Upgrading to 64 bit

[anonymousjuice]

Wondering if its time to upgrade to 64 bit yet.

I current have 32 bit vista and have tried upgrade to 64 bit about 4 years ago. My computer ran slower and 64 bit wasnt a big deal back then. Not many programs took advantage of it. Fast foward 4 years and I am wondering if it is time. I have done a few upgrades to my computer. I mostly use my computer for gaming with simulators. Here is my specs

Quad core 2.4
4 gig Ram
P6N platium mother board
SLI duel 8800 GTS

I am will to add some more ram if its going to improve my computer for gaming. Do PC games take advantage of the 64 bit system yet? Any advance would help... thanks

 

[Unscathedforce]

Well if you're planning to put more ram into your computer then you should defiantly upgrade to 64 bit. 32 bit will only support up to 4gb of ram. also most programs now a days run on 64 bit.

 

[cboucher]

The only thing that might be a concern is if you run any legacy hardware on your system. More specifically, printers and such. You might just want to make sure that 64 bit drivers exist for any hardware you want to use in your system.

 

[lhuser]

Two things to make sure. cboucher said right about the 64-bit drivers availability, and second, if you still run 16-bit DOS applications, they won't work. However, there's Dosbox for that.

 

[anonymousjuice]

Thank for the advice. My main question is, is it worth it to go to 64 bit? I know I gotta get about 2 more gigs of ram. Going to cost me money there. Is there enough programs and games out there that take advantage of 64 bit or is it still lagging behind? Like I said I tired it before aobut 5 years ago but it really wasn't worth it because there was very few programs that could use the full 64 bit system. Kinda the same thing that happened with the quad core. Back then there was no sense in getting it because nothing really could use it. Now it seems like most stuff can use the 4 cores. I could be wrong.

 

[lhuser]

There are much more programs taking advantage of 64-bit these days and getting 2GB extra will definately require you to run a 64-bit OS.

 

[anonymousjuice]

What amount of ram do I need to take full advantage of 64 bit? I know if you got over so much it really doesnt matter any more

 

[anonymousjuice]

Well I went ahead and double the ram and order 8 gigs. Two day shipping. So I should be at

2.4 quad core
Duel SLI 8800GTS
8 Gigs of ram

This should keep my old school computer going for a little bit longer?

 

[lhuser]

Vista/7 can take up to 192GB RAM and the actual max limit on a 64-bit system is 16EB, which is way too much and no such hardware is capable of that yet...and probably not for at least 2 decades to come.

Your 4GB RAM on a 32-bit OS is 3.25GB Max, but with the PAE, it reaches 4GB. However, the full advantage for today is between 4-8GB RAM. I personally have 16GB RAM, and I know I'm good for lots of years to come.