Windows 7 64bit vs 32 bit question

[jkim229]

So I'm pretty new to the whole 64bit/32 bit tech talk, all I use in XP is for gaming. I have WinXP SP3 installed using bootcamp in my unibody macbook pro 13". But since I'm still in college, I was able to get my hand on both 64 bit and 32 bit CD's of Win7 for free. So I was thinking about installing Win7 and cleaning out XP.

What I want to know is which one should I use? I'm having no problems using XP but I heard 7 is generally better. Would games such as CoD:Modern Warfare 2 and Mass effect 2 run on 64 bit Win7? I just want to make sure that my games will work in Win7 64 bit.

Or should I just stay in XP...I read around that Win7 is able to read the 4gb of ram and utilize it while XP only recognizes 2.7gb

Thanks all-

 

[flopticalcube]

If you have or are planning on getting 4GB or more of RAM, then x64 is the way to go, IMO. All the 32bit games will work. Going forward, this allows you to install 64bit versions of games as they become available.

 

[jkim229]

Sweet, guess I'll be installing Win7 64bit this weekend. And then redownloading 50gb's worth of games >.<

Are the drivers updated and stuff? I've been seeing a lot of posts with a lot of troubles with Win7 through bootcamp.

 

[flopticalcube]

Never had problems on my late 07 iMacs. Its usually the newer hardware that has issues. If you make a backup of your games to an external, you could copy them back over to the new install. It worked for WoW and Steam for me. 9400m has been around a while now.

One more thing: You will probably need to install the bootcamp drivers from your install DVD manually. Go into the DVD under windows down to Drivers\Apple and right click on bootcamp64.msi. Then change the compatibility to "previous Operating System" or "Vista SP1". Then tick "run as administrator" and apply. Then double click bootcamp64.msi and it should install. Bootcamp 3.1 should come down Apple Software Update automatically.

 

[jkim229]

Sweet, thanks for being so helpful! 🙂

I don't have an external hd...i'm a poor college student >.<

I hope it works out. Battlefield 2: bad company is coming out and I've heard that it would run better on Win7.

 

[flopticalcube]

Sweet, thanks for being so helpful! 🙂

I don't have an external hd...i'm a poor college student >.<

I hope it works out. Battlefield 2: bad company is coming out and I've heard that it would run better on Win7.

Going forward, that will be true for just about every game.

PS: Think about saving a few bucks for an external drive. You really should make backups of your stuff, just in case.

 

[Stridder44]

Windows 7 64-bit. The end. Hands down the best Microsoft OS to date.

 

[Tralmek]

I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 on my late 2009 MBP just a few hours ago, and it's working beautifully so far. I went through the BootCamp setup instructions precisely and in order, and it was all very smooth sailing.

Windows 7 addresses all of my RAM (4GB) and I haven't met with any major problems yet. All of the drivers I installed from my Snow Leopard disc worked well, it even gives Windows some limited multitouch capabilities with the trackpad.

My only problem was that my Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 (which worked perfectly with my MBP and OSX from day one) was recognized by W7--it even told me the serial number. But it wouldn't work. I had to uninstall and reinstall it several times before Windows said "oh, not only do I recognize the device, I'm going to go find the drivers to run it." I found it pretty ironic that my MS mouse worked fine with OSX, but cause issues with Windows.

The other disappointing thing is that Windows only addresses the lower-end graphics card with no option to switch between the two.

Cool thing is that from either partition (OSX or W7) I can access the other's files. I haven't tested writing to either, but I can definitely read files which was totally unexpected, and makes me incredibly happy.

So all in all, my experience with installing W7 Ultimate x64 on the uMBP was great. The only problem I experienced was the mouse, and that was just Windows letting me know it's still Windows haha

 

[spcdust]

....If you make a backup of your games to an external, you could copy them back over to the new install. It worked for WoW and Steam for me.

Just wanted to confirm this point with you - currently I have Half Life-The Orange Box installed using the Steam client. I'm about to get a replacement iMac therefore will need to re-install Windows 7 on that - however can I just copy the entire Steam folder over to the new system and preserve the games and, more importantly, the game progress / save points.

By the way, Windows 7 64 Bit working on my iMac 27" perfectly. If you are using the Radeon 4850 GPU the colour depth of the GFX may look a little banded and it might be worth rolling back the ATI Radeon 4850 GFX driver as I believe the one included in the BootCamp set of drivers causes this issue. How to do it is here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/851553/

 

[flopticalcube]

Just wanted to confirm this point with you - currently I have Half Life-The Orange Box installed using the Steam client. I'm about to get a replacement iMac therefore will need to re-install Windows 7 on that - however can I just copy the entire Steam folder over to the new system and preserve the games and, more importantly, the game progress / save points.

Worked for me and about 45GB of Steam games. The Steam forums recommend deleting everything but the Steamapps folder and the Steam.exe file but I just moved it all over. Some things break and need to be revalidated and a few things need redownloading but not complete games or anything. All settings/progress was preserved.

 

[jkim229]

Thanks for all the help guys, after all the responses I'm pretty sure I'm gonna partition this weekend with Win7 64bit.

And to flop, I've been wanting to get an external but there's always something more important to spend at the time... >.<

 

[jkim229]

Ok so I've got my copy of Win7 x64 and I even got myself a external HD. Just a few more questions/concerns 🙂

@flop: I just copied my steamapps folder over...i'm guessing that's gonna be enough

I've been reading around a lot more and I found that some people are concerned about the temperature of the mac, like it's running a lot hotter than usual. Since I run graphic intense games I'm kinda iffy now on installing Win7..Also what's this whole thing about sound not working?

Also since Win7 is more system hungry, meaning it uses up more resources, will the 1gb more really be all that more useful when I play games? Like will it make a difference? Since XP uses less resources? Right?

I mean I have a 2009 higher end - unibody 13" MBP so i think my computer can handle it but I just really want to be sure and clear about everything before I install Win7.

Thanks again

 

[aki]

re ram - more ram always makes a different. its the cheapest easiest way to make stuff faster. always max ram when you can i say.

win7 is of course more complex than old xp but it is known for being "fast" ie still running smooth on even slower and cheaper hardware. i dont think you need to worry about that

about temperature that can happen with gaming under xp too, its a bootcamp problem not a win7 problem as such

its not a bad thing to watch temps if you game a lot.... there are many many threads on this but basically i use a windows app called Real Temp (i think?) to watch CPU (its never a problem so far really) and a OSX app called iStat/iStat Pro to see all temps when back in osx. and there are more than one but i use smcfancontrol to change if nec fan speeds in osx and in bootcamp too via "reboot trick" (search or ask if you want to use it and it makes no sense to you)

i went from vista32 to win7 64 about a month ago? basically no real problems once i got it set up, and some things have got better

i dont think there are good reasons to stay with xp any more

 

[RaZaK]

check your game specs. they will tell you the best flavor to go with.

As one of the other posters said, get 64-bit if you need 4 GB RAM or more. for simple use (i.e. web browsing, e-mails, word processing) you won't see the benefit of increased RAM. however, with intense apps like games or virtual machines, you will.