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Wow. That's utter crap.

If you have the hardware, and the plans to go above 3gigs of RAM, go with 64. Otherwise, stick with 32.

I would say "If you have 4Gb of RAM or more and don't play games" then go for Vista x64.

vista x64 has been fine for playing games. I play bf2, bf2142, flat out, and oblivion on it fine with no noticeable performance hit.

It seems that gaming support has been vastly improved, because when I tried it I couldn't play any games on it.

Has anybody tried Enemy Territory?
I'd be really interested to know if that runs on Vista x64 (when I tried punkbuster wouldn't work).

Lets not mix Vista driver support issues with 64-bit issues, please.

Vista driver support is coming. 64-bit driver support is coming slower, but it's coming too.

Application support is the slowest, but there really is negligible difference between 32-bit apps and 64-bit apps unless you're dealing with really high-end stuff (databases, virtual machines, etc). A 64-bit version of Firefox for example is largely pointless not to mention useless -- you'd need 64-bit plugins. Granted it would offer some protection (still, placebo), but really, there's a reason why even the 32-bit IE7 is default on Vista-64.

I've had no problems with various games, but can't answer to specific ones listed in this thread. Currently I'm working on getting MAME working, but haven't spent too much time on it.

I have Vista Ultimate 32-bit and 2 GB RAM, and it ran smoothly. Apps load as fast, if any faster, as XP.

Just a thought but I'm surprised that my P4 with HT is supported when the Vista reqs came out.

I run x64 vista on my main machine (amd x2 4200+). I can run the latest mame (actually I use the unofficial mame32 plus build; but mame32 works fine too) on it without any problems. I don't play alot of pc games. I just like playing games from yester year via emulation (I love the speed up feature of some emus; it's so great to speed through stuff like intro movie). Most of the PC games that I've tried works (Oblivion, Doom 3, GTA3:SA, Titan Quest, C&C 3, Morrowind) without having to use compatibility mode. Gothic 3 ran really slow for some reason but that game is buggy to begin with (Gawh, when will they release a patch to fix all the bugs?). I used to run x64 windows XP before vista x64. What can I say? Once you go 64-bit it's hard to go back to 32-bit. 32-bit is soooo yesterday (or make that 5 years+ old technology).

I did have to wait forever for VIA to release their 7.1 audio drivers for x64 vista. That was the last driver missing for me.

So, for me, x64 vista is the only way to go.

I didn't read the rest of the thread yet, but i'm sure someone has corrected you!

I have my specs in my sig and i am running Ultimate x64 with only ONE problem....my 5.1 surround only works in Winamp with a special surround sound plug-in...everything else i have NO problems with. Every program I ran in Xp Pro runs PERFECT in vista x64. So basically your comment is useless and worthless....

Maybe it might hold some truth if your hardware is outdated as all hell!

Do a little research before you post that comment. If you tried it and it didn't work for you then say "i personally have tried it and my experience wasn't that great"....because i'm running it as my main OS now without dual booting anything else....no problems what so ever....there are a couple little glitches but there has been a work around for EVERY single one of them that takes a minute TOPS to complete.

You're prolly thinking of XP64 there. Vista x64 is just as usuable as x32 is, even when dealing with games. I've seen two of my mates running that OS without a glitch so far, even playing the latest games, which has prompted me to consider it now as I've got 4GB.

Not my experience at all. Vista 64-bit works just fine..... on 3 different computers of mine!

Hmmmm... tried that Fred, it wouldn't install.... But I also have 32-bit Firefox , so there may be a side-by-side compatibility issue.

You can run it side-by-side with Firefox Portable (as long as only one is open at a time).

Actually, 32-bit have been around since the days of Win 3.1, when it was a hybrid 16-/32-bit OS.

The first true 32-bit OS is Windows 95 OSR2, released in 1997 (that has support for FAT32).

So, 32-bit has been around for 15 years, to be exact.

Nice... I'll keep that in mind.

@MtDewCodeRedFreak: Hey, you're right. A decade and a half old. One could argue that makes 32-bit apps more stable since they've been around longer than x64 apps (which according to wiki x64 windows xp/2003 server has been around since 2005; so only 2 years old). But if you do any sort of dabbling in x64 programming, it's surprisingly easy to create a 64-bit application.

A lot of the open source projects are becoming more 64-bit friendly. So, I'll say by the end of this year, we'll have a bunch of open source projects that'll have 64-bit releases to accompany their 32-bit siblings. Most of the projects that I mess around with are already 64-bit compliant today. If I release anything, it'll be in 64-bit only.