XP 64bit

[Tobeman]

As I am building a friend a new PC, and he will be making use of pretty high system req applications and programs, along with some gaming, I thought about getting him 64bit Windows to go with his San Diego 3700 (git! )

Is the driver support up to scratch yet? And will the drivers supplied with the mobo work ok? (ASUS A8N-SLi Deluxe)

Are there any other issues I may encounter?

Thanks guys, you're lifesavers

[0iD]

If you know what hardware's going in it should be easy enough to check manufacturers websites for 64bit drivers. N-Force drivers are pretty dialled now.

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=45078

[directhex]

driver support is generally ok for motherboards and graphics, and other things by companies that associate themselves with those tasks (e.g. raid controllers, network cards)

howEVER, and this is a big however

1) some of the included drivers are broken, e.g. realtek 8169 driver provided doesn't work, you need to get the one from the net

2) you may have some random bugs, e.g. hl2 gives me major sound corruption

3) many apps simply WILL NOT RUN. this includes: games with StarForce copy protection. recent games which use Windows Installer MSI instead of old-style installshield (e.g. vampire the masquerade bloodlines). any apps which touch your drivers, e.g. alcohol 120% and other cd emulation apps

4) it's not faster than xp 32 bit

[0iD]

TBH, (& this is only my personal opinion folks, so dont get arsey), I recon it's worth waiting a 3-6 months. Then driver support will be more mainstream. However there are a lot of happy users out there already.

64bit Linux on the other hand is much more widely supported.

[Paul Adams]

I'm waiting on HP to produce and deliver 64-bit drviers for the AMD64-based Pavilion I bought months ago (which was bundled with Swedish XP Home which was quickly replaced with English XP Pro).

I am actually running XP Pro x64 Edition on it now, and the only native driver that it didn't have was for the AC'97 sound chipset, and I downloaded that from SiS.

Even the chipset for my NetGear gigabit NIC was detected and runs at full speed with jumbo frame support (nice, seeing as NetGear don't have any 64-bit drivers for the GA311).
* (Realtek 8169 chipset)

Still looking around for 64-bit versions of AV and a personal firewall - I got Avast! and Tiny PF 64 but they are 32-bit apps still (plus TPF 64 is still beta).
* (The drivers have to be 64-bit, but the processes themselves can use 32-bit emulation)

I think unless you get optimized drivers from the hardware manufacturer you might not get XP64 up to top speed - my disk access is noticeably slower as I can't get hold of a driver for the IDE controller from SiS or HP yet.

* (Had problems with Ultramon 2.6 but this turned out to be the Windows Security module of Tiny Firewall 64, not Windows' fault.)

World of Warcraft and Railroad Tycoon 3 play happily, which is important to me

[0iD]

Why not get hold of an eval version. If everything works fine then take the plunge. Else go for good old 32bit XP

[Dooms]

Ill prob just wait for longhorn, it doenst look like developers are jumping onto the 64bit thing very quickly.

[Tobeman]

I dont think I will risk it guys, its not even my PC Im building so if problems start occuring a month later things are gonna get hectic. He's sourcing some all-singing all-dancing DVB TV tuners from Germany so god knows if they support 64bit, nor do I want to try and sort it out later if they dont

Thanks for your help guys

[BUFF]

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/forum...&threadid=4407

[NenMaster]

you know if older games work fine in it like, tribes 2

[directhex]

I dont think I will risk it guys, its not even my PC Im building so if problems start occuring a month later things are gonna get hectic. He's sourcing some all-singing all-dancing DVB TV tuners from Germany so god knows if they support 64bit, nor do I want to try and sort it out later if they dont

Thanks for your help guys

most of them work in 64 bit linux, if that's what you mean

[Jonny]

4) it's not faster than xp 32 bit

So what's the point?

[directhex]

So what's the point?

it can address more memory than xp 32bit, when combined with 64bit applications.

and it's based on windows server 2003, not xp, so gains a fair bit of security and the like from that

[Paul Adams]

and it's based on windows server 2003, not xp, so gains a fair bit of security and the like from that

This can be seen by viewing the properties of My Computer - it is reported as:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
Version 2003
Service Pack 1

The release version of XP x64 is "SP1" which corresponds with Windows Server 2003 SP1 - it is a different code base to XP Home/Pro 32-bit which is of course at SP2.

[directhex]

or run "ver" in a command prompt. 5.2 kernel = 2003, 5.1 kernel = xp, 5.0 kernel = 2000