Windows XP 32bit or Windows 7 64bit?

[equlizer]

Im currently running windows xp 32bit on my arcade right now and was wondering if it would be any better to upgrade to windows 7 64bit?  Does maximus or any other front end suffer from win7?

[Howard_Casto]

You should probably upgrade to xp 64bit.... vista/win7 add a lot of overhead that you just don't need for a cab. 

If you run demul though (which your system might not be powerful enough to run) you'll need to either hack in dx11 into xp or run 7. 


Just to be clear, you can't run a 64 bit os unless your computer has 64 bit processor(s).  That should be obvious, but just in case. 

[equlizer]

Running an i5 system with 6gigs of ram and a 6850 video card.  So now that you know that, would win7 64 be any better?  Im gunna get an ssd drive as well to speed things up.

[DeLuSioNal29]

MAME will run great on Win XP 64. But what about console emulators?  Specifically, Null DC?

[Howard_Casto]

It depends upon the version of directX used.  Dx11 is vista/7 only (unless you hack it) so any emulator that uses dx11 can't run on xp.
I know demul does this but afaik it's the only one. 


Equilizer:

I don't think you understood my answer.  Upgrading and OS does NOTHING for emulators.  You are simply upgrading the OS, which is irrelevant because if using a FE your goal will be to hide it as much as possible.  Win 7, in terms of just the os and nothing more, will eat up more ram and other resources than xp and it's UAC and similar foolishness, makes it a bad choice for a mame cab.

That being said.  Running a 32 bit OS when you have a 64 bit processor slows down the processor.  So you should always run a 64 bit os if you have a 64 bit processor.  Mame and a couple of the other high-end emulators benefit a lot from running 64 bit versions of their programs.

So 64bit win7, probably not, 64 bit XP... yes, that's what you should probably use. 

[equlizer]

Thank you.  Found a 60gb SSD for $30 used as well.

How do i bypass windows and go straight to Maximus?

[Yenome]

I agree with howard. i removed windows 7 64bit in place of xp 64bit on my mame system. and to by pass windows simply make maximus the shell instead of explorer. you can look up how to do this on google someone wrote a guide on it. its real easy once you do it one time. just besure you get evrything setup like you want it before doing this and you can even set maximus to run explorer.exe on exit that way if you need to do any desktop stuff it will load it once you exit maximus. I did this before i switched to hyperspin.

[Dariusz]

If you run demul though (which your system might not be powerful enough to run) you'll need to either hack in dx11 into xp or run 7. 

Howard_Casto or Anyone

Is there any instructions which someone can provide (by posting the details or posting the link where the details can be found or other) on how to hack DX11 into XP?

D

[BadMouth]

Howard_Casto or Anyone

Is there any instructions which someone can provide (by posting the details or posting the link where the details can be found or other) on how to hack DX11 into XP?

Judging from other threads where people asked, nobody on here has done it.
Use the search engine of your choice to find a tutorial.

I'm suspicious as to if it would actually work or not and if it did, I'd be nervous about running into problems down the road.

I'm curious, but don't want to invest the time in it unless it's been proven to work.