![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, May 04, 2005
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Windows XP Pro x64 Edition Gaming Comparison
Join us as we directly compare the gaming performance of Windows XP Pro (32-bit edition) versus Windows XP Pro x64 Edition on the latest ATI and NVIDIA video cards. We’ll find out if moving to Windows XP Pro x64 Edition with an AMD Athlon 64 has any benefits or pitfalls for your gaming experience.
Introduction:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is here. This new OS is a 64-bit version of Windows XP Professional. This article is not an overview or in-depth look into WinXP Pro x64 Edition. The focus of this article is purely one of gaming curiosity. We are going to take eight games and look at installation, compatibility, and performance comparisons. We are going to compare performance between an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra and an ATI RADEON X850 XT-PE in Windows XP Pro versus Windows XP Pro x64 Edition.
What Windows XP Pro x64 Edition is bringing to the table for the gamer is OS support for 64-bit applications and games that can take advantage of 64-bit CPUs like the AMD Athlon 64 and Intel’s EM64T technology. Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is unique in that it will also allow 32-bit applications to run on the OS alongside 64-bit applications. This means the games and applications you use now should work with this OS. You do need 64-bit drivers for your hardware components, and we suggest downloading them before installation.
Theoretically, the largest benefit with this OS is the ability to address up to 128 gigabytes of RAM and 16 terabytes of virtual memory. We can’t think of any current game that would benefit from these higher memory capabilities at this point in time however. Although 64-bit computing has the ability to expand and grow farther than the 32-bit platform, we believe the transition will be gradual. Our focus with this article is to show what the overall experience for the gamer will be if he or she is contemplating the move to a 64-bit Windows OS currently on their AMD Athlon 64 system.
Directory Structure:
For our gameplay evaluation, we performed a clean installation of 32-bit Windows XP Professional with SP2 and then evaluated performance and installation on the video cards tested. We then performed a clean installation of Windows XP Professional x64 Edition with SP1 and did the same. If you are planning to upgrade to Windows XP Pro x64 Edition, be warned that you cannot upgrade from 32-bit Windows XP Pro. Instead, you must perform a clean installation booting off of the XP Pro x64 Edition CD.
After installing WinXP Pro x64 Edition, you will find two “Program Files” directories. The one labeled simply “Program Files” is for 64-bit applications. The directory labeled “Program Files (x86)” is for 32-bit applications. All of the games we tested installed into the “Program Files (x86)” directory by default.