is there a point to XP Pro 64bit?

because none of the laptops i've been looking at (all turion laptops) come with that as their os. i'm thinking about getting it but i'm just wondering why they arent shipping these computers with 64bit chips but without an os that lets you take full advantage of them. it makes no sense to me. is there a problem with xp 64? whats the story here?

 

No, not the os, but your programs must be 64bit programs too. You can only find some programs that run 64bit.

 

actually, XP64 will run pretty much any 32-bit program in it's own 32-bit environment, it's pretty seamless.

the real problem is finding drivers for everything in 64-bit. Only a few machines have a driver suite robust enough to make it a working machine.

I've been using xp64 on my MS-1013 for quite a while now, there was an issue with the memory card reader driver, but that's about it. I run tons of 32-bit programs on it without any problems.

 

I didn't know you could run emulation of 32bit. Thanks coffeeshark

 

no problem. i think the lack of xp64 making any big waves is due more to lack of drivers and no large advantage in terms of speed that is delaying a lot of software manufacturers from building 64-bit applications. That'll all change pretty soon with Vista and the 64-bit processors becoming more prevalent.

 

ok thanks.. that makes sense.. i'm probably going to buy a turion, should i bother getting xp64? or should i just wait?

 

i say keep xp at 32bit and vista 64bit

 

yeah i agree, although half life and cs run realy well in 64bit so if you can wait...

 

not too much reason right now to go to xp64 other than just playing with it, and you're only inviting problems you may not want to mess with. I'd prob recommend people stay with 32bit for now, you can always go 64bit later when it's more mature.

 

hey is xp pro upgradable to xp pro 64bit? or do i have to do a fresh install?

 

I had 64-bit XP on my old laptop. It is a useless buy, zero performance increase unless you get 64-bit programs.

You'll have to do a fresh install.

 

Valve ported the Source engine to native 64-bit, so any source-based game on steam ought to see a boost in speed. And really, gaming is probably the only place that people are REALLY going to see a boost in performance nowadays. You're not gonna hear "wow, excel applied that macro in 1.467 instead of 1.659 seconds!"

 

From my experience with XP-64...

Driver support is better than it was when XP-64 was first released but not by much. Things like the included WDM drivers to support my AIW X800XT's TV Tuner need a bit of .inf tweaking to get the OS to install the card.... ATI's GPU drivers are just that and don't include XP64 support for the AIW cards. Once the card is installed and XP-64 is happy your still unable to use the tuner as MMC doesn't support XP-64 even in 32 bit. ATI has no plans to support 64 bit until Vista

Security is a joke as well. There are a few firewalls/AV's out there but seeing as I wasn't using XP-64 as my main OS I wasn't going to invest in a paid subscription. While Windows integrated firewall works for inbound its worthless for outbound... but it's free and like I said it does work. A friend of mine has XP-64 on his HP laptop as his main OS and uses BitDefender 9. Its an all-in-one firewall/AV and it does work very well for XP-64

So, the main reason to even install XP-64 now is for gaming and to be honest it's not worth it. After a very long wait and a very slow download I had the Far Cry 64 patch and quickly installed it. The game did look better with more detail but as 32 bit HL2 and F.E.A.R. have proven, you don't need 64 bit for enhanced detail. Riddick was a game I wanted to play but as a bonus they had both 32 and 64 bit, but unlike Far Cry there was no difference at all. I haven't bothered with HL2 but as I understand it again, no difference at all.

So is XP-64 worth the investment? IMO no it's not. I don't think 64 bit is going to go into full swing until after Vista is released. XP-64 just doesnt have the customer base.

 

i have not seen an "upgrade" edition of xp64 and I don't expect to see one with Vista coming.

 

Yeah - regarding the Far Cry game, I had X64 and installed the X64 patch on my previous machine. Zip increase in performance, just a bit more detail.

On my laptop now, I actually have the cracked 64-bit patch, which runs on a 32-bit PC. So, saying that it needs x64 to run is a joke.