Vista 32 or 64 bit

I'm considering a new PC. A Falcon Northwest Talon.

As far as the operating system is concerned, I'm leaning to have them load XP Pro. But they do offer Vista 32 or 64 bit.

With all of the horror stories I've heard about Vista, I was wondering if any of you who are running Vista can tell me of your experience with how it handles SL and if you use the 32 bit or 64 version.

Thanks in advance for you responses.

i have vista 64 bit and have run SL problem free for a year,i use an HP laptop

I have Vista 64bit, had some teething problems to start with drivers etc .. but no troubles since.

Me to, Vista 64 is the one to go with now I think. It has given me no problems at all.

Latest indications are that Vista 64 is the way to go - pretty much all of the early gltiches have been resolved. I use XP Pro on my home DELL desktop, which is only about 9-12 months old. I recently bought an Asus laptop with Vista 64 and it runs SL better than I have ever had it run -- granted a wee bit of that is related to the 9800 graphics card as compared to the 8800 in the desktop.

I run SL on both Vista 32 and 64. Performance seems very similar, but 64 is nicer because you can access a lot more RAM. My desktop with Vista64 has 12 GB in it.

I built a new PC a couple weeks ago, and decided to give Vista (32 bit) a try. I have no complaints other than the fact it can't access all 6 gigs of my ram (I didn't realize that you needed the 64 bit version for that at the time.)

It is a bit slow doing some things like bringing up the right-click menu for some reason, and you have to turn a lot of newbie stuff off (like the stupid thing that asks you every time if you actually want to run the program you just clicked on to run; "Yes I do!" But otherwise I like it.

I'm going to put my two lindens worth in. I run Vista 32 bit........shied away from 64 bit at the time because of driver issues (which, since, have have resolved for that platform). My Vista has run nearly flawlessly from day one (faster and more reliably than XP ever did for me).

The whole argument over 32 bit vs 64 bit will be a moot argument in a year or two anyway. 64 bit is the way of the future with Windows 7 coming out later this year (or is it still early next year?). And soon after that I look for Microsoft to end support for XP. I'd go for Vista (32 or 64, whichever is cheapest or most available for now). As long as your CPU is 64 bit capable it really does not matter much. Assessable RAM is a point on the plus side for 64 bit though.

Okay, It's completely clear that I'll go with Vista 64 Bit and the full 12 GB of memory as offered.

Edit: Looks like you made your decision while I was writing my post. I hope the info is still helpful anyway.

_________________

Vista Ultimate x64 is hands down the best OS I've ever used. It's incredibly stable, very fast, and it manages memory a thousand times better than XP ever could. To get XP at this point is to invest in the past. It's pointless. Go with Vista now, and then upgrade to 7 in a few months.

The "horror stories" about Vista stem from when it first came out, years ago. Reviewers had several strikes against them at that time, which prevented them from giving it a fair shake. Here are a few examples of what they got wrong:

1. Memory management. One of the common early complaints was that Vista is a "memory hog". That's absolutely not true, but the early reviewers thought it was because they simply weren't prepared to understand what they were looking at. Vista manages memory in a completely different way from all previous versions of Windows. One side effect of that is the appearance of "wasting" memory, if you're looking at it from the old point of view. But that old point of view no longer applies. The new management system is actually incredibly intelligent, and far more efficient, than how it used to work.

2. Speed. When Vista first came out, most computers then currently in use weren't powerful enough to run it very well. Fast forward to today, though, and no modern computer will even blink at it.

3. 32-bit vs. 64-bit. Vista was really designed with 64-bit in mind. It needs more resources available than 32-bit architecture can throw at it. Allow it those resources, and it's an amazing OS. But force it to limp along in a 32-bit environment, and it will struggle. That's not a bad thing, in and of itself, since the obvious solution is just use the 64-bit version like you're supposed to, and you'll love it. But the timing of Vista's release was somewhat unfortunate, since most people at the time did not yet own 64-bit-capable hardware. In order to maximize sales, MS had to put out a 32-bit version of Vista, which was/is just barely functional, compared to the 64-bit version. Since most early reviewers were only looking at the 32-bit version, the word that went out was "Vista is a disaster". Had they looked at the 64-bit version, I have no doubt they would have sung a very different tune.

4. User Account Control. The early reviewers pretty much unanimously reported that UAC was annoying (this is what Darien was talking about in his post, just so you know). They weren't wrong in those reports, but they were dreadfully incomplete. They failed to mention two very important things. First of all, it's only annoying for the first fiew weeks, while it's learning how you use your computer. After that, it leaves you alone 99.99% of the time. But of course, none of the early reviewers used Vista long enough to discover that. Second, almost none of them mentioned that if you really don't like UAC, you can easily turn it off. At the end of the day, UAC is a very useful security feature. If an outsider tries to initiate changes on your computer, you'll know it instantly as long as UAC is enabled. The trick is just to be patient enough with it in the beginning, to let it learn why you are really you. It can feel like a slightly adversarial process for the first little while, but after a few weeks, UAC becomes your trusted friend, if you let it.


In any case, to answer your question, 64-bit is the way to go with all modern OS's from now on. 32-bit, by definition, limits you to less than 4GB of RAM. 64-bit allows for up to 17 billion GB. Yes, that's billion, with a B. With that in mind, continuing to invest in the past is rather silly. Move forward into the future. Join the 64-bit computing world. You'll like it much better on this side of the fence.

My thanks to everyone who responded to this question. Vista 64 is obviously the way to go.

I have one more post I recently entered regarding my video card options. Any suggestions would also be greatly appreciated there!

Thanks again!!! ))

What Chosen said.

Vista is great when it has the resources it needs, and these days, even low end computers have the memory and even a gpu that can handle Vista.

That being said, SL really likes powerful graphic cards.

As for driver and compatibility issues when it was first released. . .Pioneers are the guys with the arrows in their backs.

Chosen... while the rest of your post is spot on, and shows you've put in the actual hands-on time with Vista, this last part is misleading in how it's worded and I'm going to be calling you on that..

Physical Memory Limits: Windows Vista
Version ------------------- Limit in 32-bit Windows --------------- Limit in 64-bit Windows
Windows Vista Ultimate -------- 4 GB ------------------------------------- 128 GB
Windows Vista Enterprise ------ 4 GB ------------------------------------- 128 GB
Windows Vista Business -------- 4 GB ------------------------------------- 128 GB
Windows Vista Home Premium - 4 GB ------------------------------------ 16 GB
Windows Vista Home Basic ----- 4 GB ------------------------------------ 8 GB
Windows Vista Starter ---------- 1 GB ---------------------------------- Not applicable

*Straight* from the Microsoft Developer Network Page:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_vista

It's one thing to be enthusiastic, even biased about something, but please be consistant about the info before you pass it on to others, especially when it has the potential to affect their hardware choices.

Dana - if you read further down the comments on the link you have given, it does say that 4 GB for the 32 bit Vista is misleading, as effectively the limit turns out to be 3 GB.

I must admit, I was given to understand that the maximum amount of memory that _any_ 32 bit operating system can address is 3 GB.

Yes you're right, for 32bit I think it's 3.2 (something) GB exactly.. I can't remember... but I wasn't commenting on that part. It's the "17 Billion (with a B) GB" that somehow doesn't equal 8, 16, or 128 GB for 64bit maximum supported physical memory
Possibly trivial, I know.. but then it probably wouldn't be to Carolyn if she opts for Home Basic 64bit, Splurges on 32GB of memory, only to find out a full 3 quarters of the brand new memory she just purchased doesn't work.

Get XP64.
I have bothe XP32 and Vista 64 on this PC with an option on bootup to run either, 3 months later I gave up on Vista64, I had a nightmare trying to get it to go online with my modem, then after one update it refused to connect anymore so I gave up a year ago and only use XP32 now.
Honestly, nothing ran any better on Vista 64 than XP32, but I got a lot of Blue Screen of Death crashes on every game I ran on Vista 64 except SL funny enough.
Or perhaps go straight to Windows 7 Beta

It's 4GB, but that includes memory mapped I/O, like your video card, so what you end up with depends on the peripherals you have installed. It can be well under 3GB.

XP x64 is dead end technology with horrid driver support. It runs SL very well, but if you have something like a printer or an iPod, it's not so great.

Dana, thank you for trying to be diligent, but I can promise you with 100% positive certainty that absolutely nothing I said is wrong. It was perhaps a little incomplete, as you rightly pointed out in your follow up post, but definitely not wrong. Allow me to explain.

I've posted on this subject dozens of times in this forum and elsewhere. I usually do give the full explanation, but this time I was in a bit of a rush, so I left a few things out. If that caused any confusion, then I do apologize. Not that I expect anyone to do so, but if you examine all my other posts on this subject in this forum, you'll find the full explanation. However, since you brought it up here (and it's a good thing you did), I'll repeat it here, like I should have done in the first place. Here you go:

First, let's talk 32-bit. By definition a 32-bit operating system can address precisely 4GB of memory (2^32 addresses). That incudes all device memory, as well as system RAM. On most computers, that will translate to somewhere between 3 and 3.5 GB of usable system RAM, since the video card, BIOS, and other devices require some memory to run.

Device memory is always addressed before system RAM, so the maximum amount of usable system RAM is always something less than the 4GB cap. For example, if you've got a 512MB video card, then the maximum RAM your 32-bit OS could use would be 3.5GB (or slightly less, depending on what amounts of memory other devices may be using), even though you might have 4GB physically in the machine.

Notice your chart says "memory limits", not RAM limits. That's why.

OK, now let's talk 64-bit. Again by definition, the theoretical limit for memory addressing in any 64-bit OS is precisely 16 exabytes (2^64 addresses). That's the 17 billion gigabytes I was talking about.

(It's actually closer to 17.2 billion. If you want exact numbers, here's how it works. 1024 gigabytes is a terabyte, 1024 terabytes is a petabyte, and 1024 petabytes is an exabyte. 1024 x 1024 x 1024 is 1,073,741,824, which means 1 exabyte equals 1,073,741,824 gigabytes. 16 x 1,073,741,824 is 17,179,869,184. Got it?)

Now, here's where your chart comes in. Even though the technical limit, called the "theoretical limit" is 16 exabytes, no OS currently on the market allows for anything close to that. Arbitrary caps are imposed by developers. Just as your chart indicates, the highest amount of physical RAM currently supported by Vista is 128 GB. That's for the more expensive versions; lower caps exist in the less expensive versions, purely for marketing reasons.

Why is the theoretical limit not allowed? Well, it is and it isn't. One of the marketing pitch points for OSX x64 is that it allows for up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory. Presumably, Windows x64 and Linux x64 would as well, although I've never seen any documentation verifying whether they will or they won't. If either does not, it's due to another arbitrary development cap, not to any limitation in the 64-bit architecture itself. So why don't present developers allow the full theoretical limit to be used for physical memory? Your guess is as good as mine. I have absolutely no idea. There's no technical reason I know of for why they couldn't.

It really doesn't matter, though. Even if there's no technical reason, there's certainly a logistical one. The largest RAM sticks you can get commercially these days are 8GB apiece. You'd need well over 2 billion of them to approach the limit. Good luck finding a motherboard that would hold them all.


Hopefully this additional information, which as I said, I usually do post whenever this topic comes up, has cleared things up for you, Dana. But just in case it hasn't, you can read more at the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit Relevant excerpt: "The emergence of the 64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 2^64 addresses, equivalent to approximately 17.2 billion gigabytes, 16.8 million terabytes, or 16 exabytes of RAM. To put this in perspective, in the days when 4 MB of main memory was commonplace, the maximum memory ceiling of 2^32 addresses was about 1,000 times larger than typical memory configurations. Today, when over 2 GB of main memory is common, the ceiling of 2^64 addresses is about ten trillion times larger, i.e., ten billion times more headroom than the 2^32 case."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit Relevant excerpt: "The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295 or −2,147,483,648 through 2,147,483,647 using two's complement encoding. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory."

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=3124 Relevant excerpt: "The 4GB limit refers to total addressable memory space and not just the RAM installed. It’s a total made up of system RAM, graphics RAM, PCI memory range, ACPI and a few other bits and pieces. And if you think that your system RAM is the only significant factor, think again." And much, much more. Great article.

That's all semantics, and yes it's technically correct, but that also wasn't my point.
How you laid out what you did say WAS wrong, AND misleading because you changed context in an obvious comparison...


Most definately talking about the amount physically installed, no mistake there.

Now your talking technologically unreachable theoretical address limits? How is someone less technically inclined to know that?
What happens if, like I said before, she (or anyone else) takes you to the word of your post, goes and buys Basic with 32gigs, and gets royally screwed because they took you at your word?
THAT is my point.. Even though your data may be correct, if you throw it out in a way as to become misleading it is no better than passing along incorrect information.

I want 17 billion GB.

Also add another vote for Vista 64.

Why are you trying to make an argument out of this? I didn't change context. I don't even know what you mean by that. I was simply in a rush the first time around, so I stated the maximum by definition, and left it at that. When you challenged the validity of the statement, I went on to clarify further. Now that I've done that, you seem to be trying to create a problem where none exists. I really don't get where you're coming from.

In any case, I take issue with your claim about semantics. There is a big, and very important, difference between "dead wrong", as you put it, and incomplete. Nothing I said was factually incorrect. Further, it was not intended to be misleading in any way, as I'm sure you well know.




That was a typo on my part. I should have said "memory", not "RAM". Why can't you accept that it WAS a mistake?



Yes. That's why I used the phrase "by definition". The definition of a 64-bit operating system is one that can utilize 2^64 memory addresses. There can be no disputing that. Whether that limit is physically reachable is highly secondary.

That said, you were absolutely right to point out that different versions of Vista have different arbitrary limits. You were just mistaken to use the phrase "dead wrong", since nothing I said was factually incorrect. It was simply incomplete, because I was in a hurry, as I've said (and apologized for) numerous times now. What more do you want?




They're not. That's why I said it was good that you brought it up. Again, why are you trying to create an argument about it? You pointed out that my previous post was potentially problematic (although your description of the particular problem was in itself less than correct), I said you were right for having brought it up, and I even thanked you for having done it. Where's the problem? Why keep this going? How about just saying something to the effect of "Thanks for the further clarification," and calling it a day?



Again, for the fourth or fifth time now, you were right to point out that my post was potentially problematic. As I said, I was in a hurry the first time I posted. It was hardly the end of the world.

I can't help but point out the irony here that when posts are fully complete, there's always someone to say "You're too long winded," and when they're quicker, someone pops up to say "You're 'dead wrong'. You left out a few details. How dare you?" People are amazing, really amazing.

That having been said, now to answer your question as asked, if someone buys ANY product without doing appropriate research first, whatever happens is their own fault. If someone were to make a purchase based on a single post on some random forum somewhere, that would be unfortunate. I sincerely hope no one here would ever do that.

Look, I'm sure we all try to do the best we can when making recommendations to people, but at the end of the day, the onus is on the buyer, and no one else, to make sure they're getting what they need. The chart you referenced is freely available all over the Web, including right on Microsoft's product site, where people purchase Vista every day.

In a perfect world, we'd all have the time to include every last relevant detail in response to every single question. I try to do that, far more than most others, I think. But the truth is the world isn't perfect, and we don't always have that kind of time. There's no point in trying to start an argument just because someone was in a hurry. Isn't the important thing simply that the right information get out? Now that it has, how about we just be glad for it, and not argue?



Well, I could turn that right around to say that when you used the phrase "dead wrong", you were just as incorrect as you're now trying to insist I was for simply having been in a hurry. How long do you want to play the semantics game? Again, how about we just be glad that all the information is now out there for the OP, and anyone else who's interested, to read?

If I were in the market for a new computer today like I was a little over a year and a half ago, I would have opted for Vista 64 over Vista 32..........mainly because I saw it as the way things were headed in the evolution of CPU's. Not so much for the ability to assess more RAM. However, I had heard the stories (which, at the time, were true) about driver and hardware problems that the 64 bit OS had over the 32 bit OS's. I didn't want to deal with them (I did a little beta testing for Microsoft when XP came out a few years ago......just wasn't going to be an involuntary tester for MS again. It's all in the past now and Vista 64 is probably a much better system than Vista 32 is now. But, as I said, a year and a half ago that was not the case.

On this "theorectal" memory assessability. 17 billion gigabits may well be the technically possilble limit for assessable RAM. But the RAM that is actually assessable is 16 gigabits (8 gigs for the OS most people would purchase). The reason for the caps placed by the developers is practical. And those capped limits make that theorectical limit nothing more than a silly argument. You won't get any more assessable RAM than what developers can give...............and right now that's the capped limits published by the manufacturers and developers of the hardware and software that uses a 64 bit operating system. To state anything else is misleading..........borders on being absolutely incorrect. Spouting theory is not the same as delivering accurate information. Vista 64 can assess up to 16 gigabits of memory............not 17 billion gigabits. 64 bit operating systems can, in theory assess that much. But Vista 64 cannot. Stating anything else in a thread that askes the question of which OS to purchase (32 or 64 bit) is misleading........it's inaccurate.

Respectfully, in no way was I trying to argue anything.
You said:

I wasn't unclear at all, so I restated my original concern hoping you'd see I wasn't challenging the validity of anything. I was talking about how what you wrote appeared to compare 4GB of sticks you put in your system to 17billion GB of sticks you put in your system. In that context, what you wrote would be wrong, hence the dead wrong comment. I wasn't wrong to say so, or to try to clarify what I meant when it seemed there was a misunderstanding of that, and there really is nothing more to read into it than just that.



I don't even know why or how you could get all that venom from my last reply, which was little more than a paragraph of explaining why I said what I did. Not an insult, derrogetory comment, insinuation, snide remark, sarcastic snipe, or implication in it. I'm fairly sure I don't appreciate being painted as being on the warpath though.

Regardless of how much memory actually works in XP32 the fact is at least on my machines, 4Gb of RAM sticks work better than 2Gb