Vista 64 for gaming rig yet?

[imported_Septimus]

Hi there,

I'm setting up a new system fairly shortly and had planned on moving my current 32-bit OS setup over to it.

The last time I looked into going 64-bit, it would've meant giving up iTunes and quite a bit of gaming. Is this still the case? What are the hurdles to adopting Vista x64? The only perk would be the added RAM since my motherboard supports 8 gigs, and frankly that's not enough of a perk to warrant more than a little inconvenience.

Who out there is running x64 on a gaming rig?

 

[Ryland]

I haven't had any issues with the rig in my sig for gaming other than Bionicle Heroes and I figured out a fix for that. Everything I have thrown at it works fine.

 

[KeithTalent]

If you are concerned about gaming on Vista 64 I suggest you take a look at this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2161325&enterthread=y

KT

 

[QuixoticOne]

I've got a bunch of the popular FPS/RTS/RPG type of games from oh 2005 to the present, and AFAIK they pretty much all work ok on Vista 64.

I guess I'd be careful about anything from the Win98 era or previously, and maybe some of the more obscure / low budget ones from the WinXP days. But anything that is a major title or which has had updates / patches released in 2006/2007/2008 is probably going to work well.

There are some sound card/EAX issues with some of the Creative Labs cards previous to the X-Fi because Creative Labs sucks and their drivers do too. But basically you'll get basic sound, just not necessarily all the EAX effects, though if the game supports OpanAL directly or with a patch it'll all be OK. I think some of the advanced sound card settings stuff might be problematic too with older Creative Labs boards. No major problem for X-Fi or integrated motherboard audio.

8G is great, considering you can pick up 4 more for under $80, I'd say it's the best upgrade money can buy if you already have a decent dual or quad core system and video card.

Get the vista upgrade advisor tool from Microsoft's web site, I think it might be able to go through your list of games and apps and help tell you what's compatible. Or there may just be a compatible / incompatible game list on their site or someone else's.

 

[AeroEngy]

Originally posted by: KeithTalent
If you are concerned about gaming on Vista 64 I suggest you take a look at this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2161325&enterthread=y

KT

Agreed. I was also concerned about switch to Vista x64. But after seeing what that guy was able to do and the age of some of those games, most of my fears went away.