59 replies to this topic

[007]

I've just found out that my 8 GB RAM can only be accessed with a 64 bit OS.
I'm considering getting Windows 7 64 bit.

Before I invest any money in this, I need to know if Visual Pinball will work
with that OS, and would there be any difference in performance with regards to the RAM?

Sorry, but I don't know very much about these things.

Thank you in advance.

EDIT: or would there be any advantage in getting XP 64 bit?

Edited by 7, 06 May 2011 - 10:52 AM.

[bladexdsl]

i run win 7 64x and i can play vp flawlessly on my desktop. you should have no prob with 8gb ram that's what i also have. i'm never going back to XP

Edited by bladexdsl, 06 May 2011 - 10:54 AM.

[jpsalas]

I also using Win7 64 bit (I use the Proffesional version, since this is what we have at work), and VP works very well. The only thing you need to do is to set it to run as admin, you do that just once. I also have 8Gb ram, and it works very well. There are a few things (quite a few of them) that I don't like about Win7, but that's how the OS is written

[007]

Thanks guys.

I guess I'll buy it then.

[blur]

good morning 007, did you sleep well?
it is nice and shiny today, great time to catch up what you missed

so here is 64 bit story:
- your windows xp will never use more then ~3 gigs of ram because of 4 gb limit and gpu memory also takes a part of this so that's where you loose another gig
- vp is 32bit application, even on 64 bit os 32 bit applications have different limits then 64 bit applications, so you will probably never use all of your 8 gig of ram
- actually vp will probably not use more then 2 gigs of ram
- there is one small application or patch to windows 7 that unlimits applications to more then 2 gigs, but you don't ever need this except for few tables with too much graphics, and much better way to solve this would be to fix that tables then to unlimit memory.
- windows 7 will make you more problems then you will profit from it, actually everything will be slower and with pc rig from hell you will get performance of some normal few years old xp pc
- various bugs will bug you on various steps, in vp in fp, with newest gpu drivers that don't like old applications, and so on, you will probably not be able to run backglass on fp, or print screen will not work in full screen mode, and so on

any way win 7 is not a success story, and if you had win7 i would suggest going to xp, since you have xp already i suggest you sell 5 gigs of ram, then you will not have any unused ram

xp 64 has even more problems then win7 64, i never heard of any one using it, specially not with vp and all vp software (pinmame, uvp, ...)

Edited by blur, 06 May 2011 - 11:28 AM.

[PainkillerAlice]

Win 7 is great with VP. VP 8 at least has to be run in compatibility mode but otherwise runs great. I use Win 7 64 bit Pro.

[007]

good morning 007, did you sleep well?

[maceman]

I would follow Blur on this one 007.

I have win 7 64 bit as well..... I can get VP running 'pretty good' but when I compare FPS rates, XP is WAY higher!

Also, I never have once seen my VP/FP/or HP(not the sauce) use more than 700-800 megs when running a table. I believe the ram limitation in XP is not an issue as you will never need it anyways, unless you plan on having 40 other programs and serrvices running at the same time as you play pinball??

Also, I am not sure if you ever plan on using FP as well, like I do? but if so, you can only run the 260.99 Nvidia driver (assuming you are Nvidia and not ATI) with win 7 whilst getting the BG to work as well...No other driver will work in Win 7 at this time. XP will work, and well, with the newest Nvidia drivers....

Lastly, I too would switch to XP, the only reasonI haven't yet is thatIneed my current apps set-up the way they are...It is actually a music making machine for me, and until I get new Mobo for my cab, I am stuck...But I own both win 7 and XP OS's, so I will install XP on the new MOBO.

Have Fun!
Maceman

Edited by maceman, 06 May 2011 - 02:27 PM.

[007]

It sucks that I paid extra for the 8 gigs ram. Looks like I can't use them anyway.

If XP is faster, then there is no point in canging to 7.

[blur]

there are some people that work without problems with win 7
even for them i think performance is much lower then it would be on win xp
but then there are numerous posts of people having many unsolvable problems on win7 and i mean really unsolvable, cause no one knows what to do about them
like those people that get one minute loading time and half minute exit time on every table in hyperpin??? I see similar problems with hyperspin
then problems with drivers, artifacts, ...
you could be the lucky one and every thing could work for you, but if you bump into some problems only real solution will probably be to get back to xp.
many many people already found that it is the only solution for their problems

Edited by blur, 06 May 2011 - 02:55 PM.

[numiah]

Unless there will be a Win7 x64 version of VP (unlikely) , I'd stick to XP.
I tried both and XP ran a lot better, especially with my mediocre gear. (logical of course)

[Blitz17]

I actually built my cab with Windows 7 x64 bit and had it running ok. I experience all of the minor problems Blur mentioned. I finally decided to switch to XP and I am very glad for it. The cab runs awesome now. Tables run smoother. Blur's/samwyze FPLuanch script runs great. It is very nice knowing I can turn it on and it all works. No more windows losing focus intermittently. In fact oddly I can now overclock my CPU where before it would fail the OC on windows 7. Anyways, I can't recommend enough using XP for your pinball cab. I love Windows 7. Use it on 3 other home PCs. But XP is best for VP and FP.

[jdsabin1]

I run Win 7 64 bit on my cab. 200 tables on it (VP and FP) running HyperPin on the front end. I had had zero problems and everything runs smooth and fast. I guess I'm the exception . Not going to go back to an older 32 bit OS. Onward ho ....

[destruk]

It sucks that I paid extra for the 8 gigs ram. Looks like I can't use them anyway.

If XP is faster, then there is no point in canging to 7.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. You could get XP 64bit which used all 8 GB of ram.

[007]

But would it make a difference in a pincab?

[treveism]

I run Windows 7 64 bit with over 200 tables and everything runs great including UVP backglasses, etc. One of the reasons I went with 7 over XP is because i'm using an SSD hard drive and Windows 7 has native TRIM support built in.

[mariozeferino]

did everything we want work without compatibilty issues in XP 64 bit?
like Hyperpin, future pinball,visual pinball etc...

[destruk]

But would it make a difference in a pincab?

I think the extra ram would make a difference in a pincab. The OS will always take a set amount of memory, so if you have more RAM, that's more ram your applications will be able to use.
8GB is possibly overkill, but I'm sure you'll see 6GB be functionally better than 4.

[rob046]

I can't recommend win7 x64 enough, just in general, & in regards to VP it has played very nice with it. I've been running win7 it since its been in beta stage & its the best OS I've ever used. win7 also supports DX10 & DX11, which XP does NOT. That alone for me is a dealbreaker. & DX11 in particular with its tessellation is pretty damn awesome for the games that support it, & more are on the way, including a DX11 patch for Crysis 2.
Also, I have old games that wouldn't even run on XP at all, or ran with issues or needed patches, now run fine on win7 for me. I've been so happy about that.

Even my fav pin games of all time, the Pro Pinball series, actually run better than ever, no tweaks or patches needed, in stunning 1600x1200 resolution. The 1st PP game was released like 15 years ago! The problems people had with these & other old games in XP are gone, at least for me.
With VP, I don't even need to run in admin mode (I disable UAC, user account control, so I never need admin mode for anything), VP runs right out of the box, no tweaks needed, no compatibility modes or anything like that (in fact I get worse performance when I use compatibility modes). However, I will note that "disable desktop composition" (AKA disabling Aero) will help you gain some fps, enough that this option is definitely worth enabling.

Of course, with VP being an old 2D based program, & with XP being a lighter, less resource intensive OS, maybe VP does run just as well in XP. Or even if you gain a couple fps in XP, is it worth it? you lose all the perks you would have with win7. Not to mention that drivers, like gpu drivers, these days are more tailored to the newer OS's like win7 as well as 64 bit, than they are for XP & 32 bit which of course is being phased out, XP is now a decade old! Geez, for XP to run up to snuff it has been through 3 large service packs & a billion updates over the years that you need to have a stable XP.

Also win win7 you get new features like DX11, "superfetch" & "readyboost", to name a few, which I use & think are great. Readyboost is like bonus memory you can draw from a USB thumb drive, up to 4gb that can help those with lower amounts of RAM, or in my case I have 6gb, but readyboost really helps to quickly load programs & things that I run most often, it sorta acts like a large cache. Then even things like sata & raid drivers are no problem anymore. With XP you needed a floppy drive or a slipstreamed cd to get those drivers properly installed.
Win7 not only takes care of that problem, but just in general it does an amazing job of automatically finding & installing proper drivers for things, even the gpu. win7 uses an enormous database of devices & drivers to draw from.

Oh, & let's not forget that win7 will of course always have better support for the newer tech, such as USB 3.0 & SATA 6gb/s. I have a USB 3.0 external drive that I use for backups, as a photoshop scratch disk, & other misc stuff. & works flawlessly & is amazingly fast.
Then, win7 also utilizes RAM better than ever. It is very smart. Not only does it obviously detect my 6gb of DDR3, but it knows when to use my RAM to run things in the background, to optimize or whatever it does, & it can detect when another program is using up resources, & it will dedicate more RAM to what I'm doing at the moment, to what is priority. win7 is good like that.

I think that people really having issues with win7 & VP simply have other issues unrelated to win7 or just don't have things optimized, but they blame win7 for it. I use enough instances of win7 on many machines to know that VP should run great on a clean PC. I also used XP with VP for a few years, so being familiar with both that & win7, I can easily say that I've had fewer OS related issues with win7. When you take on x64 OS, you gotta make sure you have all the right x64 drivers, & its important to keep things like gpu drivers up to date. & the windows update on win7 is better than ever, it can even update your gpu for you, & there is tons of compatibility patches that have come out that make a ton of programs, new & old, work well regardless of if they are 32 or 64 bit compatible. I find security to be much better in win7 as well.

In general for gaming, 64 bit is always better. Its just a faster OS. For non x64 games, probably not a huge difference in performance, but x64 sure doesn't hurt anything. & of course x64 being able to address more than 3gb of RAM most certainly makes a difference. Then win win7, 64 bit finally feels like a standard, can be run with no worries. It has been around long enough, & now win7 handles x64 beautifully. Of course this is proven these days just by how many store bought, walmart PC's even come preloaded with win7 x64. They wouldn't do that if it gave even the most incompetent PC users any kind of trouble. These days there is most certainly more pro's than con's with x64.

There are a lot of other perks by having x64 win7 over 32 bit XP. Just a better inferface. Aero is awesome as well. Its so easy now to find all my programs & search for files, & it is all done so quickly. win7 is something you really appreciate the more you get to know it & learn about the new or better things you can do.
I can see how somebody running a cab dedicated for VP might prefer XP, but even then you'd still want 64 bit XP, & I'd argue that win7 would still be a better option for some of the reasons I mentioned above, & also you can change a few settings & have the more simple, XP classic interface enabled. Otherwise, I see no reason for anybody these days to run anything but win7 x64. Even if you don't have more than 3gb of RAM, it still won't hurt, for when you do get more (& it is so cheap these days there is no reason to not have at least 4gb).

Edited by rob046, 06 May 2011 - 10:12 PM.

[Zablon]

You are right about much of that but missing one big point. VP and all the software around it was not written for Win7 or 64-bit. It would be different if the software was updated to work correctly and efficiently with either options, but it's not. Other than horsepower for the added textures and alpha ramps etc, along with multi monitor set ups, the biggest and best is not the true solution to a program that is nearly as old as XP.

I think the jury is still out. I am not even sure DX11 gives you any advantage in VP. This isn't a gaming system people are setting up. It serves a very specific role. It runs fine on Win 7 so far that I've seen, but it is by no means much better than XP. It really needs a rebuild from the ground up if we want to see any massive improvements