64 bit Windows?

August 8, 2005 12:55 PM

64 bit Windows: What works? What's not yet supported? In short - what do I need to know before buying?

Hey all - replacing my two-year old laptop, and considering an AMD 64 processor-based system as a replacement. Primarily for work - MS Office stuff, graphics, and the occasional time-wasting game. I've heard that some devices aren't well-supported (wireless cards and the like), and have had questions about software (some antivirus software apparently is a no-go), so I figured I'd ask the MeFi crowd about personal experiences. Anyone else running 64-bit Windows? Specific issues I should be aware of before buying a computer running the same?

posted by caution live frogs to computers & internet (12 comments total)

The bad thing about XP64 is that you need 64-bit drivers for all your hardware. I was running it on my system for a while, but the support just wasn't there.

However, the good thing about getting an Athlon64 is that you can just run regular 32-bit XP on it until all the drivers for your hardware have been released. I've downgraded from XP64 to XP, and I'll give XP64 another go in 4-6 months or so.
posted by Jairus at 1:11 PM on August 8, 2005

I have an Athlon64, and just run XP on it. Works like a champ.
posted by mosch at 1:57 PM on August 8, 2005

Not to derail, but what is the advantage of running XP64 over XP32, assuming all your hardware is in working fashion?
posted by jmd82 at 2:34 PM on August 8, 2005

jmd82, there isn't really any, unless you have more than 4GB of RAM.
posted by zsazsa at 2:42 PM on August 8, 2005

I've been running x64 for about a week. The only snafu I've run into is that Daemon Tools doesn't work.
posted by reishus at 2:43 PM on August 8, 2005

For Java developers, the advantage of running XP64 is that you can define more than 1.5 gig of space for heap.

Due to obscure dll basing rules and the requirement for java to have a continuos memory space for heap, you are limited to the 1.5 gigs even if you have more than that available. The 64bit OS's take care of that. I would imagine that other tools have similar limitations.

When your running enterprise development tools or doing load testing on your desktop machine, you'd be surpised at how fast you eat memory.

Additionally, remember that most modern Xeons and Pentium D's support the Intel EMT64 extensions, pretty much the same as the AMD64 extensions. So its not just Athlon people who can try 64 bit Windows (or linux)
posted by PissOnYourParade at 3:06 PM on August 8, 2005

jmd82: If developers release a 64-bit binary for your application, you'll see some performance gains. IE: A 64-bit version of Unreal Tournament running on XP64 will run better than the regular version running on regular XP, on the same system.
posted by Jairus at 3:52 PM on August 8, 2005

So basically I get the snazzy laptop I've been looking at (Acer Ferrari 4000) and just run 32 bit until the hardware support catches up to the actual hardware? Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks. Most of the other info I was getting kept talking about running in 32-bit mode virtually while in 64-bit Windows, and that sounded too much like virtual PC or WINE to me.
posted by caution live frogs at 3:54 PM on August 8, 2005

The largest issue related to running 64-bit Windows is that generally, 64-bit processes can't load 32-bit DLLs.

What this means is that if you are using the 64-bit version of an application (let's use IE as an example), you can't download a 32-bit plugin or extension. And the people who make the plugin might not have a 64-bit version available.

In the above case, you're forced to either run the 32-bit version of IE (which is included with 64-bit Windows, by the way) or not use the plugin at all, or try to convince them to compile a 64-bit version.

Every 32-bit process that you launch runs in an emulation mode called Wow64. And it works amazingly well, although I'm sure you'll run into the occasional compatibility issue.

As for the performance advantage - you definitely gain more from running 64-bit windows than simply being able to use more than 4GB of RAM. But I won't go into details, because the above comments pretty much covered this.
posted by helios at 10:53 PM on August 8, 2005

As for the performance advantage - you definitely gain more from running 64-bit windows than simply being able to use more than 4GB of RAM. But I won't go into details, because the above comments pretty much covered this.

Can the folks here making this claim explain why? I've used 64-bit OSes for some years now with Solaris and IRIX, and I don't see much benefit other than contiguous memory access. In fact, I've seen performance decreases from some 64-bit native applications. Thanks.
posted by Rothko at 1:23 AM on August 9, 2005

This thread has been helpful for me. I recently ordered a new Dell Workstation with Dual 64-bit processors for use here at work and had some of the same concerns about 64-bit XP.

I figured that since I was getting all the hardware pre-configured from Dell that there shouldn't be any driver compatibility issues.

Also, being a Microsoft Developer, I figured that the 64-bit will help some of my demanding development tools (Visual Studio) run more smoothly.

I'm looking forward to receiving my new machine next week with the 64-bit power!!!
posted by donkitchen at 8:04 AM on August 12, 2005

Except for really memory-intensive apps -- Photoshop, games, scientific calculation -- a 64-bit processor is indeed going to be a little slower than the "equivalent" 32-bit processor; the problem here is finding the processor to compare against. The only really valid example I can think of is Sun's UltraSPARC, which has a 32-bit mode which used the same instruction set, but without all the 64-bit addressing; thus it's easy to run the same program twice and compare the speed. A guy did just that:

So while the tests I ran were on only a few applications and in limited ways, the results seem to show that indeed 64-bits do generally run slower.

Quoth this straightforward Sun document on 64-bit performance:

By definition, 64-bit operations handle 64 bits, twice as much as 32 bits. If you perform operations that need 64 bits, they can be performed by two 32-bit operations or one 64-bit operation. Operations that fit within 32 bits will run on a 64-bit system at the same speed -- or sometimes more slowly.

That said, I think it evens out in the end, and the performance degradation is not going to be noticeable for the average end user.
posted by gentle at 8:30 AM on August 12, 2005