I will shortly be doing a mass upgrade of my aging PC and have been out of the loop for several years regarding computing. I have pretty much decided on hardware now but not sure on OS.

Not sure whether to get 64 bit hardware and 64 bit versions of Vista or stay with 32 bit, have heard there are lots of issues with Vista 64 not seeing graphics cards etc?

So 2 questions really;

1. Invest in Vista Ultimate or stick with XP Pro?

2. Is there any (noticable) difference between 32 and 64 bit versions?

Cheers

For question #1:

I would stick with XP Pro myself because I am familiar with it and feel it is still a high performance operating system. Now, your computer will obviously handle Vista, so that is not a problem, but you will still get better performance out of XP. It really is a judgment call on whether you want Vista or XP. For the next 2 years, it will not matter what OS you are running.

For question #2:

Due to the architecture of a 32 bit operating system, it can't address more than 4GB of memory at any given time (this includes RAM and your video card memory generally.) A 64 bit operating system shatters this boundry allowing you up to 128GB of ram. Obviously this is worthless for most users. Only a high end server would have a use for that much memory. Some graphics workstations and things like that may find use for 8 or more GB, but even then, it is not mainstream yet.

There are other advantages to 64 bit computing, too many to list here. It is probably where our future is headed.

There are also cons to 64 bit computing. Right now the biggest limitation is software. Most software is written for a 32 bit OS. To see real world performance gains, the software has to be re-written from the ground up to work in a 64 bit environment. 64 bit windows can run 32 bit applications, but they are still just 32 bit applications. You wont see any performance gains until the software is natively written for a 64 bit OS.

Also 64 bit windows uses 64 bit drivers (naturally.) So all your old drivers wont work, and some developers have not released 64 bit drivers yet, so depending on your PC you may lose some functionality.

Overall the concept of 64 bit computing is excellent, and will lead to AMAZING gains in speed and power. Currently the software is just not ready to be pushed that far. Unless you are an extreme user needing all that extra RAM, right now 32 bit is where you want to be

Cheers for that Steve

I think that has made my mind up, for the time being at least.

Will stick with XP pro and 32 bit hardware for a year of so.

One more quick question, does keeping XP affect the Games for Windows at all?