I have a new rig coming and I am wondering which OS to go with XP or XP 64? The rig is : ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe, AMD Athlon 64 4000+ Socket 939 (SanDiego) Corsair TWINX 2048MB PC3500 DDR 433MHz LLPRO ( this is a pair of dual channel 1024 sticks ) WD Raptor 74GB Serial ATA HD 10000/8MB/SATA 1.5G WD Caviar 160GB Serial ATA HD 7200/8MB/SATA 3G 2 X eVGA GeForce 7800 GT CO 256MB PCIe Enermax 600W PSU SLI I plan to upgrade the CPU to a Dual core or FX in the future when the prices come down a little. I only plan to use this rig to play games so other software compatiablity is not a big concern. I am wonder how well Eq2 does under XP 64?
I run an Asus a8n-SLI Deluxe board in SLI and I must say I really beleive that EQ2 runs better in xp64 then it did under win2000. The truth is however, I have this in a "dual boot" config and I only use the XP64 to play a couple of games so it is not loading the myriad of services (and just reg residue hehe) my year old win2000 install is when I boot it. Bottom line I can say EQ2 runs just fine in xp64 (as do the 3 other games I have tried FEAR, DOOM3, KOTR2) I am seeing some performance boost from it, but it could just be the very clean install.
Correct me if I"m wrong here Geldoff, but comparing Win 64 to Win XP isn't there suppose to be a lot less useless crap with Win 64?
I have no idea about "useless crap" - hehe. I have a dual boot Win2000 (not XP I do not care much for the XP UI) and WinXP64 system. The Win2000 OS I have had un-formatted for around a year so I have installed and uninstalled tons of crap (this is my functional OS Install and has been for a long time), I have a virus scanner and alot of application silliness starts up with it (Office - Photoshop - Printer Crap - Nav - etc etc). The WinXP64 OS is only a week or so on a fresh install with only 3 games loaded (nothing else at all - no silly processes running). I am seeing both a performance and stability improvement when running XP64. However, I believe this may simply be the result of it being a fresh install (I am not really comparing apples and apples so I cannot honestly say it "runs better" on xp64 - however I can say for sure that it runs "just fine" on XP64). With out trying it on a fresh install of 2000, 32XP and XP64, I could not say for sure it actually "runs better", maybe someone else has done this. I have a feeling if you compared "fresh install" to "fresh install" you would not see much (if any) difference. That being said I can say you should have no worries about EQ2 running on xp64, it runs well and is very stable on this OS.
Windows XP (either home or Pro) will not recognize more than 3Gb of RAM. If you are planning on using more than that, you need to get something different. This summer, Vista will change that. If you have more than 3Gb, you can check by clicking "my computer", then "properties" Yrrej
Do not depend on XP-64 as you sole OS if you have legacy applications that you want to run. XP-64 will not run any application, or install program that has any 16 bit code it in. There are a number of older applications that have some legacy 16 bit code in them to keep them running on windows 98. Another major drawback to XP-64 is that it is available OEM only, MS will not supply and phone support on the product, they will direct you to the vendor you purcahsed the rig from. Final - you will not get any official support from SoE on issues with eq2 and xp-64, it is not listed as a supported OS for the game, best you will get is the posted here making suggestions This is by far the best review synopsis of XP-64 I have seen: The 64-bit edition of Windows XP seemed to take forever to arrive. Measured in Internet years, it was only an epoch or two, not forever. Athlon 64 users everywhere were clamoring for a 64-bit version of Windows. All of us (yes, me included) were waiting with bated breath for 64-bit gaming, 64-bit video editing, sheer 64-bit nirvana. As the updated version of Windows XP receded into the distance, conspiracy theories arose about whether or not Intel was responsible for delays. When Windows XP Professional x64 actually arrived, it was all pretty much underwhelming. This is actually not Microsoft's fault. While the kids in Redmond did hype Windows 64-bit enhancements, they also cautioned that x64 would be a tool mostly for developers and certain vertical applications. The 64-bit version of Windows Vista would be the real deal. But most of us weren't listening . . . not listening, LA-LA-LA I WANT MY 64-BIT WINDOWS!! ADVERTISEMENT As it turns out, driver availability has been the main Achilles' heel. While graphics cards, chipsets, and audio drivers have been readily available, drivers for newer printers, webcams, and other common peripherals have been MIA. On top of that, consumer applications have been dribbling out. There have been a scant handful of games, with the latest announcement being Half-Life 2 and Lost Coast. But for the most part, 64-bit games haven't been the panacea. Coupled with the fact that a number of 32-bit games won't run on 64-bit Windows, gamers have been avoiding the new OS. Even applications you'd expect to see run natively at 64 bits have been scarce. LightWave 8.5, Newtek's 3D authoring package, is available, as is Cakewalk Sonar, a pro digital audio software suite. But missing are 64-bit versions of Autodesk's AutoCAD and 3ds Max, Adobe's software suite, and many others. Sure, 64-bit computing will arrive, but the self-inflicted hype surrounding Windows x64 hasn't helped convince users. As with similar transitions in the past, it will take several years before 64-bit on the desktop PC becomes mainstream. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1906396,00.asp Message Edited by Wingrider01 on 01-13-200610:54 AM
Max Ram is 4 gigs btw, not 3. It's all about exponential numbers of 2, and 3 gig isn't one of them. 2^32 = 4294967296 bytes. Which equates to 4 gigs... which is the capacity of a 32 bit register. or a 32 bit integer in C++...
Thanks for the input, I am not much concerned about legacy support as this rig will only be used to play some high end games, Eq2 being the primary application. And I am aware of the loading and patching issues, with I will handle by copying directories from other legacy machines. I multibox alot so EQ2 will be installed on the other PC's in my network anyway. As far as memory goes Yrrej is correct the 32bit OS limit is 3GB, unless you have a tweaked server installation, don't ask me why its a MS thing. I plan to run 2GB of fast dual channel ram CL=2. As a single 32 bit application can't use more than 2GB of memory. And EQ2 will be the only application of any size running. (32bits = 4GB address space I know, but the OS reserves the upper addresses for itself, and I believe that is further reduced to ~1.7GB) So from a memory prospective I can go either way. I think Geldoff had what I was looking for in that it XP64 ran fine, and not worse, Thanx Gledoff. This means in the long term the 64bit nature of the rig can be used, maybe by the video drivers which come in 64bit versions, or other games. So I think that is the direction I will be going, I was mostly concerned about the interaction between XP64 and EQ2. I don't need another set of problems to try and sort out the game has enough of them already. Thanks all for your input.
While Win XP memory limit is indeed 4 GB, this includes all memory (page file included). AGP memory is also counted against you, however PCIe memory doesnt seem to be. At best if you have 4 GB memory in Win XP expect to have windows show 3.25 GB. Seanchan
Hey Gantell... It's been like 3 weeks since your last post, was wondering how XP 64bit version is going... I got some new hardware arriving tomorrow for my dedicated EQ2 machine and would also like try out this version if it has been working okay for you.
