Windows XP X64 Edition - F.L.I.E.S !

[parry]

I read in a couple of posts here that XP x64 edition should be faster than the 32bit edition due to being better (based off 2k3 code base) and faster (doesn't hammer the APIC like 32-bit does).

While cleaning up my home-office today I found my old x64 edition CD which I had long forgotten I had and I decided to give it a run under Fusion.

The result is almost surprisingly fast - No scrolling flickers, very fast screen drawing, faster application launches - everything just feels snappier. I could tell whether I was using 32-bit or 64-bit by just using the VM.

I think all the apps I need work fine on x64 - so I will just ditch the 32-bit VM.

I recommend that anyone having x64 copy and Fusion should seriously consider using it instead of the 32-bit version.

[Phuongca]

sounds good. may i ask how Office 2007 runs on it? (if you by chance have it)

ive been using parallels-converted VM and had no intention to do a fresh install since i mostly only run MS Office. but if there is such big difference in performance i'd probably give it a try.

[aliasme]

If I remember correctly, I think Brad explained that x64 is also using the VTx apis from Intel and SCSI disk types. It's indeed very fast, but I hit problems trying to use it during the beta and kept running into memory issues (possibly because ints are twice as large in x64?).

[parry]

I do use Office 2007 but haven't installed it yet on x64 - will let you know how it goes.

[Phuongca]

I do use Office 2007 but haven't installed it yet on

x64 - will let you know how it goes.

please do

oh and let me know how much memory you allocated to the VM.

i give it 512 since i got 2GB on the host side. but i heard x64 systems need twice as much memories

[Andreas_Masur]

It's indeed very fast, but I hit problems trying to use it during the beta and kept

running into memory issues (possibly because ints are twice as large in x64?).

You hit problems with running Office 2007? Or with Windows x64 itself? The size of types such as integers etc. is actually defined by the underlying CPU...

Ciao, Andreas

[parry]

If by memory issues you mean more consumption - that will be true if you use 64-bit apps. But even in that case I think it should not consume more than 10% extra per AMD/Intel statements. In fact right now I am running with 512Mb RAM and the base OS/Browser run just fine.

I plan to use mostly 32-bit apps (like most people) so it should not make a difference in terms of memory.

You are right that while running x64 Fusion uses VT-X - I am not sure about the SCSI disks - I think one can use SCSI disks even with 32-bit.

[parry]

I am planning to give it 1Gb - I too have 2Gb on the host side. Currently though as I said the base OS/Browser run just fine in 512Mb. I will try running with 512Mb first and see if Office 2007 does Ok before adding more.

[Andreas_Masur]

sounds good. may i ask how Office 2007 runs on it?

(if you by chance have it)

It should work quite fine...the more important questions while using 64-bit operating systems are usually:

\- Can the application be installed (some installer use 16-bit code that does not run on x64)

\- What functionality is available (spell-checker of Outlook uses 32-bit-Dll thus no spell checking on x64)

Ciao, Andreas

[aliasme]

You hit problems with running Office 2007? Or with

Windows x64 itself?

No problems with Office 2007.

Driver issues with some other apps.

[Andreas_Masur]

Driver issues with some other apps.

That is apparently another issue with x64 systems...granted Windows XP x64 came out 2005 which was just the beginning time of x64 CPUs but from what I have seen/heard, Vista is still some kind of well...labor-intensive to get it running with all you need...

Ciao, Andreas

[aliasme]

Yeah, drivers on x64 can be a real pain.

So help me understand, since Win XP now has SCSI disks and buffering is enabled by default, and the graphics routines in Fusion have been optimized, and VTx wasn't used because under "common load" VMware determined their 10 years of binary translation experience produced better results than VTx. Keeping those things in mind, why does x64 feel and perform better? What is Parallels doing that Fusion is not. I'm pretty happy with the interface, but there's still a perceptive performance gap between Win32 and x64 on Fusion, and a gap between 2D Win32 on Fusion and Win32 on Parallels.

Thoughts?

[parry]

Probably the fact that XP x64 is more Virtualization friendly than x32 and does not hammer the APIC like x32 are the two biggest reasons. Throw in VT-x benefits and you have your answer

[aliasme]

In the spirit of, "when the going gets tough, the tough install beta operating systems." I'll give x64 another run. This should let me effectively procrastinate the real work I have to do. :^D

x64 download from Microsoft: 6 minutes

reinstalling all of requisite applications: 7 hours

reconfiguring all of my applications and moving data: 25 minutes

Saving 80ms when launching a network share and moving windows around like Fatal1ty on crack....priceless.

[aliasme]

So, doing some side-by-side testing and benchmarking (for internal purposes only), the differences I have found between WinXP and WinXP 64 Edition are not nearly as pronounced as they were during the beta cycles. Win64 is faster, but it's not a must-have upgrade or change people should generally make, IMHO.

\[EDIT]

Follow-up:

I have done a lot of testing today to try and quantify the differences between WinXP and WinXP x64 Edition. Side-by-side you are going to see the same performance differences you would on native hardware. In synthetic benchmarks x64 clocks in 20%-80% faster on a variety of operations (ints, floats, ssl type encryption, string sorting, etc.) If you have any type of scientific computing to do it may be worthwhile looking at the differences. On the flip-side there were some tests where XP is faster (SIMD for example).

There is still a signficant difference in the raw/synthetic 2D performance of XP and x64. x64 is about on par with Parallels and about 80% faster than XP in a variety of tests. HOWEVER, VMware has done such a fantastic job of tuning the XP interface that these differences are not going to be noticeable most of the time. They have focused on the user experience and it shows, the places where they lose in raw performance, they make up for in low latency (snappiness).

Overall, I don't think any consumers should bother with x64. Programmers might if you truly have the requirements where one of the x64 gains will provide benefit. I'm not talking about cutting your coffee break shorter by 10 minutes when doing a full compile, I'm talking about saving 5 days doing time space analysis on 10 billion data points.

Personally, I am planning to use both. I have a couple of projects with millions of records and there's no question I will benefit from a specific integer speed up in x64. However, I am not moving everything over --- day-to-day XP is just fine. And, if you go back to my earlier posts, I massively multitask, so if x64 offered even a slight advantage in keeping me focused I'd move, but I don't plan on it.

Message was edited by:

aliasme

[parry]

Well, whatever works best for you - I am not going back to XP32 as the x64 32-bit compatibility is generally great and it does fly for me. In other words I don't see a reason not to use x64 on VMWare if you already have a copy and supported processor - hardware drivers are a non-issue due to excellent VMWare support for x64 and virtually all other user space software runs fine on x64.

If you are on XP32 and it works well for you - well fine no need to update/reinstall but if starting fresh and given a choice between 32 and 64, no reason to look at 32-bit.

[Oben]

Hi,

Isn't x64 only available as a 120 day evaluation version?

Could you advise on that please as I have a CD copy of the evaluation x64 version.

[parry]

http://software.pricegrabber.com/windows-family-os/p/186/form_keyword=xp64pro/rd=1/mode=g_us_b_s/skd=1

You can buy a OEM Edition copy for 100$ I believe. That's not evaluation - it's a full license with the only restriction that once you install it on one machine you will cannot move it to another - but for VMWare purposes that should not be a problem.

[Oben]

Thank you for the link.

I installed the eval version again. It's been a while since I last looked at it.

It doesn't support Internet Explorer 7 it appears.

It appears that using XP32 for a while longer and upgrading to a 64 bit Vista might be the way to go for me. I hate paying MS more licensing fees when I won't be using the product to its full potential.

[Andreas_Masur]

It doesn't support Internet Explorer 7 it appears.

There exists a 64-bit version[/url]...

Ciao, Andreas