XP Pro x64 performance thoughts?

For those of you that are running XP Pro x64 (hopefully there are a few!), what are your thoughts of the OS as a gaming platform?

I just massively upgraded my system for Oblivion....I'm such a whore for Oblivion

AMD Athlon X2 3800+ 64bit
2GB PC400 DDR2
GF 7800 GT

What is the general consensus on driver performance/stability/availability these days? The OS has been out for almost a year now. I just want to know if I should reinstall 32 bit XP now or not.

I'm a little worried at the moment. Originally I had dumped my HDD, with XP pro 32bit, in the new system and fired it up (after loading the new drivers). 3dmark 05 was silky smooth. Oblivion was night and day difference. Then I reinstalled the OS to the 64bit version. The OS is much more responsive, but after downloading 3dmark 06, the same demo that was in 05, Return to Procyon, was wayyyyy slow. I don't know to attribute this to 1) the difference between 3dmark 05 and 06, 2) the difference in the 64 bit and 32 bit nVidia drivers or 3) the OS difference.

Oblivion still looks super sexy though and fast, especially after using some of the tweaks in the Oblivion hardware thread. Just a touch concerned about 3dmark 06 and I figure it would be simple to ask and see what others experiences have been.

Anyways, if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear em.

No point in running XP x64 now.. wait for Vista which will be 32/64bit out the box and have tremendously better driver support and compatability (eventually) with all games.

I agree, I tried it a few months ago when I first got my Athlon 64 and I had enough compatibility issues to make me re-install 32-bit Windows.

PunkBuster HATED me

I'm running Win2003 Server, in 32-bit mode, which is exactly the same version of Windows (build 3790) as XP64.
That said, 32-bit win2k3 is -very- snappy, and with SP1, it's rather nice to use. Surprisingly better than XP Pro was.

HOWEVER.

Listen to Guru. XP64 will have next to no drivers out right now, and due to being in full 64-bit mode, 32-bit context switches for stuff like games are slow on the current crop of 64-bit CPUs.
You're better off, for gaming, sticking with XP Pro, or 2k3 if you can afford it ($800 or so for the license).

HTH.

2k3 snappier than XP Pro ? Isn't 2k3 loaded with all kinds of server memory hogging stuff ?

shihonage wrote:

2k3 snappier than XP Pro ? Isn't 2k3 loaded with all kinds of server memory hogging stuff ?

It has a lot of stuff to it, but it is all off by default. 2k3 is thier best server software by far.

shihonage wrote:

2k3 snappier than XP Pro ? Isn't 2k3 loaded with all kinds of server memory hogging stuff ?

Given that on the very first boot to the desktop after install, 2k3 comes up at a whopping ~90MB of RAM in use...
I would have to say no.

ALL the performance-hogging XP stuff, such as theming, is off by default. The entire experience reminds me very much of win2k, where it's trying to just get out of your way as much as possible.

And yeah, it's -snappy-. It feels faster than XP did. I got the same feeling on my 1800+ as I get on my new 3100+.

After a while, yeah, it slows down like normal Windows, but it always feels just a little more responsive.

Wow, so 2k3 could be in fact Windows 2000 with XP's Cleartype and Hyperthreading - something that I've been looking for.