So who else is jumping on the 64bit bandwagon?
I own two Athlon 64 systems and just today installed the new WinXP (legal, mind you) on the other system. First impressions:
- PATA/SATA RAID driver support poor. No big suprise here really. Had to resort to the old legacy floppy disk drive. The poor bastard just won't die already.
- Poor initial driver support from VIA. Their latest beta SATA RAID drivers cause infinite boot-loop. Had to modify the drivers by hand to get them properly installed.
- XP x64 does have relatively good standard driver support. Only had to install SATA RAID driver, NIC driver and Audigy 2 ZS drivers. Of course I also installed ATI drivers to get OpenGL and ATI Control Panel.
- Responsiveness and performance of the new XP x64 is quite impressive, even compared to the 32bit XP (SP2).
- All applications that use system drivers to function needs to be updated to support the new XP x64. This includes virtual CD/DVD-drive softwares such as Daemon Tools. And of course anti-virus and firewall softwares.
- Still waiting x64 API's such as Java and .NET Framework to be released.
Even though initial driver and software support can be a little depressing, I am sure the x64 edition is a very good performer until M$ releases their "Longhorn" OS. Hopefully all major hardware manufacturers will release final versions of their x64 drivers in the next 48 hours after MS put the trial version available for download. Again hopefully all good applications will be updated to support x64 where necessary in the next seven days.
I know, won't happen. Unless you don't mind looking for and using beta drivers and possible software, I suggest to wait at least two weeks and maybe four weeks before upgrading to XP x64. Me? I sure won't be switching back to the old XP unless I encounter some serious issues. But before upgrading my other A64 system, I'll be possibly waiting a while. Just in a case I need to use apps that won't work on my XP x64.