   Is Windows x64 a good idea?
  I just finished putting together a new PC today. And I decided to try out the trial of Windows XP Professional x64.After ordering the parts and waiting for them to ship, I realized I hadn't taken into consideration the OS (as I always seem to forget). At that point it hit me that I now own one of those newfangled 64-bit AMD processors and while I am it, I might as well see what needs to be done to take advantage of that. So I hopped onto the internet for a few hours and searched around for 64-bit Windows platforms. It appear the Windows x64 platform is what I am looking for, but I need advice as to whether or not it really is what I want.The upshots of x64 seem to be many. I can take advantage of all four gigs of RAM if needed. Performance regarding memory access and floating point math should be better. And most importantly, I can start tinkering with the idea of developing for 64-bit platforms.However, the downsides are just a numerous, and the unknowns are kinda scaring me. The 32-bit drivers are not compatible with 64-bit ones. It's not a real big deal, but there are a few small ones I have around that I know will never be updated for such systems. In general, support for 64-bit drivers seems to be pretty good. Unfortunately, support for applications may not. While the emulation for Win32 apps works, there is always the capacity for failure. I've also read that some older/poorly written apps don't work well when installed to the "Program Files(x86)" folder. Even worse, Norton Antivirus doesn't even have software that runs for this system. No x64 version, and no way to install the Win32 version. Yikes! And I'm really not sure what the performance penalty is for the Win32 emulation through Windows. It isn't supposed to be too bad, but since my processor can do this at the hardware level, maybe running 32-bit Windows would just be better performance wise (since the majority of my software is Win32). It's also kind of worrying me when I occasionally get error messages from Windows when veiwing certain web pages or even just opening folders on the desktop (not often, but often enough to worry).I still haven't installed any of VS Express, but I'm assuiming I will have no problems continuing with Win32, DirectX development, right?If someone can share any advice or experiences with this platform, or pitfalls for which I should watch out, please do.   
  Apart from the lack of driver support from hardware manufacturers my experiences with Windows XP 64bit have been mostly positive. A few crappy applications didn't work but i found replacements that had no problems pretty easily. But personally i'm gonna run with Windows XP 32bit until Vista comes out the 32bit and 64bit driver models are similar so there should be plenty of drivers around at release ... here's hoping anyway :);  Hmm, as time slips by, I'm finding more to like and hate about x64. I found a few more apps I really wanted that don't install. And I forgot about DLL incompatiblities... Yuck, and that mess with my SATA drivers [lol]BTW, I just realized this may still be an OEM product. Can I simply purchase it like normal, or do I have to go through the hoops and trade in an copy of Windows XP (32-bit)?   ;Quote:Original post by lack o commentsBTW, I just realized this may still be an OEM product. Can I simply purchase it like normal, or do I have to go through the hoops and trade in an copy of Windows XP (32-bit)?Its OEM so can only be sold along with a piece of hardware. A $1 mouse normally suffices.As for performace penalties for running win32 bit code, AFAIK there is no penalty at all, the processor is capable of handling 32/64 bit code simultaniously, there is no need to convert 32 into 64 before executing, therefore no penalty.I may be wrong here, but I think I remember reading that 32bit applications actually work better under XP 64 bit.....   ;  I run XP64 on my server and haven't had any problems with it. VS2005 works fine, so does DirectX.   ;My x64 runs fine, and I keep finding more and more applications which support 64-bit. That having said, it's a waste (in my opinion) to have an 64-bit PC, and not have a 64-bit OS. If you also have .net 2.0 (x64), you can optimize your applications for 64-bit. The only problem I have is downloading via FTP. My network card is integrated in my motherboard, and the drivers are probably shitty. So it regularly crashes when I'm using ftp. Does anyone else have this problem?Edo   ;  One of the major things to remember about the 64-bit version is that memory pointers bacically take up twice the space (32-bit addressing to now 64-bit addressing).  So XP64 is a little more prone to being a memory hog, but that is just the nature of the architecture.   ;  The day that I spent with Windows x64 wasn't all that productive.  The hardware support wasn't all that great, and some of the applications I needed wouldn't run on the OS, but that was sometime late last year.  I would assume that it would be a bit more stable in that regard by now.   ;  Meh, what the hell. The switch has to be made sometime. I might as well start adapting now =)Just a couple more questions then. What would you suggest I do for an anit-virus solution. I've never really cared for anything other than Symantec products, so I don't know what's going on in the rest of the av world. And am I going to have to re-install Windows x64 from scratch when I get the OEM disk? I've already setup a lot of stuff for testing and really don't want to have to do that again if it can be helped.   ;Quote:Original post by edotorpedo[...]That having said, it's a waste (in my opinion) to have an 64-bit PC, and not have a 64-bit OS. [...]Why? 64-bit processors are superior for many reasons other than merely being 64-bit, and in fact if being 64-bit was their only advantage, they would be far inferior due to the increased bus bandwidth required. 64-bit processors are a new architecture that was designed with more of the latest tricks of the trade taken into account and thus has architectural improvements across the board that make it significantly faster even at far lower clock speeds.(Well, for AMD processors anyways. I haven't kept up with intel since AMD surpassed them, guess it's time to start paying attention again.)   