Topic: Some more positive news on Windows 7 64bit.

[Pugnate]

Excellent news for those looking to for PCs to utilize more than 3GB:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=13983

I think Dan would be pleased to read this as well. I know, it is just showing a trend, but that trend means the majority will be using 64-bit, and thus there will be more support.

I know Scottws has found his Vista 64bit to be working well for him, but I've found many to have been having problems with the OS when it comes to gaming for some reason. I even remember the guys on IGN PC as well as those on the PCG podcast recommending gamers not go with Vista 64-bit quite recently. In fact, I think Dan Stapleton was talking about it in the comments section of one of the PCG podcasts. However, I've heard less of that sort of chatter on the popular forums, and saw quite a few people stating they found their gaming experience to be smoother on 64-bit (at least with the current gen. games).

But regardless, I planned to go 64-bit with Windows 7. Now, I have no doubt.

edit:

Sorry, this wasn't about XP.

[scottws]

Well yeah you should completely avoid Windows XP 64-bit.  Apparently driver support is completely lacking and it just sucks overall.  Vista 64-bit on the other hand is very well supported.

[Pugnate]

Shit, I don't know what's wrong with my brain. I meant to write Stapleton and the IGN PC podcast were weary of Vista 64. Why'd I write XP? DO I HAVE A TUMOR?!?!!!!

[scottws]

I don't know what they are complaining about.  Look, I hate Vista, but I don't really have any trouble with games.  You say Crysis was slow on my PC because of Vista x64... I have to take your word for it.  But I've really had no problems with other games except Fallout 3, which crashes all the time because when I play too long my videocard overheats (a design issue with my PC case).

Edit:  Re-reading this post showed me that it sounded a bit terse.  I really don't meant it that way.  I just think there is nothing to be scared about with 64-bit unless you have a ton of old 16-bit apps from the Windows 3.11 days that you still use and don't work in something like DOSbox.  64-bit computing is here, it works, and it is the future.  You are going to want more than 3 GB of RAM very soon.  You might as well jump on board.

[Pugnate]

No it actually didn't sound terse.

Actually in the very comments section of those podcasts, I read a few people defending Vista 64. They said they found their games running faster and smoother. But then Logan (the PCG hardware guy) said on his test machines he found it wasn't as mature, and he noticed slower performances. Anyway if it is running OK for you, then you are happy. A lot of other people are too.

And yea I am most definitely going 64 bit with Win 7. I am just pleased the majority are as well.

[W7RE]

The only reason I never made the jump to 64 bit was because I hate having to shell out the cash for a new OS, especially when all I'm looking at getting is more RAM. (esp when the RAM I hve is enough for anything I'm doing) I'll probably switch to Windows 7 because it's about time I do an upgrade from XP, and I'd rather do it when another OS isn't about to come out.

[scottws]

That's a sound decision, W7RE.  If I were you I would wait as well.  If indications point the way, then Windows 7 should come out near the end of the year or early next year.

I get my OS through my university for free or very cheap.  Otherwise I'd probably still be using XP as well.

[WindAndConfusion]

I don't know what they are complaining about.  Look, I hate Vista, but I don't really have any trouble with games.  You say Crysis was slow on my PC because of Vista x64... I have to take your word for it. 

My understanding is that it's not really true that Vista is slower than XP. XP only really outperformed Vista under some rather narrow circumstances:

• When Vista first came out, the driver support was shit (especially video drivers). The situation has since changed.
• Many retarded websites (eg: Tom's Hardware) compared games on Vista DX10 to XP DX9. (Nevermind that Vista has both DX10 and DX9 interfaces, nevermind that DX10 is known to be slower than DX9 in some cases, and nevermind that DX10 is significantly more advanced than DX9.)
• Vista has all kinds of I/O prioritization. This means that Vista remains completely fluid and usable under conditions where XP would turn into a slideshow, but this also means Vista has extra overhead when only running a single application in a single process.

The last point is the most subtle, and it's also the reason most Vista vs XP comparison are flawed. In tests, they only run a single application at a time (and as little else as is humanly possible). While this accurately reflects the usage of certain pasty, basement-dwelling mutants (who would better be served by running DOS), most people in the real world actually prefer for their computers to be useful.

In Vista, I can play a game while recording HDTV off the air while running multi-megabit BitTorrent with defragmentation/antivirus/local filesharing/other services running in the background. Doing the same thing in XP was a fucking nightmare unless I took pains to keep my OS and software on a different hard drive and channel than my data (and even then it sucked).

[Xessive]

Now I'm looking forward to what come safter Windows 7, since it's going be natively 64bit and will likely run 32bit on a compatibility layer.

I think Apple has it right with MacOS. Each OS upgrade is unqiue and can run a lot of older stuff basically by emulating its original platform. As much as I hate Macs I have to give Apple credit for making an intact, stable OS with a consistent UI.

Windows has been pretty much based on the same legacy kernel since what, win95?

[WindAndConfusion]

Christ, let me get my hat.

Now I'm looking forward to what come safter Windows 7, since it's going be natively 64bit and will likely run 32bit on a compatibility layer.

Windows Vista already has a native 64 bit version that runs legacy (32-bit) code by means of a "compatibility layer." (Technically, it just implements the Win32 API on a 64-bit platform, but I guess that's basically the same thing as a compatibility layer.)

I think Apple has it right with MacOS. Each OS upgrade is unqiue and can run a lot of older stuff basically by emulating its original platform.

That's not really correct in any substantive way. There have been six stable releases of Mac OS X (10.0, 10.1, etc, up to 10.5), and they're all pretty much compatible; each one is just an incremental upgrade over its predecessor. Prior to Mac OS X was "Mac OS Classic" (as it is now called), which was a completely different OS; Apple abandoned it in 2001. Older Macs will allow you to run Classic apps inside an emulator, but support for this was ended in 2005 when Apple switched their architecture from PowerPC to x86.

When Apple switched from PPC to x86, they added a code transformation layer so that Mac OS X apps compiled for PPC could run on the newer Intel-based machines, but they didn't bother porting the Mac OS Classic emulator, so Mac OS Classic software won't run on any recent Mac barring some extraordinary method.

Anyway, I hope that answers your question about where babies come from.

Windows has been pretty much based on the same legacy kernel since what, win95?

No. Here's a history lesson:

The original Windows wasn't a real operating system; it was just an API and some simple programs built on top of DOS (using the DOS kernel). Win95 and Win98 were also designed this same way. Unfortunately, DOS is crap and Microsoft realized this in the 90's. They then started work on Windows NT, which was intended to run most Windows software on a non-crap foundation. Win2K, WinXP and Vista are all based on the Windows NT kernel. Basically they just reimplemented all the Windows-level APIs from Win95 (like DirectX and Winsock), except they used NT instead of MS-DOS. This meant (in theory) that any software that only used Windows-level system calls would run on WinNT without modification, but any software that relied on DOS-level system calls would need to be run inside an emulator.

The real "legacy problem" with Windows is that it's expected to support about two decades' worth of APIs, many of which were designed before Microsoft gave a damn about software quality.

And now you know how to score heroin from street children.

[PyroMenace]

Your whole "history lesson" is totally biased and negated. DOS was not crap, DOS was totally awesome. You must have not be programmed early enough to design something better. Even a beta versioned CSharp would know better than that.

[Xessive]

Thanks Wind, that was mildly enlightening

[Cobra951]

The original Windows wasn't a real operating system; it was just an API and some simple programs built on top of DOS (using the DOS kernel). Win95 and Win98 were also designed this same way. Unfortunately, DOS is crap and Microsoft realized this in the 90's. They then started work on Windows NT, which was intended to run most Windows software on a non-crap foundation. Win2K, WinXP and Vista are all based on the Windows NT kernel. Basically they just reimplemented all the Windows-level APIs from Win95 (like DirectX and Winsock), except they used NT instead of MS-DOS. This meant (in theory) that any software that only used Windows-level system calls would run on WinNT without modification, but any software that relied on DOS-level system calls would need to be run inside an emulator.

The real "legacy problem" with Windows is that it's expected to support about two decades' worth of APIs, many of which were designed before Microsoft gave a damn about software quality.

That's the one part of the post I feel qualified to comment on.  Aside from the DOS evaluation, which is an opinion I don't share if applied to the relevant time period, that is all absolutely correct.  While there is still some legacy code running in the bowels of NT-core operating systems, they are a significant departure from and advance over the DOS-based Windows through 9x.  2K, XP and even Vista are NT-based.  That is a rock-stable 32-bit core.  I've said it before, but it bears repeating: application-level code cannot crash the OS.  It can make Explorer unresponsive.  It can disconnect you from the OS entirely.  But the OS itself is fully in control of the system after whatever mischief errant application code might inflict.  That is a huge step up from the previous iterations of Windows.

[Pugnate]

Yea I've always read the success of XP came from the fact that it was built on the NT/Windows 2000 kernel. I actually thought it was common knowledge.