32-bit XP vs. 64-bit XP - Am I missing anything?

[Savage1701]

I currently have SageTV running on a 32-bit XP Pro machine. I have experimented with a 21-day evaluation copy on a 64-bit machine.

No doubt this will sound like a statement of the obvious, but is there any real advantage to 64-bit XP for a SageTV server? (I use a client and a hardware theater extender).

SageTV does not seem to need the memory. My HD-PVR is twitchier under 64-bit XP, but my DVICO cards have 64-bit drivers, as do my Hauppauge USB ATSC sticks. It's nice to have 8GB of RAM, but I'm not sure I have any use for it in this scenario.

Could anyone comment if there is some "killer" reason to use SageTV on 64-bit XP rather than 32-bit XP?

I am going to migrate my SageTV server to a newer MB this weekend, and I'd like to know if I should stay at 64-bit or go back to 32-bit, as I have licenses for both OS's.

I could also put 32-bit or 64-bit Vista on the machine, but I'd rather not do that unless there is some super-compelling reason to do that.

Thanks for any comments.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by Savage1701

I currently have SageTV running on a 32-bit XP Pro machine. I have experimented with a 21-day evaluation copy on a 64-bit machine.

No doubt this will sound like a statement of the obvious, but is there any real advantage to 64-bit XP for a SageTV server? (I use a client and a hardware theater extender).

SageTV does not seem to need the memory. My HD-PVR is twitchier under 64-bit XP, but my DVICO cards have 64-bit drivers, as do my Hauppauge USB ATSC sticks. It's nice to have 8GB of RAM, but I'm not sure I have any use for it in this scenario.

Could anyone comment if there is some "killer" reason to use SageTV on 64-bit XP rather than 32-bit XP?

I am going to migrate my SageTV server to a newer MB this weekend, and I'd like to know if I should stay at 64-bit or go back to 32-bit, as I have licenses for both OS's.

I could also put 32-bit or 64-bit Vista on the machine, but I'd rather not do that unless there is some super-compelling reason to do that.

Thanks for any comments.

There is no killer reason to run Sagetv on a 64 bit OS over a 32 bit OS.

Gerry

[Taddeusz]

No, no reason to use a 64-bit OS for SageTV. SageTV is a 32-bit application and as such is limited to a 2GB virtual address space as with any 32-bit application. This is a hard limit Windows gives per process. The only way for an application to have access to more memory in a 64-bit OS is to be 64-bit. No way around this.

[MattHelm]

The only reason for going 64bit on any OS is if you plan on having more than 4G of ram. (or planning that in the future) I think if you had every bell and whistle that make for SageTV, you could get by on 3.5G or so.

AND, for ANY server that is using ANY custom hardware (like a TV tuner) I wouldn't want to use 64bit, unless I was 100% sure the drivers worked perfect at 64bit.

[Taddeusz]

Not to mention that as far as 64-bit OS's go XP Pro 64-bit is kind of like a bastard stepchild. It wasn't well supported driver wise when it came out and things have only moderately improved. Vista and Windows 7 64-bit drivers are widely available although not as universally available as 32-bit. But Vista 64-bit drivers, AFAIK, don't guarantee support for XP Pro 64-bit since some of the driver models are different between the two OS's.

If I personally decided to go 64-bit on my SageTV server it would most likely be Windows 7. But I'm in the "don't rock the boat" frame of mind. Running XP Pro 32-bit as my "server" OS and it has been rock solid. Even with a failing power supply that was just replaced last week.

[paulbeers]

It has already been covered but simply: No. Not unless you are using your Sage server for many other things that use a ton of memory and therefore you need more than about 3GB (my system only allows me to have 2.75GB). I run my web server, Flexraid, playon, Sage and several other little applications that I use and still haven't used more than 2GB on Windows XP. Someday it will be necessary, but for now there is no reason to upgrade. Also as stated, Windows XP 64bit was terrible. Granted it wasn't as unstable as Windows ME, but you could tell it was just kind of thrown together as if to say "sure we can build a 64bit operating system"....