Vista

Im a noob so bare with me

What is honestly the difference between like x32 x64 and x86.

and if i were to get one of those, would i beable to run games still?


thanks

Some good searching would answer those questions but I will try to explain this to you as simply as I can. Basically x32 and x86 are the same and x64 is 64 bit. x86 is used more in reference to CPU's and x32 is used more in reference to operating systems but the are bot 32 bit. With vista 64 bit can be a little pain at times due to the requirement of having signed drivers so if you have 2 gigs of ram or less stick with 32 bit for now. And yes you can run games in vista 32 bit and 64 bit.

Can you give some specs of your system like cpu type and amount of ram. Maybe I can tell you a little more from that.

i have a E6450 2.13ghz duel core processor. 1 x2gb crucial memory. because i dont really NEED vista, but, it would be neat to have, and i want to make sure its worth it to get, dont want to waste my money and time on something that i wont beable to use

thanks for your help btw

Well with that processor and with 2 gigs of ram you might be better off to just go with 32 bit just to avoid the driver issues that I mentioned before. Your processor will support 64 bit though so you could go wither way. Some people will tell you that you shouldnt get vista but I have it on two computers and I like it. I do have an issue here and there but overall I like it more than xp. Its nowhere near being a perfect operating system but like I said it is in my opinion an improvement.

i guess ill go with the 32bit version just because from what i HAVE read, lots fewer problems so,

i appreciate your help

Ermm, been running 64bit from day one. The only problems I've had were simply vista issues, nothing exclusive to x64 technology. And it's far more than just allowing you to utilize more than 4GB of ram, it's also a hugh performance jump. The idea is that with x86, you cpu can only process 32bits of data per cycle. With a x64 processor and os, it can process 64bits of data, theoretically, it's twice as fast.

systemhost said:

...The idea is that with x86, you cpu can only process 32bits of data per cycle. With a x64 processor and os, it can process 64bits of data, theoretically, it's twice as fast.

Click to expand...

At best, this is a exaggerated gross oversimplification. Vista 64-bit may provide up to a 10%+/- performance improvement for certain applications.

A good overall explanation here

Some numbers here

FWIW, were it me, I'd go 64-bit, simply because it's more futureproof. Drivers aren't nearly the issue they were 6 months ago.

Hah, yeah, I know... hence the word "theoretically". But yeah, 64bit is the future. Not only for gaming, but also well, everything. It does make a difference, now we just have to wait for more people to pick up 64bit programming... the most I know of is the farcry 64bit patch. But really I guess my point was, why not? Even if you don't get a performance boost, you still have plenty of other benefits. Plus, both vista and the C2D emulate 32bit code perfectly.

Naming conventions: Microsoft is dumb, nobody calls a 64-bit processor "x64"; they refer to it by the name of the instruction set extension: amd64 or EM64T...

systemhost said:

Ermm, been running 64bit from day one. The only problems I've had were simply vista issues, nothing exclusive to x64 technology. And it's far more than just allowing you to utilize more than 4GB of ram, it's also a hugh performance jump. The idea is that with x86, you cpu can only process 32bits of data per cycle. With a x64 processor and os, it can process 64bits of data, theoretically, it's twice as fast.

Click to expand...

Since you seem to know not-a-lot about x86 microarchitecture outside of operand width, I'll step in and save you.

Because of the complex nature of the x86 instruction set, you can't authoritatively say "Oh, you can process 32 bits only in each cycle". Some instructions simply take longer (e.g. multiply comes to mind immediately it's something like thirty or forty clock cycles).

The big difference between x86 and x86-64 (amd64 or EM64T) is that the general purpose registers have been widened from 32 to 64 bits; the address bus now supports 40- or 48-bit (not 64!) addressing, although the logical address space is 64 bits. It's now possible to perform atomic operations on 64-bit operands, too.

The newfangled CPUs just happen to have quite good 32-bit performance as well.

Let's just say they *can* be faster, and can address more RAM.

With a x64 processor and os, it can process 64bits of data, theoretically, it's twice as fast.

Click to expand...

That's not correct. That means the processor can address 64-bit words instead of 32-bit words. That allows more flexibility, but it has little to do with speed.