Vista: x86 vs x64

I'll be buying a new laptop very soon, and the only option I have for an OS is Vista, it seems, not XP. Not being one to want to play the reinstall-XP-and-hunt-for-drivers game, I'll probably just suck it up and try to learn my way around Vista and struggle to cut out all the bloat I keep hearing about. (Not that XP didn't usually come with loads of its own bloat.)

But before I make my purchase, I do have a concern:

Vista 32 bit (x86) vs 64 bit (x64). I was going to get x64 to support 4GB RAM, but I've been hearing about a lot of compatibility problems. Is x86 and 3GB RAM the saner option? I want to be able to run Photoshop CS2, which I hear has x64 problems, as well as plenty of other things. What's this about?

Overall I'm intimidating about switching to Vista because of compatibility issues. I don't usually upgrade if I don't feel I need it, and XP worked fine for me, but it's simply not available. If anyone has some words of advice or comfort, I'd appreciate that too.

 

Oh come on!

 

Look go for 32bit if you are going to rely on applications you arent sure about playing nice with 64bit...

The 64bit compatability issues are fading and vista is a perfectly viable OS on a pc designed for it. All major software makers are vista compatable if you run into problems try installing it in compatability mode. works fine for me. Speak with the support team in regards to their software and explore the facts try not to get too involved with what people say 99.99999% of the vista "issues" are caused my people not prepared to learn the new features of Vista and bashing it as worthless.

 

Hey man, sorry if I'm coming off as plain ignorant, but that's why I'm here; to fix that. I've been researching specific software (like Photoshop CS2) and heard way too many contradicting views. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm asking now to get a more direct and up to date opinion since I know software moves fast.

Since I am planning to purchase a PC made for Vista rather than upgrading, I assume that already gives me a small leg up on avoiding certain issues? I'm the kind of person who plans to tweak Vista as soon as I get it and learning enough about it to pull this off. XP needed a lot of tweaking for me to be satisfied too, so that itself doesn't bug me. As long as software can definitely be made to work somehow, I'll be satisfied, even if I need to hoop jump.

 

Vista will be fine. You shouldn't have any compatibility issues with either x86 or x64. I believe PS CS2 has a different optimized-for-64-bit version, which is very good. Get a 4GB kit and go 64-bit is my recommendation.

 

Reas this please:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=357233

Adobe CS2 - I have heard that CS4 is definitely 64Bit compatible
and available as a full 64Bit software.
CS3 - not sure, neither about CS2
But: It should work in theory.

On another note:
Apart from bloatware removal you shouldn't really bother tweaking Vista...

 

CS3 works in Vx64 in 32bit mode. CS4 will install both 32 and 64 bit version on the same system. Drivers have improved since Vx64's introduction and after SP1. XP is past, Vista and Win7 are the future.

 

XP should not even a choice.
Already computer manufacture makes Vista 32/64 drivers first, and quickly makes them for XP, which end up that they could be buggy, or even dropped features. For example on the Dell Latitude E series, the drivers are teh most polished under Vista 64. Vista 32-bit has minor issues, but they should be fixed now, and XP, doesn't allows you to set the backlit keyboard to "auto" (meaning using the ambient light sensor to determine whether to turn it on or off). And this is what people found out by accident when talking about it. Who know about other droped or buggy options.

Vista 64-bit is the way to go.
Windows XP is a repackage Windows 2000 (don't believe me? every time there was an update for XP, there was one for Win2000). Xp was release about 1 year Windows 2000... I don't think you can do much more other than making a new help documentation, theme, and more options around, and add the laughing called 'Compatibility mode' feature, which does not emulate or translate anything, unlike Vista's system, where a good translation is performed. Another issue, and miss conception of XP is teh memory management. People like XP because it uses so much less RAM over Vista, but when XP was released the OS was doing stuff that was preatty impressive for 128MB of RAM (yea, even gamers had on average 256MB of RAM at MAX), howveer was bashed and labeld as teh OS with the worst memory management. The reason for this is that XP behavior is not about using your RAM, but how to use more your HDD instead of your RAM. This is why on today's system,m XP is sooo light.. it's not because it's light on RAM, it is because it puts everything, as fast as it can on your RAM, no mater how much RAm you have. Then with Vista... it's the absolutely contrary. Praised to have a good memory management system, but uses a more RAM. Windows 7 still uses Vista memory management, is has a detection system on it where if you are low in memory (i.e: 1GB) it will try to do XP behavior but not that much stupid.

As for Vista 32 and 64-bit.
Well it is clear that if you have 4GB or more you need a 64-bit OS.
However, if you have old peripherals or special software that CANNOT be changed/updated as they are locked down to XP. Then you'll have problem with Vista 64-bit. That is all. For a home user, this is mostly unlikely, and usually they are ways around it, like installing Microsoft Virtual PC 64-bit, which is provided for free at Microsoft.com, where you can run any 32-bit OS of your choose (games won't work).

So Vista 64-bit is the best choose, and should be the only choose.

 

Interesting development, hopefully isolated to one or two manufacturers and only minor functions. The major items (sound video, modem) are off standard components and I think the devs for those drivers know how popular XP, is and shouldn't ignore it for quite a while. If a driver for a major system does turn out to be 'buggy' I would be much more concerned.

Even with that being the case, the small loss of minor functions is still worth considering as a price to pay for the performance hit of Vista over XP. For notebooks the extra 5/6++ FPS can make all the difference. You can tweak Vista but XP tweaks more. Also worth thinking about the tons and tons of free apps that don't work on Vista. And of course the backward compatibility for all your older hardware and software. Never even mind DRM!

I would say that even with one manufacturer making minor drivers hard to get, and with Vista's nice looks, at the moment XP is still the only sane choice for a notebook used for primarily gaming. I would suggest researching which drivers might be hard to get or not work before making a decision, though.

@GoodBytes re the RAM - you seem to be advising a 64 bit OS on memory. Unless the OP is a graphics designer or uses tons of AV heavy apps, most software has a maximum address space usage of 2GB at the moment. So at the moment more is a bit redundant. An app run on Vista does gobble up a bit more RAM - you are of course correct that it is not 'as bad' as it looks in the Task Manager, but it is still hungrier than XP. So to feed this particular bit of bloat , you should have more than the 2GB maximum address space usage.

 

Varadero... no. You don't entirely know what you are talking about. Let me clarify some things.

Video card and sound cards are no problem under Vista unless you have an old machine, in which case you don't have the power to even run Vista bare bone.

It's popular for the wrong reason. It is not because Vista sucks or anything, it is just that companies don't feel like having half their systems under Vista and the other under Windows 2000/XP, as this complicates things, and slow down the IT staff. Also companies don't want to change all their systems when the current ones are running fine and that they don't see the need for many of it's employees in having multi-core CPU, "powerful video cards", 2Gb of RAM, just for Microsoft Word and alike programs. They will change computer and OS, when the current computers that they have now are obsolete, where maintaining them is too expensive because the parts are not produced anymore. Also, wait until Vista/Win7 is more popular on the house hole market to reduce the cost of training, and simplify things for the employees as they'll be more comfortable.

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You mean performance GAIN on Vista over XP. am I talking about?! I must be insane or know nothing what I am talking about. Exactly! Your statement is 100% correct, so is mine. Let me explains

Your statement is 100% correct for any system not 'Vista ready'. Now, when I say Vista ready, I don't mean Microsoft crap. I mean THE REAL requirement to have the system up and running full settings smoothly (meaning a Proper GPU that can handle Aero at 1900x1080 (which is not crazy, the Intel X3100 handles that), at least 3GB of RAM, multi-core CPU, and all proper Vista drivers. Why?

If you know programming, you'll know that you have a choose to make, either optimize the system more for multi-cores or single core CPU's.
Vista is the first Windows that actually uses the user multi-core CPU's and not simply ask the CPU to handle it, which then trows the task on which ever core it thinks is best. This introduce a performance increase. Then you have Windows SuperFetch technology that learns what application you run at what time and pre-loads it for you, before you do so that applications can start 2, 3, even 6 and more times faster (depends on the applications, as it only looks at memory, and not what it needs to load from the HDD). Of course it doesn't look at application names, just memory (which all it sees is binary words (series of bits in a line slot), and at worst file names like data.dll (which means nothing to a hacker).

Also, you have Aero. Aero uses the GPU to render the UI instead of the CPU. now of course it can't render the content of a window as well that is the job of the application, and as for folders.. well already Aero was asking too much for many video cards from Intel and Sis which was the de-facto standard for many laptops and desktop computer at the time. I don't think this will happen any time soon. Because Aero uses the GPU instead of the CPU (which SUCKS at it, even your Core i7, if you have one), this leads to increase battery life (so more room for feature which drops it down to about the same amount), and increase performance for CPU demanding applications, so now when you move your mouse or drag a window your applications don't go slower.

No. First of all if you buy a laptop with an Intel video card to play games... well that is just silly. However the 5-6++ (as you say) FPS reduction, has NOTHING to do with Vista. Its the chip manufacture drivers. XP was release a LONG time ago, so it is normal that the XP drivers are way more polished and optimized than Vista's. But if you look now, this is less and less the case.. I think now you nvidia and ATI and new Intel video card it is not the case anymore.

I am not sure I follow, they both are tweak-able just as much (or very close), you are just not familiar where stuff is placed. If you want options checkup gpedit.msc (Vista Ultimate, Enterprise, Business edition only).

What in the galaxy are you talking about. In fact more stuff run in Vista than XP. I have some really old games that stop working under 2000/XP, but now works perfectly under Vista. I am Mr. free, open source, applications, bvecause I don't have a money tree/plant to offord software here, and everything worked without exception, there was just some few application that did not work under Vista BETA, but was fixed on the official release of Vista or the applications had a new update (which was of course free).
PLEASE DO NOT CLAIM THINGS UNLESS YOU EXPERIENCE IT! By saying this and your next comment, I know you NEVER really used Vista.

. I just explianed this on my previous post. Vista performs a real translation when you run them under compatibility mode (hens the reason why my Win95/98 games works now), and that you have different options liek Virtual PC. BUT, this is on rare occation, evn my few payed applications works perfectly without or with free update to make it work under Vista.. and that was back in 2006. So many newer versions was released since then.

You don't even know what is. DRM is on your video card, sound card even. You can't get away. DRM in Vista and Windows 7 is ONLY THERE to allow you to use your computer blu-ray and HDDVD drive. THAT IS FINAL. That is why Mac's can't play any Blu-ray or HDDVD movies as it is not DRM ready. It has NOTHING to do with blocking contents on your computer. They are sooooooo many DRM systems out there, it is impossible for Windows to actually have it implemented inside itself. Let alone new versions every week/months. It is JUST here for you to allow to run Blu-ray and HDDVD movies.

Not true, on a Vista compatible system (meaning anything newer than 2006) because unlike XP, the UI gets unloaded. XP keeps the UI been rendered so that you can do alt+Tab fast, as your CPU sucks. Your GPU in the other hand is ultra fast, and is not an issue.

BTW: If you use Aero Basic or Windows Standard/Classic theme, then you use XP engine, meaning using the GPU instead of CPU.

I agree, that is if you have old (before 2006) peripherals.

1- At the moment...
2- 64-bit applications are coming, you already have IE 64-bit, Java 64-bit, ALL 64-bit codecs (you actually save battery life with the 64-bit codec and Windows Media Player 11 64-bit), you have Virtual PC (a alike software), Flash 64-bit and Firefox 64-bit is coming along. Sure you won't have a major performance increase TODAY, but today as more people have more powerful system, programmers can use less optimization, more feature, and more fancy UI stuff. Also having the OS, which is heavy stuff, in 64-bit helps quiet a bit.

Bloat, meaning something is heavier as it really needs to be, as it comes with useless stuff. Vista/Win7 is not that. Superfetch which is the part that "takes" the most amount of RAM (Vista/Win7 is ~300MB because the whole kernel is on the RAM, don't believe me? Wait until your SATA HDD is not in use, and pull it out of your system. If your HDD is not in use, Windows Vista/Win7 will still run, no BSOD. Start menu will still work, moving folders will still work, however if your browse in folders it won't work and if your run applications that will also not work (they will queued in a list). When you put back your HDD, the HDD will re-boot, spin-up, the system will re-detect, re-sync everything, makes sure that the HDD is well, and then execute the queue list. Do that in XP, and it's a direct BSOD. This means, if you hit your laptop or computer case too harshly by accident, your system won't BSOD on you or freeze (if you don't use the HDD, like defrag it)). Anyway, back to topic, Superfetch "takes" RAM, meaning if Vista/Win7 detects that you need the RAM, it will free some up, or the entire thing. So what you see in the Task manager is a bit miss leading. In fact, during Vista beta, it was under debate on Microsoft side to either show it or remove it the amount of SuperFetch. The best choose was selected.