64 Bit 7 Vs 32 Bit XP For Doom?

I have recently bought a Dell XPS M1710 from eBay (I know, I know!) it has Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium installed on it but it didn't come with the disc (surprise, surprise - see above parenthesis...).

In day to day use the machine runs fine but when I try to install things I run into problems all the time. Setpoint for my Logitech gear, Zengine for my Zboard and DB 2 are all software, amongst others, that I can't install without getting errors. Long story short: I think the Windows install is a bit junked but I can't repair it without the disc!

However, I do have an original copy of XP 32 Bit Home Premium (SP2).

My question is if I went back to 32 bit XP would I lose game performance over sticking to a 'crippled' install of 64 bit Win 7? This laptop is primarily for all the ports of Doom (Risen, GZDoom, ZDoom, Edge, Chocolate et al) so I'm not too bothered about losing performance in 'modern' games.

The laptop has a 2.33 GHz Dual Core CPU, Geforce 7950 GTX and 4 GIg of RAM.

32-bit is fine if you only have 4 GB RAM.

32 bit XP can only use 2 gb ram afaik.

The situation is a little complicated. There are some reasonable posts about it here:

http://www.sharkyforums.com/showthread.php?t=292548

Hmmm. It's never easy is it?! So, I could install XP and lose anything from 512 meg to 2 gig of memory?? Wow.

As far as the 32 vs 64 bit thing go, would I lose any performance there, at all? And does anyone know if any of the source ports intend to do anything special in the future with regards to 64 bit OS's?

Thanks so far guys! :)

kristus said:

32 bit XP can only use 2 gb ram afaik.

No, the limit is 3 GB +/- something, depending on what devices you have installed and how hog the reserved memory addresses over the 3rd GB. BTW, this is NOT a limitation of XP alone, but of any 32-bit OS.

Yeah, SOME 32-bit OSes can address more than 4 GB of RAM with some memory-extension trickery, but even in those the RAM between 3 and 4 GB is considered unusable, at the address ranges are still reserved.

PFL said:

Hmmm. It's never easy is it?! So, I could install XP and lose anything from 512 meg to 2 gig of memory?? Wow.

If you have 3 GB, you will only lose a few KB at the end (even with 2 GB you will lose some anyway, and that's with ANY OS).

PFL said:

As far as the 32 vs 64 bit thing go, would I lose any performance there, at all?

No, quite the opposite you will gain some, especially with Doom source ports: all are 32-bit apps which will run natively in a 32-bit OS, without the need to use compatibility wrappers. Also, the data bus at the motherboard/CPU/RAM level is 64-bit even when using a 32-bit or even a 16-bit OS, so you will not gain/lose any magical processing speed just because you're using a 64/32/16 bits OS: memory transfers are ALWAYS 64-bit at a time, and even 32-bit code can use 64-bit operands.

Also, 64-bit apps are more bloated at the executable code level, so using 32-bit apps gives you a RAM usage advantage, while THE DATA BUS IS STILL 64-bit. Been that way since the Pentium 1 days, although not everyone is aware of it. So no, it's not like switching form an 8-bit NES to a 16-bit SNES. It's more like switching from a 32-bit Playstation to a wish-it-was-128 Sega Dreamcast :-p


I don't know how different your Dell is from mine, which had full XP support from Dell, but I can help you with drivers in case Dell decided to play hide and seek.

...of course, you could just install Windows 7 32-bit edition, in case you "find" a disk, and get the best of both worlds. Technically, you already paid for a copy of Windows 7...

Another thing about switching to XP that might be relevant: I know that a lot of people who switched to XP in the early days of Vista had problems because XP was unable to recognise their hard drives for some reason. I forget what the reason was and what the solution was (though there was one). I guess this does also beg the question of whether there might be some newer hardware in the laptop that XP is unaware of.

It sounds like, for what you want, there will be little consequence from moving to a 32 bit OS as far as performance and target applications go.

[edit] Maes covered most of those points and then some while I was posting [/edit]

Enjay said:

Another thing about switching to XP that might be relevant: I know that a lot of people who switched to XP in the early days of Vista had problems because XP was unable to recognise their hard drives for some reason. I forget what the reason was and what the solution was (though there was one). I guess this does also beg the question of whether there might be some newer hardware in the laptop that XP is unaware of.

That is almost always due to the lack of several AHCI/SATA drivers in XP (most notable, VIA-based SATA controllers, JMicron and others, as well as newest Intel ones). The solution is to use nLite and slipstream an XP install disk with the correct drivers (I had to do it several times for different newly made laptops, including mine, and also for my VIA-based desktop mobo (a Socket 754 ASUS K8V-X). No black magic here, and I wonder how this is still not common knowledge among the public (it surely is among repairmen/system installers). Some laptops even have an "IDE compatibility mode" in their BIOS (mine didn't, so I had to use nLite).


As far as hardware that is 100% unsupported in XP goes, luckily I've not encountered any yet: even if some big-name manufacturers like HP or even Dell right now try and convince customers NOT to install XP and even "hide" drivers from their sites, ALL hardware is still fully supported at the individual component manufacturer level.

E.g. HP doesn't give me drivers for their laters Intel ICH9-based laptop? No problem, since Intel who make the drivers still has them IN FULL on their website, and they even cover DOS/Linux/OS/2. Broadcom networking? No problem. Conexant modems? No problem. Intel wireless? Idem. Bluetooth? Works like a charm. Built-in camera? More of the same. So no, no problems with "exotic" hardware yet. Most components have been floating around for years anyway, so the very-fucking-least you will be able to find SOME kind of driver. You just lose the convenience of the manufacturer of the laptop providing you with all you need unless you're using 7: you need to go hunting.

And don't think that this "hide and seek" only affects XP: HP even "hides" Vista drivers in the same manner, while as we all know official support for Linux is practically inexistent, as of 2010. Yet they do work.

TBH, I did think about 'acquiring' another copy of Win 7 but I don't have a DVD burner so that plan was knocked on the head. It looks like I'm going back to XP.

As far as the HDD issue goes, the laptop originally had XP on it as evidenced by the wee sticker on the casing. So, I don't foresee any problems there.

If I do decide to go with XP should I upgrade to SP3 before installing all my multifarious drivers or after? Does it make much difference? Again, thanks for the help!

From memory, XP SP2 was a significant upgrade that added a few features and generally improved things. SP3 was, primarily, a roll-up of all the important hotfixes that had been released since SP2 but, other than that, it added or changed very little. Personally, I like to keep stuff as up to date as possible and have not had any problems with the machines that I run with SP3.

PFL said:

As far as the HDD issue goes, the laptop originally had XP on it as evidenced by the wee sticker on the casing. So, I don't foresee any problems there.

Still, it may not work with a generic copy of XP that does not include your laptop-specific AHCI/SATA driver. Seeing how laptops usually ship with "recovery disks" that do an image-based restoring and are tailor-made for your laptop, you may need to jump through some hoops. E.g. in my case using a generic XP SP3 disk resulted in a BSOD during installation. I had to slipstream the correct Intel ICH9 SATA drivers into another XP SP3 disk, and then it worked like a charm. Of course I keep backups of this tailor-made XP SP3 disk.

PFL said:

If I do decide to go with XP should I upgrade to SP3 before installing all my multifarious drivers or after? Does it make much difference? Again, thanks for the help!

I'd say find a straight-to-SP3 disk. Going all the way from SP0 to SP2 and then to SP3 is very time consuming, and you will just increase disk fragmentation/filesystem clutter in doing so.

Enjay said:

Stuff about SP3

By now, I wouldn't dare install anything less than SP3 on a machine that's going to be connected to the Internet: by the time SP3 was out, several nasty shit like the Conficker/Downadup worm appeared. All SP2 or lesser machines in my workplace were FUBAR, SP3 resisted much better but they still were vulnerable. IMHO, there should be a SP4 coming, since even after SP3 there have been so many updates (a fresh SP3 install will result in no less than 70 important security updates being downloaded, and they keep on coming).

Don't forget, there are 4 years between SP2 and SP3, and even "bare" SP3 is 2 years old, by now.

It will work fine with XP. That computer came out when the only OS choice for it was XP. The drivers for XP are here.

Sadly, the computer was built after Dell stopped its policy of giving lifetime phone support, so you probably won't be able to convince them to replace any of the original discs (computers built before Oct of 2004 are awesome for that reason only).

You can see the exact order details for the machine if you enter its service tag into their warranty information screen. You won't learn too much new by doing that, unless the guy who bought it got suckered into a really long warranty, in which case you can transfer the ownership to you and get free CDs.

Maes said:

By now, I wouldn't dare install anything less than SP3...

Yes, I wasn't trying to dismiss SP3 when I said that it was mainly a collection of the hotfixes since SP2. That alone is reason enough to install it.

A final SP4 would be nice to see but I'd be surprised to see MS doing it.

Maes said:

Yeah, SOME 32-bit OSes can address more than 4 GB of RAM with some memory-extension trickery, but even in those the RAM between 3 and 4 GB is considered unusable, at the address ranges are still reserved.

Oh rubbish.

>4Gb is accessible by use of PAE, hardware support for which has been around since 1995 and software support since 1999's Linux kernels and Windows 2000. Microsoft disable addressing higher than 4Gb even with PAE enabled to protect users from poorly written unstable drivers (and presumably to push sales of their 64-bit OS). Using a 32-bit Linux kernel with CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y set will provide completely stable support for up to 64Gb total system RAM, though each 32-bit process is still restricted to ~3Gb.

Enjay said:

Yes, I wasn't trying to dismiss SP3 when I said that it was mainly a collection of the hotfixes since SP2. That alone is reason enough to install it.

That, and SP2 is no longer supported by Microsoft, whereas SP3 is (if you have a genuine copy, which hardly anyone does anyway).


Anyway, back to OP's question: With specs like that, any OS you install will be more than good enough for Doom performance. Use whatever suits the rest of your computer usage best.

Super Jamie said:

Oh rubbish.

What and where? You just referred to my "memory extension trickery" with its proper name, PAE. And it's still for >4GB, which I dind't say you couldn't address. I just said that no OS can do shit for the memory between 3 and 4 GB because it's reserved at the BIOS level. Maybe on a Mac...

Yep if you have more than 2gb of RAM you should use a 64bit OS no doubt, if not than w/e lol

Mr. T said:

Yep if you have more than 2gb of RAM you should use a 64bit OS no doubt, if not than w/e lol

What happens if you have exactly 3 GB?

Even with exactly 3gb you will have less RAM available depending on your video card

Well, I had the day off today so I just went for it. I'm now running XP SP3. The My Computer properties tells me I have 3.25 gigs or RAM so that's not too bad. The OS is more sluggish than Windows 7 on this machine but Doom runs just as well as it used to and I can install drivers again! It does feel like stepping back in time though! :)

What flavour of DOOM are you running if you were worried about its performance on that thing? That computer can probably run Oblivion ok.

Mostly GZDoom but I play others like Risen 3D. It runs most things fine but there are some wads out there that slows up this beast though.

I just wasn't sure what impact there would be on performance going from a modern 64 bit OS to a 10 year old 32 bit one. As it (so far!) turns out there has been no impact whatsoever - though I have lost 750 megabytes of RAM. Wow, can you imagine saying that you even had 750 meg of RAM when Doom first hit??!!

PFL said:

Wow, can you imagine saying that you even had 750 meg of RAM when Doom first hit??!!

I think that had 3MB of RAM at the time and no-one I knew could understand why I had such a stupidly high amount in my system. LOL

I had 16 MB then. My computer was 1337, except for its lack of a sound card. My computer was also paid for a by research funding that was of course not mine because I was a kid.