I was recently mistaken that Windows XP was limited to 2.5gb of RAM (I know now its actually 3.5gb). So I installed Windows XP x64 and then upgraded to 3gb of RAM. I'm having a lot of compatibility issues, various games crash now and then, some crash during install, and some programs won't install at all.

Now that I've found that I went to x64 a bit prematurely, I'm considering going back to 32-bit, if only to get out of all these compatibility problems.

Am I actually gaining any performance from using x64 over 32-bit? The extra RAM has really sped my system up, I'm hesitating in going back to 32-bit only because I'm worried I'll loose some speed. Am I just being silly at this point and should admit that I jumped the gun installing x64?

Well since most apps are 32 bit anyway you will not loose much speed. How much ram did you have initially?

3 gigs works fine on XP 32 bit.

Please post your specs.

Well to the extent of my knowledge, switching between 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the same OS yields no difference in performance unless an amount of RAM greater than 4GB is required. I base this both on what I've read(which i admit is limited) and on my actual experience of working with the 2 OS's. So my recommendation would be to just switch back to 32-bit, which should take care of all those compatibility issues.

Athlon 62 X2 4600+ Windsor @ 2.4ghz
Kingston HyperX DDR2 3gb (2x512mb, 2x1gb) @ 800mhz & 4-4-4-12-2T Dual-Channel
MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550
eVGA Geforce 7950 GT KO 512mb @ 560/1450mhz

I'm probably going to switch back, you guys are just reinforcing my intuition that x64 with 3gb is just more trouble, and no better performance.

I originally had only 1gb (2x512mb), I added 2gb (2x1gb) more very recently.

Are the games crashing or are you getting full out system crashes?

Have you checked the ram to make sure its stable?

Going back to 32-bit should have a minimal performance difference. Some parts of XP had been re done in 64-bit(those are what may be faster). but the difference in speed is still nothing worth having an unstable machine over. and almost all games are 32 bit

If you are willing to try a non supported driver(it has made quite a difference on Vista 64-bit, in my case 8 gigs of ram is never gonna work on XP 32 and XP 64 just did no make sense with Vista 64+SP1 out), there is one linked elsewhere on the forum.

The thread is for the 8 and 9 cards but the inf on the drivers i downloaded had the 7950 as well. so it should be there on the XP 64 ones too. the rapid share links are faster(to start the file, not speed wise)

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] eries-link

EDIT.

Just so you know, i ran XP 32 for a long time with 3 gigs of ram, the experience was a good one.

the RAM has run stable since i increased the command rate to 2T (windows would not boot with it set to 1T). I think all the problems I'm having are from windows. Most of the crashes i get with games are CTD's, but all the really bad problems I'm having are with installing programs. My windows installer service has gotten corrupted like 4-5 times, requiring a lengthly and annoying fix each time. And some old games just lock my computer up on install.

I'm gonna go back to 32-bit tonight I think. I'm tired of all these problems. I'll post if I keep getting problems under 32-bit, in which case the RAM probably isn't running stable after all.

windows xp 4 bit support was never really quite up there. you made the right move to go back to 32. If you feel you need to move to 64 bit get vista.