64-bit; Really - why?

[Gnosis]

I was just thinking. Why isn't 32-bit enough? What benefits will we actually
see if the entire industry just jumped to 64-bit processors and software?
Will it be faster? More stable? Easier to code? Will we (the end users) actually
see any perfomance jumps when microsoft (finally) realeses their 64-bit OS?

Thoughts?

 

[AngleDust]

more ram

 

[Mik3y]

this has been discussed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again and again and again, so please do a search first.

 

[uOpt]

More virtual memory.

For any single process on a 32 bit machine, the maximum of allocatable virtual memory is 4 GB in theory, and usually 2 or 3 GB in practice (on most OSes the kernel reserves the upper one or two GB, only with the 4G/4G Linux patch, e.g. in Fedora Core 2, you get the full 4 GB).

Note that this is 4 GB (or 2 or 3) independently of how much physical RAM you have. If you only have 32 MB of physical RAM but 6 GB swapspace, then you still get the 4 GB allocatable memory in each process. If you have more than 4 GB of RAM in a 32-bit machine, lets say 8 GB, then the limit is still 4 GB per process, although now you can have several programs running simultaneously, each allocating 4 GB and the machine still not paging out to disk.

%%

Another advantage of 64 bits is that you get fast integer arithmetic on numbers bigger than 2^32.

 

[Vegito]

Its more for big companies running big ass apps

Im running sql on a quad p4 3ghz with 8gb ram.. w2k adv max usage..

Hopefully with the new 64bit xeons, I can use data center or 2003 and get up to 16gb since these database grows faster than a pair of rabbits

 

[Gnosis]

ok - did a search and found some stuff about it being possible to use more
RAM for each process (just like you said). Didn't really understand it but ok
- virtual memory theoretically works better with 64-bit.

Anything else? Win XP 64-bit won't really blow my socks off right?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

A good example of 32bit limitations overcome by 64bit goodness

In order to match the resolution increases in digital photography, applications like The Panorama Factory must either (1) implement their own paging schemes within the 32-bit architecture (a significant programming task) or (2) make the move to 64-bit architectures like AMD 64.

 

[uOpt]

Again, it has nothing to do with RAM as in physical memory.

It has to do with virtual memory, the amount of memory (physical or not) that one program can hold at any time.

A 32-bit PC can have more than 4 GB physical RAM, but a program can only use 4 (in practive usually 2 or 3) GB at a time.

 

[Gnosis]

That was a good example mr punisher.

further down on the site:
"It makes use of the full 64-bit addressing available on these processors. Windows 64-Bit Edition provides for a 1 terabyte (1000 gigabytes) addressing space."

sounds like that is going to be enough of VM for a while forward...

 

[Algere]

A glimpse...

 

[Gnosis]

Excellent link algere, thanks! The article really described the whole deal. I think I'll bookmark that site.

 

[jose]

Well I think that sometime near 2038 everyone will have to go 64bit, because dates will not be able to be calculated correctly.

Never too soon to be prepared.

Regards,
Jose

 

[Vee]

MartinCracauer (he usually is) and DAPUNISHER is right on!

But just to tie this to real life, so you not get too blinded by that 4GB illusion, - A 32-bit ambitious tool application today, like Maya, LightWave, Catia, Tebis, Working Model etc, can't use more than 1.5-1.8GB of memory for all code and data, before running out of memory. It doesn't matter if you've got 512MB, 1Gb, 2GB, 4GB or 8GB of installed RAM. It will run out of memory because it runs out of linear virtual address space.
It's very soon, really no problem for large, ambitious games, to run into 32-bit limitations as well.
That's how badly needed a migration to 64-bit software is. Old enough to remember the old 640KB barrier? We're there again.

 

[JasGamer]

Originally posted by: forcesho
Its more for big companies running big ass apps

Im running sql on a quad p4 3ghz with 8gb ram.. w2k adv max usage..

Hopefully with the new 64bit xeons, I can use data center or 2003 and get up to 16gb since these database grows faster than a pair of rabbits

Holy crap. That is a rig and a half right there. 0_0

 

[Gothgar]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
this has been discussed over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and again and again and again, so please do a search first.

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

numbers bigger than 2^32 get calculated faster. and more virtual memories

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: forcesho
Its more for big companies running big ass apps

Im running sql on a quad p4 3ghz with 8gb ram.. w2k adv max usage..

Hopefully with the new 64bit xeons, I can use data center or 2003 and get up to 16gb since these database grows faster than a pair of rabbits

Why not go quad Opteron? Once you scale up to 4- and 8-way servers, don't the Xeons really get bogged down from all of the processors having to access a shared FSB? Like in this article, for example, where the Opteron 848s pull way ahead of the 3GHz Xeons in the 4-way tests. Or is it a case of the corporate higher-ups being a bit skittish about AMD right now?

 

[The J]

With a 64-bit CPU it is possible to address 16 exabytes of memory (think 4GB squared) because it can compute and address 64-bit integers, which have a maximum value of 2^64 as opposed to 2^32.

largest 32-bit number: 4294967296
largest 64-bit number: 18446744073709551616

As you can see, that's quite a difference.

 

[sharkeeper]

We should leapfrog 64 (because it's bad luck) and go straight to 128 bits...

Everyone may get a false sense of security when they have 128 bit Windows ZZY.



Cheers!

 

[Chris2wire]

Soooo, does that mean games will play faster on XP 64bit than 32bit? Cuz Im stilling using normal XP...

Or will drivers cause a problem in that aspect.