windows 7 32 or 64 bit gaming question

[THADEADMAN2011]

i have been doing my backup of all my files as it is time now to redo my system
i want an honest opinion about which to use windows 7 32bit or 64 bit
which is better for gaming? and also i use alot of programs that r only 32 bit
will there be problems? i have 2 pcs i use for gaming
my primary 1 has most all the better stuff
and i can add more ram as i have extra
my motherboards are the same model Asus (M4A77D)
with AMD Athlon II X2 250 3ghz dual core
with 4 gb ddr2 800 ram with Nvidia geforce GTX 550 Ti (1Gb DDR5)
lotsa hard drive space(so no issue there)
so i want to know what will be best to run for a great gaming
experience windows 7 32 bit or 64 bit? i have another 4 gb ddr 2 800 ram all 2 gb sticks if that will make a big difference? thank you in advance for your input
i hope to have all my files backed up by the weekend
so maybe sometime next week i want to redo my system
when i have time off from work
as i am today dumping all files from my 6 500gb drives onto my new 2 Tb drives and will drop my windows drive (250gb) and use a 500gb drive for windows once i have all your input
thanx all

[Joe Forster/STA]

Until you have software (game, application, doesn't matter) that needs more than 4 (= 3.25) gigabytes of RAM, there's not much point in switching to a 64-bit operating system, especially that some older 32-bit software may have major problems with it. As a compromise, you can try A) installing a 64-bit OS onto your physical machine and running a 32-bit OS inside a virtual machine (very new games will have major performance problems!) or B) installing both 32-bit and 64-bit OS besides each other within a hypervisor so that you can run them truly in parallel (a lot of RAM needed!).

[TippeX]

actually i disagree on that, even 32bit progs on x64 can benefit from largeaddressaware compiler settings, and disc caching, network, video can benefit as the os shifts them to high areas, leaving more space available to the process.. pid for example is faster running on a 64bit os compared to running on the same pc in a 32 bit os... And some x64 apps are quite quicker too like winrar...its considerably quicker unraring (and raring) on x64.. slowly but surely x64 is becoming more common and for games this will be evident in the next consoles which will more than likely be x64 and then game ports will go x64, so going x64 now (and having more than 4gig ram) may future proof you a lot more than investing in a 32bit system

all of my pc's at home and in work are x64 and i have not had any problems with 32bit programs... 16bit and lower code wont run but thats what dosbox is for :)