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Windows 7 64-bit or 32?

moel said:
If your doing audio, apparently still avoid Win 7 like the plague.

My sound engineering friend just installed it on his pc tower and basically there are issues all over the shop.
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Don't agree with that experience. Have had no troubles recording audio in Win7. I think it comes down to if your audio interfaces has properly working drivers, especially for 64-bit Win7. Many manufacturers have been really sitting on their asses on that one. Same problem with some plugins apparently.

As for the XP mode, most users have no need for it. It is meant for those who run truly legacy, poorly coded apps that won't work even in XP compatibility mode. The XP mode is essentially full-blown XP running in a virtual machine.
 
mattydee87 said:
AFAIK Any copy of Windows 7 can run under Win XP compatibility mode, however Pro and above also include the ability to run a full copy of XP in a vm. It's by Microsoft themselves so better support and no need for VMware or VirtualBox etc.

See here.
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Does Windows 7 work ok in Parallels or VMWare yet? If so what kind of performance are people getting?
 
JosX said:
I think OS X can support allot more RAM than windows, although you would have to ask someone who knew for sure, this never made sense to me either, yet people still put 32GB in their Mac Pro systems well before Snow Leopard.

EDIT: Taken from Apple's website:

The 64-bit transition.

The entire computing industry is moving from 32-bit to 64-bit technology and it’s easy to see why. Today’s Mac computers can hold up to 32GB of physical memory, but the 32-bit applications that run on them can address only 4GB of RAM at a time. 64-bit computing shatters that barrier by enabling applications to address a theoretical 16 billion gigabytes of memory, or 16 exabytes. It also enables computers to process twice the number of instructions per clock cycle, which can dramatically speed up numeric calculations and other tasks. Earlier versions of Mac OS X have offered a range of 64-bit capabilities. Now Snow Leopard takes the next step in the transition from 32-bit to 64-bit.
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woah...........soon we will be saying "my computer only has 2EB, I really need about 4EB...I need to go to radioshack and pick up some, their on sale for $100"
 
kdum8 said:
Does Windows 7 work ok in Parallels or VMWare yet? If so what kind of performance are people getting?
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It works great. I use Win7 Ultimate all the time in VMware Fusion. Performance is just like it is in Bootcamp, I never have slow downs, no problems what so ever. I use it in a Win2k8 Domain environment, and I experience no issues.
 
palmerc2 said:
woah...........soon we will be saying "my computer only has 2EB, I really need about 4EB...I need to go to radioshack and pick up some, their on sale for $100"
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Can you imagine how much 2 exabytes of RAM would cost at current prices?! Perhaps that is the kind of memory requirement one would need to run the holodeck on the starship enterprise...

Personally until we get VR capabilites approaching that all computers are nothing special as far as I am concerned...:p
 
64bit is actually slower than 32bit if you run mostly 32bit apps (which most currently are) since it has to 'emulate' the 32bit environment. I would check which apps you are going to be running to see if they have 64bit versions. If they don't , then just go with 32bit.
 
JGruber said:
It works great. I use Win7 Ultimate all the time in VMware Fusion. Performance is just like it is in Bootcamp, I never have slow downs, no problems what so ever. I use it in a Win2k8 Domain environment, and I experience no issues.
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etiger13 said:
64bit is actually slower than 32bit if you run mostly 32bit apps (which most currently are) since it has to 'emulate' the 32bit environment. I would check which apps you are going to be running to see if they have 64bit versions. If they don't , then just go with 32bit.
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Wow that is interesting. Would never have thought that. Is there much of a speed difference?
 
kdum8 said:
Does Windows 7 work ok in Parallels or VMWare yet? If so what kind of performance are people getting?
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I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit edition in a VMWare Fusion virtual machine on my late 2009 Macbook (2.26 GHz, 4GB RAM), and it is every bit as snappy as my Thinkpad T400 running Windows 7 Professional x64 (2.8 GHz, 4GB RAM). In fact, my VM's Windows Experience Index is basically identical to that of the T400 (both lose on gaming graphics, but I don't care, since I don't game).

I'm only allocating 2 GB of RAM to the VM, so I installed 32 bit. All the software I run under Windows is 32 bit in any event. If I'd gone the Boot Camp route, I would likely have installed 64 bit.
 
safelder said:
I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit edition in a VMWare Fusion virtual machine on my late 2009 Macbook (2.26 GHz, 4GB RAM), and it is every bit as snappy as my Thinkpad T400 running Windows 7 Professional x64 (2.8 GHz, 4GB RAM). In fact, my VM's Windows Experience Index is basically identical to that of the T400 (both lose on gaming graphics, but I don't care, since I don't game).

I'm only allocating 2 GB of RAM to the VM, so I installed 32 bit. All the software I run under Windows is 32 bit in any event. If I'd gone the Boot Camp route, I would likely have installed 64 bit.
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Out of interest... what rating did it get? Particularly for the gaming bit? :D
 
Trying to clear up confusion:

Windows7 Home does not run XP mode. You need Windows7 Pro or above.

Windows 7 64bit needs XP mode to run the Cisco VPN Client. I haven't ran into anything else that I've needed to run XP mode for yet.
 
mattydee87 said:
AFAIK Any copy of Windows 7 can run under Win XP compatibility mode, however Pro and above also include the ability to run a full copy of XP in a vm. It's by Microsoft themselves so better support and no need for VMware or VirtualBox etc.

See here.
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Hmmm, reading that it still states the Pro and Ultimate versions are what you need? It still isn't clear about games etc. But reading what was said about the 32 bit speed thing perhaps I should stick to XP Pro? I want to play games like Unreal 2 which works fine in XP.
 
mattydee87 said:
Out of interest... what rating did it get? Particularly for the gaming bit? :D
Click to expand...

My T400 scores are (with discrete graphics active):
CPU 6.4 (2.8 GHz C2D w/ 6MB cache)
RAM 5.9 (4 GB)
Aero Graphics 4.7 (lowest score)
Gaming Graphics 5.7
HDD 5.9 (Hitachi 500 GB 7200 RPM)

My VM scores are (with integrated graphics):
CPU 4.4 (2.26 GHz w/ 3MB cache)
RAM 5.5 (2 GB available to the VM)
Aero Graphics 5.9 (apparently the 9400 is better than the discrete ATI on the T400?)
Gaming Graphics 3.9 (low score)
HDD 6.7 (this one baffles me--it's the same 500 GB 7200 RPM drive in both machines!)
 
I'm running Windows 7 Pro 32 bit on my Desktop PC.

Quartus II won't run on 64 bit. Apparently it has some 32 bit only drivers or something. I don't mind, though, since I only have 4gb or RAM. Windows shows 3.25 GB is usable, and this number varies between computers because all addressable memory, including video card memory and other device address space, must fit in 32 bits.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/03/dude-wheres-my-4-gigabytes-of-ram.html

Leopard supports all 4gb, and 32 bit Windows kind of supports it in theory with PAE (physical address extension), but I've never seen it.

Only some applications will be faster under 64 bit, specifically only those that are compiled for 64 bit.

I had a lot of problems with just audio playback under Windows 7. I was getting high DPC latency, which was causing audio dropouts all the time. I was able to improve things a lot, but I'm still getting some DPC spikes even though there are almost no audio dropouts. Turning off all Windows 7 and BIOS power management features helped, as did updating all my drivers.

Here's my desktop's WEI scores:
CPU: 7.4 (Core 2 Quad Q9550 overclocked to 3.4GHz)
RAM: 7.4 (DDR2 800 running 1:1 with a 1600MHz FSB)
Graphics: 6.7 (ATI 4650)
Gaming Graphics: 6.7
Hard Disk: 5.9 (Samsung F3 500GB)

Hard drive scores will vary depending on the fragmentation level and what part of the disk the test data is put on.
 
Processor (C2D 2.8Ghz): 6.4
Memory (4GB DDR3): 5.9
Graphics (9600M GT 512MB): 6.4
Gaming Graphics (9600M GT 512MB): 6.4
Primary Hard Disk (500GB 5200RPM): 5.8

If you want better gaming graphics, make sure to install the patched drivers from laptopvideo2go, makes a huge difference.
 
m85476585 said:
I'm running Windows 7 Pro 32 bit on my Desktop PC.

Quartus II won't run on 64 bit. Apparently it has some 32 bit only drivers or something. I don't mind, though, since I only have 4gb or RAM.
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Are there many games or programs that don't run in 64 bit? If so it might not actually be worth installing the 64 bit version currently given that the benefits aren't that great anyway...
 
The misinformation in this thread is staggering.

If your PC has a 64-bit processor and is driver compatible, install 64-bit.

There is no excuse for 32-bit. none

People are coming into this thread with no real understanding of 64-bit architectures and instruction sets and think they can give advice on the basis of ad hominem. These same people are the reason that Microsoft were forced to re-include 32-bit support in windows 7 and effectively stall the improvement of home computers for another 4 years.
 
ScottishDuck said:
The misinformation in this thread is staggering.

If your PC has a 64-bit processor and is driver compatible, install 64-bit.

There is no excuse for 32-bit. none

People are coming into this thread with no real understanding of 64-bit architectures and instruction sets and think they can give advice on the basis of ad hominem. These same people are the reason that Microsoft were forced to re-include 32-bit support in windows 7 and effectively stall the improvement of home computers for another 4 years.
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OK, if there is misinformation in this thread perhaps you would care to correct it?
 
kdum8 said:
OK, if there is misinformation in this thread perhaps you would care to correct it?
Click to expand...

For one the claim that 32-bit apps on a 64-bit arch are ran through "emulation".

x86_64 is named as such because it is merely an extension of the x86 instruction set. For that very reason there is no requirement for x86 applications to be emulated (which is why Itanium lost the 64-bit war).

Secondly the assumption that because an application is not specifically made for an x86_64 environment it will run "slower". This is again, a fallacy. It relies on the assumption that a x86_64 OS has few or very poor subsystems set in place to handle 32-bit programs, when it clearly does. All that it requires is OS to recognise the arch of the program and load the appropriate system dlls to deal with it.. In the case of x86_64 windows it usually just provides the files required as part of a legacy win32 folder.

I haven't read fully but theres probably claims of "no drivers".

As part of the Windows 7 driver program, any hardware that is supported by 32-bit windows 7 (or vista usually) will also be accompanied by a 64-bit driver. 95% of the time, using windows update will give you all the drivers you're need, if your on a mac, all the better as Bootcamp 3.1 provides it all.
 
Interesting thread! I got Windows 7 32bit without giving it any thought because I was interested in compatibility. Then I distributed a CAD program to my Electrical Engineering class and everyone who had a new computer with Windows 7 couldn't install it. A quick investigation of major PC vendors showed that consumer grade computers all came with the 64-bit version while the business systems all came with the 32 bit version (and in some cases with the "free downgrade" to Windows XP in the box). That sorta tells the story -- the 64-bit version isn't for serious customers.
 
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