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Well, twice now I thought an issue I was having with a game might have been caused by x64 version of Vista, and twice I have gone through re-installing my OS to x86 (32bit version) and twice I have been wrong.

First thought... "why x64 to begin with?"  Well, if you have all major manufacturer parts then there is a good chance 64bit is supported, and supported well.  So, assuming you are some cheap bastard you are probably covered on this argument.  "What about speed?  Isn't x86 faster?"  Well, yes and no.  A lot of this goes back to the drivers, but at single applications x86 does seem to be faster (FPS, etc).  However, the gain is minimal compared to the OS overall gain on x64.  For example, get a heavy game of SupCom going then flip back to windows.  On x86 you are looking at a 4 to 5 second delay, while on x64 it is pretty much instant.  This is just one example, but it is true across the board in process switching.  "Why?"  Well, from what I can tell it is based on how fast x64 can swap out the active memory and clear out the CPU pipeline.  Don't take my word for it though, give it a shot.  The CD Key for x64 and x86 should be the same, so your license from MS should cover both (I am no lawyer, check with MS for certainty).

So... you might say, "You are having trouble with games, why even bother with Vista?"  Well, that comes back to wanting to run 64bit.  Windows XP 64bit simply isn't an option.  And as far as games go, its only been a select few and all of them work, just with some minor start up issues that can be worked around and I suspect will be ultimately resolved.

"Tell me, which games, what issues?"  Again, these issues persist on x64 and x86

Galactic Civilization 2: Dark Alliance.  Every since I installed the DA upgrade I an only go through the game setup one time without getting the infamous "Error switching back buffer to primary buffer".  If I go back to the main menu and start a new game, crash...  reload the game, no problem.  Stardock says they are working on it with nVidia, so I grin and bare it.

Dungeon Seige 2.  This game would crash on me at the start of each game if I moved the mouse or touched the keyboard in less than 30 seconds after the game starts.  Eventually I got a new driver from nVidia that resolved the issue, but the very latest driver the issue has returned.

SimCity 4 and Knight of the Old Republic 2.  I put these two together since they have the same issue.  About 50% of the time the game will crash during load.  I good friend of mine has a logical thought about this though.  He noticed that each time it happened in KOTOR it was trying to hit the DVD drive.  I have since discovered the same in SimCity.  Actually, in SimCity, several times my DVD drive would become unusable until I ejected the DVD and re-inserted after it happened.  His theory is that it is some sort of proprietary CD/DVD copy protection that is hosing Vista.  Sounds reasonable, but I can't confirm.

So, anyway...  that is it. 

Ok, so trying out the new Windows Live Writer to see how it works.