Few doubts regarding OS. (Vista and 7)

By bogas04
in Microsoft (Windows)

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bogas04

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My PC config is described in my Signature V

I want to know will vista sp2 serve me better or windows 7 in terms of gaming performance. With sp2 , i think vista is bit more stable and 7 on par to it looks bit fragile and delicate. Anyways , some benchmarks will do gr8 (Ati cards) comparing Vista Sp2 and Windows 7

Secondly and lastly i want some advice regarding the choice of OS version , should i use 32Bit OS or 64Bit OS if i have 2GB DDR2 ram and a quad core (supporting 64bit platform).Im talking with respect to gaming performance only.

Your kind help will be appreciated :)

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zhangm Supervisor

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you can only use 64 bit if you have 4 or more gb ram.

Absolutely wrong. As long as the hardware supports x64, you can run it with however much RAM you want.

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=327145

I'd go for x64. Futureproof, and it is generally supported well at this time.

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watchthisspace

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I don't think your gaming performance is going to be hurt by going 64bit as most games out there today are only 32bit, which can run perfectly fine on a 64bit OS. The only problem you will have is that if you play some really old games that were made only in 16bit, they will not work at all on a 64bit OS.

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bogas04

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nono , i m not playing any old games now , have played enough on my Old nV FX5500.

But still im not yet convinced , i mean will i gain "performance boost" on switching to 64bit.

Next what i want to know is that is Vista SP2 better or Windows 7 , the benchmark given by above person is nice , but i need more , and my bad that i cant find enough in google , bing shows tests on Build 7022 or so!

Real life experience will tell better , so plz help

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hdood

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nono , i m not playing any old games now , have played enough on my Old nV FX5500.

But still im not yet convinced , i mean will i gain "performance boost" on switching to 64bit.

Next what i want to know is that is Vista SP2 better or Windows 7 , the benchmark given by above person is nice , but i need more , and my bad that i cant find enough in google , bing shows tests on Build 7022 or so!

Real life experience will tell better , so plz help

It's not such an easy question, because there are many factors here. First of all, the 64-bit version of Windows uses slightly more memory, meaning less will be available for your game. Now, it isn't a huge amount (the increased resource use (both memory and CPU) is a few percent at most), but 2GB is already pretty borderline when it comes to running modern games.

Second, a 32-bit game running on 64-bit Windows will be slightly slower than if it were running on the 32-bit version. The reason is because 64-bit Windows has to emulate a 32-bit environment. Again, it isn't much, but you can expect to lose a few FPS. In other words, the opposite of a performance boost.

With that said, some new games actually are 64-bit, and these might end up running slightly faster than the 32-bit version. The same goes for 64-bit applications, including the OS. Overall, it might even out, but generally not for individual applications/games.

As for Vista vs 7, well, most games in the last few years are designed for Vista. This doesn't mean they won't run on 7 (they probably will, although some DRM might give you problems), but it's not technically a supported platform. It's a nicer OS though, and since you already run it, I would just stick with it.

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Elliot B.

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My PC config is described in my Signature V

I want to know will vista sp2 serve me better or windows 7 in terms of gaming performance. With sp2 , i think vista is bit more stable and 7 on par to it looks bit fragile and delicate. Anyways , some benchmarks will do gr8 (Ati cards) comparing Vista Sp2 and Windows 7

Secondly and lastly i want some advice regarding the choice of OS version , should i use 32Bit OS or 64Bit OS if i have 2GB DDR2 ram and a quad core (supporting 64bit platform).Im talking with respect to gaming performance only.

Your kind help will be appreciated :)

I'd personally suggest getting Windows 7 x64 and grabbing another 2 GB RAM.

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Billus

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Yep, go with 7. You may as well buy a new OS rather than upgrading later. I'm pretty sure gaming performance is much better in 7 (ok, much better is a little exagerated) compared to Vista. Doesn't matter if you go 32 or 64 bit, both versions come in the same box (mine did at least). I say stick with 32 bit if you don't want to upgrade your ram, 64 bit if you plan to go with 4gb and over.

In your sig, you already state that your running Win7 32-bit. Are you thinking of doing a clean install or something?

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Knife Party

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@ bogas04

1. Windows 7 runs faster and gaming performance should a better experience, Windows 7 RTM has yet to BSOD me or crash....its stable as long as you have the right drivers and a bit of common sense :)

2. With only 2GB of ram at 800Mhz, its not even worth switching to 64bit, ask yourself what are the benefits ? People use 64 bit because they need to utilise their resources to a greater extent, eg: getting more RAM for image/audio/video editing etc which can't be done on 32bit, so the answer really is -> don't waste your time, unless you plan on beefing up your hardware...

Hope that helps

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REM2000

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when a users have <4GB ram and are considering using windows x64, my first question really is that do you have the drivers for all your hardware in 64bit (i.e. webcam, printer etc..) Windows 7 and indeed Windows Vista has done a lot to push 64bit to the masses however i have known printers and other required but small pieces of hardware not working due to a lack of drivers.

If the answer is yes, then if you have the media why not give x64 a try for a bit, if it doesn't work swap back to x86. Luckily enough Microsoft allows you to use the same S/N for both systems.

I don't think there is a definitive answer to your question as each person is different and uses their PC in a different way. I know you state games as being your primary concern, with that i would probably go for x86 as generally ive found it to be quicker.

The main thing is trial and error, personally at home i now use Windows XP for my gaming PC as i like to play a couple of older games, which XP allows me to play without much hacking around with patches as would be required by Windows Vista/7.

However for all of my PC laptops and Work PC's i use Windows 7 as i am more productive in this environment than i would be under Windows XP. All of this was really from trial and error.

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bogas04

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If you have Windows 7 installed, just stick with that to be honest. You'd have to go and back everything up, wipe the drive then install Vista and everything, restore from backups.

Thats not a big deal as dont use many applications , and most of them are portable , but will it be worthy , like xp gives better performance than vista, will vista give better performance than 7?

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+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Windows 7 will give you a better performance than Vista SP2 and equal, if not better performance than XP SP3 on your hardware.

Also don't forget the user interface improvements Windows 7 brings compared to XP in particular. Sticking to 7 is a no-brainer in my opinion.

Edited by Mephistopheles
  • 3 weeks later...
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PGHammer

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you can only use 64 bit if you have 4 or more gb ram.

http://gizmodo.com/5173392/windows-7-vs-vi...crysis-fasterer

try google maybe? No, use Biiiinnnnnnnnggggg!!!

Two words - horse puckey.

I've run XP64 in as little as 512 MB of RAM (it's stated minimum, by the way). Vista and 7 (both x64) will run in as little as 1 GB (7 x64 actually has the same minimum as XP64).

Quite frankly, whether or not *you* will benefit from x64 over x32 with less than 4 GB of RAM depends on your application/game mix (in most cases, the difference ranges from no difference to any difference is in x64's favor, even at the minimum). I do a lot of multitasking; for the increased stability doing so, x64 waxes x32, especially with under 4 GB. Also, in most cases, games will happily run in x64 flavors of Windows (every C&C from Generals up, including the expansions, every game from Valve, and most MMOs, including every MMO since Vista went RTM, runs happily in 7 x64, without hacks or mods). The biggest issue with games (recent ones, that is) is an issue with PunkBuster anti-cheat software (which is fixed in the latest patch).

I've been running Vista x64, followed by 7 x64, on this PC since I built it; the *only* way I'll run a 32-bit OS is in a VM.

(With Office 2010 x64, staying x64 became a bonafide no-brainer.)

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Brandon Live Veteran

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It's not such an easy question, because there are many factors here. First of all, the 64-bit version of Windows uses slightly more memory, meaning less will be available for your game. Now, it isn't a huge amount (the increased resource use (both memory and CPU) is a few percent at most), but 2GB is already pretty borderline when it comes to running modern games.

2GB is the minimum where I would consider running 64-bit. If you ever plan to upgrade to 4GB, you may want to go 64-bit now and save yourself the hassle in the future. However, keep in mind that depending on your motherboard, you may not be able to use >3GB of memory even with a 64-bit OS.

Second, a 32-bit game running on 64-bit Windows will be slightly slower than if it were running on the 32-bit version. The reason is because 64-bit Windows has to emulate a 32-bit environment. Again, it isn't much, but you can expect to lose a few FPS. In other words, the opposite of a performance boost.

There is no emulation involved, 32-bit code is executed natively on the CPU. x64 CPUs natively support both 32-bit and 64-bit execution. In fact, some things will run faster because the OS code gets to take advantage of improvements in the AMD64 instruction set (additional registers, better compiler optimizations / default calling conventions, etc).

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hdood

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2GB is the minimum where I would consider running 64-bit. If you ever plan to upgrade to 4GB, you may want to go 64-bit now and save yourself the hassle in the future. However, keep in mind that depending on your motherboard, you may not be able to use >3GB of memory even with a 64-bit OS.

I think maybe you're responding to the OP here (I do run the 64-bit version, with both 2 and 6GB). My comment was regarding games, and there's no denying that these have gotten very memory-hungry.

There is no emulation involved, 32-bit code is executed natively on the CPU. x64 CPUs natively support both 32-bit and 64-bit execution. In fact, some things will run faster because the OS code gets to take advantage of improvements in the AMD64 instruction set (additional registers, better compiler optimizations / default calling conventions, etc).

I am aware of that. Executing instructions only takes a mode change, but you still have to emulate the 32-bit Windows environment (what you want to call it is meaningless semantics, Microsoft calls it emulation), and there is no way you can deny that this does have marginal overhead (both in CPU cycles and memory use). I personally don't think it matters, but I'm not convinced that the benefits elsewhere cancel this out, and I challenge anyone to find benchmarks of 32-bit games performing better or even equal under WOW than running natively on 32-bit Windows.

Now, considering how marginal it is, the discussion might border on silly, but still, if the goal is to squeeze every last FPS out of a fairly low-end system while maintaining as wide game compatibility as possible, then I don't think the 64-bit edition is necessarily the best choice.

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