What just happened? This is the neglected official blog of the Electronic Punk - http://www.electronicpunk.com - The as-of-yet-undecided-title-el-presidente of OSNN.net. He totally promises to blog more than twice a year.
Insert witty x64 comment here
Posted April 11th, 2005 at 8:14pm by Electronic Punk
A busy weekend with lots of alcohol, multiple kebabs and a little progress with Windows x64.
Firstly, I managed to get my hands on some new NVIDIA Forceware drivers for Windows x64 in the shape of version 76.71 which are newer than the last leaked version for 32 bit (although I know build 80.xx is already well into development), anyway here is some information which I am frankly chuffed with. I ran some tests using the Half-life 2 VST, which is available on the menu of Counter-strike: Source. The highest score I ever received with the default settings was around 110 frames per second, so here we go:
Forceware64 71.84 - VST Score: ~70
Forceware64 76.71 - VST Score: ~147
This was done using a single Geforce 6800 Ultra at 425/1100 if anyone cares! Just about all the games I have installed seem to work fine with these, no apparent slowdowns, the games I have check so far currently include (as well as being mentioned below but now at least run on par with their 32bit cousin: Source-based games, World of Warcraft, Doom3:ROE.
Brothers in Arms also ran fine, I had all the settings up to max and hadn't really tried it before upgrading so I don't really know if performance was worse (or better?) - it uses the Unreal engine so I will get UT2004 reinstalled (as it now says my serial code number is missing from the registry, which it is and demands that I reinstall again)
I won't be leaking the drivers as I got them from the one source that I won't release drivers from, or at least not just yet so please don't ask.
Going back to missing registry information, I am trying to avoid reinstalling my games or if I do have to reinstall them, backing up the old games folder (all my games are installed to a seperate partition anyway), installing and then replacing the new installation with the old folder, works well as games these days still keep some settings, save games in that folder. Sometimes, just like in the case of UT2004, a reinstall is required as registry info is critical to the application running so, in the case of Brothers in Arms I checked the install log and recreated the registry entries - purely so I could get the patch installed without having to reach up onto the shelf for the DVD to reinstall. Laziness wins!
Many games are actually having issues installing, I haven't come across the problem myself yet but people have to reverse engineer their .msi files to get applications installed. I don't really know what the cause of this is yet, but hopefully it will be resolved on the client side with a simple patch. Making all installation CDs (that use Windows installer) useless will be a serious pain, or at least until I stop playing the current generation of games. That’s why you should try and backup registry information in both HKCU and HKLM before attempting to migrate. Keeping in mind that you can't just import as you would normally, the application reg keys are now stored under an additional sub key (called "Wow6432Node") which is obviously for 32bit compatibility - just edit the .reg file using notepad and add this additional sub key to the path. Be very careful if you decide to distribute these to friends, contacts as these keys can contain private information like serial numbers, which is what people really pay for when they purchase software these days.
I finally decided to try installing Perfectdisk as I needed to get my defrag fix, it failed on installation as obviously the driver was incompatible with the new version of Windows. I will get onto Raxco and ask whether a patch will be released (or a new full version, having an error appear on installation is never good, I am sure consumers could cope with being told to patch the first time they run it but an installation failure is no good). Hopefully, as Perfectdisk 7 is only six months old, they won't charge for a whole new version, we will have to wait and see.
I underestimated Creative Labs ability, I bet that won't happen again, but it looks like they added a control panel applet with many of the features I use integrated into it. I can set the number of speakers (headphones for now, but occasionally I will turn on the subwoofer and annoy my neighbours), it also has an option to enable CMSS1 or 2, which is great so I can play my Stereo music thru all my speakers, the louder the better. So although they haven't released any drivers for over four months, I like the progress and look forward to the next set. I am really impressed that I may not have to spend half a day and waste disk space installing all the other software.
I can keep you on tender hooks no more. What became of my .pst? Well the Office installation, default options went perfectly. Not a hitch. I completed the installation and immediately applied the service pack, in fact because I am also testing Microsoft Update (shameless really) I was also downloading SP1 at the same time I was installing it from my file archive. Ho hum. More good news, my PST imported correctly.
I am still looking for a decent Anti-virus and Firewall, kind of reluctant to move away from Norton and they haven't even mentioned 64bit compatible software yet. I have a copy of Sophos I could try but I don't think it is 64bit either. It seems like my only options are Tiny Firewall and Avast Anti-virus. I really don't like my system being as open as it is right now.
Other software installed?
Installed Getright, I was a dial-up user for a long time and still feel the urge to resume downloads just in case they die - the fact I can download a gig an hour seems beside the point. It is also nice to know I can hammer a connection for all it's worth using multiple connections to one download.
Divx codec, people seem to be scared about installing codecs because they don't think it will work with the 64bit version of Windows Media Player. Well... What 64bit version of Windows Media Player, I must have missed it, mine seems to be 32bit. Even the Outlook Express and Windows Messenger folders in the Program Files folder run 32bit applications, are they purely there for legacy purposes? (Ryan tells me that the Outlook Express in "Program Files" is 64bit, but I can't seem to find any proof of this) Anyway, it seems fine, it lets me play Divx encoded movies in both Zoom Player and Windows Media Player - everything else in the installer is just padding and to be honest I uninstall the Divx player straight away and even delete the Divx folder in the "Program Files (x86)" folder.
What will I be trying next?
As lovely as the WindowsXP interface is, it has been with me for a long time so I am going to have to fiddle with my themes again, a hacked uxtheme.dll can be found here:
http://www.vortex-scratchpad.info/
And I have seen a few themes here:
http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?dlcategory=19
You have to be registered, I am not totally sure if you need to use special 64bit themes, so that is something to check out. Apart from that I will continue to fiddle and post all the good stuff here.
Firstly, I managed to get my hands on some new NVIDIA Forceware drivers for Windows x64 in the shape of version 76.71 which are newer than the last leaked version for 32 bit (although I know build 80.xx is already well into development), anyway here is some information which I am frankly chuffed with. I ran some tests using the Half-life 2 VST, which is available on the menu of Counter-strike: Source. The highest score I ever received with the default settings was around 110 frames per second, so here we go:
Forceware64 71.84 - VST Score: ~70
Forceware64 76.71 - VST Score: ~147
This was done using a single Geforce 6800 Ultra at 425/1100 if anyone cares! Just about all the games I have installed seem to work fine with these, no apparent slowdowns, the games I have check so far currently include (as well as being mentioned below but now at least run on par with their 32bit cousin: Source-based games, World of Warcraft, Doom3:ROE.
Brothers in Arms also ran fine, I had all the settings up to max and hadn't really tried it before upgrading so I don't really know if performance was worse (or better?) - it uses the Unreal engine so I will get UT2004 reinstalled (as it now says my serial code number is missing from the registry, which it is and demands that I reinstall again)
I won't be leaking the drivers as I got them from the one source that I won't release drivers from, or at least not just yet so please don't ask.
Going back to missing registry information, I am trying to avoid reinstalling my games or if I do have to reinstall them, backing up the old games folder (all my games are installed to a seperate partition anyway), installing and then replacing the new installation with the old folder, works well as games these days still keep some settings, save games in that folder. Sometimes, just like in the case of UT2004, a reinstall is required as registry info is critical to the application running so, in the case of Brothers in Arms I checked the install log and recreated the registry entries - purely so I could get the patch installed without having to reach up onto the shelf for the DVD to reinstall. Laziness wins!
Many games are actually having issues installing, I haven't come across the problem myself yet but people have to reverse engineer their .msi files to get applications installed. I don't really know what the cause of this is yet, but hopefully it will be resolved on the client side with a simple patch. Making all installation CDs (that use Windows installer) useless will be a serious pain, or at least until I stop playing the current generation of games. That’s why you should try and backup registry information in both HKCU and HKLM before attempting to migrate. Keeping in mind that you can't just import as you would normally, the application reg keys are now stored under an additional sub key (called "Wow6432Node") which is obviously for 32bit compatibility - just edit the .reg file using notepad and add this additional sub key to the path. Be very careful if you decide to distribute these to friends, contacts as these keys can contain private information like serial numbers, which is what people really pay for when they purchase software these days.
I finally decided to try installing Perfectdisk as I needed to get my defrag fix, it failed on installation as obviously the driver was incompatible with the new version of Windows. I will get onto Raxco and ask whether a patch will be released (or a new full version, having an error appear on installation is never good, I am sure consumers could cope with being told to patch the first time they run it but an installation failure is no good). Hopefully, as Perfectdisk 7 is only six months old, they won't charge for a whole new version, we will have to wait and see.
I underestimated Creative Labs ability, I bet that won't happen again, but it looks like they added a control panel applet with many of the features I use integrated into it. I can set the number of speakers (headphones for now, but occasionally I will turn on the subwoofer and annoy my neighbours), it also has an option to enable CMSS1 or 2, which is great so I can play my Stereo music thru all my speakers, the louder the better. So although they haven't released any drivers for over four months, I like the progress and look forward to the next set. I am really impressed that I may not have to spend half a day and waste disk space installing all the other software.
I can keep you on tender hooks no more. What became of my .pst? Well the Office installation, default options went perfectly. Not a hitch. I completed the installation and immediately applied the service pack, in fact because I am also testing Microsoft Update (shameless really) I was also downloading SP1 at the same time I was installing it from my file archive. Ho hum. More good news, my PST imported correctly.
I am still looking for a decent Anti-virus and Firewall, kind of reluctant to move away from Norton and they haven't even mentioned 64bit compatible software yet. I have a copy of Sophos I could try but I don't think it is 64bit either. It seems like my only options are Tiny Firewall and Avast Anti-virus. I really don't like my system being as open as it is right now.
Other software installed?
Installed Getright, I was a dial-up user for a long time and still feel the urge to resume downloads just in case they die - the fact I can download a gig an hour seems beside the point. It is also nice to know I can hammer a connection for all it's worth using multiple connections to one download.
Divx codec, people seem to be scared about installing codecs because they don't think it will work with the 64bit version of Windows Media Player. Well... What 64bit version of Windows Media Player, I must have missed it, mine seems to be 32bit. Even the Outlook Express and Windows Messenger folders in the Program Files folder run 32bit applications, are they purely there for legacy purposes? (Ryan tells me that the Outlook Express in "Program Files" is 64bit, but I can't seem to find any proof of this) Anyway, it seems fine, it lets me play Divx encoded movies in both Zoom Player and Windows Media Player - everything else in the installer is just padding and to be honest I uninstall the Divx player straight away and even delete the Divx folder in the "Program Files (x86)" folder.
What will I be trying next?
As lovely as the WindowsXP interface is, it has been with me for a long time so I am going to have to fiddle with my themes again, a hacked uxtheme.dll can be found here:
http://www.vortex-scratchpad.info/
And I have seen a few themes here:
http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?dlcategory=19
You have to be registered, I am not totally sure if you need to use special 64bit themes, so that is something to check out. Apart from that I will continue to fiddle and post all the good stuff here.
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