Vista 64-bit or 32-bit?

[Kotatsu Neko]

I'll be getting a new PC shortly and have the choice of 64-bit or 32-bit Vista. As it will have to do me for a good few years and I want to stick a lot of RAM in it I'm thinking of going with 64-bit Vista... but I'm worried if I'll hit any incompatibility issues.

I'll be running the main productivity apps like Maya, Photoshop, ZBrush etc, as well as doing video stuff for X360 using the likes of Transcode 360, TVersity, WinAVI etc. Also of course the usual everyday fodder - Firefox, Thunderbird, iTunes...

It will be used for gaming somewhat too (at least for Crysis).

Anyone here have experience with 64-bit Vista? How is the experience?

[Magnakai]

The apps you're going to run are quite memory hungry, and I imagine you're using them for some actual work.

Therefore what I'd recommend is to make sure that the hardware that you buy has decent 64-bit drivers, and that the motherboard you pick has support for bundles of RAM.
Otherwise there's like, not much point at the moment.

[Salsa Party Animal]

I have Vista 64 bits. Very good OS, but it doesn't support any of my printer / scanner / camera , smart card reader.

It worked fine as operating system, but drivers support are **** for me. Doesn't help when there are no hardware support development

Work fine with XBOX 360 but Transcode 360 doesn't work. Just prefer to use DVI to HDMI cable for my TV instead of using xbox 360.

IPOD Shuffle and Itunes work fine.

[Hohum]

Using 64-bit myself, has been fine. Unless your apps are really old they should run fine under both Vista variants. If you plan on having more than 2GB RAM though you should consider looking at 64-bit only, as 32-bit address space starts to become limited beyond that. Plus Crysis (that you mentioned) will supposedly have some extra benefits for people running 64-bit.

[sj33]

I have Vista 64-bit. Absolutely no complaints with it, everything works fine, all my drivers, all my apps.

However, since pretty much all apps and games are 32-bit, they will run slightly slower in 64-bit Vista. Certainly not noticably, but if your into PC gaming, you may loose a few fps. That said, PC gamers should stick to XP if they want framerates, as XP still performs better for gaming.

Long term though, Vista 64-bit WILL becomes the requirement. 32-bit OS's cannot use more than (I think) 3.25GB of RAM, and while that's hardly an issue now, it will become a bit deal a few years down the road.
I don't regret going 64-bit, but then again, I am not a PC gamer.

[SubparMario]

Do retail copies of Vista include both versions? I'd be tempted to go 32bit now and switch to 64bit when there's a good reason to.

[sj33]

There was a lot of fuss at the time because the retail only came with 32-bit discs, and a card to order the 64-bit one! I was glad I bought 64-bit OEM.
I bought OEM because you will only ever need to rebuy a new copy if you change motherboard, and even buying it twice still works out cheaper than buying Retail.

Oh btw, Home Premium is the one to go for. Home Basic lacks an awful lot considering it's only incrementally cheaper, and Ultimate it a major ripoff for the little it adds.

[ChrisF]

I tried to install 64 bit Vista and after struggling to find drivers (I emailed Netgear and they said they wont be supporting it?!) I gave up and went back to 32 bit Ultimate Edition. Waste of a good processor.

They use 64 bit Vista at the place I'm currently working at but they use Dell hardware which has solid support for 64 bit drivers.

[sj33]

To be fair though, you just got unlucky with that one piece of hardware Vista finds all the drivers for my stuff itself.

[ChrisF]

Possibly. I did try 3 different wifi adapters (linksys, netgear and belkin) though I'd run 64 bit in a heart beat if I could. Suppose I could dig deep and shell out for one that's certified!

[Hohum]

I have Vista 64-bit. Absolutely no complaints with it, everything works fine, all my drivers, all my apps.

However, since pretty much all apps and games are 32-bit, they will run slightly slower in 64-bit Vista. Certainly not noticably, but if your into PC gaming, you may loose a few fps. That said, PC gamers should stick to XP if they want framerates, as XP still performs better for gaming.

Long term though, Vista 64-bit WILL becomes the requirement. 32-bit OS's cannot use more than (I think) 3.25GB of RAM, and while that's hardly an issue now, it will become a bit deal a few years down the road.
I don't regret going 64-bit, but then again, I am not a PC gamer.

It used to be the case that 64-bit was slower, but that was down to hardware drivers not having the same performance. Nowadays the performance between both variants is pretty much identical, indeed possibly favouring 64-bit due to not needing to use PAE to address all the available RAM in your system. Having a 64-bit O/S doesn't condemn you to a performance penalty with 32-bit apps though, as 32-bit code execution is still done at the hardware level and not through software emulation.

Possibly. I did try 3 different wifi adapters (linksys, netgear and belkin) though

What are the model numbers of your adapters? I'll have a look around for you.

[ChrisF]

What are the model numbers of your adapters? I'll have a look around for you.

I'll have a dig about for the model numbers this evening mate, cheers

[mikewl]

There was a lot of fuss at the time because the retail only came with 32-bit discs, and a card to order the 64-bit one! I was glad I bought 64-bit OEM.
I bought OEM because you will only ever need to rebuy a new copy if you change motherboard, and even buying it twice still works out cheaper than buying Retail.

Oh btw, Home Premium is the one to go for. Home Basic lacks an awful lot considering it's only incrementally cheaper, and Ultimate it a major ripoff for the little it adds.

That is true about the Motherboard, but thought I would mention that even changing the harddrive will require a phonecall to Microsoft and some convincing that Vista is going back on the same machine, I had to do this and its quite a pain. Also im not even sure if they will let you do this with an OEM version as they specifically checked that I had a retail edition, asking about details printed on the dvd to confirm it etc.

[ChrisF]

Odd... I changed the CPU (single core to a dual core) and added 2gb more memory to my machine a few weeks back and I didn't have to re-activate Vista.

[mikewl]

I dont think CPU and Memory are factors, you can add change and remove them as well as graphics card, sound cards etc.

I think its just Motherboard/Harddrive which if changed will require a call to MS.