Just built a new machine (for gaming & office work) which i'll be setting up for dual boot with a copy of vista and xp.

So...
Hate to SOUND like a complete idiot, but in gaming terms why does EVERYONE i speak to recomend the 32bit windows vista/xp, surely the 64bit is better, is there no support from the majority of games, would none of them work if i put 64bit vista onto my machine?
And would there be any conflicts if i put 64bit vista and 32bit xp

64 bit Windows supports more RAM and offers potentially better performance.
However,a s the majority of programs are still 32 bit you will not see much difference in speed.
Drivers can be difficult to FIND and some programs don't work - I speak from experience.
However, if you check every driver and every program you want and make sure it is compatible, you could use XP or Vista X64 if you wanted.
There would be no conflicts from installing any combination of Vista or XP 32 or 64 bit as long as you INSTALLED them in order from oldest to newest, on a separate PARTITION for each.Much appreciated.If you want to run a 64 bit version of XP or Vista you need a machine that is 64 bit. This means your hardware will have to be 64 bit for you got the performance of a 64 bit OS.

You can run a 32 bit OS on another partition within the same machine.

My advice would be to pick one and go with it. If you want to game than stay with a 32 bit OS. It would be much easier in the long run to enjoy your games.