When you create a 32-bit VMware VM, by default it picks certain virtual hardware (e.g. the AMD PCNet32 NIC) that it cannot emulate for a 64-bit guest. So you might need to open it in VMware ...

I routinely run 32-bit XP and 64-bit Red Hat, and they're both perfectly responsive. Before asking for benchmarks, you should probably characterise what you mean by "faster," especially given how ...