ANNOUNCING… PREPAR3D V4 - Available May 30!

[petermcleland 48]

It might be useful if an expert here could outline the procedure to convert from 32 bit Windows 10 to 64 bit Windows 10...My computer has a 64 bit cpu and 6 GBs of Ram but of course with Windows 10 32 bit, it only see 3 GBs of that. I would be keen to see exactly what procedure should be followed to make the change. Thanks for any help.

 

[mutley 4,495]

Hi Peter, are you sure you only have the 32bit version of Windows 10? To check, press your Windows key and type in 'Version' there will be a section in the pop up menu listed as 'System Type' which will inform you which version of Windows 10 you have.

 

There is not a direct path from 32bit to a 64bit version of Windows 10, the only solution is to make a clean installation of the operating system. However, you should be able to upgrade to 64bit for free from this link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 , it's not something I have had to do so I am not sure if it will work for your situation.

 

If you are not totally sure, I would enlist the help of  a professional as I am sure there could be unexpected problems along the way. If you wanted to clean your PC and start afresh with the 64bit then I am sure that would be less complicated.

 

Joe

 

 

[allardjd 1,853]

I am a bit concerned that a true 64-bit sim might soon have us bouncing up against the physical limits of available RAM in the typical 8GB computers most are still running.  What 64-bit technology does, among other things, is vastly expand the 3GB+ limit of address space that can be accessed.  The next narrow neck of the bottle will probably be the amount of physical RAM installed in the machine, though improved use of the memory available on the GPU cards will help in that regard.

 

Does anyone remember the early days of FSX when only the highest performing boxes on the market could run it adequately?  For the rest of us it was a matter of tuning sliders and settings down to something our computers could handle.  The hardware vs. software pendulum might soon swing back to the software side, where the usual hardware spec will be the limiting factor.

 

I wonder whether the best use of SDDs going forward will be making it available as virtual memory, instead of or in addition to being the home of the installed sim.  Reducing loading time for the sim is all well and good but it's a one-time benefit, per session.  It may turn out that SDD-based virtual memory might be a good Band-Aid for RAM limits.

 

It's all progress and I don't regret that it's happening, but whenever you open up the greatest restriction in a system, the next greatest restriction makes itself known.

 

John

[Andrew Godden 943]

12 hours ago, J G said:

If I have to pay full price for the upgrade then it is a big NO from me.  P3D v3.x works for me, and I see no reason to pay full price, or a high upgrade price for that matter just to go 64 bit.

 

I guess then, that you must of owned no other version of Microsoft Flight Simulator than FSX.

[Tim_A 997]

Check how much RAM your motherboard will take, and max it out, is the obvious answer. Modern MBs will take 64GB (4 x 16). We've been hitting system limits ever since there were system limits to hit. The solution as ever is to buy a bigger system, and even then it's just a matter of time before the rinse . . repeat cycle kicks in.

 

SSD as VRAM may be a temporary workaround, but it's still going to be much, much slower than adding more system RAM (and probably not a lot cheaper).

 

[OzWookiee 151]

And RAM is quite cheap at the moment too. 

[petermcleland 48]

On 27/05/2017 at 17:15, mutley said:

Hi Peter, are you sure you only have the 32bit version of Windows 10? To check, press your Windows key and type in 'Version' there will be a section in the pop up menu listed as 'System Type' which will inform you which version of Windows 10 you have.

 

There is not a direct path from 32bit to a 64bit version of Windows 10, the only solution is to make a clean installation of the operating system. However, you should be able to upgrade to 64bit for free from this link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 , it's not something I have had to do so I am not sure if it will work for your situation.

 

If you are not totally sure, I would enlist the help of  a professional as I am sure there could be unexpected problems along the way. If you wanted to clean your PC and start afresh with the 64bit then I am sure that would be less complicated.

 

Joe

 

 

 

[petermcleland 48]

Thanks Joe...Yes I have the 32 bit Windows 10 and I also have a CD with the 64 bit version of Windows 10...I intended to install it but it looked at my computer and insisted that the 32 bit version was what I needed...So I used the 32 bit....I am wondering if I should have Formatted Drive C: to persuade it to install from my CD with the 64 bit version...That would be rather drastic and I might lose a lot of apps like Office 365 and other stuff that I have installed since moving to Windows 10...I do still have Windows XP installed with a choice of which to boot up...That might be the reason it made me install the 32 bit version of W10...I have one or two things in Win XP that I would like to keep (Like FS9 with McLeland Field and one or two other things)...I guess I'm going to have to plan this move rather carefully!!