XP or Vista, 32 or 64 bit?

[midnight armadillo]

I am upgrading my old Pentium 4 PC shortly, to an AMD Athlon BE-2400 dual core chip. The dilemma begins: should I continue to use 32-bit XP, get a copy of 64-bit XP, or bite the bullet and go to Vista? 2 gig of RAM are planned.

Linux or Net/Free/OpenBSD are not an option, I have a 2nd job doing Java development at night that requires windows DLLs, and in fact this PC is meant to facilitate that work.

Right now I am leaning towards 64-bit XP, any thoughts?

[CreekDog]

1. XP, I have both. XP is preferable

no position on the 32 v 64 bit except that if it requires Vista, then it's not worth any benefit.

[Deja Q]

2. I'd avoid XP 64-bit.

Vista 64-bit is something of an improvement, but with driver compatibility and other issues, stay with XP.

Both my machines are Vista and I love the interface, but it is a bit hoggy. (6 browser windows and Photoshop with two large 300ppi photos open with multiple layers, I'm using 2.2GB - with XP it'd be down to 1.8GB)

Vista also has DirectX 10; which moves more graphics processing functions to the GPU. Flight Sim X runs rather nice...

[CRF450]

4. I agree!

At first FSX was ran like crap because of the lack of DX10 and multi-core cpu support. The SP1 fixed that and it runs so much better. The DX10/SP2 patch coming out will further improve performance. Check this out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJOlNKof6gY

[Deja Q]

5. Sweet. SP2 is currently integrated into the "Acceleration" add-in pack.

Well worth the $30...

[CRF450]

3. Vista should do just fine.

As for memory 2gigs is good enough, but if you want more, you can buy a USB flash drive thats made for "ready boost". Its like adding another stick of ram, yet flash drives are fairly cheap for the amount of memory you'd get.

Besides, when microsoft cuts support for XP, you'd have to upgrade again. It'll be improved when the service packs are released just as it was for XP, then it will be just as good performance wise.

[midnight armadillo]

7. End-of-Life for XP concerns me

A friend is giving me an Nvidia 7800GT so I should have no trouble with the Vista GUI...(he just got a massive promotion so he's upgrading all his toys, to my benefit).
Maybe 64-bit Vista is the way to go.

[CRF450]

8. I honestly havent read much about the 64bit version

You could get Vista Ultimate, it comes with both 32 and 64bit versions, and has all the features of both Home Premium and Bussiness. If the 64bit doesn't work out for you, you could switch to 32bit. Most pc's are using the 32bit version anyways.

Yeah, with that card you wouldn't have any trouble with the GUI, you'd have to upgrade sooner or later though cause games are gonna start heading for DX10. I'm gonna build a new pc within the next month, mainly for Crysis and FSX, my current setup is getting close 3 years old now so its time for an upgrade anyways.

[CatholicEdHead]

6. XP 32bit

Stay away from all versions of Vista until at least SP1 if not SP2.