:)

The main problem wasn’t Windows, it was the old story of non-Microsoft programs not keeping up with the technology and hardware manufacturers not writing 64-bit hardware drivers.

I’m suspicious of PAE. If this is a Microsoft imposed limit as alleged by Mr Chappell, why does the same limit apply to 32-bit Linux?

Even if PAE does work, it’s a mission and it would be a lot easier to install the 64-bit OS which Microsoft will supply to licenced Vista users for the delivery fee only.

See here:
http://mywitsend.co.nz/computer-stuff/windows/16

Unfortunately, the client versions such as Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP and Windows Vista are constrained to 4GB of RAM in total, and nowadays also to a maximum physical address of 4GB. In Vista, these limits are explicitly coded as license values, read from the registry, with protection against being tampered with.

If you don’t believe me, read my article http://www.geoffchappell.com/notes/windows/license/memory.htm for instructions on how to patch the license limits away for testing. (Enabling PAE is not of itself enough.)

If you have programs that each want gigabytes, then you don’t have much choice but to get 64-bit versions of those programs and run them on 64-bit Windows. Otherwise, the only sense in which migration to 64-bit Windows is necessary for using 4GB and more of RAM is that Microsoft has this license limit conveniently placed at a value that many people, in their ignorance, regard as a fundamental barrier for 32-bit operating systems. Whatever the merits of 64-bit Windows, being pushed to it this way has an element of fraud.

use the pae switch and you can use 4GB of ram

The time wasted with both versions, in particular the long drag after many many many many reboots (because it was unstable) for the O/S to get loaded and back in operation again was enough to turn me off MS OS’s for good. For many people MS is probably living on borrowed time – the “let the customer do the testing approach” is simply not satisfactory when people expect a production ready OS out of the box.

The organisation I work for employs >250,000 people and is moving towards a Linux desktop – most of our apps. are already available on Linux, or, as Web Based applications so I don’t imagine the final nail is far off.

One problem with 64 is that whist it will allow you access all of your 4GB on a laptop, you will still mostly be running 32bit SW on it (who’s writing 64bit specific apps. for Windows?). This means you’ll be caching Windows 64 and 32 bit libraries and 32 bit applications. Today what people probably want is more addressable memory, not necessarily bigger address space per process. We are running more apps., not bigger apps.

I believe people are incorrect when they say the only way to get 4GB and above is to go with a 64bit OS. Let’s face it, Windows Server 32 bit can access all of the RAM using 36 bit addressing. There appears to be no reason, other than marketing, that MS are not giving us > 4GB (eg: full PAE capability) on Windows Vista (esp. Ultimate).

Today, I’d prefer to have a 32bit OS with >4GB than a 64bit OS. I believe current 32 bit linux distros. will normally handle 36bit addressing properly. When I’m comfortable I can build, backup, restore & recover SUSE correctly with all drivers for my T61, I’ll be saying goodbye to Vista.

sow having 3GB onley make you future proof for 64bit OS

If you want to actually play the games then go for a *quality* 32-bit set-up – all good quality parts espesh motherboard, 2 GB memory and almost-top-of-of-the-range video/gfx. The reason I say don’t buy top-of-the-range is because it’s a lot more money for not much more performance. Use 2 hard-drives – one for the OS, one for everything else, install fresh Windows XP SP2 (not Vista) and turn all the awful stuff off i.e. hibernation, system restore etc. then Enjoy :)

The ultimate in frames/second is less important than enjoyment :)