Difference between 32 and 64 bit vista versions

[Takeno]

From what I understand, the 64 bit version of vista allows it to work faster than the 32 bit, the problem is that many drivers fail in the 64 bit version, which makes the 32 bit version more wanted. Can anyone confirm/correct me on this?

Also, what would be the difference in performance of 4GB RAM in a 64 bit OS compared to the performance in a 32 bit OS?

Thanks in advance.

[Devek]

From what I understand, the 64 bit version of vista allows it to work faster than the 32 bit

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The only advantage of 64 bit is the ability for a program to address more than 4 gigs of memory.

32 bit is faster than 64 bit.

[MisterBob]

What Devek said. Its 95% likely that you, as a normal end user, have no use for 64 bit currently.

[Ikith]

So can the OS use more than 4 gigs of ram? Or is that limited with the 32 bit as well? (Sorry trying to learn)

[Devek]

With "PAE" a "32-bit" OS can use more than 4 gigs, but the individual applications themselves can't use more than 4 gigs and a few applications could use 4 gigs each.

32 bits = 0000:0000 -> FFFF:FFFF = 4,294,967,295 bytes.
64 bits = 0 -> FFFF:FFFF:FFFF:FFFF = 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 bytes.

All the bits has to do is with how much memory individual applications can address themselves. It doesn't make anything faster because "32-bit" processors can already process data 64-bits and 128-bits at a time anyway thanks to SIMD instructions like MMX/SSE/etc.

[Ikith]

With "PAE" a "32-bit" OS can use more than 4 gigs, but the individual applications themselves can't use more than 4 gigs and a few applications could use 4 gigs each.

32 bits = 0000:0000 -> FFFF:FFFF = 4294967295 bytes.

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

[Devek]

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

Even with 4 gigs of ram I find that Vista sure spends a lot of time hitting the disk for God knows what.

If I was building a Vista machine I would focus more on getting 4 cheap sata drives and putting them in raid0. With a nice graphics card and a core 2 the ram will be your biggest bottle neck(or it was for me on the last one I built) so I would get higher performance ram but to be honest I haven't researched the price point/performance lately on RAM so someone else would have to suggest that. In theory back in the day you would be better off with 4x512 (2 gigs) of faster ram than 4 gigs of slower ram but I am not sure what is out there or the difference really.

[scrockstar]

I had XP64 on my PC for some time before re-installing the 32 bit version. To be honest, the only difference i've noticed was that photoshop loaded quicker on the 64 bit virsion for some reason. Game FPS seem to be about the same, although i did upgrade to a faster HD when i reinstalled XP32bit. Drivers work better on the 32 bit version anyways so i see no reason to use anything else. I doubt Vista is any different. BTW i have a AMD64 processor.

[Cheerios]

It's pretty hard to use google.

[SephYuyX]

Use Server 2003.

[Hitoshura]

Dr. Virgil Swann is indeed correct, listen to him and go foward Kal-El.

[GSDragoon]

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

Even with 4 gigs of ram I find that Vista sure spends a lot of time hitting the disk for God knows what.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=542413

[Devek]

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

Even with 4 gigs of ram I find that Vista sure spends a lot of time hitting the disk for God knows what.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=542413

If that article was true Vista would hit the disk LESS not more.

The only version of windows that ever used cache efficiently was 3.11, it would fit 100% in memory on my machine with 64 megs. (At the time I paid $2000 for 64 megs of ram..)

[Takeno]

So a 32bit OS can perfectly use all the capabilities that 4GB of RAM has to offer?

[Kaisha]

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

Even with 4 gigs of ram I find that Vista sure spends a lot of time hitting the disk for God knows what.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=542413

If that article was true Vista would hit the disk LESS not more.

The only version of windows that ever used cache efficiently was 3.11, it would fit 100% in memory on my machine with 64 megs. (At the time I paid $2000 for 64 megs of ram..)

If Vista is hitting your disk when yer doing menial or no tasks, I'm assuming it's just going about the harddrive and index'ing files to make that crap faster to access at a later point, as I've heard others complain about the same thing on other forums.

[GSDragoon]

Interesting. Thank you for that. So at 4 gigs I would think any OS (except vista) would fly with the correct processor and video card as well huh?

Even with 4 gigs of ram I find that Vista sure spends a lot of time hitting the disk for God knows what.

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=542413

If that article was true Vista would hit the disk LESS not more.

The only version of windows that ever used cache efficiently was 3.11, it would fit 100% in memory on my machine with 64 megs. (At the time I paid $2000 for 64 megs of ram..)

Did you read the article?

If your computer is doing nothing(or not much), Vista will basicly be trying to preload files into memory(fast) from your HD(slow). In theory, it seems like a nice idea. But let's say, I get home from work. The first thing I would do is check my e-mail, some forums and load up winamp and trillian in the backround. Not doing anything that intensive. While I do that, Vista is preloading files that get accessed a lot or recently. How and what it loads exactly, I don't know. Going on, I'm done checking my stuff and proceed to load up FFXI. Right before this, memory useage is around 70%, just from checking e-mail and browsing forums. FFXI is going to use up more than 30% of what I have(1 GB). So the superfetcher service has to release this memory.

Besides, if you don't like indexing or superfetch, you can easily dissable the service from running. Just like you can dissable services(including indexing) in XP. Personally, I'd rather have less processes running as possible. I don't need outlook, IE, winamp, ect to load faster. Waiting 1.5 or 1.4 seconds for it to load isn't going to make a difference to me. What I'd rather have is as many free resources available to have my games run smooth as possible. Vista running 35+ processes and 60+% memory or XP's 16 processes and 15% memory useage.

EDIT: it also seems like people are getting indexer and superfetch as one when they are actually totally different.

[Devek]

I read the article.. is it basic stuff that computers have done since the 70s.

"Hitting the disk" means when I click on something the entire machine pauses and does nothing while it waits for whatever it wanted off the disk to come up. No matter how much memory is in a Vista box this will occur, the only way around it is to put a high performance raid0 array in place.

"Using the disk" is a different matter. That simply means the disk is in use.

There is this really great technology invented before most of you were born called "Non-blocking IO" or "nio". It isn't some brand new concept.. An OS has the ability to access files in a manner to where that stuff is done in the background and doesn't slow down anything at all, and done properly this increases performance across the board. Vista is not doing that. Furthermore, "indexing" isn't something that has to take more than 2% of a computer's time throughout the entire day and a user shouldn't even notice it happening.

[Izzy]

So, I could basically turn off the superfetch service and it would STOP trying to fill my memory full of shit it THINKS I want?