I'm currently running W7 32bit with 4gig of Ram and obviously I can't use the full 4 gig installed. Would I see a marked improvement if I upgraded to 64bit with rf2. My system is pretty old and tired now but I'm holding off Hardware upgrades until the end of the year but if I was to upgrade the OS, that can come with me onto my new PC in the future. Has anyone run the sim with 32bit and 64bit and noticed a difference in performance enough to justify me buying a new OS and the work involved with re-installing everything?? Thanks
Hi, No, I went throught this Win 7 32 to 64 bits process and didn't see any real improvement, it was on my laptop where rF2 could run with average 30-50fps. By the way, you possibly know, but upgrading from 32 to 64bits mean the installer will format your machine, so backup all first. And also: AFAIK If you run Win 7 32 bits it's free to upgrade to Win7 64bits using the same Windows Product key. You can download the official distribution of Windows OS on the Microsoft website for free. And the work involved is painfull as all need to be reinstalled for 64 bits. I did this process just last night for another laptop, so it's kind of fresh
There are an improvement indeed, but, it depends for what you use the pc and what kind of pc, if you have just 4gb and you use the pc just for games so stay with 32 bits, you dont see any improvement. The 64 bits OS are recomended for computers with more than 4gb and for big amounts of data like video editing or CGI, and like YoLolo69 says, if you gonna upgrade first backup all your stuff and download your drivers in 64 bits.
Have in mind that some of your fav programs may not work with X64. Virtual pc may solve some of that, but some simply dont install, as acad 2004 for instance.
As others have said, there is no direct upgrade from 32bit to 64bit. You will have to format the drive to get things done. There are advantages to using the 64bit version of Windows, but for gaming there is no advantage. No game is going to require more memory than what you can currently use, they are all designed to be run on 32bit. If you do graphics, databases or other things on your system, then yes, you can and will see an improvement with 64bit as long as you also upgrade your ram. For graphics, the more ram you have the better the graphics program will like it. One other word of warning. Even if you upgrade to 64bit, if the programs you use are designed for 32bit, you won't see much of an improvement as 32bit programs are not designed to use more than 3.5Gb of ram total. You would only be able to run more programs at the same time unless your programs are 64bit.
Well thanks Guys for clearing a few things up. My system is asus maximus extreme mobo, 4 gig of corsair ddr3 1333 ram, Intel q6600 and nvidia 550ti. Its old but in its day was quite a fast machine. I shall leave it as it is until I build a new system later in the year. As most have said for gaming only I wont see much improvement and as I really only race on it, It looks like you have saved me some work!!
No need to buy a new OS. The key for 32 and 64bit are the same. You just need to download the ISO from MS and install. You WILL be wiping everything off your drive, be aware of that. You should see a general improvement in your PC speed, maybe hardly noticable, but there... Though I can't say how it'll affect rF2. You will have an extra few hundred MB of RAM available though, as 32bit won't even use all of your 4GB RAM, as it assigns the video card memory a spot within the 4GB Max first.
Really? I haven't heard of any program having problems where it wouldn't run AT ALL... And with AutoCAD 2004, my dad had it running fine without any compatibility adjustment.
Well, Ive tried a lot, tried with virtual pc too, if your dad did it that means I should give it a new try.
Autodesk products are shipped with both versions... 32 bits and 64 bits. I don't know if there was an exception in 2004 version, anyway... All that I can say about this subject is Windows 8 64 bits gave me 5% more FPS and more fluid graphics than Windows 7 64 bits.
All 32bit programs will run fine on 64bit Windows - its just 64bit drivers that are required (can be annoying if you have old hardware - scanners, printers etc and no 64bit drivers are available)
Once you have 64bit installed, you can always use this with your 32bit games to give them some improvements. http://www.rfactorcentral.com/detail.cfm?ID=4gb Patch There are games now days that are 64bit enabled, the execute are sometime hidden in the folders, or you can download patches.
Worth noting that iRacing has just gone 64-bit and they see it as "future-proofing". I'm guessing they're pushing up against the memory limit with large numbers of cars at high-res on big tracks in MP.
Re.iracing 64bit, I was quite excited to try the 64bit version of iracing but I found it exactly the same, totally identical in performance when I benchmarks using certain replays etc, although they have said its for allowing more advanced features I do wonder.
It's more likely because 32bit systems are going to be gone within the next few years for most retailers and builds. Although software will still be released 32bit for a long time, I can't imagine many companies like Dell putting 32bit OS on a 64bit capable system for much longer. And who builds a machine for themselves with less than 4GB RAM these days?
This is absolutely not true. Software that is pure 32bit and of older design may and some do have issues running on a 64bit environment even with compatibility mode. Modern software that is listed as 32bit may work well because it was designed knowing that people would be installing it on 64bit systems. As an example, there are a lot of programs that have released compatibility updates to their software in order for it to run on Windows 7 64bit where it runs fine on Windows 7 32bit. Most notable of these programs is anti-virus programs. If you run the 32bit version of an anti-virus program on a 64bit Windows install it will either tell you it can't be done, or will fail after the install.
I suspect this is mostly true due to software companies and their desire to bloat all the software that is sold now a days. Systems are going to be using so much ram just starting up that 3.5Gb of ram isn't going to be enough to run games or productivity software after Windows is up and running. What I also expect to see in the future is systems that have nonvolatile ram built into the motherboard to further decrease the amount of time required to boot the system and start your favorite program. Windows 8 already cache's the environment to the HD so that booting the system takes a lot less time than any other OS. Imagine how quick it would be if that information was stored in nonvolatile ram.
