So I had a co worker today tell me that a 32bit operating system does not fully utilize a dual core + processor?

That in order for you to fully use your dual core + processor you need to install a 64 bit operating system; is this true?

While he said yes the system will recognize it, it wont fully reproduce its full functionality compared to a 64 bit operating system.

SO I tried to do some research and didnt find much.

I bought Vista Ultimate full edition so I do have both CDs but I'm wondering if anyone else also knows that if I put the 64 bit OS CD in will it tell me what programs wont work in 64 bit mode lol.

I also was told that I would need to find drivers for my computer that is in 64 bit before I install the OS because like if my Motherboard cant support a 64 bit OS, then Im' screwed huh? OR like my Video Card or Sound Card?

Any help on this subject would be great, thanks. I did a search for all forums within Suggestafix, I found 2: one being "how can I activate 64bit" another thread said "how do I find out which version I had" and that one thread was before Vista was released so I am thinking this question wasnt asked?

generally speaking 32 bit windows from win2k on and 32 bit "nix" os recognize and use multicore processors. many many programs 32 and 64 bit don't utilize multicore.

generally speaking it's not the motherboard that's needed to support 64 bit but the processor but that goes hand in hand. i've never tried 64 bit on a 32 bit processor but guess that a 64 bit os won't even attempt to install on 32 bit.

yes 64 bit drivers are needed for all hardware on a 64 bit os..

some 32 bit programs will work on 64 but vista won't tell until an installation is attempted. there's a lot of 32 bit programs that don't work on 32 bit vista.

Your friend is getting mixed up with the advantages of vista over xp.

Windows XP can see a dual core processor put not use it for multitasking, it will simply use it as a double speed cpu.

However vista will see dual cores and send different tasks to each core utilising it to it's full potential (yet another advantage of vista that the flatearthers of xp like to ignore)

There is really only one major advantage of 64bit windows, though an advantage that does make it very worth while.

32bit windows can only use upto [about] 3.25GB of memory, so you go out and spend money on upgrading to 4gb of ram but windows refuses to use 768mb of it.

64bit operating systems on the other hand can handle up to 6xb of ram, though on windows 64bit they've set a more logical limit of 128Gb (although you'd probably never go near this on a vista machine).

Hope this answers your question.

Andy

Forgot to mention the possible incompatibility issues with 64bit.

In this case, rather that text book answers I will tell you my own experience with 64bit.

I upgraded to 64bit vista with plans to upgrade the memory and after recieving misleading information that my computer would run faster just by switching to 64bit (not true).

Everything installed fine, yes alot of programs and drivers don't work on 64bit but in almost all cases I found that the manufacturers who were aware that their software didn't work on it had made 64bit versions to download for no extra charge.

My epson printer was turned 64bit, along with my scanner, my webcam, the lot.

What I did find was that a lot of my wife's games wouldn't work and that 64bit versions hadn't been created. It seems that the gaming industry has been slow on the uptake of 64bit although the large game writers are now combatting it.

I didn't keep 64bit vista for one reason. I'm a photographer taking all my photos on my nikon d40x in raw format. Although photoshop would open my pictures, vista could not show thumbnails of them, which when you've taken 100 photos during the day isn't too useful. 32bit doesn't recognise them either but nikon make a "raw format codec" for it. However, Nikon at present refuse to make any 64bit software with the claim that nobody uses it which of course we all know just isn't true.

So in most cases you'll be fine with 64bit windows, but in some you'll find that the manufacturer of the product you own is yet to have support for it. But give it time, eventually everyone will be making 64bit. Let's not forget that we've done this before. Windows 98 was the first 32bit operating system (up from 16bit) and there were many compatibility issues with that but we got through it.

Andy

So in short if you were to tell a person who knows "nothing" on computers and they heard 32 vs 64

Youd say "64 bit OS is great if you want to use more than 4gigs of memory" thus meaning "64 bit sole purpose is to enhance memory"????


So my AMD Athlon 64x2 5400 ~2.8gig within Vista and using 2gigs of RAM is using its full potential? Afterall I think under the taskbar I see that both my cores are checked.

And if thats the case, my friend is wrong?

Thanks

here's a good basic article about windows and multi core.

http://searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/t...1248527,00.html

I think the important thing to understand is that if a 64 bit OS does utilise multicore CPUs better than a 32 bit OS, it is not because one is 32 bit and the other is 64 bit.

This impression probably comes from Windows XP's implementation, where 32 bit XP was developed as a workstation OS, before multiprocessor or multicore CPU workstations became the norm. The later development of the multithreaded kernel for XP-64 (both the earlier Itanium platform issue and later x86 64bit extension platform with codebase from Server 2003) naturally took into account the rise of multiprocessor/multicore as the current standard.

In other words, if a 64 bit OS does multithreading better, it's because it's newer code, not because it's 64 bit.

A system with 2GB of RAM is probably better off with a 32 bit OS, as 2GB of RAM would be pointlessly strangling a 64 bit OS (and a 64 bit OS itself uses a little more RAM than a 32 bit one). But accessing more than 4GB of RAM is not all that is significant about 64 bit processing:

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/10/16/64..._just_the_ram/1

[font=Comic Sans Ms][size=6]hi platypus,i have an amd phenom 9550 64 bit quad core with 2 gig ram,& running vista premium,yes i do agree that 2 gig is not nearly enough,the only thing i don`t have problems with is doing multi tasks at the same time,i do intend to get more memory though.