For those who don't know, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition supports more than 4GB of system RAM. This is a good thing if you have a application that been "ported", written for, 64 bit Windows ...but... pretty much everything available in your local computer store is 32 bit "legacy" software This currently includes Poser. (I hate the term "legacy", since it implies most new software is now obsolete). When running "legacy" software, you'll be burning twice the RAM. For example, if you're using Poser and it was using 2GB of RAM, it'll use 4GB of RAM under XP 64. Not a problem if you have 4GB or more of RAM, but definitely a problem if you don't. (I'm intentionally leaving out the technical details.) By the way, currently Poser will still have the same memory restrictions as the "old" XP as XP 64 until it's ported. Also hardware manufacturers have been slow to jump on board with XP 64, in particular "no names", and older printers / scanners / web cams, etc. From the benchmarks I've seen, "legacy" software (pretty much everything sold today) runs at the same speed, more or less, under XP 64. In theory, performance should be a little worse since it's running under the Microsoft's WOW64 (Windows on Windows 64) translation layer, but it appears to be well-written. This is a first for Microsoft: tight, good performing code. So long and short of it, you're not penalized for performance under XP 64, but expect to use twice the RAM for most applications, until they're ported to 64 bits.

legacy can be a marketing term; they want you to think it's obsolete..;) Heck, I'm still on Win 2k, but no problems there to speak of..

Another good reason not to go XP 64 then. It's way to obvious that Microsoft has deals with hardware manufactures forcing you to upgrade to the newest technology to even take full advantage of WinXP 64.

Well, my legacy Win XP SR1 with legacy Poser 6 and legacy Athlon XP 2000+ is still working great. I do rather spent my money on new content or some cool new rc planes then support Microsofts demands. I'm really hoping there will be many more problems and setbacks in the development of WinXP 64 for many years to come.

Message edited on: 08/25/2005 08:52

old tech's trick (never get any version that ends in .0 ..;)

You must be one of those Poser users who never got an out of memory message, aeilkema...