TGE on WinXP x64 ?

#1 I have a 64bit box for my debug box. I initially put XP x64 on it ...

The problem is this:

You need x64 drivers for all the hardware. If you have a decent graphics card, thats not a problem. However, ATI's drivers support at minimum a 9500 (I have a 9200 in my debug box) and the MS drivers don't support OGL and are really slow. The situation for nVidia drivers is a little better, but still not great. Bottom line is that cards you can still buy new, even if the 32bit drivers support them, are not neccessarily supported by 64bit drivers.

Shell extensions don't work unless they're updated for the 64bit shell. This means that all the nice little things like TortoiseSVN don't work. However, with some digging I did manage to find a 64bit version of TortoiseSVN. I believe a 64bit version of Beyond Compare just came out in beta. WinZip doesnt have a 64bit shell extension. At the time I looked into it, T-SVN was the only thing I use that I could find with a 64bit version (and that took a lot of digging). Check all the shell extensions that you use for 64bit versions, or find yourself frustrated.

The above two issues were killers for me and I went back to just using the 32bit version of XP. I never tried compiling a 64bit version of TGE itself since I wouldnt have been able to run it due to aforementioned driver issue. I would say that it more then likely does not work out of the box (like I said, I havent tried, so I could be wrong) ... if you're not a programmer, you probably want to either avoid it or get someone else to compile it for you.

Also, the larger memory thing is not really needed. You don't really need more then 4gb of memory, and even that is really excessive ;-)

Of course, what you do is up to you, just thought I'd pass on my experience with XP x64.

T.

#2 Torque (with work, and I have only seen it done on a linux build by a highly experienced linux guru) can be compiled in 32 bit emulation mode (using 32 bit libraries) and run just fine on a 64 bit (again, linux) machine.

I have a 64 bit cpu on my laptop, but am using WinXP Pro 32 bit version, and it's transparent to Torque (in fact, I never really thought about it until just now).

#3 Thanks Tom and Stephen for sharing your experience!

I've heard good things about running DCC tools like Maya and Photoshop on XP-64, though I knew that drivers would be an issue -- especially for printers, scanners etc. However I've read the nvidia drivers work and I'd be running a Quadro of some type.

> the MS drivers don't support OGL and are really slow.

That sounds scary and I'll have to research that...

Well I now suspect that compiling a 64 or 32-bit Torque executable from VC++ on XP-64 might be a bit beyond me. But, I might be able to compile on my Win2000 box and launch the executable from the new machine, *if* Torque will run alright as a 32-bit application. Anyone ever done this? The downside is playing musical chairs (a bit)...

Still on the fence, but learning towards staying 32-bit to keep it simple...

- Matthew Durante

#4 Re: OGL drivers ... if your card is supported by official nVidia x64 drivers, you wont have that problem. I only had the problem because ATI's drivers didnt support my 9200 so had to use the MS drivers for it.

A 32bit build of TGE runs just fine on XP x64 and 32bit XP, so you probably dont need to build a 64bit version. Pretty much all 32bit software (there might be exceptions) runs on XP x64 just as well as they do on a 32bit OS. Its only really shell extensions and drivers that are the trouble area since they have to be 64bit.

If you have the ability to test XP x64 without losing anything (e.g. a trial version or you have an MSDN subscription) then I'd suggest trying it out and see if it works for you. If you have to buy XP x64 then you're probably best off just using the 32bit one. If you have to buy a copy of XP regardless, buy the 32bit version. Microsoft have a trade in deal thing where you can trade in a 32bit copy of XP Pro for a 64bit one. I forget where I saw details of that now, but you should be able to find it on their site somewhere.

T.

#5 Thanks for clarifying the OGL issue, makes sense now.

> A 32bit build of TGE runs just fine on XP x64 and 32bit XP...

Good to know!

> Microsoft have a trade in deal thing where you can trade in a 32bit copy of XP Pro for a 64bit one.

Doubly good!

Okay, well I'll probably go 32bit for know and I can always updgrade. Thanks again for your help,

- Matthew Durante

#6 I have some experience with 64bit XP and win2k3... and my recomendation is: dont go near it right now.

bad driver support, bad software support is a big headache. if you have a very specific business case, then fine, but otherwise, dont bother with it right now.. at least not for your pirmary dev machine.

#7 I'm running a dual-boot system with both x86 and x86-64 windows, just for compatibility. I'm waiting for a faster version of VMWare comes out before I destroy 32 bit.