Noob Questions to prep my computer

[Lormax]

First of all, comp specs:

Dual Core 6400 running at 2.13 Ghz. 
NVidia 8800 GTX with dual DVI outs
4 GB of ram.
300 gb hard drive

My plan is to run Hyperspin as the frontend and to run as many different emulators as possible.  Dolphin isn't something that really interests me at this point.  Daphne is a definite.  Is XP 32-bit the Operating System of choice?  I have XP 32/64 or Windows 7 32/64 available to me.  This computer is ready for a hard drive format and OS install, just wondering what the cleanest and easiest OS to work with all the different software is.  If it matters, I'll be using an LCD as my display.

My main computer (the one I post from) is running on Win 7 64-bit.  I haven't run into too many issues as of YET, but because of the vast differences between the 2 systems (the main has 2 vid cards, running 3 monitors in surround mode), it's kinda difficult to use it as a benchmark.

Thanks for any advice!

[Howard_Casto]

A 64 bit os is definately preferred.  There are 64 bit versions of your favorite emulators (including mame) that will take advantage of the extra processing threads. 

A lot of people prefer xp simply because it's a bit "lighter" than other operating systems, but since you are running a lcd monitor and your computer is pretty beefy vista/7 is also an option.  The only thing about 7 (this actually applies to vista and xp as well) is that once you install it you'll want to turn everything off.  No aero, no themes ect.... these all slow things down.  Another issue you'll run into in vista/7 is that you'll often have to run an app as administrator to get it to work properly... this is all well and good, but because of those annoying prompts, you might want ot disable the UAC all-together if you choose to use 7. 

I would suggest a bigger HD btw....  If you are one of those "gotta collect em all" guys it isn't going to be big enough.  I think just the mameset alone is around 200 gigs at this point.

Anyway, I hope some of that was helpful.... just let any of us know if you have any questions.

[Lormax]

Very helpful, thanks!  Format will be starting shortly after this reply is posted   I'll go with Win 7 64-bit, as it'll then be closer to my main computer and setup can be done here and then simply transferred over.

Thanks for the advice on the hard drive.  I'll add another large SATA drive to the computer then.