Windows XP: 64 or 32 Bit???

Clarifications

A 64 Bit System will not have the same drivers that the 32 Bit Version has so you may have problems with some hardware not being fully functional. Mostly it's things like Web Cams, Scanners and Printers but there may be some others that you'll have issues with.

Also the only real benefit of a 64 Bit System is it can address more than 3.25 GIG or Total System RAM this includes the Video RAM as well as System RAM.

If you want to improve the performance increase the RAM you have installed to as much as the M'Board can carry or 4 GIG which ever is the lowest amount.

While XP64 was OK there where a lot of Drivers not written for it so a lot of the Hardware will not work quite right if at all and as there is no Software written for a 64 Bit OS there is no real advantage in using a 64 Bit OS at the moment. ;)

Col

I also heard great things about Windows 7... It would beat both Vista and XP in startup and shutdown times, file copies and data transfer, but I don't know if any of these benefits would also occur on my single-core system. It is said that Windows 7 had great gaming performances, but my video-card is designed to run on XP- systems or systems that use AGP. Which is a relatively old slot... I just want the best OS for my system... I use it mostly for gaming so if the startup time decreases by 3 seconds and my overall framerate by ca. 10 or so, I won't be bothered...

Me thinks you need to upgrade your motherboard before you upgrade to a 64 bit OS.

Based on the description of Pentium 4 and the RAM speed, it sounds like you have a 32 bit motherboard. Therefore, you can't install the 64 bit version of any operating system.

I myself would skip the 64 bit version of XP and go straight to a new system with the 64 bit version of Windows 7.

First reason is that you only have just over 3 years of security patch support for XP. After that, any new security holes will not be patched.

Second, there just is not a lot of 64 bit software that will run on XP with the limited amount of physical RAM you have.

Third, there have been a lot of reports that the 64 bit version of XP is more beta-ware than finished software.

Keep in mind that just installing a 64 bit OS does not of itself provide any performance improvement. Your applications must be able to take advantage of the 64 bit OS and the extra RAM you can install on a 64 bit system.

Chas

Windows 7 64 bit (ultimate if you can afford it) does run smoother than 32 bit. I would say 64bit is the way to go plus you can have lots of apps running without the system crashing. The new motherboards now-a-days come with 64bit coded programs/applications and drivers.

That would not work with a 64bit OS. AGP slots were dead for almost 5 years before 64 bit CPU's became mainstream.
As a gaming system, your hosed, XP will give you the best performance. Vista and Win7 are a dog in comparison. Especially on a single core processor.

Thanks that's everything I needed to know!

make sure they will run on 7.

Though saying that it depends on how old. You can run games as far back as XP under XP SP3 mode.

As hard as it for me to believe, there are still applications that will not run or are not supported in the 64 bit form. Based on my experiences I have gone back to the 32 bit Windows 7. I miss not being able to use all the installed RAM but gained use of some programs.