64-bit Vista with only 2 GB ram?

I'm trying to decide between installing 32-bit Vista or 64-bit Vista on my machine. As I understand there is a performance improvement if you have more than 4 GB of ram, however my machine only has 2 GB. Seeing that 64-bit programs actually use more memory will using 64-bit Vista on my machine actually slow things down?

And is program/driver support fairly good now on Vista 64-bit? Will I run into any problems with that aspect?

Thanks

 

You shoudn't have any problems on Vista x64. The 64bits version doesn't run any slower AFAIK

 

2gb is more than enough, seems to be a sweet spot. less doesn't run so good but more doesn't really give you any huge jump in performance. More is always better tho of course.

I run x64 on my desktop with a AMD Opteron 148 and 2gb ram just fine, and I run Vista x86 on my laptop with 2 or 3gb of ram depending on my mood.

I have to say as a user of both on a daily baiss there is no reason to use x64, so unless you have a very specific reason to so do use x86.

 

A 64-bit o/s will also utilize additional performance gains from the CPU itself which are 64-bit anyway.

 

Vista 32-bit vs. 64-bit performance with 2 gb:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1354

The gist of the article is that 64-bit takes a little longer to boot up but is otherwise generally a little faster, even with 2 gb.

64-bit Vista also has some significant security advantages.

The main downside of 64-bit is hardware compatibility (not everything has 64-bit drivers), and also there are a few programs that are incompatible... mostly really old programs, plus some low-level stuff like some security software.

I haven't used x64 Vista myself, but personally, if you have a copy of x64 Vista and there are drivers available for your hardware, and you're (re-)installing anyways... I'd go for it.

 

I have been pondering this same thing for the last four or five months, and I still can't find any compelling reason not to go with x64. If I don't like it once I try it, then I'll downgrade. Until then, I think my mind is made up.

 

There's a lot more than just the CPU gain and the Memory limit to 64-bit vista. Also, the boot performance can very greatly depending on how something is installed. In my case, Vista 64 actually boots faster than Vista 32 and XP, yes XP. This is because I defragged the system and put the pagefile elsewhere.

64 will double your performance down the line until you hit something 32-bit...most likely the software you're using. There are some things that are built in modules and will experience performance boosts in certain areas. for World of Warcraft, the network performance is boosted over XP...the delay is reduced by half because the network drivers are 64-bit and the speed of the network is the bottleneck as opposed to the rest of the system.

You also gain randomized memory, which is a feature Mac has had for a long while. This is only in 64-bit Vista and randomizes where the OS is installed in the memory. This was a design move to allow the OS to be more stable as it no longer has to accept certain hardware addresses and makes it much more resilient to the more dangerous memory-targeting viruses written.

I would recommend at least 2 Gigs as a min. You probably won't see much performance boost with any more than that unless you use memory hogging programs like photoshop.

People say that Vista 64 uses more memory because the address are larger...that's a misconception. The addresses are larger, but they care the same data and only exists until it find the memory target location.

I hope this helps. There's a lot of testimony on my thread. It's also a bit old now so most of the problems with it have been worked out. Feel free to take a look.

 

Thing about x64 vs x86 is that I have both installed I have a triple boot setup on my laptop and on my desktop.

I have x64 cpu's in both machines. A C2D in my laptop and a AMD Opteron in my Desktop.

Let me point out first that AMD cpus are supposed to have marginally better x64 performance than Intel.

Now with that said I have done my own personal benchmarks on both machines and found that x64 is in no way faster than x86. If you were doing a review you could be selective and show where its faster in certian things, but as a whole its the same.

It was faster in one thing, then slower in the next. Whats worse of all tho is in x64 programs the performance was not good at all and it did just as good or better with x86 programs instead. Check out my OS shootout review in my sig, it has a few of the benchmarks I am talking about.

Now since I use both daily (I keep my Desktop booted inti Vista Ult x64 and my Laptop uses Vista Home Premium x86 primarly, I can easily say I am not baised in the least bit. I did x64 first thinking just like you, that there is no reason to not go x64. However when I did my OS tests I found that x86 was not worse in any way, then since I dont use 4gb of ram and wont do so anytime soon, and I found a handfull of games and programs that didnt work on x64 that did work in x86 it was pretty much a given on what version to use.

BTW 4gb of ram has its own little story, I hope you dont expect some huge gain in performance for going x64 and 4gb of ram, performance will stay the same unless you were using up all the ram you currently had and to enable use of 4gb you need memory remaping on and that just adds to the software/hardware conflict issues.

 

Isn't x64 supposed to be the way of the future? I'm sure that it will be eventually. I don't think that's any threat to x86, though. I'm willing to give x64 a try.

 

Yes its the future

You cant fight the future!

 

the future is here..............

 

64-bit applications don't use noticeably more memory. The code is, on the whole, a little bit more compact, and data, on the whole, takes up a little bit more space. Overall, it's not a difference you'll typically notice either way.