FS 2002 & FS9 with 64bit Computers

[Guest mac1]

Hi allAs everbody else I am tryng to get things working with FS9, and thinking of upgrading my computer again, "as always"I was wondering if FS2002 & FS9 will be able to run on computers which have AMD64bit processors & Windows XP Pro 64bit, which I beleve will be out next year sometime.I have been told that XP 64bit will be able to support up to 32gb of ram which I think would be a great help with flight simulators. there again I wonder what the cost would be, probably expensive.what do you thinkMac :-spacecraft

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Likely you won't see a huge difference--nothing that justifies the cost, that's for certain. As for the 32 Gigs of RAM, the only real benefit given the current sim would be the potential to install MSFS to a RAM disk, and run it from there. The sim itself doesn't have that large a RAM footprint, although one day it will.Back to the cpu--often the difference between 16 bits, 32 bits, etc have been compared to lanes on a freeway. The more lanes, the easier and faster you can move data through it. But as a driver, I have to know the lanes are there. All programs boil down to a set of instructions at the machine level. If the program is written with complete ignorance of the freeway being expanded to 64 lanes, it's going to go about its business the way it always did. There may be some improvement if the O/S is written with that in mind, but I suspect that FS2004 may still be ignorant of the coming "freeway" expansion. FS2006 is likely a different animal altogether...-John

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Very well articulated John.Gary

[scott967 62]

I imagine realizing the benefits of 64 pit processors will require1. 64 bit drivers2. 64 bit optimizing compilers. The FS sources will have to be recompiled.3. Ulimately, computer busses will need to provide 64 bit data paths to permit word-at-a-time transfers.scott s..

[Paul Kane 0]

Howdy Everyone,Well, a few days ago I read an article in Maximum PC about the Anthlon 64 processors. AMD is making two flavors of the 64. The Anthlon 64 and Anthlon 64 FX. The FX is the faster, more robust CPU. However, you'll need a new motherboard and ram. The ram will need to be buffered, or registered ram. As opposed to the standard unbuffered ram we mostly use today. It will definatley be more expensive as you need to but the CPU, MB, and ram. You'll also need to so the 64bit driver shuffle with your sound card, etc, if they even port their drivers to the new technology.. That'll be another story.32bit apps will run just fine on the new CPU. The full potential of the CPU won't be realized until MS releases there 64bit version of XP, which I hear will be going into beta soon, or already is. The other software vendors will also need to port their apps over to 64bit. But for now, 32bit apps run just great on this proc, and much faster as well.Right now,(According to Maximum PC's benchmarks) this CPU is faster than Intels 3.2GHz Pent 4. But!, Intel anwsered back with the Pent 4 extreme, which has a HUGE amount of onboard cache. I forget how much at the moment.What makes the Anthlon 64 CPU faster is that they have embedded the DDR controller on the CPU itself. No more memory latency. In fact, the motherboard doesn't come with a northbridge. Doesn't need it, the memory controller is on the CPU :-) Zoom Zoom!!Take care all!!