Win XP64 / AMD x2

[brammator]

Planning to upgrade my system from Win XP32 / AMD to Win XP64 / AMD x2. Is there any issues or success stories that I need to know about before? Thank you.

[vochore]

<p>check out my specs...i play with all settings to max including shadows and average between 30 to 60 fps depending on the location.</p><p>but i may be 1 of the lucky ones.</p>

[Cassea]

<cite>brammator wrote:</cite><blockquote>Planning to upgrade my system from Win XP32 / AMD to Win XP64 / AMD x2. Is there any issues or success stories that I need to know about before? Thank you.</blockquote>I'm just curious as to why you would move to XP64 and not Vista 64?Please do not buy into all that anti-Vista hype.I do not fault people for staying with XP... in fact it runs most games better than Vista (about 10% give or take) but when you are talking 64-bit OS's then Vista is much better than XP 64.If a game runs in XP64 it runs in Vista64 but the big difference between XP and Vista is memory management and I'm going to assume that you are upgrading to a 64-bit OS so you can use more memory. With large amounts of memory and Vista is the way to go.Now if you have some special program that just will not run under Vista then I withdraw my comment but I hate to see people dropping Vista just because someone's brother's sister's uncle's neighbor knew someone who had an aunt who overheard someone say that they once read that Vista Sucks.Vista 64 has, without question, been the most stable OS I have ever run and I go back a long way to even DOS 5.0 - Even the famously stable Win98 (not really an OS as it was basically a GUI on top of DOS) crashed more than Vista does and I do say that I have up to date drivers that were writen for Vista as most early Vista issues were due to rotten drivers.I've not heard of any issues with EQ2 and XP64 aside from driver issues with sound cards and dual video cards. The real issue is that companies have really dropped drivers support for XP64 and have moved fully to Vista 64 - not a bad thing as the codebase for both XP64 and Vista64 is so close that both drivers usually run on either OS.The only negative with both Vista 64 and XP 64 is that you lose compatability with old 16-bit code. This is old old Win98/ME stuff so it usually does not affect most people and even if it does you can usually find some emulation program to run that old stuff.-JBP.S. This may help someWin95/98/ME = 16/32 bitWinXP32/Vista32 = 16/32 bitWinXP64/Vista64 = 32/64 bitP.P.S. The reason Vista 64 is so much more stable over Vista32 and XP is that Microsoft requires that all drivers be signed or that will not run (unless you hack them) - what this means is that you are not allowed to run drivers unless they have been tested as being fully compatable. While this is a bad thing for all of us tweakers who like to mess with things, it's a good thing for system stability. While this is not fool proof <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> it is a start.P.P.S. Here is a FPS chart for XP vs Vista including the 32 and 64 bit editions of Vista<a href="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page8.asp" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware...pdate/page8.asp</a>

[vochore]

<cite>Cassea wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>brammator wrote:</cite><blockquote>Planning to upgrade my system from Win XP32 / AMD to Win XP64 / AMD x2. Is there any issues or success stories that I need to know about before? Thank you.</blockquote>I'm just curious as to why you would move to XP64 and not Vista 64?Please do not buy into all that anti-Vista hype.I do not fault people for staying with XP... in fact it runs most games better than Vista (about 10% give or take) but when you are talking 64-bit OS's then Vista is much better than XP 64.If a game runs in XP64 it runs in Vista64 but the big difference between XP and Vista is memory management and I'm going to assume that you are upgrading to a 64-bit OS so you can use more memory. With large amounts of memory and Vista is the way to go.Now if you have some special program that just will not run under Vista then I withdraw my comment but I hate to see people dropping Vista just because someone's brother's sister's uncle's neighbor knew someone who had an aunt who overheard someone say that they once read that Vista Sucks.Vista 64 has, without question, been the most stable OS I have ever run and I go back a long way to even DOS 5.0 - Even the famously stable Win98 (not really an OS as it was basically a GUI on top of DOS) crashed more than Vista does and I do say that I have up to date drivers that were writen for Vista as most early Vista issues were due to rotten drivers.I've not heard of any issues with EQ2 and XP64 aside from driver issues with sound cards and dual video cards. The real issue is that companies have really dropped drivers support for XP64 and have moved fully to Vista 64 - not a bad thing as the codebase for both XP64 and Vista64 is so close that both drivers usually run on either OS.The only negative with both Vista 64 and XP 64 is that you lose compatability with old 16-bit code. This is old old Win98/ME stuff so it usually does not affect most people and even if it does you can usually find some emulation program to run that old stuff.-JBP.S. This may help someWin95/98/ME = 16/32 bitWinXP32/Vista32 = 16/32 bitWinXP64/Vista64 = 32/64 bitP.P.S. The reason Vista 64 is so much more stable over Vista32 and XP is that Microsoft requires that all drivers be signed or that will not run (unless you hack them) - what this means is that you are not allowed to run drivers unless they have been tested as being fully compatable. While this is a bad thing for all of us tweakers who like to mess with things, it's a good thing for system stability. While this is not fool proof <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> it is a start.P.P.S. Here is a FPS chart for XP vs Vista including the 32 and 64 bit editions of Vista<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page8.asp" target="_blank">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware...pdate/page8.asp</a></blockquote>do you use a creative audio card...the reason i am asking is becuse of the workaround program you need so creative x-fi cards work properly with vista.....this is the 1 and only reason i did not go with vista64 when i built my new system...i willnot give up the highend audio card i now use...loosing eax is not an option.

[Vodr]

Have you checked creative's website lately as they fixed that a few updates ago,  and now have even newer better drivers out since then.

[Cassea]

I have a Creative Labs Audigy 2 and I'm running EQ2 with Alchemy. Everything works very well.All new games will be moving toward OpenAL. EAX is dead but it's nice to know that for older games there is an option... at least for a few of their cards. Even in you stay with WinXP (which supports OpelAL) the newer games will still be moving toward using OpenAL. They will not be developing two sets of sound for each game.WinXP supports OpenAL and DirectsoundVista supports OpenALSo OpenAL is it. CL's need only develope a version of EAX for OpenAL and all will be fine. They had years to do so and dragged their feet. Right now they have been caught up in so many lies and half truths as they are on the brink of bankruptcy that I do not think they will ever recover. It's a real shame because I have been a loyal supporter of their for years all they way back to their original Sound Blaster.Truth be told that years ago Microsoft informed them that Directsound was going to be eliminated. CL's likes to tell their customers (yet another lie!) that this was some form of last minute switch that evil MS did just before Vista's release. Directsound allows too much direct access to routines that can crash your computer. MS has been trying to make Vista more stable and reliable and OpenAL was developed years ago to adress this. CL "could" have had new EAX support in their OpenAL drivers years ago but sat on their hands.Besides... EAX is just a hack anyway. The "real" 3D sound tech was Aureal's if anyone rememebers them. CL's bought them out and closed them down because that is what you do when the competition comes out with a better product. -JBSome interesting reads if you care:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor</a><a rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3D" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A3D</a><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/features/articles/3DSoundEngines/3DSoundEngines-p3.html" target="_blank">http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/feature...Engines-p3.html</a><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/features/articles/3DSoundEngines/3DSoundEngines-p4.html" target="_blank">http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/feature...Engines-p4.html</a>P.S. A comment (not from me) that sums it up:a3d 3.0 to this day is the superior 3d sound algorythm. aureal was contracted by nasa in the 80s to study how the brain processes sound positioning with only 2 ears. EAX and EAX2 use reverb to create the positional sounds. EAX3 is more like A3D 3.0 and im sure that it uses alot of aureals research and patents in its development. but i have seen reviews that say A3D 3.0 still produces the more convincing sound positioning. they also said that it was so close that they could barely tell the difference. i have both an old 4 channel A3D card on my windows98 machine, and a SB LIVE! on my current rig, and A3D wins every time in counterstrike. i can literally hear people through walls so well, i can kill them based on thier footsteps through walls. i have yet to personally experience EAX3, but when considering driver support, along with the sheer quality of the sound hardware in the new audigys and audigy 2s then EAX3 is the winner when it comes to todays computers. but make no mistake A3D was years ahead of its time, and i miss my old A3D card(XP upgrade broke the drivers). hopefully EAX3 will surpass A3D in todays games.Sure you have EAX4 and all that crap, but that is just essentially a glorified reverb added to everything.<p>I'm talking, when you throw a rock at a wall, the sound is actually generated by the computer, but calculating the effect of the impact of the two surfaces... rather than just pre-recording a rock hitting a wall a bunch of different ways, and then just triggering the sound.Aureal created A3D, a 3D modeling envrionment for sound. While Creative (most ironic name for a company in living memory) were playing around with reverbs (like, wow), Aureal built version 2 of A3D which had realtime calculation of the locations of sounds in a 3D environment. I can't remember how exactly it worked, but it was something to do with calculating the path a sound bounced so you could hear sounds from around corners and then adjusting the sound depending on how far it travelled and what material it bounced off.</p><p>Unfortunately, Aureal had !@#$ management and it went bust. Creative bought all the intellectual property and threw it all away. As far as I can tell, EAX still hasn't caught up. And gamers have no other option since. Ok, maybe they did with Crystals' 3D sound chip, but that didn't last long. We have to buy Creative because EAX 4 or 5 or 10 or whatever irrelevent numbered version is only supported on their latest equally irrelevently numbered audigy card.</p><p>P.P.S. Aureal did not have !@#$ managment... it had CL who dragged them through the courts with their deep pockets and forced them into backruptcy. If you can't beat them... sue them!</p>

[vochore]

im pretty sure that eq2 uses up to eax4 now....the thing i like most is that i can hear mobs come walking down a hall behind me off to the left....3d positioning ingame is awsome...its saved my grps [Removed for Content] quite a few times.maybe by the end of this year i will give vista64 a try...but not till i upgrade to 8 gigs of memory.

[Wingrider01]

Might want to verify that all your hardware drivers are available, XP-64 driver support was fairly poor and what was out there was not very stable. Also, do you have a copy of XP-64 already?