After much thought, I decided to reinstall Windows XP 32-Bit over my Personal Computer's current XP 64 configuration. I have recently encountered a number of frustrating things about the operating system, namely some instabilities and incompatibilities with some of my newly installed programs - this includes one important beta that I cannot divulge at the moment! The new Windows Explorer 8 doesn't play well with this operating system either where I have to constantly CTL+ALT+DELETE frozen browsers every other minute. And yes I have tried Chrome and FireFox - they suck! Also, let's not forget the whole entire debacle with Games for Windows Live but that's merely a minor annoyance compared to the other recent irritations with the OS. Gaming-wise, I don't have a lot of bad things to say about XP 64. The fact that I have used XP 64 for a year and a half should be enough evidence that the system is not bad for gaming. The PC gaming community pretty much shun the XP 64 but I doubt that many of them have actually gamed using the much-hated OS. Throughout the entire time that I was on XP 64, there were only 3 games that became problematic because of XP 64: Demigod (constant freezing until recently), King's Bounty: The Legend (fatal crashes that rendered it unplayable), and Indigo Prophecy (cannot even be installed). The OS is not perfect obviously but the overwhelmingly negative opinion about gaming on the XP 64 is definitely unwarranted.
Must use Mass Effect 2 screenshot to replace wallpaper...
It may seem silly to "downgrade" when I should really be upgrading to Windows 7 but I am not ready to make that jump yet. I have heard so many good things about Windows 7 but I have also heard some horror stories when it comes to gaming on the new OS. I am going to give it some more time before I make that next jump. One of the main reason why I installed XP 64 in the first place was because I wanted to fully utilize my PC's 4 gig of RAM. With XP 32 supporting Physical Address Extension (this enables utilization of all of my juicy RAM) and me not getting anywhere close to doubling my current RAM size that I originally planned to do, it's definitely a winning situation. The installation was a breeze and I didn't lose any of my game saves. A bit time consuming, yes, but relatively painless. I am certainly feeling very happy with the results of the change as I am typing this because I certainly don't miss the Explorer crashing on me while I am working on writing an article!
No comments:
Post a Comment