XBOX demo of SC:PT

The four routes are in fact there but the level design dictates that you have to start on the roof, then through a baggage car, then underneath the train, then in a passenger car, then clinging to the side, then in back inside, then back on the roof for a quick escape. No choice what so ever, your on rails the entire time. It's still fun and all but this was my major complaint with the first Splinter Cell and doesn't appear to have been remedied despite what the previews had said

Err, actually its true regardless. Not all apps can benefit enough from the extra registers and generally wicked instruction set to make up for the extra 32-bits they're pushing around (and don't need.) Just my experience working on the 64-bit cpus, starting with the original Itanium years ago. This has gradually improved over time, but I don't see anything in the near future that will make small, non-register starved apps do anything but run slower on 64-bit.

More interesting is that two applications, MiniGzip and RSA encryption see performance double, probably because these applications work with 64-bit integers. DES and DIVX show 5 and 17 percent performance improvements, respectively. Most developers we talk to say that faster 64-bit integer calculations will only benefit a very limited of applications, but most applications are more likely to benefit from 16 instead 8 registers, with performance increases ranging from 15 to 30 percent. This kind of optimization would make a 2.2 GHz Athlon perform like it was a 2.6 or 2.8 GHz chip.

On 64-bit, some apps will show a huge speed increase when built and executed 64-bit, typically math/memory intensive apps. High end 3d apps like Cad/Cam and such are the types of apps that can realize large speed increases. Most apps will stay about the same speed, and some will be slower. Generally, if you don't know if you need 64-bit or not, in all likelyhood you don't.

There's actually a 64 bit version of XP available, but they don't seem to be hyping it much...

Hyperthreading is actually a lot nicer than the gimmick I expected it to be - it seems to make it impossible for a process (like a game hung at 100% CPU) to brutally starve another process (like the Windows shell), which makes life a lot more pleasant...