M&B isn't "modern". The engine is old and has been in development for several years - Oblivion, which is 3 years old now, looks miles better to give you an example. M&B was never designed to be cutting edge in terms of graphics after all. Try running more intensive games like Bioshock and you'll notice a lot of difference - if the game runs at all.

No, you don't even have 4GB total standard memory to work with, because your graphics cards memory is subtracted. If you got a 8800GTS with 640MB memory or even a new card with 1GB memory, this means you'll end up with less than 3GB to use. Anything that uses memory or cache gets subtracted from that total because it's the highest amount of memory Windows XP can allocate in total.

EDIT: sorry, I noticed Tulac posted after I had already begun writing my post. So yes, you only have 3GB or so left.

Also this:

@red: I wouldn't say Oblivion is that good of an example since I can run it in 1920*1080 with all the eye candy (HDR, AAx8, AFx8) turned on and all the settings maxed out and my OS is 32-bit. However I can certainly say that you will benefit from a 64-bit system when you play a CPU intensive game like GTA4.

And besides we shouldn't be having this discussion anyway. Since today's HD space is dirt cheap you can use a 64-bit OS as your primary, and a 32-bit OS as your secondary system using dual boot.

I speak from personal experience since I regret not putting the 64-bit OS in the first place.

Oblivion has a massive advantage when it comes to caching, however, if you got enough memory. I went from 2GB to 4GB and loading times were cut a lot shorter. It's not like back in the DOS games where a game would simply refuse to run - it just won't run as fast and there will be a lot more hard drive access which is not that great for the lifespan of your drive.

Well, it's simply the matter that everybody should know for a fact now that I don't quite appreciate the "modern" games much, if at all. For me, "modern" games are only eye candy and nothing new or barely nothing new added in the games in return.

So it's no wonder that I prefer to play old gems like those we have on the site. Add to this the (incredibly) high amount of negative comments I've heard about Vista since it got out...

It's also no wonder that I'm definitely not impressed by arguments such as "32 bits OS can't handle more than 3 (or 4) gigs of ram... I only have 512 on my computer right now, and with the kind of program I run it's more than adequate. Never had a problem with it, in fact.

So yeah... For me the whole thing is quite ridiculous from the start.

You might not have the use of all 4GB, but it's there and being handled. You couldn't use any more than that, anyway. :)

I only have 2 GB of memory and the modern games I play run fine Fallout 3, Crysis, Far Cry 2 etc and that is with a standard £40 graphics card .

I am not sure I buy into the idea that more memory will make that much difference unless you are doing video editing and even if it does losing the ability to run my older games still makes 64 bit lose out

maybe when I re-install I will try splitting the HD to run a few games on both to test performance although I am not sure how that will work with my legit copy of windows it should be fine.

The difference is mainly in loading speed & the lower need for caching. 2GB is enough to run the games you mentioned, but it will still mean that the game will need to do more caching. Not all games will give a benefit, though - if the game flushes out all data upon loading a savegame or entering a new area, it's unlikely you'll notice a lot of difference, but the better programmed games will take the extra memory into account and this will make loading times a great deal shorter.

Also, unless you've actually used 4GB after having had 2GB, it's unlikely you'll know the difference it gives. Programs load quicker in Vista due to its caching of the most used software - Photoshop can boot in a matter of seconds. One of the main mistakes people make with Vista, is assume it eats memory like mad because it happens to cache available memory. Unlike other OS's, which leave free memory to go unused, Vista makes use of it -if you run a game that needs more memory, it will uncache the programs in less than a second so you only have advantages. And believe me, 2GB vs 4GB makes a HUGE difference here. With caching disabled (you can do this), programs take more than twice as long to start.

So do you NEED 2GB? No. I don't think I ever said you did. I said 4GB has its benefits and only an utter fool would believe that, in the future, it wouldn't become necessary. But to me, it has tangible benefits - as a graphic designer, even 4GB is borderline when you work with complex Photoshop files that contain hundreds of layers. For games, it offers a very smooth experience and the cost of memory is definitely not something that should scare you off.

In the end, it gives me more advantages than downsides so why not?