Vista x64 (SP1)

[toadvine]

Well, I pooched vista yesterday by installing daemontools, and since I've got 4gb of ram in my system and had to reinstall windows anyways, I decided to make use of the Vista x64 SP1 disk I made the other week (full MSDN access ftw!) and go full out to see if x64 is actually as bad as I've been assuming. Since it's probably the scariest OS option around right now, figured I'd share my experience.

For reference going in, this is my sytem:
Motherboard: Asus P5NSLI using the nvidia nforce 570i chipset (the NIC on it's busted)
CPU: Intel Core2Duo 1.86GHz
Memory: 4gb of RAM running at 677mhz - 2 chips of kingston memory and 2 chips of some random brand
Graphics: Nvidia 8800 GTS 512mb
Sound: Soundblaster Audigy 4SE
Storage: Internal 160gb SATA drive for the OS and programs, external 500gb eSATA drive for files
Misc: Wacom Intuos3 6x8 tablet, creative live!cam pro webcam, logitech wireless keyboard and mouse, 2 Dell 19" LCDs, Dlink DWL-G550 wireless card.

The initial install went pretty smooth - booted to the disk, formatted the appropriate drive, put in product key etc. Took about 45 minutes, which is about normal for a Vista install. It detected my wireless card with a basic driver right away, so I was able to get online with no hassle. Rather than dig through the various manufacturers' websites for x64 drivers, I just let Windows Update do its thing, and it got everything up and running except my webcam and my tablet, whose drivers I installed manually, again without any problem.

So far it looks like MS has fixed their incompatibility problems between x86 and x64 apps/OS - I've gotten Firefox + all my plugins, msn, mirc, CCCP/Zoomplayer, itunes, the GIMP and utorrent all rolling with no problems. Windows makes a second program files folder called 'Program Files (x86)' where it installs any non-64bit-compatible programs and, I assume, runs them in some kind of compatibility mode. Either way, you don't have to do anything special - it puts them in the appropriate place automatically and runs them without you noticing any difference. To put a bit more stress on it, I've also put Oblivion on and played it for a few hours without any issues.

It sure is nice to see all 4gb of my RAM showing up in the system properties. 32bit limitations for the lose.

The only quirk I've found so far is that my CPU's Vista rating seems to have dropped a point, which could be from not having installed the ntune drivers from nvidia's website or from additional stress through making use of the 64bit functionality. Either way it doesn't seem to be slowing my system down at all, but it's there and deserves to be documented.

If anyone's got any programs that you'd like me to test, I'd be more than pleased to give them a shot (as time permits).

[Bluefire101]

About the vista rating, it may have dropped a point because you could have been running programs in the background while it was running. Try the test with no applications running and see if that makes it go back up that lost point. :)

[Blu]

Vista hates evga motherboards...>.>....

Damn, Go and oc your cpu. I don't think I could live with 1.86ghz :(

[toadvine]

@bluefire: that's how I did run it, so not sure what the deal is there.
@blu: dual Intel 1.86GHz cores isn't that bad - it's the equivalent to an AMD 3800+. Might upgrade it later this year, but I'm saving my cash for a few other projects I've got in mind so it's low on the priority list unless it becomes a real issue for me.

[Blu]

Originally Posted by toadvine

@bluefire: that's how I did run it, so not sure what the deal is there.
@blu: dual Intel 1.86GHz cores isn't that bad - it's the equivalent to an AMD 3800+. Might upgrade it later this year, but I'm saving my cash for a few other projects I've got in mind so it's low on the priority list unless it becomes a real issue for me.

:P Come on, You know it's begging to be overclocked, Hell you could probably get it up to 3.0ghz easy...Still going to get mine up to 3.6ish when I install my new north and south bridge coolers :D

[rurushu]

hmm..... i've heard many bad reviews about Vista SP1. Experts said that installing the SP1 actually slows down your computer and somehow having conflicts with programmes.

[toadvine]

Originally Posted by rurushu

hmm..... i've heard many bad reviews about Vista SP1. Experts said that installing the SP1 actually slows down your computer and somehow having conflicts with programmes.

I actually am an expert - I do IT professionally, which is the main reason I began this test run of x64 SP1. It's also why I got a legit copy of it for free: Full MSDN accounts for the win!

It certainly is possible that running the upgrade could much up programs depending on which registry keys they added/removed/changed during their installation, however my test was a clean install with a Vista SP1 disk, so there was nothing on there for it to conflict with. All my programs were cleanly installed, and so far there have been few real problems.

SP1 isn't slowing my system down any, certainly, and I've seen it help correct several other glitches that Vista has had before.

As an update on the programs I've been running, I can safely add that halflife (and Portal) work perfectly, but I haven't been able to get Bioshock running yet... possibly because of the illegitimate copy I've been trying. Zoomplayer seems to be slightly buggy in x64 SP1 as well - it takes longer to load movies than it did under x86 and if I fastforward/rewind too much I get invalid floating point operation errors. I'm going to switch to VLC and see if that works better.