Hi all!
Do you own a AMD 64 bit system ?
If you do , my little experement may intrest you…
The other day I crunched my Fedora core2 Linux 64 bit partition (again) , and was about to try installing the new Gentoo 64 bit linux, when I remembered an article I read about Opterons running in 32 bit and 64 bit OS’s, to unleash the full capability of hyper transport you will need to be in a Operating system that is aware of it, and is 64 BIT …
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx
Windows 64 is a free beta test you can join in on if you own AMD-64 … it is very RAW, and there is no tech support for it… I say Raw because it dose not have very many things included with it… Like Java…
it boots almost instantly, I have never seen an OS boot this fast in my life… even shaved down Core linux systems take longer to boot.
there are drivers for both ATI , and nvidia for it… there is also very experemental drivers for a few soundblaster products…
If you are interested in trying windows 64 , and you only own 1 system, I highly suggest partitioning your hard drive so you have both windows xp 32 and windows XP 64 for compatibility reasons… not everything runs in WIN 64 yet. Some systems BIOS will allow you to boot into 2 or more hard drives… buying another HD will save you the headache of backing up system and partitionins, and re-installing 2 versions of windows.
the easyest way to acomplish this is to Back up all you data while you download yourself a copy of KNOPPIX, or KNOPPIX 64, and burn yourself a LiveCD, boot useing the live CD, and run the application called QT parted. this applicationis a top notch disk partition tool…get it all HERE: http://www.knoppix.net/
or
http://www.applia.fr/contents/knoppix64.html
format each partition as NTFS file system, and then reboot your system with your windows XP 32 bit disk in the drive… install windows 32 to first partition… after it is done, install the 64 bit version of windows to the second partition…
windows will automaticaly makethe MBR boot strap for you so you can choose 64 or 32 at start up
Taaaa Daaaa! you did it!
anyways, now make sure you have current drivers for all the hardware you can… in the 64 bit system YOU CAN ONLY INSTALL DRIVERS THAT ARE 64BIT dont attempt to install 32 bit drivers in 64 bit system…
all you need to do now to get Zbrush installed is download and install JAVA runtime enviornment from sun :
http://java.sun.com/
make sure you get the virtual machieen version, the newest beta dose not have VM…
thats it ,!
I am verry happy right now with my 64 bit system and zbrush…
I am able to subdevide my meshes higher (perhaps because windows 64 is 1/2 the size of win32 in physical memory)
also when dealing with high poly meshes, It seems very much more responsive while tumbleing and positioning… and the transform draw mode is very smooth!!! my rendering times are quite fast now also! it also shaved 1 point off my Hyperthreading benchmark test too!.
the preformance boost is from the Hyper transport I am pretty sure… in 32 bit OS hyper transport dose not work as well from what I have read…
BTW if you want to try running a 64 bit application, the only one I can find for windows is FREE!!!
Good old POVray has a 64bit version for windows!
I have seen a slight preformance boost in truespace rendering also.
the only down sides i see so far is :
Doom 3 will not even install on win64
Games suck in windows 64… even with new divers for video card and sound, 32 bit is still better… games need to have 64 bit codeing for it to be a benifit.
Wings 3d dosent like it either 
:td: … crash on startup.
Wacom Intuos drivers that come with 64 bit version are realy out dated. and no “Official driver update” from wacom yet…
