Tom,I reckon that you'd have to start from scratch again ie. buy a Vista 64 OEM disk and go from there.Gary

I'd go and SLI 2x 8800GT's, lot of money saved there...I'd go XP, but we all know eventually DX10 will gain more popularity. Then I'd go home PremiumFor RAM, I'd go with 2x1GB and 2 x 512mb matched pairs for a total of 3GB

what?Never heard of that....????You just install vista x64 and voila!

I think Ryan is referring to the Windows Anytime Upgrade progam, which allows you go up the Vista tree (eg. home basic to home premium), but only in the same bit family (ie. 32 bit or 64 bit). Case in point is my notebook with 32 bit Vista Home Premium, the only upgrade option I get through this program is to go Vista Ultimate 32 bit - no 64 bit offerings in sight.Gary

>Alright, I officially hate you guys for making me change my>mind ;-). I did a bit of research and found Vista 64 drivers>for all my major hardware, so I am now trying to change my OS>order to Vista 64. It hasn't shipped yet, so I may get away>with it!>>GaryDon't worry, threads like this one make me change my mind too. ;)I'm still looking at an upgrade in 3-5 months time, and I keep leaning more and more for Vista 64, 4gb ram. Even the dual-boot idea is fading in my mind...I used to push the envelope in the 90's but I am more of a tried-and-true tech guy now. I might as well push the envelope again I guess. I can handle the possible aggravation. I think.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Rhett,"I can handle the possible aggravation. I think."Exactly! :-lolSeriously I believe I have come to the same conclusion regarding Vista 64.Oooops! Since I typed the line above DSL delivered my copy of the "XPACK". On the tape across the top of the case it says "WIND32 ENGL". Does that mean that it is only for Vista and/or XP 32? Or is there a 32 bit and a 64 bit version of the XPACK?Surely Not. One person on this thread commented that the XPACK and SP2 with it had really jazzed up FSX on his 64 bit OS. ???

One thing to consider about 64bit and 4gb ram.Sitting here on the desktop posting this, task manager shows 4094mb total ram with 3188mb cached and 72mb free.3188 + 72 = 3260mb, so where is the missing memory? Well, vista reserves some of it to cache your video card's memory (and other devices too). I have a 768mb 8800gtx. 3260 + 768 = 4028mb. So the GTX is taking up 768mb and other system devices have some reserved memory too, roughly 68mb.If you SLI two 768mb GTX's your system will reserve 1.536gb of memory as a cache. If you SLI two 640mb cards it's 1.280gb.Which is why I prefer 4gb and the 64bit o.s. considering the fact that FSX is now 3gb aware so it can use 3gb for itself.Secondly, I have the xpack installed on VU64 and it is compatible.

OK guys you have convinced me to go with 64 bit Vista.I ordered Ultimate because I wanted to try out the video maker... not sure if it is any good but I guess I'll find out.My specs for better or worse:CoolerMaster Stacker 830 TowerAsus Striker Extreme MotherboardQX6850 overclocked to 3.66GHz4GB of Mushkin Xtreme DDR2 with heat spreader2 X nVidia 8800GTI guess that covers the high spots. I'm all in. I have agonized over configuring this thing and I only hope I picked good stuff. I figure if need be I can replace the vid cards 2 - 3 - 4 years down the line when technology passes these by but replacing the CPU pretty much requires a new system. I've got 5 years out of my current system and it is clear my wife figure I'd better get more out of this new one.I wont have the new guy until some time next week but at least in the mean time when this thing locks up I can grin at it and say "Your days are numbered sucker!" :-lolThanks again for all of your help guys. :)

Any Vista and XP expert.I have three questions for you (as posted previously in this thread). I've followed a lot of threads about Vista. And when it comes down to available memory and FSX, the posts seem fuzzy to me.Q1: FSX is a 32bit application, as far as I understand. Is it possible for FSX to use more than 2GB on Vista 64?Q2: In general, will a 32bit application, like FSX, run faster on a 32bit OS or on a 64bit OS (run on the same hardware with the same Vista config)?Q3: I've installed 4GB on my mobo (Asus p5w dh deluxe). BIOS allocate about 1GB for the 8800 GTX card, and WinXP reports 3,144,748 KB. Do you say that WinXP can't use these 3GB of available memory?I would appreciate any expert answer.Ulf B :-)Core2Duo X6800 OC 3.3GHz, 4GB RAM8800GTX, dual view 1920x1200 and 1280x1024Creative SB X-Fi (Gamer mode)WinXP Pro SP2, FSX SP1, FS9.1

1) SP2 and Acceleration have the /3gb switch enabled. FSX can now use 3gb entirely for it's own purposes providing you have a 64bit o.s.2) It depends on the application. Theoreticaly speaking some 32bit apps will run slower on a 64bit operating system due to overhead. The practical difference would be hard to notice, imo it's not a major factor. FSX doesn't appear to have any performance issues associated with it.3) 32bit o.s.'s can only adress a maximum of 4gb of adress space. As I stated previously, some of that memory adress space is reserved to cache system device memory.I did a quick google to find a cut-n-paste explanation, as I'm on my way out the door to head to work.User "Scotteq" explains the matter in a thread at Tom's Hardware,"When you install 4GB worth of memory sticks in the slots on your motherboard, you need to understand that is In Addition To a small amount that's built into your Mobo, plus however much is in your Video Card. Devices also take up some addresses, and anything with a cache needs to have that cache addressed as well. So: Mobo has a few meg built into it, your video card has 250GB~1000GB, your processor has few MB cache, plus a few hundred more Kb for your device addresses, including the 8/26/32MB cache in your hard drive and that sort of thing. After all that has been done, then comes the 4GB worth of DIMMS you installed on your Motherboard. ALL of these need to be fully addressed so your Operating System, drivers, and applications can communicate to them. But the total in this case is much more than 4GB. So what happens is your Mobo claims the first addresses, then the cache on your CPU, then the cache on your HDD, then however much your other devices need, then however many addresses your video card needs. All of this comes out of the 4GB total. WHAT IS LEFT OVER after the rest of your comp is handled can be used for your installed DIMMS. In this case there is 4GB worth of DIMMS, but a large chunk of addresses have already been assigned to other purposes. So the system assigns however many addresses remain. Again: 4GB worth of potential addresses, less Mobo, Devices, Caches, and Video memory. Whatever is left over is used for your system memory. And that is how you get to 3GB~ish displayed memory in your OS. In the case of 2GB of RAM, your system still assigns from the same 4GB pool of addresses. So you have the 1GB~ish total for your system, followed by the 2GB DIMMS. The total is less than 4GB, therefore you will see all of the RAM. "Source -> http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245572-30-tomshardware

I haven't yet. I suppose perusing ebay for a 64bit OEM version of XP or Vista would be in order. I have Vista Home Premium Upgrade 32 and purchased the Ultimate 32 Upgrade from MS Marketplace. In addition, I ordered the 64bit option of Vista with the MS coupon.Yeah, I know....a rather long and messy situation as far as installs go. Ryan

If it's any help to those looking for a good OS purchase price, the Vista Home Premium 64 OEM version I ordered yesterday from Amazon.com cost me $111 shipped.Gary

>If it's any help to those looking for a good OS purchase>price, the Vista Home Premium 64 OEM version I ordered>yesterday from Amazon.com cost me $111 shipped.>>GaryBrings up a question I have wondered about:Is that a standalone DVD? Can I install that version of the OS on a cold clean and dark PC, booting from the DVD drive?RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

I would think so, given that an OEM system build usually starts with a fresh, unformatted HDD. I'll find out for sure in about a week! Gary

It's the "upgrade" versions that need to be installed over a previous windows install.The OEM and Retail versions don't require a previous install.Just as was the case with XP, someone found a work around for it. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvi...grade_clean.aspAnd incidently, the retail versions of Vista Ultimate include both the 32bit and 64bit dvd's in the package. The 32bit version of Home Premium Retail does include information on how to obtain a free copy of the 64bit dvd, but you must pay shipping and handling.EDIT: And I need to make a correction from the quotation I posted above."So: Mobo has a few meg built into it, your video card has 250GB~1000GB, your processor has few MB cache, plus a few hundred more Kb for your device addresses, including the 8/26/32MB cache in your hard drive and that sort of thing."It's clear he meant to say "your video card has 256MB to 1GB". "250GB~1000GB" is clearly a mistype.