Looks interesting, go try it. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/d...ads/upgrade.aspJay:-wave

Thanks so much for posting that. I'm nearing a hardware upgrade, and I've been trying to figure out whether it's best to go with AMD 64 (which is what I want to do), or with Intel due to its hyperthreading capability (right now I'm running a CPU-intense application that slows down everything else I do). Anyway, it's good to know they're already out with a preview 64-bit operating system.

Just to note: if you think running FS9 on a 64bit OS will be better than a 32bit OS, I doubt it. FS is a 32bit program, which means it will have to run in a "virtual machine" inside the 64bit OS. Just like if you run an old Win3.1 program on XP - XP spawns a 16bit virual machine.

Unless you have an Athlon 64 bit processor. Those processors don't need a VM to run the 32 bit machines because the processor can handle the 32 bit instructions as well as the 64 bit. Please correct me if I am wrong because IIRC I heard this many months ago, and I know things change.

Fred,From what I have read, the Athlon is 64-bit, as well as fully 32-bit. No emulation needed. But, I would think that in order to run FS9 on it without emulation that you would probably need to be running it in a 32-bit OS. I could however be mistaken about the need to run it under a 32-bit OS. But I do think that would be the case.Jim

My friend has tried it on his Athlon 64 3200+. From what I know, theres a LOT of work to be done still in the driver department. Chances of getting FS9 to even RUN is slim to none because of the lack of 64-bit drivers. So basically my friend could not do any gaming because there was no drivers for his 9800 pro or Audigy. He did think that apps and other programs did run a lot better in the 64-bit environment though.I also read that games actually run like 15-50% slower on the 64-bit XP as of right now (which I think is due to beta/buggy drivers).

Jim,Hmmm, who knows ;) Things change so fast in the computer world that one instant you know what your talking about, the next you have no clue(I am the first case as opposed to the second case ;))

I did the "Win XP 64 bit experiment" with my Athlon 64 and Geforce 5900 FX card. I was able to find drivers for the basic stuff (planetamd64.com), but not for some other "toys". Then there were issues such as Win 64 refusing to recognize my parallel port, so printing was out. Anyway, I did load up FS9 and tried to get it tweaked just like my regular WinXp config for an "apples to apples" comparison.It ran pretty much the same, even with the Win 64 Nvidia drivers and the new 64 bit Via Chipset drivers.For those that want to play around with XP 64, you can do a dual boot configuration just by installing Win 64 on a different partition than Win Xp. Good Luck!

Fred,Lol, I hear ya Fred. Couldn't agree more about the rapid rate of change. *:-*Cheers,Jim

Hmm, I meant to say in my post, 'I am the second case as opposed to the first case.'

Hi Sarge,I just wanted to say that I find that to be interesting!!Fred,Somehow that's what I thought you meant to say in that post. ;) You can put me in that category too. :-lolCheers,Jim