Test Your Computer for 32 or 64 Bit

Thanks Radarmn 😀

Cheers 🍻

wait, that can't be right, I have an amd athlon 64 3800+ which i believe (correct me if im worng) is 64 bit, but using that it tells me that im running a 32 bit processor, am I wrong?

I am already set for Vista, but I still want it faster. 😀

I paid you the money, I signed up, it won't let me in and it won't mail me a confirmation code! What now????

It won't let me do anything, and it won't respond to me, but it did hit my paypal account!

Well I'm stuffed.. looks like a new comp for me before I get Vista. This time however I'm not getting a shop bought comp, custom made all the way from now on.

~Sno0ze

I PAID YOU THE $5 THROUGH PAYPAL ALMOST 5 DAYS AGO, AND STILL HAVE NOT RECIEVED THE CONFORMATION CODE! WHATS UP?!

I dont get it either... I am running an E6300, and that IS DEFINITLY a 64bit processor... perhaps since I am in XP Home, that means the OS is running in 32 bit. But I know for sure that the processor is 64bit.

hatescheese wrote:

I PAID YOU THE $5 THROUGH PAYPAL ALMOST 5 DAYS AGO, AND STILL HAVE NOT RECIEVED THE CONFORMATION CODE! WHATS UP?!

Go back and check your PayPal account. Check to see if you had funds to cover the payment (On hand), If the funds had to be transferred it could take 3 days or more B/4 they get paid Check your e-mail address (the one you used when you signed up at Fly Away) that’s the one that they will send a reply to your payment to. If the payment is in progress you won’t get anything from Fly Away until it cleared. Remember they don’t know that you’re trying to pay until the get a payment from PayPal. One last time!!! Make sure about your e-mail.

Good Luck

Bob

🍻

For what it’s worth….. You can go to

(dead link removed)

And see how your computer rates as compared to others tested.

Bob

🍻

that link directs you to instructions on how to check if your current windows can be UPGRADED to the 64bit version of Vista. It does not test, as you put it, if your processor is actually 64bit or 32bit.

The PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE variable will only state x64 if you are currently running a 64Bit version of Windows.

not really a test really 😉

doogle wrote:

that link directs you to instructions on how to check if your current windows can be UPGRADED to the 64bit version of Vista. It does not test, as you put it, if your processor is actually 64bit or 32bit.

The PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE variable will only state x64 if you are currently running a 64Bit version of Windows.

not really a test really 😉

Since it was posted they mafde some changes but left the information.

1) Confirm that your PC is capable of running 64-bit software.
1.Open the "System Properties" window
a.If your Start menu is configured for Classic Start menu, right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop, and click Properties.
b.If your Start menu is the Windows default Start menu, click the Start button, then right-click the My Computer icon in your Start menu, and click Properties.
2.Click the Advanced tab.
3.Click Environment Variables.
4.In the "System variables" list at the bottom of the Environment Variables window, look for a variable called "PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE". If your PC has a 32-bit processor, this variable will have a value of "x86". If it has a 64-bit processor this variable will have a value of "x64".

still not a real world test for checking the cpu type...those variables can be changed by anyone.....best test is the cpu manufacturers website or the BIOS boot stage 😀

The question is: can MFSX run in Windows Vista x64?

And, if it does, is the performance any better?

I wouldn't mind to upgrade my operating system as long as it improves the performance on MFS, I just use Windows for fun (for working or more serious stuff I use Linux)

davidllada wrote:

The question is: can MFSX run in Windows Vista x64?

And, if it does, is the performance any better?

I wouldn't mind to upgrade my operating system as long as it improves the performance on MFS, I just use Windows for fun (for working or more serious stuff I use Linux)

Yes, I have a friend that has it running successfully.
The only drawback would be the lack of some driver avaliablilty for 64bit.

OK, then I will give it a try and install Vista x64 it in a separated partition. I will post in here later on if I see any improvement...

davidllada wrote:

OK, then I will give it a try and install Vista x64 it in a separated partition. I will post in here later on if I see any improvement...

Good luck with it and be patient, he found drivers for everything.
He did build his own machine so the hardware was the best and the latest on the market.
There will be some (very few) other than Flight Sim software that won't play.
I think Adobe is one.

Just reading this, and wondered whether there was any improvement over 32bit?

FlyPast wrote:

Just reading this, and wondered whether there was any improvement over 32bit?

The news on the street - and I mean on the street - is that any Vista 32bit OS will not support more than 4Gigs of RAM and recognize even less.
So if I want MORE than 4Gigs, I have to run the 64bit OS.

That's what I've been told by the friendly computer specialist downtown (on the street) the other day

I am at the end of my wits. Period.

I run windows XP64 on a quad 2,66GHz Mac Pro. When I look up my FSX folder it is the x86 program files folder, meaning that it installed as a 32bit application (is this true?)

How can I install FSX as a 64 bit app?

bump...

I still don't have a clue about this; can somebody help me?

I understand these messages are old, but given it's a sticky... probably still read by some.

Addressable memory
----------------------

32bit means the CPU can address 2^32 (2x2x2... 32 times) addresses in total. That is about 4GB. If you have 4GB of memory, it means you'll have about 3.3GB of actual memory available, because some is reserved to address the memory of your graphics card, of the BIOS possibly, and other stuff like that.

64 bit is 2^64 byte of addressable memory - and thats way way more than 32bit. (do the math...)

If your CPU and motherboard do not support 64 bit, no point even trying installing a 64bit OS.

For most things today, the only benefit of 64bit is addressable RAM. If you have a 64 bit CPU and a 64bit OS, it can happily use more than 4GB of RAM. For FSX, I don't think there is a real point, because it doesn't need more than 2GB of RAM to run (unless you run zillions of other apps at the same time, but then, forget about performance anyway.)

64bit instructions
------------------

another thing supported by 64 bit CPUs today are 64 bit CPU instructions. These are CPU instructions (at hardware and assembler level) where the CPU can handle 64 bits of data at a time. So instead of handling 32bits, and another 32bit in a row (sequentially), to handle a 64 bit word, it will handle the whole thing in a single CPU instruction. This boils down to less CPU clock cycles to handle these 64 bit of data.

*That* is a real speed increase indeed PROVIDED that your application was written and compiled to support 64bit CPU instructions. There is a 64bit version of IE, but not of Mozilla. FSX is not a 64bit application in any way, so no hope to have it installed in the 64bit Program directory.

In other word, no benefit at all to have a 64 bit machine for FSX, except perhaps for some OS (Windows) or graphics driver instructions and routines that are 64 bit and may be executed faster. In fact, almost no apps today were written for 64 bit. If you do run a 64bit system, then at least be sure to replace all drivers by their 64 bit version, otherwise you upgrade is completely pointless.

(This is similar to the multicore story: FSX *supports* multi-cores, but it was not really written for it, and it surely does not use multiple cores optimally. Remember it was written in 2005, 2006).

Fact is: hardware today is way beyond what the software can support, and this is very much true for FSX, after all written a couple of years ago.

The operating system benefits from 64 bit multicore systems and its running behind FSX. So you have to assume FSX will always benefit from a 64bit multicore system.

JackHowitzer wrote:

The operating system benefits from 64 bit multicore systems and its running behind FSX. So you have to assume FSX will always benefit from a 64bit multicore system.

Yes and no. The only reason you will see a benefit with a 64bit OS in FSX is because the OS is always doing more than just whatever FSX is demanding. And if you have Vista or 7 that is 100x so. By that I mean, as FSX is doing "it's thing" and the OS needs to do something else in the background, the OS can utilize the other functions of the 64 bit to do its job and THUS take less usable resources from FSX. That said, if you have an OS stripped down to do nothing more than FSX then you will see NO improvement in FSX. (Trust me, I've run every test under the sun on this).

Another thing I saw asked on here was if there was a way to MAKE fsx run in 64bit. The answer to that is NO. NEVER, no matter what anyone tells you, or how you fake it, or make your OS say it is. The game was written in such a way that (at this time) it can't use any benefits of 64bit. For that matter it was written in such a way that most of the video calculations aren't even passed to the video card to handle and STILL requires more HP on the CPU to do. (Not so much bad programing, just a unfortunate side effect of a game that has evolved since the beginning of PC time)