This weekend, I am upgrading to Vista x64 - ask me anything!

[Deja Q]

:D

[hunter]

1. What do you expect to gain by that?

:evilgrin:

Please tell us how it goes.

[Deja Q]

2. Better RAM utilization.

32-bit apps will still see only 4GB, but that isn't being shared by the OS, reserved space for peripheral DMA, et cetera, anymore...

That's now effectively 4GB seen by Photoshop, rather than 2.3GB because the OS only sees 3.5GB, with 1.2GB already used for the OS. With 1.5 in use by the OS, with 2.5 for anything else. It'll be fun to see how much memory control I've got over apps...

All my HW is said to be 64-bit compatible; drivers now downloaded and am backing up my system.

Vista 64-bit is said to be faster in some tasks, slower than others. The thunking required for 32-bit app running will mean a small dip in performance, but hardly noticeable. Again, I'm thinking "umbrella".

Virtualization will also benefit, BIG-TIME. For MCSE studies, it's easier than hooking up a bunch of machines and superheating the place while generating big-ass electric bills.

Won't even need the swap file at all, if I play things right...

Vista does look at existing RAM and loads it up with system files as it sees fit; which is why a PC with only 1GB will have 670MB used by the OS, whereas a fully kitted 32-bit system will have twice as much RAM used. It's still a lot, too much IMHO, don't get me wrong, but it's cache set aside too...

And according to the nutless wonder at Worst Purchase, OS X only uses 40MB, while saying Vista uses over a gig on any PC it's installed on (a half-truth and spin at best)...

[hunter]

3. Virtualization. Cool.

:thumbsup:

[CabalPowered]

4. Are you planning on running vmware?

I've been toying with vmware and I like it! I'm about to build a new quad core box and I'm leaning towards running 64 bit server and then vmware on top.

[Deja Q]

5. Yes. I know of a free competitor,

but VirtualBox's disk i/o is 4x slower than VMware; 98 minutes to install SuSE Linux 10.3 on it compared to 20 minutes under Vmware 6!

Disk i/o aside, VirtualBox is rather a good performer, especially for its exceptionally small foot print (20MB), but vmware is still worth the money, despite its 300MB footprint.

Mind you, VMWare's demo lacked networking and USB capabilities; man they are cheap... :)

[CabalPowered]

6. Do you know anything about the video memory allocation

I've read that it's currently capped at 8MB but can't find it anywhere in the specs on their site..?

I'll look into the freebie but vmware is looking good for my purposes. And I like speed. :)

[Deja Q]

9. 'fraid not.

It might be hardwired that way. :(

If I find out anything, I will post... :)

[MyNameGoesHere]

7. Good for you. Been using it for over a year now

and I am VERY happy. Glad to see you can overcome the fear mongering from the naysayers and take the step forward.

[Deja Q]

8. 32-bit was good by and large... As for 64?

FASTER!

Even HDD performance shot up; that I was not expecting.

Now unlike 32-bit Vista, I cannot use two decade-old 3d apps (not even in virtualbox VM sessions), but I never really used them in the last few years anyway. Time to move on; I'm not going back to 32-bit Vista...

And the RAM I bought, stated to run 4-4-4-12 ad 2.1v, crashes at 2.048v. At SPD settings (5-5-5-18, 1.8v), they seem to run stable. Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX. (total 8GB) Seems odd that, foir being sold AS 4-4-4-12 modules, the SPD couldn't have been programmed by their engineers. But at 2.1v, 2.048v is not quite the same thing so I will push its setting one more notch - this should make it 2.1v, if not 2.15v.

Vista64's footprint isn't much bigger.

But it's faster. :9

Sadly, the 32-bit license cannot be used as 64-bit. But I'm so taken with it, I bought the 64-bit license proper.

Kaspersky antivirus is 32-bit only. x( It's also due to expire so I purchased Trend Internet Securitry Pro (red with blue striping). Trend states it has 64-bit support.

I'll miss truespace; though I might buy v6.6 for $400, if I ever seriously consider modeling; I usually used ts3 or ts4 for surreal imagery. x( I'll keep playing with vm solutions; there's got to be a way, apart from dual-booting - don't want that as I want to format my 32-bit OS partition and reclaim the space.

UltraFractal loads just fine...

More RAM is available for photoshop; as much as possible until they release a 64-bit version.

It's a work in progress, but the main stuff works.

Back to virtualization; it was either do Vista64 and virtualize a couple of sundry apps, or go 64-bit linux and virtualize photoshop and a handful of other main apps. I have no qualms with my decision.