09-07-2005, 06:37 PM

I know this may seem a daft place to ask this but I know from previous discussions that those with the answer hang around here.

I have just built an AMD 64 system and cannot get XP-Pro to install on it, basically I tried to repair the existing installation (everything bar the motherboard came from my old system) but no joy, then I tried to install fresh but without formatting - no joy. Now I'm waiting for my Hard Drive to format then I'll try a completely clean install.

Now for my question:

I am also downloading the 64 bit version of XP as a standby option but I need to know if it will work OK with my existing games as the PC is only used for gaming. Does anyone know if XP-64 works with games like Half Life 2 or Far Cry?

Amen-Moses

09-07-2005, 06:43 PM

yea XP64 works fine with 32bit apps there shouldnt be any probs as my mate didnt have any with the beta verion of it

09-07-2005, 06:47 PM

Cool, I think I'll do a dual install (if I can get XP 32 working!) as I have a large enough HD for it.

Amen-Moses

09-07-2005, 07:18 PM

Well I got to the bottom of the install problems, my XP-Pro CD is corrupted!

Luckily I had an OEM Home version sitting around so I'm using that now.

When the XP-64 download completes I'm going to install that as well and then I'm going to try out a breakthrough network game between my new gaming beast and my G5 PowerMac system, it will be interesting to see just how they compare.

Amen-Moses

09-08-2005, 05:25 AM

let us know the results of you little test then

09-08-2005, 10:53 AM

Originally Posted by inflexion

let us know the results of you little test then

Well the Breakthrough demo won't work on my new machine even with the latest display drivers so I cant go head to head yet but the X800 GT graphics card is absolutely awesome! I finally now see what all the fuss was about with HL-2, on my previous system it was OK and playable but I kept thinking it wasn't anything special but now with 7.1 audio, 1200x1024-32 with maxed out graphics settings it is just so realistic that the game atmosphere is completely different.

Next test will be to get all the latest x64 drivers and then I'll try out Far-Cry as well.

I have been toying with the idea of upgrading the G5 PowerMac to the X800 or even X850 (currently it only has the 9600 card) and judging by my experiments so far I reckon it isn't worth it. The 9600 can cope with 1200x1024-32 with maxed out settings with maybe half the frame rate of the X800 but there aren't any decent enough games out there for the Mac that require such power to make it worth the cost ... yet.

Amen-Moses

09-08-2005, 05:45 PM

i'd be interested in hearing how your XP64 installation goes. i'm holding off on installing that since there were still some driver issues associated with it. also considering a dual boot with Vista Beta to try that out.

09-08-2005, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by scooter

i'd be interested in hearing how your XP64 installation goes. i'm holding off on installing that since there were still some driver issues associated with it. also considering a dual boot with Vista Beta to try that out.

It all seems to depend on the motherboard, I have an ASUS A8N-E board (seems to be the favourite of overclockers) and so far it seems fine.

I've just installed the Nvidia Force4 drivers for x64 and now have sound & network, now Windoze is installing some Active-X stuff .... stay tuned.

Amen-Moses

09-08-2005, 07:24 PM

OK, so Windoze has finished downloading updates to itself and I'm now installing the ATI Beta drivers for my X800 GT-256 card, next on the list is to install Far Cry ... stay tuned.

Amen-Moses

09-08-2005, 07:36 PM

Oh WOW!

XP-64 is fast, fast, fast and did I mention how fast it is!

Compared to the standard XP-Home setup on the same machine it is like having a completely different computer .... it is even faster than my twin G5 with OSX!

(by fast I mean snappiness of the GUI, i.e when I click on something there is none of that usual delay waiting for it to fill in the window, it just happens instantly)

Unfortunately the install process is still mind numbingly slow, unlike the G5 which is usually just drag and drop and finished.

One thing I don't really inderstand is whay Windoze of any flavour takes so long to format hard drives, when I installed a new 250Gb drive on my G5 it took about 20 seconds or so, this new beasty took over an hour and a half to format the 120Gb hard drive, wht the heck was it doing for all that time?

Installing Far Cry now ... stay tuned.

Amen-Moses

09-12-2005, 06:48 PM

Oh man. I'd like to play Call Of Duty on both of those setups. But me and my friend are gonna play on my mini and my compaq once my dad gets all that internet/router mumbo jumbo setup. Now all I have to do is learn how to make maps...

Hope you have fun gaming on that. What mouse are you going to be using?

>>--Aarow--|>

09-12-2005, 07:02 PM

Well, downloaded the 64 bit version of Far Cry with all the extras and it is fabulous. I am using a bog-standard Microsoft optical mouse which is OK but has the odd glitch which is most likely down to the mouse mat.

Half Life 2 is also awesome on this set up but no matter what I do I can't get Medal of Honour to work. neye:

UT 2003 is looking good though so I may try to get a network game going between the beasty Mac and the beasty AMD, that's if I can find the bloody booklets (which have the codes on them!).

Oh and WoW absolutely rocks on this machine, I got a 14 day free trial on a magazine disk and currently the entire family are fighting tooth and nail for time on it. :ninja:

Amen-Moses

09-13-2005, 05:39 AM

nice work there

i can see that your also having fun with this experiment as well so keep up the testing, not that you need much more encourangement

09-13-2005, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Amen-Moses

It all seems to depend on the motherboard, I have an ASUS A8N-E board (seems to be the favourite of overclockers) and so far it seems fine.

I've just installed the Nvidia Force4 drivers for x64 and now have sound & network, now Windoze is installing some Active-X stuff .... stay tuned.

Amen-Moses

nice board. i stuck with a MSI K8N NEO2 PLATINUM for it's overclockability. but with that fx-55, i haven't had a reason to yet.

some friends of mine had driver problems with their x64 installs, but it sounds like yours is working like a champ! guess i might have to rethink this again :yinyang:

09-13-2005, 03:02 PM

I wish Windows XP-64 worked great for me. Gentoo works great in 64-bit!