Random Electronics Talkfest

[Arainach]

They're not sold as separate editions; the retail box comes with both discs, and hte serial works on either edition (though only one at a time obviously)

[Killer_Man_]

Why would I want to run 64 bit? I am just curious cause I hear so many bad things about 64 bit for gaming.

[Gio Takahashi]

I don't see why not. I've been running 64 bit since vista, and haven't had any problems with any gamings really.

[llama_egg]

Only XP's 64 bit was horribad, otherwise if you're running more then 3 gigs of ram you should have it.

[Gio Takahashi]

Originally Posted by llama_egg

Only XP's 64 bit was horribad, otherwise if you're running more then 3 gigs of ram you should have it.

This. Like I said, if your PC can run 64 bit, there's no reason to not run 64 bit. Everything generally runs fine on Windows 7 64 bit (let alone 32 bit).

[Killer_Man_]

Well, I shoudl have mentioned I've heard horror stories about XP 64 bit but I more than likely will be buying more ram + windows 7.

[Arainach]

Yeah, it's tough to say where the cutoff point for more RAM being useful is. I'm still kicking myself for not picking up some DDR2 back when it was dirt cheap and you could get 4GB for $30, but I gave in this week and ordered another 4GB off Newegg (brings my total to 8GB) simply for a future compatibility aspect - there's really nothing in my primary workstation now that I could see having to upgrade in the next 2-3 years, which is nice.

[deathofcheese]

Running 64-bit will allow your OS to access more than 4 GB of RAM. Without getting into too too much detail, the registers on your processor are sized to that each one alone can access the address of any datum in your computer's virtual memory. With 32-bit-long registers (a bit is either a 1 or a 0, so 32 bits in sequence will be a 32-character-long string of 1s and 0s that translates to a memory address in your RAM or processor's cache), you can address up to 2^32 addresses, or 4 GB of RAM. With 64-bit-long registers, you can address up to 16 exabytes of RAM. (SI prefix review: giga < tera < peta < exa, or, 10^9 < 10^12 < 10^15 < 10^18).

One analogy would be to liken it to a person's name. Going by first names only, you've only got so much creativity (or lack thereof) before you have to start calling some people by the same name. Add in last names and you've greatly increased the number of people you can refer to without confusion. Add in middle names or suffixes and you've added yet another layer of identity to prevent confusion.

Like Ary said, any individual program won't be able to address more than 2 GB or RAM at a time (and those kinds of greedy programs are rare indeed), but having more RAM on a 64-bit system allows your operating system to not only have more room to work around RAM-hungry programs, but to also tell those RAM-hungry programs about some unaddressed RAM in another part that allows them to run at full speed without choking much else on your system. Getting large amounts of RAM, however, still won't solve all your problems, as ANY kind of execution relies on processor time. A single core processor can only handle so much execution at once that there's an effective upper limit on how much a RAM upgrade will equate to your computer running. A dual core processor effectively allows almost double the amount of execution at once, while a quad-core processor effectively quadruples the amount of execution at once.

Also, the "run in twos" refers to how DDR2 RAM is usually set up in dual channel configurations.

[Killer_Man_]

Which I have DDR2.

Regardless, what I plan on doing is transferring and backing up everything on my secondary harddrive and just doing a fresh/format install of windows 7 64 bit.

EDIT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145589

Sadly they don't sell my ram anymore but that is ok.

[Charlie]

Winamp and 64-Bit don't get along for me, apparently. Use it for a few minutes, or seconds, or however long it feels, then it tells me it's encountered a problem and needs to close. I decided for now until they release a fix for it "fuck it. Use Windows Media Player." That aside, I'm having no problems with it either.

[Killer_Man_]

I plan on getting windows 7 during teh holidays and hope it's cheaper and if not oh well.

[llama_egg]

Have you tried media monkey or Foobar2k? Or anything other then WMP for that matter? It's a pretty bad media player compared to what else is available no matter how you cut it.

[Arainach]

He's not using WMP, he's using Winamp.

.....which I'm unable to offer advice on since I haven't installed Winamp in the better part of.....oh, I don't know, 7 years? It's entirely possible the last time I was using it was on Win98.

[llama_egg]

He's not using WMP, he's using Winamp.

I decided for now until they release a fix for it "fuck it. Use Windows Media Player."

Sup'?

[Arainach]

This is where everyone discovers that Brian only reads the first half of posts.

[llama_egg]

Originally Posted by Arainach

This is where everyone discovers that Brian only reads the first half of posts.

So what half of my last post did you read? I MUST KNOW! FOR SCIENCE!

[Arainach]

Well, sometimes I read the first half, then the first half of the remaining segment, and then so on and so on, gradually approaching the end of the post as I recurse an infinite number of times.

[Killer_Man_]

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mo...s.aspx?pid=013

So I bought this mouse today cause my old microsoft wired mouse died.

I only paid 32 dollars cause I had a gift cert from BestBuy. I like it a lot though I had to slow down the 'sensitivity' of all my games a lot because the mouse pointer would move so godly fast.

[Colonel Skills]

'eh.

I want a R.A.T. 9

No idea when that'll eventually be available though.

[llama_egg]

Didn't know they where working on a wireless R.A.T., saying that though I'm still not interested enough to buy one. More moving parts = more chances of breaking.

[Colonel Skills]

That said, all the reviews for the 7 have been almost universally positive and the build quality is supposed to be very good.

I am quite interested.

It helps that it looks like a Decepticon too.

[Killer_Man_]

Originally Posted by Colonel Skills

'eh.

I want a R.A.T. 9

No idea when that'll eventually be available though.

I do too but sadly it costs too much to be a reasonable purchase.