64 bit necessary with a dual core?

[D4ng3r]

I am not, at the moment, looking at vista in any way. I ask about the two versions of XP because my friend has access to two legit keys he ended up not using, the 64 bit is at his cottage.

So... with that in mind... free xp vs $200? visa? xp ftw.

As of right now, I am looking towards a version of 32 bit... the drivers for the 64bit frighten me .. I dont know if I will be able to find them all... or if they will be compatable with my games.

32 bit is tried and true, in my eyes. No crashes on my computer in a year.

how much preformance difference is there, do you know?

[deltatux]

I just run OpenSUSE as my main system, run XP64 on VirtualBox and for gaming I have Vista 64. I gotta love my college for giving me free licenses lol =P.

I'd actually recommend anyone to take a look at OpenSolaris if you've got NVIDIA hardware since they provide full hardware acceleration. Also, OpenSolaris is quite the interesting, and it's great for those who want true UNIX without the cost...

As for 64-bit vs. 32-bit, Crysis runs a lot better on my system using the 64-bit binary than the 32-bit version. I need 64-bit to use full 4GB.

deltatux