Win XP Pro 64

[Panda On Smack]

Shall i install it? Im getting an AMD X2 chip so that makes sense

The reason i ask is that i checked NVidia's site for drivers for a 7800GT and couldnt quite work out if its supported yet?

Will be on a Asus A8N mobo

ta

 

[Panda On Smack]

Ahh, perhaps i need this:

http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_winxp_2k_64bit_81.87.html

 

[TdC]

Shall i install it? Im getting an AMD X2 chip so that makes sense

The reason i ask is that i checked NVidia's site for drivers for a 7800GT and couldnt quite work out if its supported yet?

Will be on a Asus A8N mobo

ta

Panda, Jonty has 64bit doze, and he says it rocks. He also says that there are some driver issues. beware of that, cos there may well be a crucial something that goes wrong o0

 

[Panda On Smack]

Ooh fanks

I shall pm him

ta

 

[inactionman]

That and software problems, i.e. no decent firewall software yet (tried a bunch none were as good as zonealarm). I installed it, and didn't really like it, switched back to 32-bit with my recent upgrade. May try again when vista comes out, unless it's got too many evil features.

Pretty much all core drivers are around these days, only holdouts are drivers for the x-fi, and peripheral thing like mp3 players, joysticks, etc.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Panda

Sorry the delay in replying. I've left FreddysHouse now so I'm not as aware as I once was of when I'm needed Still, everyone here is more than capable of helping out, and I can really only second what TdC and inactionman have said.

I have run Windows x64 on one of my machines and I have to say it was pretty painless in my albeit limited experience. It was installed on a games machine so the overall setup was fairly standard; lots of third-party software and hardware was not really installed (which apparently is where most problems often start).

My personal recommendation, though, is probably to stick with the 32-bit version of Windows XP for now, at least until Windows Vista comes along next year.

The main problems with Windows x64 at the moment are essentially driver support and software support. Driver-wise, most big manufacturers' products are either supported out of the box or via downloads from their website. That said, smaller manufacturers or those being a little slow to adopt (Belkin, for example, still hadn't any Windows x64 drivers last I checked) can create real headaches. You can sometimes modify 32-bit drivers to work with Windows x64, but generally if it's not officially supported you're going to have problems.

Software-wise, Microsoft have done a very good job of getting 32-bit applications to work seemlessly with Windows x64, but there remain some exceptions (personally I didn't encounter any, but I've read about them elsewhere). Moreover, though, there are as yet very few notably optimised games or other software which really take advantage of Windows x64's benefits. Far Cry does but you need to download around 800MB+ of patches. Without optimisation there's really little benefit from running Windows x64, as it essentially identical to Windows XP Professional in terms of its general features and appearance.

Personally I'd wait until Windows Vista, by which time 64-bit driver and software support should have improved and you'd genuinely get a better experience (in some respects) from using a 64-bit operating system. Windows Vista itself will be made available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions, so you'll initially have a choice, but 32-bit variants will eventually be phased out over forthcoming years as 16-bit environments once were (talking of 16-bit support, Windows x64 drops support for it, so if you have any applications which use simple 16-bit installers etc. then that will be another problem you could encounter).

Kind Regards

 

[Panda On Smack]

Cheers Jonty, sorry to drag you back!

Appreciate your input

I have everything running i need so far, might just stick with it until Vista comes out as you say.

Only thing im checking up on is nvidia stuff. Have the latest beta drivers from nzone and they seem to work ok.