XP Pro or Vista Premium?

[Deuce]

I'm planning on building a new pc and I'm getting a Core 2 Duo processor and I'd like to be able to utilize the 64-bit architecture. So I'm stuck with whether I should get an XP pro x64 edition or Vista Premium w/ 64-bit support. Just curious what people think I should do. I've got some old games I'd like to play and was curious whether or not they'd all run on this OS or at least most of them.

[Snowknight26]

Depends on which games. If they're old games, they probably wont support 64-bit mode, so either OS will use 32-bit emulation with marginal performance loss. If you want the more stable of the two, get XP. If you want those new DX10 games you have (or don't have) to run well, get Vista.

[Deuce]

Depends on which games. If they're old games, they probably wont support 64-bit mode, so either OS will use 32-bit emulation with marginal performance loss. If you want the more stable of the two, get XP. If you want those new DX10 games you have (or don't have) to run well, get Vista.

I'm a little curious about which new games use 64-bit mode. I'm assuming stuff like Half-Life 2? Or newer than that?

[Calina]

so far no games ive played come up as 64bit they all get installed in 32bit program files and are listed as *32 in task manager

games comin out in this year and after will most likly all take advantage of 64bit and Derectx10

[Sonomaa]

32 bit of either one you do, seriously not worth 64bit atm

[Kaylia]

xp/32bit for at least 1 more year if you want to avoid problem.

[Scar]

Server 2003 is probably the best right now, as far as taking advantage of your hardware goes.

Problem with XP is it likes to rely on Virtual Memory, even when it's not necessary. Also, it will only utilize 2 GB of RAM tops.

Currently, I'm using Server 2003 tweaked to work as a workstation, with 4 GB of RAM. I dual boot XP/Server 2003 and XP doesn't even come close to matching the performance. That extra RAM and Server 2003's better memory management (better kernel) really shines when multitasking.

Right now, Vista is nothing but a memory hogging eye candy waste of hard drive space. Until you need DirectX10 to play games, Vista just doesn't cut it for people who like to make the most out of their hardware.

[diemos]

I have to agree with scar, vista sucks.

If you have to use XP Pro, it's not a horrible choice, but Server 2003 is awesome once you get it tweaked to perfection (which takes a while). If you're good with tweaking and following guides on howto tweak an optimize, go for Server 2003, if not, go for XP Pro.

[Robert]

if you have 4 gigs of ram and a core 2 extreme go vista

[Deuce]

if you have 4 gigs of ram and a core 2 extreme go vista

lol I wish. Looks liek I'll be going the XP pro route for now. Thanks.

[Devek]

Unless the game you are playing needs to address more than 4 gigs of RAM it will gain nothing from being able to run 64 bit.

64 bit code is also slower than 32 bit code since all references to memory are twice as big.

Unless your program or game needs something Vista can provide that windows 2000 can't.. You're better off just running windows 2000 since there will be more memory and processor left over for your game to use.

[divisortheory]

Unless the game you are playing needs to address more than 4 gigs of RAM it will gain nothing from being able to run 64 bit.

This is a little misleading. While it's true that the games he is currently playing will gain nothing from running in 64-bit mode (and next to nothing from running on Vista vs. XP), it doesn't account for all future games.

Programs written using 64-bit instructions can also manipulate 64-bits of memory with a single assembly language instruction (hence the name). Memory intensive applications, even if they only use 100k of memory, will be much faster using 64-bit native code on a 64-bit processor. No games currently take advantage of this, and it will probably be at least a year, if not more, before any do. But when it happens it will make a noticeable difference, and those games written for 64-bit machines will run noticeably faster than if the same game written in 32-bit.

[diemos]

Unless the game you are playing needs to address more than 4 gigs of RAM it will gain nothing from being able to run 64 bit.

This is a little misleading. While it's true that the games he is currently playing will gain nothing from running in 64-bit mode (and next to nothing from running on Vista vs. XP), it doesn't account for all future games.

Programs written using 64-bit instructions can also manipulate 64-bits of memory with a single assembly language instruction (hence the name). Memory intensive applications, even if they only use 100k of memory, will be much faster using 64-bit native code on a 64-bit processor. No games currently take advantage of this, and it will probably be at least a year, if not more, before any do. But when it happens it will make a noticeable difference, and those games written for 64-bit machines will run noticeably faster than if the same game written in 32-bit.

Time to update in a year then, eh?

[Evelyn]

exactly. from what I've been looking at, I'm gonna wait to do any major upgrades until decent games that actually utilize DX10 or vista to any extent come out. Til then I'll stick with my current pc, maybe get an external hard drive for backups if I need.

[Devek]

Unless the game you are playing needs to address more than 4 gigs of RAM it will gain nothing from being able to run 64 bit.

This is a little misleading. While it's true that the games he is currently playing will gain nothing from running in 64-bit mode (and next to nothing from running on Vista vs. XP), it doesn't account for all future games.

Programs written using 64-bit instructions can also manipulate 64-bits of memory with a single assembly language instruction (hence the name). Memory intensive applications, even if they only use 100k of memory, will be much faster using 64-bit native code on a 64-bit processor. No games currently take advantage of this, and it will probably be at least a year, if not more, before any do. But when it happens it will make a noticeable difference, and those games written for 64-bit machines will run noticeably faster than if the same game written in 32-bit.

Time to update in a year then, eh?

Ugh..

Lol

No, he is totally 100% wrong. 32 bits is as fast as it gets for general purpose computing and that will never change. The only downside to 32 bit is you can't access more than 4 gigs of ram in a single application.. if a program needs more memory it has to be written in 64 bit and there will not be any games that use more than 4 gigs of ram on the market anytime soon.

There is nothing you can do with 64 bit GENERAL PURPOSE registers that will offset the speed penalty of having to deal with 8 byte pointers and a 64 bit wide stack.

He doesn't even know what it means to process 64 bits of data at a time or how Intel processors even work.

Lets load a 64 bit value into a general purpose register.

00 55 2d 80 12 ab ff 02

Now that this value is loaded lets multiple each byte by 13? What is the instruction to multiple each of the two double words by 61?

Guess what.. THERE IS NOT ONE. You can only use SISD(Single Instruction Single Data) codes on general purpose registers. That means he can divide the whole thing by two.. or maybe even divide half of it by two.. but he can't treat it as 8, 4, or 2 separate values to process at the same time.

In 1997 SIMD(Single Instruction Multiple Data) codes were added to the Intel lines of processors starting with MMX. MMX provides 8 separate 64 bit registers to the process and that allow me to act on each 64 bit register as 8 bytes, 4 words, 2 double words, or 1 quadword.

Just using MMX I will spank the shit out of anything he can write using 64 bit general purpose registers.

SIMD IS USED in every game out there already and also used every time you watch a video. Try using modern fraps without a processor that supports SSE2 and you won't be able to record of watch movies

SIMD has made a lot of progress since 1997 and has gone from MMX -> 3DNow! (developed by AMD) -> SSE -> 3DNow! Professional -> SSE2 -> and SSE3.

One downside of MMX was that it used the same registers as the FPU so you couldn't do MMX and floating point instructions at the same time. It isn't that big of a deal because you could switch back and forth pretty easily and it is rare you have to do both at the same time anyway.

With SSE2 we were given separate 128 bit registers that were not aliased to the FPU registers so you could do both operations at the same time.. which really isn't a big deal but being able to work on 128 bit of memory at a time is really nice.

Most modern games take advantage of SSE2 now but a few don't..

With a 32 bit processor and SSE2 I will make divisortheory's code that uses 64 bit general purpose registers look like it was running on the origional 8 bit Nintendo.

[Devek]

So bored..

This is where he was supposed to chime in.. but in limited cases you can do SIMD operations with SISD instructions!

uint32_t upperCaseSIMD (uint32_t x) {
uint32_t b = 0x80808080ul | x;
uint32_t c =   b - 0x61616161ul;
uint32_t d = ~(b - 0x7b7b7b7bul);
uint32_t e = (c & d) & (~x & 0x80808080ul);
        return x - (e >> 2);
}

Which would spark some fabulous discourse regarding the difference between operations and instructions and the true power of SIMD.. but apparently that isn't going to happen

Oh well.

[Scar]

if you have 4 gigs of ram and a core 2 extreme go vista

So Vista can suck up nearly 1 GB of that RAM and tax my graphics card just to display the desktop eyecandy properly?

I don't know about you, but I use a computer for one reason, and that's to run my programs. Why use an OS that sucks up 90% your resources just to "look good" when it's doing nothing to improve the very thing you're using a PC for- running your programs?

I haven't even mentioned the problems people constantly have getting programs they used with no problems on XP to even work on Vista....

And let's not even get into talks about Digitial Rights Management.

One of Vista's biggest selling points is that it's a spyware and virus killer. What they've failed to tell you is that instead of spyware and viruses taking over your computer, it's the Aero Glass 3D user interface that will be sucking up unnecessary resources...

Vista fails on so many levels.

[Boyiee]

Vista works great for me and everyone I know that have been using it or given it at school. None of us are using core2extremes or 4gb of ram. It feels faster than xp since i've upgraded.

I prefer it over my xp machine now, and I dont even use it for the bells and whistles (since most of them are obtainable on xp). But hey, If you want to upgrade now and get a new XP, and then when things are released in 6months with DX10 and 64bit compatability, buy another new OS then; go for it. I rather just get one and keep it.

btw, what the hell are people doing on their vista's to make it "unstable" or "unsafe"... Haven't had a single problem yet, shit I have more problems with my xp system.

[Sigi]

Frankly, all Vista has made me do is decide my next system will either be a Mac, or will be a pure Linux box. I'm sorry, but 1gig+ of memory and taxing videocard for eyecandy? Services I can't stop from loading? Retarded security structure? Extremely bloated footprint? Saying it's more friendly for laptops but has a harder processor load than its predecessors? Bah.

Windows XP, Server 2003, and even freaking 2k serve the purpose better than Vista... so why upgrade? DX10? whooptie shit. No games take advantage of it, and I have a funny feeling that if there is a game that DOES take advantage of DX10, it will still perform better on a DX9/Win2k, XP, or Server2k3 box just from the overhead of the operating system.

>.> That, and I get XP Pro, Server 2003, and Win2k for free (and legitimate no less!) from my college.

[SephYuyX]

Vista Ultimate or nothing. If youre not installing ultimate, stick with XP.