#259440 - 30/06/2005 17:48
Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Well, it's a tad disappointing, but XP64 (it's just easier to call it that) was removed from the new comptuer I'm building for my father. There just isn't the support that MS claims there is.
So this is just a warning. While MS claims compatibility, Every 32bit program I tired to install failed, the most important of these being AVG and Quicken. Also, what I didn't realize (though it makes sense now that I think about it) is that 32bit drivers are completely incompatible with the OS, and if the company that made a particular peripheral doesn't have 64 bit drivers, I'm out of luck. I was suprised to see that about half of them did (ATI, Creative, even Logitech), but companies like HP haven't caught up, and printers are kinda important.
So we're back to 32bit XP. Oh well. We'll keep the OS on the back burner. And a dual boot isn't even worth the trouble.
On the extremely bright side, this new PC is shaping up nicely. I haven't really run any official tests, but I installed Max Payne 2 last night, and bumped up every setting to its highest (including resolution to 1920x1200), and the game ran with no problems whatsoever. Perfectly smooth. So I can confidently recommend this card.
As for the CPU, I'm going to see what kind of real-world tests I can run. Maybe rip a CD with EAC and see how fast lame can convert the tracks. Something like that. Or how fast Pocket Video Encoder can compress a bunch of videos to mpeg4.
Are there any suggestions for free benchmarking programs?
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Matt
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#259441 - 30/06/2005 18:14
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 05/01/2001
Posts: 4903
Loc: Detroit, MI USA
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I had trouble with drivers back in December when I tried. All I could get was an alpha release for my motherboard, but 1/2 of the companion drivers for the rest of the mother board did not exist. Like you pointed out, printers seem to be the #1 complaint.
The good news is that I hear when 64 is officially released, owners of 32bit can convert for free.
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Brad B.
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#259442 - 30/06/2005 18:40
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
what I didn't realize (though it makes sense now that I think about it) is that 32bit drivers are completely incompatible with the OS, and if the company that made a particular peripheral doesn't have 64 bit drivers, I'm out of luck.
Nonsense. Yes, you're out of luck, but other operating systems (not just Linux, either) successfully mix 32/64 drivers and programs on such hardware.
Cheers
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#259443 - 30/06/2005 18:47
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: SE_Sport_Driver]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Actually, I think it's officially been released already. We bought a packaged OEM copy from Newegg, and that system is already in place, though it looks like for now it's ending July 31. It makes sense, though, since most people would never upgrade if it cost a bunch more. We bought XP64 on Newegg for about $8 more than regular XP.
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Matt
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#259444 - 30/06/2005 21:21
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Nonsense. Yes, you're out of luck, but other operating systems (not just Linux, either) successfully mix 32/64 drivers and programs on such hardware.
Windows XP x64 is an interesting mess of an OS. By what I can tell, they took their work on the Windows XP/2003 ia64 version and ported it to x64, including all the barriers that existed on ia64. With the Itanium, 64 bit code is running ia64, but the 32 bit code is running on x86. So, with ia64, all drivers must be ia64 64 bit, and for some reason this limitation got moved over. As did the odd issues with even the filesystem layout. x64 programs see c:\Program Files\. x86 programs see c:\Program Files\ as well, but it's actually c:\Program Files (x86)\.
As far as your problems with many programs like AVG, odds are it has nothing to do with the programs and more to do with their installers. Neither x64 or ia64 versions of Windows allow any 16 bit code. Many installers still use a few 16 bit lines of code, thus making them not run properly.
A friend of mine uses XP x64 on one of his machines. It's working fine for him, but most of the use that box sees is the occasional game playing of games released in the past 3 years.
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#259445 - 01/07/2005 00:12
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14493
Loc: Canada
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Ugh.
I wonder how much of that mess also exists in Windows Server 2003 EE ?
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#259446 - 01/07/2005 00:53
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
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Windows XP x64 is an interesting mess of an OS. By what I can tell, they took their work on the Windows XP/2003 ia64 version and ported it to x64 ....
Don't sweat it. Just wait for Longhorn. None of this will be an issue.
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Jim
'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.
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#259447 - 01/07/2005 07:47
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
...actually c:\Program Files (x86)\...
Well, if you mean that SHGetFolderPath(CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES) returns a different location depending on whether your app is 32- or 64-bit, then that makes a certain amount of sense. After all, it's not necessarily called "Program Files" anyway.
If you're saying that it actively lies to the running program when it uses filesystem calls, then I have a hard time believing that.
FWIW, I did run Server 2003, x64 on my box for about an hour this week, but our in-house automated build scripts aren't supported on it, so I went back to XP32. Ironically, the stuff we sell to customers would work, but we're not using them for developer builds yet.
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-- roger
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#259448 - 01/07/2005 08:37
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Yes, you're out of luck, but other operating systems (not just Linux, either) successfully mix 32/64 drivers and programs on such hardware.
Userland yes, but drivers? I don't have any amd64 hardware, but certainly on sparc64 hardware the entire kernel and all its modules must be 64-bit, even though a mix of 32-bit and 64-bit userland apps can run alongside each other.
I guess you could have a translation layer, somewhere below the VFS, that meant when a 64-bit userland app went write(fd, address-above-4G, 6G) then something sane happened to a 32-bit SCSI driver -- but it would be a bit grebulous and certainly it sounds much more like the Linux Way to say "If this driver won't compile for 64-bit, then fix it".
Peter
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#259449 - 01/07/2005 17:24
Re: Windows XP x64: Not ready for prime time
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Well, if you mean that SHGetFolderPath(CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES) returns a different location depending on whether your app is 32- or 64-bit, then that makes a certain amount of sense. After all, it's not necessarily called "Program Files" anyway.
If you're saying that it actively lies to the running program when it uses filesystem calls, then I have a hard time believing that.
From what I remember doing with the Itanium version, it lies to 32 bit programs. This may not be true in the x64 version. But I do distinctly remember going to File - Open in both a 32 and 64 bit program. The 64 bit program saw the files as normal, the 32 bit one didn't see a c:\Program Files (x86)\, but any file manipulated in what it saw as c:\Program Files\ ended up in that x86 folder.
Doing a Google search on it, it does look like they changed it on x64 to do the first part you suggested, it provides a different path depending on 32 or 64 bit, since some programs are balking at the parentheses for some reason.
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