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changing operating system and backing up

209manny

209manny

\m/
Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Location
Modesto
Moto(s)
2001 Triumph Speed Triple
Name
Manny
I have windows xp x64, I switched from 32 bit windows xp because I wanted to install more ram than windows xp 32 bit could detect. I have 5gb of ram.

I'm thinking of switching operating systems to either vista 32 bit ultimate or vista x64.

Reason why I want to switch is because I'm having compatibility issues with my 64 bit windows OS. Many companies don't make drivers for this OS or they don't update their drivers. I want to have more support for applications and drivers.

Which OS should I stick with? I use my computer for gaming, and general use like internet, photos, music.

Now If I do switch to 32 bit vista I won't be able to do straight upgrade, because you can't do it with a 64 bit OS to a 32 bit OS and vise versa. I have about 120GB worth of stuff that I want to backup, I have a dual layer dvd burner but I don't want to deal with having a dozen of dvds.

What would be better an external hard drive or a larger internal hard drive? Both would be about the same price.
 
Get an external drive , you'll find other uses for it. (storing pron?)

If you're having compatibility issues stick with 32. I am not a vista fan as my XP has been rock solid and I am a VERY heavy user and a hardcore gamer. (network systems administrator, all we do is play games anyway :p)

What are you doing that's using so much ram? I have 4gigs (3.5 since 32bitXP) and I have never even come close to maxing it out. Thats apps , games , photoshop , firefox etc etc etc
 
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PhoS said:
Get an external drive , you'll find other uses for it. (storing pron?)

If you're having compatibility issues stick with 32. I am not a vista fan as my XP has been rock solid and I am a VERY heavy user and a hardcore gamer. (network systems administrator all we do is play games anyway :p)

What are you doing that's using so much ram? I have 4gigs (3.5 since 32bitXP) and I have never even come close to maxing it out. Thats apps , games , photoshop , firefox etc etc etc
Click to expand...

I have some hd movies, and a huge amount of high sound quality music files. Also programs that I have installed and lost the install discs. Plus all the torrents I've accumulated over the past 2 years.

I have 6gb of ram because ram for my computer is dirt cheap. I can get a 2gb stick for $22. I play alot of games and I like having fast load times, and with 6gb of ram my computer boots a lot quicker.

I only got xp x64 because of the ram issue with 32 bit XP. Only problem is that some games are kind of buggy with windows 64 bit, I don't know if its the drivers or what, but I didn't have any compatability issues with 32 bit xp.
 
Boot time improvement increase from 2 gigs to 6gigs might be your butt dyno talking. As compared from going from 1 gig to 2 which can be upwards of 25% faster. You would probably notice more of an increase if you got an automatic defragmenting program (I use O&O) , cleaned out unnecessary startup items, upgrading to faster hard drives , optimizing your OS which is bloated with tons of unneeded crap. And if you were feeling real frisky going into the bios and tweaking the memory timings and other bios settings manually for optimal performance.

Lightly numbed down Technobabble: You are actually hurting yourself adding more sticks as your motherboard can not use the memory as aggressively as less sticks. That's why you see most of the high performance stuff in matched pairs of 2GB 4GB etc

Crysis easily uses the most memory out of any game I play and that is barely pushing a gig on ultra quality.

Do some reading here sometime if you're bored , it helps ALOT.

www.tweakguides.com
 
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p.s forget about all of the hardware tweaking I mentioned if you have a dell , HP , gateway or any other store brought PC as they will not support such performance tweaking options.
 
PhoS said:
Boot time improvement increase from 2 gigs to 6gigs might be your butt dyno talking. As compared from going from 1 gig to 2 which can be upwards of 25% faster. You would probably notice more of an increase if you got an automatic defragmenting program (I use O&O) , cleaned out unnecessary startup items, upgrading to faster hard drives , optimizing your OS which is bloated with tons of unneeded crap. And if you were feeling real frisky going into the bios and tweaking the memory timings and other bios settings manually for optimal performance.

Lightly numbed down Technobabble: You are actually hurting yourself adding more sticks as your motherboard can not use the memory as aggressively as less sticks. That's why you see most of the high performance stuff in matched pairs of 2GB 4GB etc

Crysis easily uses the most memory out of any game I play and that is barely pushing a gig on ultra quality.

Do some reading here sometime if you're bored , it helps ALOT.

www.tweakguides.com
Click to expand...

for matched pairs then should I just get another 2gb stick and have all 4 slots with 2gb sticks? 8gb of ram:laughing:laughing

funny thing is that it cheaper to buy 2gb sticks than it is 1gb sticks
 
209manny said:
for matched pairs then should I just get another 2gb stick and have all 4 slots with 2gb sticks? 8gb of ram:laughing:laughing

funny thing is that it cheaper to buy 2gb sticks than it is 1gb sticks
Click to expand...

More sticks = higher latency = less performance :twofinger
 
209manny said:
but its 8 frickin' GB:x

but isn't it a good idea to have the slots occupied to take advantage of dual channel?
Click to expand...

Imagine having a gigantic warehouse. Sure you have a shitload of storage space but ya gotta drive your fork lift all the way down to the end to fill/empty it. :party
 
209manny said:
but its 8 frickin' GB:x
Click to expand...

Imagine having a gigantic warehouse. Sure you have a shitload of storage space but ya gotta drive your fork lift all the way down to the end to fill/empty it. :party

but isn't it a good idea to have the slots occupied to take advantage of dual channel?
Click to expand...
depends if your board will do dual channel with 4 sticks , I recommend downloading Sisoft sandra and doing your own memory tests to see what works best. :teeth
 
PhoS said:
Imagine having a gigantic warehouse. Sure you have a shitload of storage space but ya gotta drive your fork lift all the way down to the end to fill/empty it. :party
Click to expand...

I remember seeing a benchmark on a website that that compared the new fast ram with older ddr2 667and the difference was about 2-4 fps on games
 
For ease and versatility, get an external HDD. IMO definitely worth the $100 or so. Oh, you might want to consider getting a faster / bigger HDD than what you have now and merely swapping that in for the new install and putting your current internal HDD in an external case. That'll save you from having to move data twice.

Personally I like to make sure I have two copies of my data all of the time *because hardware fails*. If you also burn a set of DVDs just to store you know you have that copy if any problem crops up.
 
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With XP64 I think you are in the best position. Get an external drive if you are worried about backup.

I ran the most demanding game I have ever run with minimal issues on XP Home 32. That was Age of Conan. An MMO with the graphics of Oblivion. I think XP 64 is the most capable OS right now. I was tempted to move to a Vista 64 system, but I only stood to gain from the RAM limit of a 64bit system, which Vista required twice what XP did.
 
If you have the money move to SSDs.

Via http://www.pricewatch.com

http://www.lagoom.com/OCZ_OCZSSD2-1C128G_128GB_Core_Series/OCZSSD2-1C128G/partinfo-id-583114.html

huge.jpg
 
Should have installed your OS on an old 40Gb drive, and put your data on your larger drive. :nerd

If/when your PC crashes, or you want a different OS, you can just swap out that drive, load your OS and any apps. Your data files will remain untouched. :thumbup
 
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