Vista 32-bit vs. 64-bit with 2GB of RAM

Which is the better choice with 2GB of RAM?

 

x86 because x64 will use up more ram and has more system resources.

But if you ever want to upgrade to 4GB or more, I would recommend x64.

Mike.

 

It will? What makes you think that?
Both should work fine, with no noticeable differences either way.

 

no noticeable difference at all, i've run Ultimate x86 and x64 under 2gbs of ram, only difference is how your Vid card handles shared memory.

 

All I know is that I have 31 processes on with x86 Ultimate and 37 processes with x64. Both are on a clean installation, no antivirus/additional programs/drivers installed.

I mean, it's not significant, but it kind of sucks.

 

I found the hard drive was less active under x64 but no noticeable performance differences among the two as far as I could tell.

 

ScifiMike12 Vista x64 doesn't have x64 specific processes, so it's got to be a problem on your side.
Vista x64 always performs better than Vista x86, despite the RAM usage or quantity.

 

Go with X64. Just make sure your Notebook Drivers work with X64. Most likely they will.

 

x64 seams like the future. When rmclock 64bit signed driver comes out i'll change. Every time I used x64 vista i noticed a more zippy Vista, and no, i did not see more ram usage !!

 

Counting the number of processes is not a good way to determine performance or resources used. You might notice more on 64bit because of the 32bit subsystem that is also running.

 

Im much the same...I find that Vista itself seems to zip along better but Im not a great judge as I flip back and forth between SSDs compared to most with the HD.

For me, in any case, its just a more solid feeling. I don't know why.. I havent had my X86 installed for a few months now..

 

I'd say go with 32-bit because it's more common but if you want to future proof yourself go with 64-bit. It's all about preference if you don't need 4GB or up.

 

And why is that? Why it's not advisable to use x64 with less than 4GB of RAM?

 

Well i'm just saying that he shouldn't think he has to go with x64 if he has under 4GB of ram, some people think that with 2GB of ram you need x64 so i just wanted to tell him.

 

Either way, X86 or X64 you are probably using over 1Gb ram on a steady basis. I float at around 30% which is about 1.25Gb and I run several background applications such as Dreamscene and Object Desktop and so on...

 

But if you don't run stuff like dreamscene and the sidebar and object desktop then you'll barely ever use 1GB at all. You can shave even more off if you clean install, and you can turn aero off to shave a ton off. I kinda feel like iwasted money on getting 2GB.

 

RAM is strange, right now I'm using 1GB but if I let the comp open and do nothing for 4 hours, it will be suing 600MB

 

That's not a very accurate way of measuring memory consumption or anything else though. It basically doesn't matter how many background processes you have running (as long as they don't actively suck CPU time)
Hell, after booting up, even Windows XP has something like 800 threads running. It's a multitasking OS, it's designed to handle that.

True. 64bit isn't a must, especially not if you have relatively little RAM (and odn't do too much high-end gaming)
Imo it's more of a "might as well" thing. It doesn't hurt, and it might solve a few semi-rare problems. (Of course, if it ends up causing problems in your case, don't use it)