Difference Between 32 Bit (x86) and 64 Bit (x64)

[KSoD]

Thanks for the input Jayce. I have edited the first post again and empahisized that. I made it bold, italic and underlined it for extra empahsis. I hope people will start to realize to check first cause last thing you want is to install it just to find out you did a format and isntall for nothing.

Glad you will get driver support soon. Manufacturer's have to learn they cant ignore 64 Bit anymore. It is becoming more the norm everyday.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Yeah, finding 64 bit drivers can be a pain. Especially on laptops, where manufacturers maintain a list of outdated drivers that often lack features. Finding good 64 bit video drivers for laptops can be an issue, but I eventually found them. Another thing is older peripheral devices. I bought a TI-89 Titanium calculator for college only to find out the transfer cable (USB) is only supported under a 32 bit OS (it said only XP, but supposedly Vista 32 works as well). This made me mad, but luckily I still have XP 32 on my machine. I e-mailed TI about why they didn't have 64 bit drivers, and they simply replied, with a lame, useless bit of "advice", that it wasn't "financially reasonable" to produce 64 bit drivers, claiming that "not many people use 64 bit" and that it was more viable to stick with 32. This is what really kills it, 64 bit IS THE FUTURE, but it can't be the future until your stupid company gets with the program and writes 64 bit drivers. We really need some things to go totally 64 bit, that way people would be drawn to 64 bit and we can move on already. The 16-32 bit transition was quick and simple, why have we been stuck with a double standard for over 2 years now? It's time to move on, seriously, 64 bit should be the priority, with 32 bit as an afterthought for those still on older PC's.

 

[Atech66]

A good idea is if your going that route go gather all the drivers and burn em so they are handy.
Once a month or two i check all my drivers and make a new disk as required for those unexpected times. nuke and pave
then you can check down the list make sure you have everything covered on the cd/dvd.
(this may be common sense but i figured wth)

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

IMO things are only taking so long because people don't want to upgrade. It works, so why upgrade???

 

[puck_andy]

Re: Difference Between 32 Bit (x86) and 64 Bit (x86_64)

Between driver availability and other limitations, would you all recommend Vista 64 over XP 64? I have a copy of XP 64 and Ubuntu 64, but I'm not sure which I should go with. Is Vista 64 going to use similar drives to XP 64 or are they different? I've got a few drives lying around so I might test them all. Please overlook the issue of ease of use, or your personal preferences for an OS. I'm looking at the technical limitations here in driver availabilty and RAM usage. Thanks

 

[carnageX]

Re: Difference Between 32 Bit (x86) and 64 Bit (x86_64)

Vista 64. Much wider range of driver support than XP 64.

 

[puck_andy]

Re: Difference Between 32 Bit (x86) and 64 Bit (x86_64)

Thanks, what some good places to pick up Vista 64? Any good sites to speak of?

 

[carnageX]

Re: Difference Between 32 Bit (x86) and 64 Bit (x86_64)

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more! is the general consensus around here if you're in the US or Canada for computer stuff.

Vista Home Premium x64 OEM:
Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - Operating Systems

 

[dnguyen1022]

So..after reading about this, I have a few questions. I just had to make an account to ask my questions!

So if the CPU is storing the value in its register and telling the memory to access it, why is it that we need a 64bit operating system to utilize the ram? What makes the 64 OS necessary? Aren't the processes just being handled by the CPU and memory?

Also regarding the video card portion, which is slightly vague to me..if I had a 4gb video card, would that mean that I'll be losing more than I have of system ram? Would that make my computer inoperable?

Thank you for answering. I'm sure the rest of the community would like to hear about this too!

 

[KSoD]

The 32 bit OS can not register anything more than 4GB of RAM. It is a limitation that came about cause of the core of the archicture.

32 Bit OS's are not designed to be able to handle more than this. The CPU and Memory are handling it but they can only handle what they are programmed to handle per the OS in use. A 32 Bit OS just can not handle more than 4GB. Back when the 32 Bit architecture was thought up they did not think that PC's would be able to use that much resources. 32 bit was thought about and developed back in the late 80's when 4MB of RAM was considered more than was needed. It is just the limit of the 32 bit OS Architecture. It can not be overcome.

Well if there was a such thing as a 4GB card that would be a start.

But no. The system will use what it needs of the Video Memory for its purposes. So if it needed 1GB for Photoshop or other needs. The Video Memory is a tricky part because it is so widely varied by system. Some systems you might never see the full video card memory even accounted for by Windows. Cause it just doesnt need it.

That is why we say that it is combined with the System Memory. Because most systems dont run a 1GB Video card and 4GB of System Memory on a 32 Bit CPU with a 32 Bit OS.