Is Vista in the same boat as XP?

I have Windows XP installed and I have 3.4GB of physical memory recognized of the total 4GB installed because I have the large address memory configuration flag set in the OS.

Why are you asking if they have XP installed vs, Win7 when that really has nothing to do with it? I think you are probably confusing some people.

Win7 32-bit also only uses 2GB of memory just as XP 32-bit does. All 32-bit versions of Windows have that 2GB address space limitaion. So, migrating to Win7 will not help unless they migrate to Win7 64-bit and not Win7 32-bit. Technically speaking, Win XP 64-bit can also use more than 2GB of memory.

What you should be asking is for people to start using 64-bit Windows instead of 32-bit Windows. That said, it's not such a simple thing to ask and I'm surprised you'd do it. Most of the systems still using XP are old systems with less powerful processors with lesser amounts of memory to start with. First, at a minimum, you'd need to buy some more memory and you'd need to purchase a copy of Win7 64. Probably a few hundred dollers right there. Combine that with the fact that there's no way to upgrade XP to Win7 without installing completely from scratch (no upgrade install) and you have the reason most folks still haven't upgraded.

Due to the above issues, most folks just wait until they get a new PC to upgrade from XP to Win7, and rightly so. When they do get a new PC, they should make sure they get the 64 bit version of Windows 7, not the 32 bit version. I'm getting a new PC as soon as the Intel Ivy Bridge chips are out this spring and Win 7 64-bit is the version of the OS I'm getting for it. I'm sure many others will do the same as they are able to upgrade their PCs. It's just going to take some time. And you'll still have all those folks out there using Win7 32-bit. There's a lot of them.

Windows 7 only moved above Windows XP in usage in the last 6 months. XP is still used by about of third of computer users.

http://gs.statcounter.com/#os-ww-monthly-201102-201202

The #1 thing holding us back on having "more" stuff is money.  We've been optimizing money a lot in the past month so that we can stuff more but it sure would be nice to have even another 500 bucks to play with.

[/bad humour off]

Since you raised the topic Brad, what would be the 'ideal' system to play FE on?

I have been optimising, optimising, optimising,... so I guess I want to know how to make all that optimising optimal.

XP 32-bit here.  Probably a new Win-7 64-bit rig this summer.

Not trying to be too sarcastic here, but if Win-8 is a dire as some of what I hear, maybe you need to start supporting iOS and Chrome.  When's the last game you will make that supports Windows ?   Oh, wait -- I am being too sarcastic.  

Yep- XP on my computer as well as my wife and son's.

I'm not sure as my knowledge of Windows internals gets rusty (a good thing to me) but it's not about how much memory the operating system but how much it lets applications handle, which is different. I'm not 100% sure on the limits for XP vs. Win7 though. (for Coldsteel (in leetspeak))

Lets clear something up. It doesn't matter if your running Win 7 or win Xp.. if your running 32 bit your User Mode addressable space for each 32 process is 2 GB.(without the 3GB switch of course)
So regardless of your OS if you stop supporting 32 bit its going to affect anyone with a 32 bit OS.. not just XP users.

Now..If your going to stop supporting direct X 9 then yes.. only windows XP and previous would be out.. but that would do nothing for memory gains.

Something of interest on this particular subject.. while the amount of XP users is decreasing.. there are still a significant amount of users who use 32 bit vista or windows 7.(based on Steams user surveys which most people like to use) Which puts 64 bit systems at just over 50% of steam users.

You can put whatever system requirements you want on your products.. its not going to prod me into spending 200$ on an OS i don't need either way. Just like if you decided to up the graphical usage and required a mid to high level graphics card that cost 200+. I'm not going to dish out 200$ + the cost of a game just to play one game.

No offense to stardock.. but If I didn't do it for BF3 I certainly ain't gonna for any of your releases.

Its not your fault Microsoft didn't put anything into windows 7 above XP that makes it worth dishing out 200$+ imo. But given MS usually goes with a short cycle between releases maybe windows 9 will be worth it.

Oh and to answer the question (again since this isn't the first dev thread of this type) I'm running XP.

Two comps at home, one XP and one Win7 64bit.  Installed the beta on both.  FE runs very poorly on my XP machine.  So I play it on the Win7 machine, it does really well on that machine.  You can't even buy a machine today with XP loaded on it.  Furthermore Windows XP Media Center Edition (which I have) along with other versions are in extended support as of April 14, 2009.  April 08, 2014 is the date for XP to come out of extended support.  I would develop with Win7 in mind, make it a requirement, or just say windows XP is supported, just NOT recommended.

Yeah,....not gonna upgrade till next PC. I built this machine several summers ago and it still is running XP.

(In all honesty I prefer XP, period. I am IT and have been running windows 7 on the machines at current job......lets just say there's a few reasons I still hold XP in higher regards then win 7 )

According to Steam's stats:

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

Less than 15% still run XP. Slightly over 50% run Windows 7. 5% run OS X.

Microsoft will drop support for XP on August 2014, about 2.5 years away. That's still a while to need to support the XP user base.

It's pretty simple, Non-Win XP users who want me to spend money:

1. Send me your money.

I take Paypal, checks and even hard currency. I look forward to installing Win 7 64-bit very soon.