suggested is probbaly the better idea unless you think youll end up upgrading. otherwise you're paying for ram you arent using.

 

[Joeyboy]

hmm my friend has vista 64bit and apart from the whole security thing, as in asking you whether or not a disk is allowed to run (unkown object is trying to access your computer... it's a **** game!LMAO!).

She played a game from 2002, we just set it to run this program in compatibility for windows 98 or something and that seemed fine, not sure if it would have worked otherwise, just the techy guy from the company she bought it from suggesting doing that or older games.