Anyone using the new version of XP 64?

[me3000]

I'm thinking about loading it on my system this weekend. But I dont know if there is a 64 bit anti virus program. I am also curious if anyone has had luck running games on it.

[EvilHomer3k]

Make sure you have an Athlon 64 processor. I'd also check for drivers for your hardware, too. nVidia has pretty good drivers. ATI's leavemore to be desired. Also check for sound/nic drivers. Finally, I'd install it as a second OS and not your main one in case things don't work out too well.

[Rincewind]

Hey homer-i know we talked about htis 6 months ago or so, but would you recommend at this ponit that Athlon64 users bother to upgrade to the 64bit version?

[EvilHomer3k]

Unfortunately, not much has changed since 6 months ago. XP 64 is still in release candidate 1. That means that it is 99.9% done and should be ready to go gold if they don't find any bugs. However, XP 64 has been in RC1 for at least a year.

At this point the OS is very stable, there aren't a lot of bugs, and pretty much everything about the os works and works well. However, since it isn't out, yet, there is still a big shortage of drivers. If you can find drivers for all your hardware, I don't see any reason you can't us XP 64. Finding drivers seems to be a problem, though. nVidia has better driver support right now than ATI. Sound cards are hit and miss (creative has some out). Wireless nic's are virtually non-existant.

At this point, I still would recommend staying with XP. 64 will be peppier in normal computing but gaming is still lagging as there aren't a lot of games with a 64 bit version out, yet.

[EvilHomer3k]

It looks like XP64 will be out around April.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=20874

[me3000]

It went to RC2 this week. I'll see how it goes. I can always reformat & install plain XP.