dual boot for games and devices?

It's mounths now I have XP x64 on my PC and rarely use vmware
workstation or other PCs for things I can't do on my system.

Now I am going to buy news PCs for my children, that will be Athlon64
3500, 1GB, Asrock 939 A8X-M, FX 5500 da 256 mb. They will use them for
school, learning but gaming too, so what would you suggest to do? Stick
with XP x32 and eventually dual boot to an x64 just for special cases
or viceversa? They may frequently need to use bluetooth usb adapters or
cables for their phones, joysticks and similar things, but I do not
know which games would work better in an x32 environment.

My idea then is to stay with 32 bit, and install mail and applications
in this environment, and then switch to x64 with a second boot
partition with only the system installed for games, am I wrong?

Thank you for your collaboration :-)

Mike
Thu Mar 23 03:34:53 CST 2006

> My idea then is to stay with 32 bit, and install mail and applications
> in this environment, and then switch to x64 with a second boot
> partition with only the system installed for games, am I wrong?

And then the questions is how to partition the drive to be able to use
all of the space, will I be able to see the x32 partition from x64 and
viceversa?

McBain
Thu Mar 23 04:07:24 CST 2006

> My idea then is to stay with 32 bit, and install mail and applications
> in this environment, and then switch to x64 with a second boot
> partition with only the system installed for games, am I wrong?

For some reason, I find 32 bit to be more stable than x64 for games
(probably because the games are written for a 32 bit OS). For example,
Half-Life 2 (even in 64bit) and Black & White 2 run better on a 32 bit OS
for me than x64. Half-Life 2 suffers from "stutters" and Black & White 2
crashes frequently when run on x64, but these problems are not present on XP
Pro 32 bit. There can be a slight drop in frame rates for games in x64 as
well.

I now have a dual boot, but only ever use x64 for scientific programs.
Unless the games support x64, I would say to stick with the standard 32 bit
OS.

Andre
Thu Mar 23 09:07:08 CST 2006

Agreed, you are not gonna see any significant performance or enhancement to
games on XP Professional x64, also he mentioned USB devices/Bluetooth, that
has not been one of XP Pro x64s strong area of support. I suggest you stick
with XP x86 just to maintain compatibility, reduce unnecessary trouble
shooting and trauma.
--
--
Andre
Windows Connect | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta

"McBain" <a@b.com> wrote in message
news:Oc0EhGmTGHA.3192@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
>> My idea then is to stay with 32 bit, and install mail and applications
>> in this environment, and then switch to x64 with a second boot
>> partition with only the system installed for games, am I wrong?
>
> For some reason, I find 32 bit to be more stable than x64 for games
> (probably because the games are written for a 32 bit OS). For example,
> Half-Life 2 (even in 64bit) and Black & White 2 run better on a 32 bit OS
> for me than x64. Half-Life 2 suffers from "stutters" and Black & White 2
> crashes frequently when run on x64, but these problems are not present on
> XP Pro 32 bit. There can be a slight drop in frame rates for games in x64
> as well.
>
> I now have a dual boot, but only ever use x64 for scientific programs.
> Unless the games support x64, I would say to stick with the standard 32
> bit OS.
>