For gaming, use 32-bit XP. The 64-bit version is Windows Server 2003 with the Luna GUI on top of it. It's not designed for games and games were not designed to run on it.

The extra RAM it can address is of no use, since any game not compiled for 64-bit can not make use of more than 2 GB of RAM anyway (application limit) and you are not going to run several games at the same time.

All version of Windows have issues. Gaming on 2003 and XP 64 bit worked fine for me except for the games that didn't. Try it and see.

DosFreak wrote on 2020-03-23, 18:34:

Try it and see.

That's exactly what he doesn't want to do. 😉

Gaming, driver support, lots of issues, yes.

Check the PC Game Compatibility list in my sig. Use imaging software when testing, it saves alot of time.

kolderman wrote on 2020-03-23, 19:28:

Gaming, driver support, lots of issues, yes.

I still use XP x64 in my main computer as my regular OS, and barely never have issues, exept old hardware that never have a upgrade, for example some scanners, but in this case, i use Vuescan driver support. Even my old apple serial port scanner works in XP x64

Never have a lot of issues to be true in 12+ years i use XP x64

Of course, not native 16bit support is a downside to play old games or old software, thats why i use XP SP3 in my laptop, but winevdm work very good for lot of app in x64, i can play tetris without problem!

Back in the day (~06), the only real issues to XP64 gaming were these:

- StarForce didn't work then of course. Bye bye my legitimately owned europe published games!!! Sure you could install a 64-bit starforce driver nowadays, but that didn't exist at all in 2006!!!
- No 16-bit stuff of course, but DOSbox was maturing pretty good at this time so it wasn't a big loss at all. I've never played DOS games through NTVDM ever anyway, i've already had my fears and desires for a whole DOS emulator as soon as Windows 2000 happened so I knew that was going to go sooner or later...
- 64-bit software firewalls didn't quite exist yet.
- Driver availability, though for my hardware then, i've had all 64-bit drivers working, but I know this isn't true for everyone. Vista carried this issue and windows mojave fixed it of course.

There's 'no issues no big deal it was undeserved hate then' now because time has ironed all of this out.

Thanks for all the information....I think I am gonna go with 32-Bit as the system is going to be primarily used for xp era gaming and some other software.....