I have a copy of Home Premium 64 bit that I have yet to use. I purchased it assuming that I would want to upgrade in the future when the kinks were worked out. With the release of SP1 I am finally considering getting rid of XP altogether and going with Vista straight out.
The only problem is, I mostly use my computer for gaming. I know, back when, Vista 64 was a poor option for gamers. Has anything changed with all of the updates? Are there gamers that happily run on Vista 64? How is the performance comparatively to XP 32-Bit?
The main reasons I want to upgrade are obvious.. so I can utilize all of my memory, and so I can play games in DX10 mode.
I'm not having any problems at all. Bioshock plays VERY well on 64-bit. Others have reported good gameplay with Crysis and Call of Duty. If you have a problem with a legacy game, you can always use the Compatibility mode. I have even successfuly played Thief on Vista 64-bit (with a very slight file manipulation).
If you have up-to-date hardware (assuming minimum Core 2 Duo and above (and/or equivelant) with a DX10 class card, you will get a high performance count that is enough to really not care about the difference in performance between XP and Vista (i.e. Vista 112 fps, XP 130). The difference in these results is not THAT noticable.
If you own GeForce 7 series and below (and/or equivelant) then it will seem more obvious that XP performs better than Vista (i.e. Vista 48 fps, XP 62 etc).
So, if you're a gamer who doesn't care about the FPS counter, and have decent hardware, it is alright.....but if you have a single-core machine with a DX9 class card or less, then just stick with XP....cause you won't find games that perform better in Vista over XP. It'll either be the same or less in Vista....generally.
like r2rx said, the newer hardware will run games on vista better than the old hardware. I have built a new rig 6 months ago and vista runs without any major problems. All of the new games run well. The old games that I have tried have worked (after some tweaking for some). Keep the games updated with the patches if needed and you will have a good time with vista.
From the testing i've done between Vista x86 and Vista x64, there is definitely better performance in x64. Sometimes the FPS are identical, but x64 seems to handle games better in respect to keeping the framerate from dropping:
i.e. Vista x86 - Max FPS = 100 Min FPS = 74
Vista x64 - Max FPS = 103 Min FPS = 83
