OS decision,, XP Pro or XP Pro 64bit

[mrdfw]

Which operating system seems to work best with FSX, I have a Asus P5NEe-sli motherboard with Intel E6600 processor, one Nvidia 512K 7950gt card with have 4gig of Ram... doing a clean clean of OS and FSX,,,

[TurboVolvo]

I've never ran a 64bit system simply because it's too much of a headache, especially XP64 due to the lack of proper/working drivers for just about any hardware you use. Vista 64bit is a little different due to the technology advances since XP64, but many are having the same issues with that as well.
I'd say you stick with the 32bit XP. You can still run 4 gigs of ram, just the OS will not show that amount (max 3.2) And for FSX, you wouldn't even notice a large difference between 2 and 4 gig rams. I just installed an extra gig jumping to 3gb, but I've yet to see any performance gains.

[loki]

I would stick with the 32 bit XP as well as there are far fewer issues with drivers, anti-virus apps etc. XP x64 is a dead end and most companies offered only the bare minimum of support if they offered any at all. Vista x64 should be getting better as it is the future for Windows, but it still has a ways to go as far as performance is concerned.

[fsfilmworks]

Vista will give you better performance in FSX, FSX is 32bit app tho and so you really shouldn't see a huge difference apart from OS performance with Vista 64...

Seriously though go for vista and not XP, DX10 is cleaner code than DX9 and you can't get DX10 for XP

[xxmikexx]

Dean,

"Vista will give you better performance in FSX ..."

That would be true only for dual-core (or multi-core) processors, yes? Because Vista supports multi-threading, and FSX will exploit multi-threading in a limited way provided it's available, which it would not be on XP.

However, if he has a single-core machine I would expect about a 10% performance degradation due to Vista per the "rap" on the forums.

[loki]

XP does support multi-threading (and thus any multi-threaded apps running on it, including FSX), though it is somewhat limited in how it handles threads. In Vista Microsoft improved multi-threading to better balance loads so multi-threaded apps should run better.

[xxmikexx]

Slip of the fingertips, Loki, I meant multiprocessing. Of course XP supports multithreading -- my own AirBoss(TM) product is three threads after it launches.

With that correction, do you agree that Vista would only cause an FSX performance degradation on a single-core processor? (If we ignore the DX-10/GPU issue.)

[loki]

I slipped up a little as well and did mean that XP does support multiple cores/processors. Vista is just better at it (or is meant to be).

If you have a decent system with 2GB of RAM, Vista shouldn't be much slower than XP. However, thanks to issues like mature drivers on XP vs relatively new ones on Vista, Vista still tends to fall behind in gaming performance.

[xxmikexx]

Okay, according to ...

http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/tips/dual_processing_system_tips/

... XP home does not support dual processors but XP Professional does. I would never have even thought to do the search were it not for your post, Loki. :)

[loki]

XP Home does support multi-core processors (and hyper-threading), but only one physical CPU socket.

Here's a link straight from MS themselves.

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx#E1B

[xxmikexx]

As usual, you 'da man. Just don't become a Windows API technical programmer, okay? :)

[loki]

Don't worry. I know enough programming to be dangerous and know to stay away from it at all costs. ;)

[xxmikexx]

Ah ... Job security ... Except that I'm self employed. :)