Microsoft’s whole concept is ridiculous! WAKE UP PEOPLE!. I mean Microsoft’s whole concept now is fighting Virus to have a healthy system. That goes against all logic. A OS that can’t tackle it’s own survival is not a OS id put my money on.

Windows XP 64 bit runs on the Windows 2003 Server Kernel updated and released with the OS in 2005. It had Service Pack 1 which was released 6 months after XP 32 bit SP2 and it literally crushed it. In March, 2007 Service Pack 2 was released for Windows XP pro 64 bit and Windows Server 2003 64-bit so many issues have been addressed.

Please note, that only Core 2 Duo/Quad or Phenom users should try the 64-bit OS. The reason is that AMD claimed that the Athlon 64 was 64 bit native, but the fact it ran Extentions to support 64 bit programs in a time when 64 bit hardware didn’t exist proves that it was not 64 bit. If the Processor was truly 64 bit native, then it would not have needed extentions to execute 64 bit code…it simply would have been native and execute throughout…but instead it needed to extend the instruction set with special instructions shall it encouter 64 bit programs….The A64s perform better in a 32-bit environment but have the capabilities to run 64 bit code.

The Core 2 Duos and Quads are 64 bit native processors that actually enter “32-bit Execution Mode” when a 32 bit program is loaded and detected. This is nice that it has backwards compatability, but also….one loses half the registers per core and that is a big problem when it comes to performance because we buy processors for those registers….

When running Windows 64-bit on C2Ds and C2Qs, one deals with double the width of information and full access and use of all the processor registers which is a good thing. Also many 64-bit native drivers that are good along with native 64-bit programs exist now. There is a 64-bit Native version of firefox out there, though I wish 64-bit Opera existed for Windows 64 bit.

Game Performance Wise……I had on 32 bit windows around 20 - 30FPS on max settings on my favorite UT III map…My framerate with the updated drivers and the 64 bit OS never went under 51 FPS on the same map. This is attributed to the fact the Kernel on windows xp pro 32-bit came from a conceptual design in 1998 which became the windows 2000 kernel. The same Kernel was used in Windows XP and Multicore processors can be detected in the way of threading execution, but XP itself will not use the Registers of any core outside Core 0 and cache memory gets copied over time and time again. My Oblivion framerate went up by 12 - 14 in most outdoor locations, because the OS can make better use of the processor.

The reason why Vista loses 20% - 30% performance in a game vs XP is because Aero and the Desktop count as a heavy program and when you are running a game, you already Vista’s Graphical User Interface which takes lots of memory and some processing power loaded into Video Memory.

I trust the Kernel of Windows XP Pro 64-bit since it was a SERVER KERNEL which means that better networking will exist considering the target of XP Server 2003 originally were global corporations of all kinds. I don’t trust the Kernel to any version of VISTA because it was MADE to target consumers and attack piracy and other things to increase their profits. Vista also has a lot of bloatware running…to the point I’ve decided to skip Direct X 10 altogether and go on to Direct X 11 when a new Microsoft Operating System is released that goes to 64 bits.

I hope my post was useful. I spend hours reading the Intel Documentation. I did not write about the Phenom processor because although I know its architecture, I do not own one and thus it would be unfair to be a scientist and speculate about performance I have not seen with my own eyes….but have read about the TLB errors which existed there.

If you need help in Setting up Windows XP 64-bit and what kind of hardware and drivers are optimal, Setsunayaki is my AIM name. Good luck everyone.

This 2 gig split can be raised to 3 gig with the /3G switched noted in the article. It’s 4 gig for 32-bit apps running under Windows 64-bit.

Of course 64-bit applications on 64-bit windows do not have this limitation : there would be no point in 64-bit apps if it did.

I was have serious problems with Windows XP 32bit (over hardware with first generation of 32bit dual xeon and 4GB installed RAM), and RAM limit allocated by single process. Most applications, not only XSI, when up around 1.4-1.6GB RAM crashing without no error mensages. Theoretically 32bit of Windows (x86 archq.) limit is 2GB by single process paged.

I’m sceptic about Windows how to OS system for working seriously. 64bit version included.

I think which OSX is a powerful OS system, and Softimage should be to open mind and porting XSI.

Sincerely I don’t understand those “devotion” of Softimage for working single-direction, looking and making ties to Microsoft.

Thanks for the insight Luc-Eric, discussions like this are very helpful.

My clean xp64 install when booted up and operational is 100mb in taskman. Thats 200-300 more for anything i need it for. Thats whats important.

Also there are truck loads of motherboards that do x64 but only upto 4gb.

And why I ask are you pushing vista so much? Maybe Avid is going to TPM?

visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgFbqSYdNK4 and find out…

PS winxp no tpm, vista tpm built in.

The 64-bit version of Windows (XP or Vista) takes more memory than the 32-bit version, in parts because it needs to load 32-bit and 64-bit components, and because 64-bit binaries are bigger. If you’re updating an existing machine, you take that into consideration. A 64-bit machine with just 2 or 4 gig of RAM is a little lame, better stick to XP in that case.

I can’t comment on the raw CPU speed of Vista compared to XP. My point of view is XP is dead and you can’t do anything about it, you have to accept Vista eventually. The question is when, and potentially how to deal with it. It doesn’t really matter if you’re already running XP64 now and happy, I’m not suggesting you should drop it before you need to.

With regards to OpenGL, this was mostly a misunderstanding that’s been spun. In Windows XP, Microsoft’s support for OpenGL was a software-only implementation, and a driver harness. In Vista, they’ve announced that it was going to be implemented on top of Direct3D. This meant that Microsoft’s software implementation of OpenGL– which no one uses except in cases like Remote Desktop — would be implemented with Direct3D (and therefore could potentially run faster).

Microsoft has never written shipped OpenGL drivers for any version Windows, so the drivers included with Vista did not really have a hardware OpenGL implementation. On XP, it’s the updated drivers from nVidia and ATI that implements OpenGL. Now, obviously if XSI runs on Vista with Aero, then vista supports OpenGL, or I’m totally hallucinating.. :P

http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9