Question on Win.7 & XP "and for 3d designers"

[Aqil]

hi all,
got few questions that i have been searching on Google came up with few answers but not what i really wanted to know

- is there a deference in the Performance between Win. 7 and XP ?
"what i Mean is, something like : Windows 7 uses lots of Ram, XP doesn't"

-if i have for example 1 terabyte HDD, XP have issues reading it, it becomes slow, but with Windows 7 no issues, is that true ?

-if i'm Working on video editing, the Theory goes that XP Render faster because its not using lots of ram, also is that true ?
* i know that it depend on the computer speed, but i hope you got what i mean >.< *

-and whats better to get if wanted to upgrade for 64bit ? XP or 7 ?

________
now to 3ds Max users, or any 3d Designer :

How much is the difference between Rendering in 34bit, and 64bit ? i know it depends on the image and the Mats. that guna be Rendered but mainly whats the difference ? is it big ? Example : a 6 hours Render in 34bit went to 3.30 Hours in 64 bit ?


* i suck at Explaining >.< + i'm not that Experienced with computers *

More info.
right now i got Intel i5, 2GB ram, Windows XP 32bit
Thinking to go to 4GB Ram with 64bit later on if its needed

PS: if you need more info to answer my questions ask what you need

[haxartus]

Windows 7 is better with managing HDD and RAM. CPU performance is the same.
For example XP uses the page file too much, which leads to slowing down the system. Also I've observed a slight boost in HDD file transfer speed when switching from XP to 7.
The myth that Windows 7 uses more ram comes from the fact that it does... but only for a good purpose. It loads a lot of things in to the RAM because it's not useful for it to stay empty as in XP, and if you want to access that stuff later, it happens much faster. In the moment an application starts using a lot of RAM, the Windows 7 will start unloading the unnecessary things from the RAM to free space for the application.
For 3ds Max and video rendering you might actually need more than 4GB. Get 2x4GB and Windows 7 64 bit if you can. You will need the 64 bit version of 3ds Max too.

[Aqil]

Thanks for the reply

and did not know that about Win.7, that sounds cool and interesting tbh XD

but as it appears yeah think i'll get upgrade it later on, need for those Renders to be faster !

[Brytryne]

If you plan on rendering lots of heavy scenes, stack RAM. Lots of it. 16+ gig isn't uncommon.

[Asera]

I find it astounding you are rendering anything on 2gb of ram today. Last time I had 2gb of ram in a worstation, the P4 Prescott was new tech.

[Deleted]

First of all, you won't see any difference in rendering between 32bit and 64bit software.

And RAM doesn't really matter for 3DMax rendering since it renders with CPU.

[enetheru]

Just to try and stem the tide of misinformation here:

You say you have an i5 with 2gb of ram. Unless you built your own rig here (in which case you've cheated yourself), you got cheated somewhere down the line. You really should be at a minimum of 4gb, although for 3d rendering you absolutely want more; rendering is one of the more memory and cpu intensive tasks your system can perform. In order to use 4 or more gb of ram, which I reiterate that you really need here, you need a 64-bit operating system. There is literally no reason for you to continue using 32-bit XP at this point. Get a 64-bit version of Windows 7. If you're a student with a university email address, you can get it quite cheap. If you were still using a P4, sure, but if you were we wouldn't be having this conversation.

At any rate, what precisely are your system specs?