Peace, Love and Windows XP 64-bit

[Lemur]

Why do we never discuss XP 64 as a serious gaming platform? Faster than Vista, able to address more RAM, all of the XP goodness with full use of our procs. What holds us back?

I am genuinely curious.

[Xiahou]

My understanding was that win XP64 came out, it was plagued with driver issues, and by extension, stability issues. Years later, have these problems been fixed? Who knows- XP64 had an extremely short life-cycle. I think it was mainly a stopgap solution for people wanting a 64bit OS before Vista came out. It probably never got enough of an install base to warrant much driver support- so even today it may still be plagued with pitalls.

On the other hand, if you have hardware that you know has 64bit XP drivers, maybe it wouldn't be that bad a choice. I don't know- I never used it. :shrug:

[Lemur]

Hmm, well I would assume (wrongly?) that XP 64 gets the same updates and service packs as XP Pro. I don't know why I assume that, but I do.

[Xiahou]

Well, if Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_xp_64#Windows_XP_Professional_x64_Edition) is to be believed, XP64 actually uses Windows 2003 Server service packs. Makes sense, right? :inquisitive:

Apparently, XP64 is more like Windows2003 Workstation than WindowsXP:

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition uses version 5.2.3790.1830 of core operating system binaries, [24] the same version used by Windows Server 2003 SP1 (and Windows XP 64-Bit Edition version 2003) as they were the latest versions during the operating system's development. Even service packs and updates for Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64 are distributed in unified packages, [25] much in the manner as Windows 2000 Professional and Server editions for x86.

[Husar]

I wouldn't get a buggy OS with bad driver support just because games run 1-2% faster on it than on Vista. :inquisitive:

When it came out I didn't have a 64bit CPu yet and when I got such a thing I already knew it was a horrible OS so I never bothered with it.

[hoom]

I have XP64.

The only real problem I have had with it is that Netgear refused/es to make 64bit drivers for my WLAN card but generic drivers from the WLAN chip manufacturer were eventually found after a somewhat extensive search.

Has been certainly adequately stable & fast, haven't noticed any notable performance difference between XP 32 & 64.

As previously noted, lots of software recognises XP64 as Server 2003 & it gets the same updates from MS.