BleepingComputer.com: Future of Vista 64 bit install

Ok Guys: Is the future of 64 bit install only about speed and Money? I have Vista Ultimate, I installed the 32 bit so my audio capability was not limited. Can anyone expound on the future of the 64 bit install? Everyone jump in on this!

If you have 4gigs of memory,you will be able to use the entire 4 gigs. As time goes on, more software will be written for 64 bit

hi,,, as mark says 64 uses the full 4gb of ram if installed,,, but is more ram hungry than 32,,, which is a bit of a catch 22,,, one way round it i suppose is stick 8gb in the 64bit version,,, which obviously you cant do with 32bit,,,
good luck.

[quote name='figgis41' date='Nov 28 2008, 03:35 PM' post='1022580']
hi,,, as mark says 64 uses the full 4gb of ram if installed,,, but is more ram hungry than 32,,, which is a bit of a catch 22,,, one way round it i suppose is stick 8gb in the 64bit version,,, which obviously you cant do with 32bit,,,
good luck. Hey figgis & Mark, you two are the biggest responders here, Thanks. I will wait to use the 64 bit disk that came with my Vista Ultimate. I have 2 gigs of Corsair ram and my Vista is very fast and smooth. I also run Linux Unbutu Ibex in a 30 gig partition thru wubi installer. * gigs of Ram seems like overkill?

hi,,, i know what you mean about a waste of ram,,, 1 of my machines has a core 2 duo with 2gb of ddr2 800Mhz and i also have a Quad 6600 with 3 gb of ddr2 800Mhz all matched pairs, and i swear the 2gb is quicker,,, or im going daft maybe,,,

Having a lot of memory and using a lot of memory are 2 different things. Up to a certain point, you'll get a speed increase if the RAM is the restrictive point in your resources. (more RAM = more speed). Then, once you reach the point where RAM is no longer limiting you, then you won't notice a difference.

For example, I've got 8 gB of RAM on my 64 bit system. I started with 4 gB on a 32 bit system. Upgrading to 64 bit (still with 4 gB) caused no speed increase (the theory here is that the extra RAM being recognized is offset by the extra needs of the 64 bit system). So, I upgraded to 8 gB of RAM - still no speed increase.

What I did notice tho', was a drastic increase in the ability to clutter my desktop and taskbar with extra stuff. I can play most games (with no lag) while I have IE7 w/6 tabs, Firefox w/22 tabs, 3 VM's running, Thunderbird, and other miscellaneous apps open. (More RAM = more stuff open without a decrease in performance).

YMMV

Even if you install 64-bit Vista, and you should if you have over 4GB of RAM, you will not get much of a benefit unless the application running can take advantage of the higher memory and/or 64-bit instruction sets. The OS and many recent popular programs, such as Crysis, The Witcher, and multimedia editing suites just to name a few, can utilize 64-bit. Older 32-bit apps will still run fine in the WOW64 environment, however 32-bit programs operating deep in the operating system might not function correctly. Such programs are few, like applications dealing with security or custom-made programs. In Vista, there is no major speed increase from 3 to 4 GB, however, users switching to 64-bit from 32 have said they believe 64-bit is a little faster during some tasks then 32-bit.

Items in memory in a 64-bit environment will take up slightly more space, but this is largely a minor issue if you have 4 GB or more of RAM. If you have 4 GB in a 32-bit environment, a portion of that will go towards other uses leaving 3.5GB or so for Windows to use. If you install 64-bit on that system, you have all 4 GB to use, making up for the inflated memory requirements of 64-bit.

you know if you install ubuntu-server (32 bit) you can see all of your ram??

That question would be better asked in the Linux forum. There are some Linux kernels that have PAE that could help.

Ubuntu Forums - 8 GB Ram 64 bit or 32 bit Ubuntu server?
Ubuntu Forums - Get Ubuntu to address more than 4GB of RAM